Rich Little – Pink Panther
The
Pink Panther is a media franchise
conceived by writer/director Blake Edwards
that began with the film of the same name. Originally, it was meant to be a
sophisticated romantic comedy about a suave jewel thief, Sir Charles Lytton, aka
The Phantom (David
Niven). The primary object of his desire was the world’s
largest diamond known as The Pink Panther due to a small imperfection at its
center that resembled, well, a pink panther. Hot on his trail would be the
bumbling French detective, Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Peter Ustinov),
with his unfaithful wife, Simone (Ava Gardner),
who was in league with Lytton.
 |
| Publicity photo of Peter Sellers and David Niven. |
However, things didn’t quite go as
planned. Gardner left the project when the producers, The
Mirisch Company, were unable to meet her demands for a
personal staff. Ustinov also followed her off the project. After Janet Leigh
turned down the Simone role due to it requiring her to be away from the United
States for too long, Capucine
was cast instead. Now playing her husband was Peter Sellers.
The Pink Panther debuted in Italy on December 18, 1963, with a United
States release following on March 18. The film was set at a ski resort where
The Pink Panther’s owner, Princess Dala (Claudia Cardinale),
was vacationing. Following her was Lytton, and following him was Clouseau and
his wife. Also after the diamond was Lytton’s nephew, George (Robert Wagner),
in order to pay off his massive gambling debts. While Clouseau ineptly
investigates, Simone must constantly juggle keeping her relationships with both
Lytton and George a secret from everyone.
While
the Clouseau role was always intended to be comedic, Edwards discovered he and
Sellers had similar tastes in humor and began elaborating and improvising on
bits. Sellers soon began to steal every scene he was in, becoming the breakout
star and character of the film and overshadowing Niven, who had the actual lead
billing in the credits, despite his comparatively short amount of screen time.
As a result, the film became a massive success. Sellers, who was set to star in
an adaptation of the stage play A Shot in the Dark,
was
unsatisfied with the script and was able to get Edwards onto the project to
write and direct. Edwards utilized his newfound clout to turn the film into a
Clouseau vehicle, making it the second entry and the official launching point
of The Pink Panther franchise that spanned 9 films; 6 of which starred
Sellers (one was made after a falling out between Sellers and Edwards that
poorly attempted to recast the role, and two following Sellers’ death).
Sellers
wasn’t the only breakout star of the franchise, however. Edwards knew David DePatie,
co-founder of animation studio DePatie-Freleng
Enterprises (DFE), through his uncle and asked him to
design a pink panther for him. DePatie gave the assignment to character
designer Hawley
Pratt who proceeded to churn out about 100 different design
concepts. Edwards selected the one he liked and used it initially for
letterheads and business cards. Once filming was wrapped, Edwards contacted
DePatie again and asked him to create a title sequence where the Panther
character would interact with the film’s credits while the theme composed by Henry Mancini
played. These titles ended up being a tremendous hit with the audience, and
were thought to have added a couple extra million to the film’s overall gross.
DFE soon found themselves in demand to make titles for other projects, allowing
them to move beyond commercials and industrial films.
It
also allowed them to move into the business of theatrical shorts. DePatie was
encouraged by the titles’ success into thinking there was more to be done with
the character. DFE struck up a deal with Mirisch and United Artists,
the film’s distributor, to produce 156 6-minute theatrical shorts (although
only 124 ended up being made). The shorts took a cue from the titles, showing
Pink silently (at the suggestion of primary writer John Dunn)
working his way through a given situation; like sneaking into an alcoholic’s
house to spend the night or serving as a secret agent. Pink would speak in only
two cartoons, his voice provided by Rich Little modeled after Niven’s portrayal
in the first movie (and who would later dub an ill Niven in future Pink
Panther films). Other characters provided any dialogue that was spoken,
with the exception of Pink’s primary antagonist: the Little White Man, a
minimalist rounded figure of a person with a large nose and mustache. Said to
be modeled after DFE co-founder and initial short director Friz Freleng,
the Little Man was also silent as he often dealt with Pink’s shenanigans.
