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The animated Pink Panther character's initial appearance in the live action
film's title sequence, directed by Friz Freleng, was such a success with audiences
and United Artists
that the studio signed Freleng and his DePatie-Freleng Enterprises studio
to a multi-year contract for a series of Pink Panther theatrical cartoon
shorts.
The first entry in the series, 1964's The Pink Phink, featured the Panther
harassing his foil, a little white moustached man who is actually a caricature
of Friz Freleng, by constantly
trying to paint the little man's blue house pink. The Pink Phink won the
1964 Academy Award for Animated
Short Film, and subsequent shorts in the series, usually featuring the Pink
Panther opposite the little man, were successful releases.
In the fall of 1969, the Pink Panther cartoons made their way to NBC television on shown Saturday
mornings via The Pink Panther Show. NBC added a laugh track to the original
cartoons, with Marvin Miller brought on as an off-camera
narrator talking to the Pink Panther during bumper segments featuring the Pink Panther
and The Inspector together.
Pink Panther shorts made after 1969 were produced for both broadcast
and film release, typically appearing on television first, and released to
theatres by United Artists. One version of the show was called The Think Pink
Panther Show. A number of sister series joined The Pink Panther on
movie screens and on the airwaves, among them The Ant
and the Aardvark, The Tijuana Toads (a.k.a. The Texas
Toads), Hoot Kloot,
and Misterjaw (a.k.a.
Mr. Jaws and Catfish). There were also a series of animated shorts called
The Inspector,
with the bumbling Clouseau inspired Inspector and his Spanish-speaking sidekick
Sgt. Deux-Deux, whom the Inspector is forever correcting. The Pink Panther Show featured the following segments:
Over its nine years on various television networks, The Pink Panther
Show had a variety of names:
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