Positively Pink...

‘He really is a groovy cat, and he’s a gentleman, a scholar, he’s an acrobat...’ And, forty-eight years ago on this date, he made his first appearance on British television screens, when, at 5.20pm on Saturday 12 September, 1970, BBC1 aired the first episode of The Pink Panther Show. The character was, by this time, seven years old, having originated in the titles of the 1963 movie The Pink Panther, in an animated sequence directed by former Looney Tunes alumnus Isadore ‘Friz’ Freleng. The Panther’s popularity led to his being spun off into a cartoon short subject the following year, produced by Freleng and his associate David H Depatie. This first outing, The Pink Phink, established a formula that would run on and off throughout the entire series, with the Panther thwarting the efforts of a little man to paint his house blue, by continually overpainting his blue paintwork pink (of course). The cartoon won an Academy Award, and became the first in a series of 62 theatrical shorts that would endure until the production company, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, switched over to TV production.

Visually, The Pink Panther reflected the extreme stylised look that had begun to appear in animation around the turn of the 1960s, and while the character himself was not too far removed from the creations of Hanna-Barbera and Warners, the backgrounds took minimalism to new extremes, at times almost expressionistic. Skies could be almost any shade whatever, with no horizons other than what could be inferred from skeletal trees and outcrops of rock. The Pink Panther himself, often sporting the cigarette holder seen in the original cinema title card, strolled through these stark landscapes until he saw something that took his fancy – perhaps a building site, or an interesting vehicle – which would serve as the launch pad for a surreal comic adventure. Alternatively, he would react to some local irritant (such as the long-suffering little man and his dog, or a persistent mosquito), setting off a tit-for-tat sequence of exaggerated violence and destruction that recalled the earliest silent movies.

With a (mostly) silent character, the music and sound effects came to the fore in the Pink Panther cartoons, and the scores, comprised, for the most part of variations on Henry Mancini’s 1963 movie theme, were provided by William Lava and Walter Greene. The sound effects were equally distinctive, such as the unique ‘crump’ that accompanied impacts into heavy objects, the ground and sheer cliff faces.

Alongside the Pink Panther releases, DePatie-Freleng also spun-off the Inspector character into a series of his own, based loosely on the movie Clouseau (although never referred to as such in the cartoons), and 1969 saw the pair make the move to television, with a series compiled from the stock of theatrical Pink Panther and Inspector shorts, each 20-minute segment generally consisting of a single Inspector outing, bookended by two Pink Panther cartoons. Brand-new animations (as well as trims from the films) linked the three shorts, often accompanied by narrator Marvin Miller. In America, the series went to air on 6 September 1969 on the NBC network, but – typically for imported product – it would take another year for the cartoons to reach the small screen here in the UK (although the shorts would have been familiar by this time to cinema-goers). 

Unaware of the character’s origins, I watched this first Pink Panther series from the very beginning, with the character’s antics soon becoming a favourite in our household, our dad being a particular fan of the ‘Pink Fink’ (as he always called him). For me, The Pink Panther was probably the last of the truly great cartoon characters. Hanna-Barbera were still cranking out cartoons for TV, but The Pink Panther was decidedly different, with its stylised minimalism, and mute lead character (the Panther spoke in only two of the original theatrical shorts, Sink Pink and Pink Ice). It was also considerably funnier than any of the recent H-B outings, which had tended to move in a serio-comic direction (as exemplified by Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?) An added attraction of the Pink Panther TV series was the apperarance of the specially-created Panthermobile, a futuristic pink dragster, piloted by a kid, which conveyed the Panther and Inspector to the foyer of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in the 55-second title sequence. Stock footage of ‘all the animals you’ve ever heard about’ was mixed in split-screen with film of the Panthermobile on the road, along with a few clips from Panther shorts (specifically, 1968’s Come On in, the Water’s Pink and Put-Put Pink).