Mancini’s theme typically accompanied each short, with additional music
provided by Walter
Greene and William Lava.
 |
| The Pink Panther begins his career of (intentionally?) annoying the Little White Man. |
The
first short, The Pink Phink, debuted on December 18, 1964 and ended up
taking home the Academy Award
for Best Animated Short. This success would spur other studios to revisit the
notion of theatrical shorts, which had largely fallen out of fashion by this
time. Pratt would eventually take over as the primary director for much of the
series, with Gerry
Chinquy, Art
Davis Robert
McKimson, Art
Leonardi, Cullen
Houghtaling and Sid Marcus
handling various later entries. DFE was able to churn out one Pink Panther cartoon
a month, eventually ending up far ahead of schedule by 1965. It would be 6
years until DFE would need to resume work on the series, giving them time to
visit additional series upon United Artists’ request.
DFE’s
second series went back to The Pink Panther well and came up with The
Inspector, based on the Clouseau character. Dubbed simply “The Inspector”,
the character had appeared in the opening titles for The Pink Panther and
A Shot in the Dark previously, but was altered for the new shorts to remove
any resemblance to Sellers for legal purposes. The Inspector (Pat Harrington
Jr.) was a senior detective for the Sȗreté nationale (now known as The National
Police). He was slightly more competent than his
inspiration, however he was plagued by bad luck and poor judgement. His partner
for roughly half of the run was Sergeant Deux-Deux (also Harrington, Don Messick
for one short), a slow-talking Spaniard gendarme with a love of Mexican food. A
running gag saw The Inspector constantly try to get Deux-Deux to respond with
“oui” instead of his native “si”, resulting in some misunderstandings along the
way. Their commissioner was voiced by Larry
Storch, Paul Frees, Marvin Miller and Mark Skor
at various points. Storylines usually involved the misadventures of The
Inspector as he attempted to apprehend equally colorful criminals around Paris.
 |
| The Inspector and Deux-Deux are on the case! Which is good news for the criminals... |
The
first Inspector short, The Great De Gaulle Stone Operation, debuted on
December 21, 1965 preceding the James
Bond
film Thunderball.
As
with the Panther shorts, Mancini’s theme from A Shot in the Dark was
used for the shorts’ intros, with additional music by Greene and Lava. DePatie,
due to his knowledge of the French language, had the most involvement with the
production of these shorts out of any DFE project. While the shorts performed
well, they didn’t quite reach Panther levels and capped off with 34
entries. The Inspector would be used for the title sequence
of the 1968 film Inspector
Clouseau, and would be seen interacting with Pink and
redesigned to more resemble Sellers in his remaining entries
in the franchise.
Their
next series was Roland and Rattfink. The shorts focused on the titular
characters: blonde good-looking pacifist Roland, and the evil mustachioed
Rattfink (both Lennie Weinrib, except for one short where John Byner and Dave Barry
voiced them). Rattfink was always eager to get ahead in life in the most dirty,
underhanded and violent ways possible with additional bad deeds on the side.
Good-natured Roland was sometimes put at odds with him, taking indirect action
to stop Rattfink’s machinations or allowing Rattink to foul himself up. Some of
the plots were recycled from Looney
Tunes shorts directed by
Freleng. Many of the shorts featured intertitles like old silent movies,
introducing the characters and offering some plot narration at points, with
music to match composed by Doug
Goodwin. Most of the shorts were written by Dunn with the
remainder by Marcus, Spector and Dale Hale.
The first short, “Hawkes and Doves”, debuted on December 18, 1968 with the film
The
Night They Raided Minsky’s. Despite
Variety’s
January 9th issue declaring 26 shorts had been ordered, only 17 were
produced.
Replacing
that series was another pair at odds with each other: The Ant and the
Aardvark. The series followed a solid blue aardvark (Byner, impersonating Jackie Mason)
attempting to catch and eat a red ant named Charlie (also Byner, impersonating Dean Martin).
