[1] Harvey began a shift to licensed characters when in 1942 it took over as the radio hero Green Hornet's publisher from Holyoke after six issues.

[1] Harvey also licensed popular characters from newspaper comic strips, such as Mutt and Jeff and Sad Sack.

Casper the Friendly Ghost, who had been Famous' most popular original character, now became Harvey's top draw.

As part of the process, Jacobson created several new characters which were well received by Hobson and effectively sealed the deal.

Harvey sued Star for copyright infringement, claiming that Roy was a blatant copy of Richie Rich.

[7] Veteran Harvey writer-artist Lennie Herman had created Royal Roy for Star Comics.

In 1987, Harvey sued Columbia Pictures, for $50 million, claiming that the Ghostbusters logo used in the 1984 film was too reminiscent of Fatso from the Casper series.

The court ruled in Columbia's favor,[10] due to Harvey's failure to renew the copyrights on early Casper stories and the "limited ways to draw a figure of a cartoon ghost".

[14] Following the initial wave of syndicating the Harvey catalogue, Harvey began producing their own original programs including The Baby Huey Show and Richie Rich, as well as producing feature-length films under an agreement with Universal Pictures, including Richie Rich and Casper, later outsourcing the production of direct-to-video material for both franchises over to Saban Entertainment.

[6] The suit was settled in late 2002; at the time of the settlement, the New York Supreme Court had dismissed Harvey's claims against Geppi.

Universal Studios, which owns the pre-1950 Paramount sound features through its television division, once held video rights to the Harvey-owned cartoons, until 2001 when Classic Media obtained the animated catalog.