On BBC1, The Pink Panther Show became a Saturday night staple, with its first run extending to Saturday 19 December 1970, and it’s these original broadcasts that have endured in my memory. The first instalment to air paired up the two Panther cartoons Pink Blueprint and Pink Tail Fly, on either side of the Inspector short Bomb Voyage (an untypical entry which sees the Inspector in outer space). This had also been the first episode broadcast in the USA, although the BBC would go on to adopt a markedly different running order, sometimes combining the shorts differently from their original American screenings. I soon came to enjoy the Inspector cartoons as much as the Pink Panther’s adventures, with the big-nosed detective often emerging as the funniest item of the week. His accent, although toned down somewhat from Peter Seller’s comic stylings, nevertheless amused me, as did the outrageous gallic villains with whom our hero did battle. To this day, I still prefer the cartoon to the live action Inspector Clouseau.

The Pink Panther Show returned to BBC1 on Saturday 22 May 1971, with another run of 13, by the end of which the bulk of the original two series had been seen. From October 1971, the Pink Panther cartoons also began to appear separately as segments in Ali Bongo’s Cartoon Carnival (debuting on BBC1 Saturday 23 October at 12.05pm), while the original shows received a repeat run from Saturday 25 March, 1972, this time in a lunchtime slot, later popping up at a variety of times on differing days of the week, before settling into a regular slot of 6.55pm on Friday evenings from 12 October 1972. 

By this time, the character had become a firm favourite with UK viewers, and was already beginning to attract interest from merchandisers. First off the mark was TV Comic, into whose pages marched both the Panther and the Inspector during the autumn of 1970, within weeks of their debut on television, in strips specially drawn for the publication. TV Comic’s editor must have had some reservations at first, because the Panther, still to establish himself with viewers, was allocated a single page in black and white, with The Inspector receiving the same treatment. In these early cartoons, the Panther remained true to his mute film incarnation, but by early 1971, he had been promoted to colour, and given permission to speak. The Inspector soon disappeared without trace, but the Pink Panther would go on to star in at least one dedicated holiday special.

In 1972, the first Pink Panther Annual appeared (cover-dated for 1973), kicking off a series that would continue for another eleven years. In common with many such offerings, the annuals (from Manchester-based World Distributors) reprinted strips from American comic books, and, like the TV series, comprised a mix of Panther and Inspector stories. The strips in this first edition shared titles (and sometimes plots) with episodes from the actual cartoon series (eg. Congratulations, It’s Pink and Le Pig-Al Patrol), although for comic strip purposes, the Panther was allowed to speak.

By far the most desirable item of Pink Panther merchandise, and an item I coveted from the moment I saw it advertised in the pages of TV Comic, was Dinky Toys’ version of the Panthermobile. This plastic toy (unusual for Dinky) was a faithful reproduction of the car seen in the TV title sequence, with the welcome substitution of our pink pal in place of the helmeted kid driver. Somewhat less welcome was the insertion of a huge drive wheel in the centre of the vehicle. This was the obligatory gimmick, required of all Dinky TV tie-ins, and provided the car with the ability to ‘tear along under its own dynamic power’ as the packaging boasted. This was achieved by threading a long, notched plastic strip into the mechanism which, when pulled out at speed, caused the drive wheel to rotate, under which propulsion, the car would scoot across the carpet. Destructive collision with items of furniture was prevented by the addition of a rubber tip on the vehicle’s nose.

I acquired my example on Thursday 11 May 1972, the event commemorated in block capitals in my diary. I seem to recollect our mum making a special trip into the local town centre to acquire one of these must-have toys, and if memory serves, they were quite hard to get hold of in those first weeks of production. I was slightly disappointed with the plastic body, having expected the usual die-cast offering from Dinky, but there was no denying it was a nice item, and it features in my toy display cabinet to this day. A later, simplified model omitted the drive wheel, and added a Panther picture on the roof and the TV series’ logo to the side of the vehicle.

In America, a New Pink Panther Show had debuted in September 1971, while the BBC were still airing the original compilations. This time, the Inspector cartoons had been replaced by a new series The Ant and the Aardvark, but the BBC seems to have ignored this season, along with its follow-up The Pink Panther and Friends, and the Inspector-equipped episodes continued to air on UK screens through the 1970s and into the 80s. By this time, back on home turf, the Pink Fink had defected from NBC to ABC, who began airing The All New Pink Panther Show in September 1978. This retooled version, with its disco-dancing title sequence, finally tempted the BBC to go pink again, with episodes appearing on BBC1 from Saturday 21 March 1981. I was less enamoured of the new series, and for me, the disco music was an unnecsssary attempt to modernise the character. The humour had also changed, with less of the stylised surrealism that had contributed so much to the appeal of the original cartoons. And there was no more Inspector... zut alors!