At one point, when Mason heard Byner’s impression he decided to approach DFE
about doing it himself. However, upon realizing Byner did him better than him,
Mason instead worked out a deal where he was paid for the use of his
distinctive voice while Byner continued on in the role. The series actually
predated DFE, with Pratt having come up with a concept for them at Spunbuggy
studio originally known as The Big Red Ant and Harry the Anteater. Corny Cole
handled the design for the DFE version. Musical director Goodwin assembled a
group of established jazz musicians—Ray Brown,
Billy
Byers, Pete
Candoli, Shelly Manne,
Jimmy Rowles
and Tommy
Tedesco—to compose the score. For the first time in cartoon
history, all six musicians received on-screen credit. Leonardi designed the
main titles utilizing a technique that included tearing paper into a stylized
version of the characters. Also capping off at 17 entries, the first short was
released to theaters on March 5, 1969. Dunn again wrote the lion’s share of the
series, with additional scripts by Spector, Marcus, Hale, David Detiege
and Larz
Bourne.
Next was Tijuana Toads, also written by Dunn, Hale and Bourne, which hit theaters for the first time on August 6, 1969. The titular toads were the hefty Toro (Don Diamond, named after the character he portrayed in The Adventures of Kit Carson) and the scrawny Pancho (Tom Holland). The pair was always generally hanging out, with Toro being fairly abusive and dominant towards Pancho, until a bug crossed their paths. Then, the chase was on to try and snag the bug by any means necessary for lunch. However, they always ended up outsmarted. Once again, plots and gags from Freleng’s past Looney Tunes shorts were recycled for the series. The tables were turned on the toads when two antagonists were introduced that wanted to eat them: the first was Crazylegs Crane (Larry D. Mann, Bob Holt in one short), a dimwitted and klutzy yellow crane with a hat and spats, and The Blue Racer (based on an actual snake, also voiced by Mann and Holt), the world’s fastest blue snake. Despite Toads also only running for 17 entries, Crazylegs and Racer were both eventually spun off into their own series.
 |
| NBC's 1969 Saturday morning ad. |
As the 1970s approached, once again the age of the theatrical short was beginning to wane. Looking to get more mileage out of their investment, Mirisch decided to import the shorts to Saturday morning television like other studios had done before. The result was The Pink Panther Show, which saw two Panther shorts sandwiching an Inspector short each episode with the addition of a laugh track. Bridging sequences were created utilizing a mix of newly-animated and recycled footage starring Pink, The Inspector and Deux-Deux (the latter two voiced by Marvin Miller, who also acted as a narrator), marking the first time that the characters would interact outside of a title sequence.
 |
| Pink and the Inspector with the Panthermobile. |
The
Pink Panther Show debuted on NBC on September 6, 1969.
The opening titles were filmed in live-action following a pink hotrod dubbed
the “Panthermobile”, designed by Ed “Newt” Newton and built at Bob Reisner
California Show Cars by Newton, Dan Woods, Joe Bailon,
Bill
“The Leadslinger” Hines and Bill Honda for about $100,000. It
traveled down a rural roadway before eventually ending up at Grauman’s Chinese Theater,
accompanied by stock footage of animals from the Los Angeles Zoo
and Marineland
of the Pacific, people on the beach and at a carnival,
and clips from “Reel Pink”, “Come on In! The Water’s Pink” and “Put Put Pink”.
A young boy would be revealed to have been the driver with an animated Pink and
the Inspector as his passengers. A slightly-altered version was used for the second season, which essentially reshuffled and resized some of the clips used. For the end credits, the Inspector would
return to the car and it would drive off, leaving Pink to chase after it. The
show’s theme, “Panther Pink Panther From head to Toes”, was written by Goodwin.
Some of the shorts received minor edits for content to make them more
family-friendly due to growing concerns over violence in television.
