Police are today searching for former TV and movie actor Casper the Friendly Ghost after the once-popular child star was filmed attempting to rob a liquor store in Alabama. In the video, the otherworldly miscreant can be seen running frantically around and attempting to pluck various boxes from the store’s back room, but because of his incorporeal state he succeeds only in making a spectacle of himself. Despite his inability to actually steal anything, Alabama authorities say that Casper, whose last name is McFadden, can still be charged with breaking and entering. Responding to media inquiries earlier today, Mr. McFadden’s agent denied that the person in the video was his client, instead blaming the whole thing on one of Alabama’s many alcoholic Klansmen.

Actress Christina Ricci, who co-starred with Casper in 1995’s imaginatively titled feature film “Casper meets Christina Ricci” has expressed great surprise at this scandalous development in her former co-star’s life, telling our correspondent : “Never during our work together did I have even the slightest inkling that there was a rampaging alcoholic lurking beneath that smiling façade. The very idea of Casper sucking down a bottle of Jack is ludicrous. Cocaine, though, that was another matter – Casper had so much of the stuff lying around his trailer that by the time you left you were almost as white as he was!”