Around 1977, an even more tempting range of Pink Panther merchandise became available, in the form of 8mm home movies of the original cartoons. These one-reel editions, issued under the Walton Films imprint, were available in full colour, with soundtracks (the Pink Panther cartoons being somewhat unthinkable without the cool accompaniment of Henry Mancini’s theme music), and I acquired at least one example, the classic Rock-a-Bye Pinky (in which the Panther’s attempts to get a good night’s sleep in the branches of a tree are constantly interrupted by a hunter and his dog – a formula which was repeated in several others of the original theatrical series). The 8mm one-reel format offered sufficient running time to accommodate a whole cartoon, complete with its original cinema titles, which were always missing from the TV versions.

Despite continuing to appear on BBC television until well into the 1990s, The Pink Panther slowly dropped off my radar, and I went a long time without seeing a single instalment. That changed recently, when I was shown a couple of cartoons in their original 35mm cinema format. To my surprise, there were still several laugh-out-loud moments of comic surrealism, and I was inspired to seek out further examples on YouTube. There is, I discovered, a legitimate Pink Panther channel, where all the original cinema cartoons are available to watch in good quality transfers (not HD, but a cut above other uploads).

I’m still working my way through the episodes, but it’s worth remarking that the running order adopted by the channel follows that of the TV compilations, rather than the chronology of the theatrical releases (as shown by the copyright dates on the credits). This makes for a rather mixed experience, as, somewhat surprisingly, some of the earliest examples don’t bear comparison to those I consider the real classics. It seems to have taken a while for the makers to realise which aspects of the format worked best, and the ‘no dialogue with music’ approach was not always the norm: a couple of early examples (Sink Pink and An Ounce of Pink) are irritatingly dialogue-heavy, with the former featuring a verbose hunter determined to bag the Panther (not the classic ‘little man’ character) and the second, a garrulous speak-your-weight machine which has the ability to foretell the future. Sink Pink also features a rare line of dialogue from the Panther, whose voice is every bit as aristocratic as his cigarette holder suggests, but, frankly, superfluous. The best of the Pink Panther cartoons got by with no talking at all, and these chattery examples seem as far off-target as the later Tom and Jerrys. 

Also surprisingly, the strongest titles appear not to have been those directed by Friz Freleng, who directed only the first eleven releases, thereafter remaining on board as co-producer. For me, at any rate, the true classic (one might say ‘truly original’) Pink Panther cartoons are those directed by ex-Warners and Hanna-Barbera animator Hawley Pratt, many of which feature run-ins with the unnamed but instantly recognisable ‘little man’, essentially a big nose and moustache on legs, who looks much more a part of the minimalist Pink Panther universe than some of the more conventional looking characters seen elsewhere.

It’s also interesting to compare the style of the original, pilot cartoon, The Pink Phink, with the later productions: the look is even more minimalist, with backgrounds sometimes consisting of nothing more than a single door or window on a white ground, while the characters are outlined more crisply than would become the norm for the in-series releases. The Pink Panther himself has yet to acquire his lanky, elongated frame, and seems slightly squat compared to his usual appearance, although his personality is clearly defined, as he playfully undoes all of the prototype little man’s efforts at house painting.

Returning to The Pink Panther after such a long absence, I began to realise how much I identified with his character, in its many facets: from his aloof other-worldliness, through his frequent frustrations with inanimate objects, to his reactions to various irritants. And perhaps this is part of his enduring popularity: surreal though his world may be, he nevertheless reflects aspects of us all. He struggles against the odds, sometimes he triumphs, sometimes he merely shrugs and strolls off into the distance. And he is, as the theme song reminds us, a gentleman, a scholar, and an acrobat. Who wouldn’t aspire to that?