After two seasons, The Inspector was dropped and replaced by The Ant and the Aardvark and the show was renamed The New Pink Panther Show (sometimes referred to as The Pink Panther Meets the Ant and the Aardvark). A new intro was created, doing away with the live-action in favor of Pink and the Aardvark vying for the viewer’s attention. Goodwin also composed a new theme, “Pantherly Pride”. All-new bumper segments were created, sometimes featuring Pink involved in a typical Ant and Aardvark plot or showcasing a story with the pair. Unlike their original adventures, the Ant and Aardvark remained as silent as Pink.
 |
| Paul and Mary Ritts with two of their puppets. |
The
second season of this version introduced live-action hosts Paul and Mary Ritts
who, along with their menagerie
of puppets, would perform various skits and read fan mail on the
air. Their son, Mark,
also performed some puppetry on the show. The pair were already featured
weekdays on NBC’s Watch
Your Child. However, this format was
dropped for the third season, and The Inspector was reintroduced into
the line-up with all three series now airing in a single episode. Only 8 new Panther
shorts were made during this period, with the rest having already
previously aired.
 |
| Hoot Kloot and Fester. |
 |
| The Blue Racer and the Japanese Beetle. |
 |
| The Dogfather with Pug and Louie. |
For
the 1974 season, the series was revamped again as The Pink Panther and
Friends. This time a few new Panther shorts were mixed in with the
older ones, and were joined by a rotating line-up including The Inspector and
new entries Roland and Rattfink, Hoot Kloot, The Blue Racer and The
Dogfather. The Blue Racer starred the aforementioned Racer with a new
hunger for a Japanese
beetle (Holland) who happened to be a black belt in karate. Hoot
Kloot starred a diminutive and short-tempered sheriff (Holt) who tried to
maintain order in a Western town with his faithful steed, Fester. The
Dogfather was a parody of The Godfather starring
anthropomorphic dogs. Holt played the titular role doing an impression of the
film’s star Marlon
Brando, with Daws Butler playing henchdogs Pug and Louie
(Holt would voice Pug when Louie wasn’t present). Each series only lasted 17
entries each. Dogfather was the last theatrical series created by DFE as
demand for them continued to diminish, and DePatie theorized they were asked to
keep making them to keep the television show fresh.
 |
| A lobby card for the latest revision. |
In
1976 the show got yet another revamp in an attempt to duplicate the success CBS found after they
expanded The
Bugs Bunny Show into The Bugs
Bunny/Road Runner Hour the previous year. The Pink Panther Laugh and a
Half Hour and a Half Show Introducing Misterjaw expanded to 90 minutes and
included three Panthers, two Inspectors, one Ant and the
Aardvark, and one Tijuana Toads. However, due to changing broadcast
standards, the Toads were rebranded as The Texas Toads, the toads
renamed Fatso and Banjo, and the shorts were all redubbed to remove any
trace of stereotypical Spanish elements.
 |
| Misterjaw and Catfish. |
Newly
created for the show was Misterjaw, inspired by the success of Jaws.
It
followed the misadventures of the titular shark (Arte Johnson, using a German accent)
adorned in a collar, tie, vest and top hat. He was joined by his sidekick,
Catfish (Arnold Stang, using a Brooklyn accent), who wore a bowler hat. Running
gags included Misterjaw often mispronouncing words, attempting to make a feast
out of Harry Halibut (Bob
Ogle),
and his terrorizing people by sneaking up on them and saying “Gotcha!” Of
course, when people came face-to-face with him, they would take off running
anyway similarly to the old Casper shorts
(after all, he was a shark!). The series’ theme by Goodwin utilized a
couple of notes reminiscent of John
Williams’ Jaws theme. It would be the final project
directed by McKimson before his sudden death.
Filling
in the remainder of the 90s minutes were all-new bumpers involving the Texas
Toads and Misterjaw, as well as riddle segments NBC forced DFE to
do. NBC also introduced a new host: comedian Lenny Schultz. Like the Ritts
before him, he performed routines and read fan mail from viewers. While he was
hot at the time, it became apparent very quickly that he was too frantic and
his humor skewed too adult for kids. The show fared poorly in the ratings and
was scaled back to 30-minutes for the subsequent season, renamed Think Pink
Panther and dropping Schultz, The Inspector and The Ant and the
Aardvark in the process.
After
nine years on NBC, the network dropped it and the show was acquired by ABC, who
retitled it The All New Pink Panther Show. A new rendition of Mancini’s
theme with a disco flair was composed for the intro by Steve DePatie.
At ABC’s behest, DFE made 32 new Panther shorts that United Artists
would eventually release to theaters through 1981. Additionally, DFE made 16 Crazylegs
Crane shorts to go along with the Panther; his first solo series
after appearing as a guest character in Toads,
Racer and Dogfather. In his series, Crazylegs was joined by his son,
Crazylegs Crane Jr. (Frank Welker), as misadventures were caused by his
dimwitted and klutzy nature. To make his son proud, Crazylegs often tried to
capture and make dinner out of his frenemy, a fire-breathing dragonfly (Welker,
impersonating Andy
Kaufman). For the 11th and final season, the show
was once again renamed Pink Panther Encore and was a repackaging of
previously aired shorts. No further content was made.
 |
| Crazylegs Crane and his son. |
Following
the end of the network run, MGM/UA created two syndicated versions of The
Pink Panther Show. One featured Panther, Inspector, Ant and Aardvark and
Texas Toads shorts utilizing the prints from the television series. The
second had Panther, Ant and Aardvark and Misterjaw sourced from
film prints and original negatives, resulting in sharper images. For the ones
sourced from theatrical versions, a new laugh track similar to those used on
current sitcoms was added. Additionally, DFE produced two Panther animated
specials for ABC in 1978 and 1980. A third was done by DFE’s successor Marvel Productions,
who also worked on the title sequence
for the next Panther film, Curse of the Pink
Panther. Pink himself wouldn’t
return to television in new adventures until 1986.
 |
| The Dragonfly. |
The
show’s various formats have been broadcast in reruns across cable and around
the world. Networks like Boomerang,
Cartoon Network,
BBC Two,
UK Gold,
BBC One,
Teletoon
Retro, This
TV,
Galavisión
and others. Sometimes they were presented with the shorts remastered while the
original content was not, sometimes without the original content at all.
Occasionally, the shorts would air individually to use up empty time in a
schedule. In the summer of 2021, MeTV
began airing a selection of the shorts as part of their Saturday
Morning Cartoons programming block
under the name Pink
Panther’s Party. Pink was
introduced on the network during the weekday Toon In With Me programming
block with his first short, and the first Saturday broadcast featured two Panther,
a Roland and Rattfink and an Inspector shorts.
 |
| Cover art for American Mythology's Pink Panther Cartoon Hour Special by S.L. Gallant. |
While
Pink was heavily marketed, in relation to the show it was the Panthermobile
that received most of the focus. Dinky Toys
released a self-driving
pull-cord version of the car with Pink in the driver’s seat
in 1972, then rereleased a reworked version in 1977 minus the large flywheel
that moved it and with new sticker graphics. Eldon
Industries produced a buildable model
kit,
which was later rereleased by Doyusha
when Eldon went out of business. As for the car itself, after it made a few
rounds on the show circuit it changed hands several times before being bought
at auction by Galpin
Auto Sports in 2011, who then restored
it to its former glory. Prompted by the series’ BBC run, World
Distributors published 11
comics annuals containing reprints from the Western Comics Pink
Panther series.
 |
| The DePatie/Freleng Collection Vol. 2 Blu-ray set. |
1985
saw the debut of MGM/UA’s “Viddy-Oh!
For Kids” VHS line, which included 32 Panther shorts across four
tapes, 10 Inspector shorts between two, and 5 each for Ant and the
Aardvark, Roland and Rattfink, Tijuana Toads and Misterjaw. The Panther
tapes were reissued in 1993 with new cover art. Beginning in 2006, MGM released the Pink
Panther shorts onto DVD across 6
volumes, with a box
set
in 2009. KL
Studio Classics started re-releasing them onto DVD and
Blu-ray in new
collections with all-new special features and HD
remastering in 2018. They were collected into a box
set
in 2020. 20th
Century Fox handled the UK release with 2014’s Pink
Panther Cartoon Collection and
the Fan
Favorites Cartoon Collection of
24 shorts voted by vans for Pink’s 50th anniversary in 2015. The
other shorts got their own releases from KL starting in 2016, both individually
and in two DePatie/Freleng
collections on DVD and Blu-ray.
Misterjaw:
“Flying Fool / Shopping Spree” (9/11/76) – Misterjaw tries to duplicate a pelican’s method of catching fish. / An ad encourages Misterjaw and Catfish to go to the supermarket for food.
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