The 60 years of the Pink Panther without even a wrinkle

Seven minutes in colour, with the predominance of pink, and it was an immediate triumph. On 18 December 1964 the character born almost by chance for the big screen became the protagonist of a cartoon, inaugurating a long series with global success. For the Pink Panther it was not a debut, because he had been seen the year before in the animated theme song of the film “The Pink Panther” by Blake Edwards. His fathers were the designer Friz Freleng (1905-1995) and the producer David DePatie (1929-2021), an extraordinary couple who had founded the animation studio precisely to produce shorts, debuting with «The Pink Phink», directed by Freleng and Hawley Pratt. Simple and irresistible plot: the one who will become a permanent presence, the little man with the big nose and mustache (The Little Man), intends to paint his villa blue, while the mischievous Panther nullifies every brushstroke by covering it in pink. Naturally the plush feline will have won over the poor painter and will triumph by marking his surreal action on the very happy music of Henry Mancini, a basis of ascending and descending fifths, and an intriguing saxophone theme that everyone knows.

A success also linked to the charm of Henry Mancini’s soundtrack

The soundtrack comes directly from Edwards’ film, with Peter Sellers in the role of Inspector Clouseau who must prevent the theft of a very precious diamond called the Pink Panther. The director had asked Freleng to invent a character for the opening and closing credits and he pulled out of the hat the feline with sinuous movements, a distracted look and the ability to adapt to every situation without losing his composure, unlike his deuteragonist policeman of the Parisian Sûrété, also in a caricatured way, and to interact with the other elements of the film. The attitude of the public and critics who particularly liked the acronym – Time magazine, in its issue of 27 April 1964, published that the animations of the title were better than the film – pushed to propose the Pink Panther again in a series of cartoons that would become total 124 and will end in 1981. Right from the start it was decided to give up spoken words and to focus on mimicry and the suggestion of Mancini’s music to underline the screenplay’s ideas, as well as naturally the natural full of sympathy that released the feline with an unrealistic color, red nose and yellow eyes. The choice immediately proved to be a very happy one, and the Oscar Award he immediately won eloquently demonstrated the public’s acclaim with exceptional timing.

The designer had grown up with Disney and had signed the successes of Warner Bros

Freleng knew a lot about cartoons, even if he himself was surprised by the overwhelming success. He had in fact worked for the Disney studios alongside Ub Iwerks (creator of Mickey Mouse) and then for Warner Bros, dedicating himself to the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series, giving character to Bugs Bunny, Sylvester the Cat, Tweety Bird and Speedy Gonzales and seeing his creative streak rewarded with four Academy Awards. With the closure of the Studios, with over thirty years of experience, he set up his own business by creating a company with DePatie (DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, or DFE Films) and designed the Pink Panther. The animation was achieved through the rotoscope technique that had made the fortune of Max and Dave Fleischer and their characters Popeye (Popeye) and Betty Boop. The scenes were filmed by real actors, then the film was projected onto glass and the movements were traced by the animators, busy reproducing every single frame, to obtain astonishing realism and superlative dynamic plasticity.

The movements and attitudes inspired by Cary Grant and James Dean

Freleng was inspired by Cary Grant and James Dean, but he had a strong charge of originality in giving soul to the Pink Panther, completely departing from the school of Walt Disney and any other competitor in setting up the anthropomorphic figure. The character is sometimes aristocratic, sometimes bourgeois, sometimes busy and other times disenchanted, concrete and dreamy, stubborn and curious, at ease and lost, sensitive and caustic.

Everyone likes it because it doesn’t pretend to be infallible, highly intelligent, politically correct and unfailingly loyal like its competitors in the world of fantasy on the big and small screen. The character will live on at the cinema in combination with all the films with Inspector Clouseau and his followers, with his own life in cartoons, and then on TV (the NBC series sold to the whole world), with gadgets, merchandising, games, comics. In the course of the evolution and changing of society and customs, he will find the word, he will have two children, Pinky and Panky, with Hanna & Barbera Production who had won the rights, he will even break away from his creator in the 1993 series branded Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

He kept three generations company, also resisting the invasion of Japanese cartoons and the changing tastes of kids. What has never changed is Henry Mancini’s music. Freleng will rightly say that the Pink Panther would never have been as successful without that soundtrack.

Seven minutes in color, with the predominance of pink, and it was an immediate triumph. On 18 December 1964 the character born almost by chance for the big screen became the protagonist of a cartoon, inaugurating a long series with global success. For the Pink Panther it was not a debut, because he had been seen the year before in the animated theme song of the film “The Pink Panther” by Blake Edwards. His fathers were the designer Friz Freleng (1905-1995) and the producer David DePatie (1929-2021), an extraordinary couple who founded the animation studio precisely to produce shorts, debuting with «The Pink Phink», directed by Freleng and Hawley Pratt.

Simple and irresistible plot: the one who will become a permanent presence, the little man with the big nose and mustache (The Little Man), intends to paint his villa blue, while the mischievous Panther nullifies every brushstroke by covering it in pink. Naturally the plush feline will have won over the poor painter and will triumph by marking his surreal action on the very happy music of Henry Mancini, a basis of ascending and descending fifths, and an intriguing saxophone theme that everyone knows.

A success also linked to the charm of Henry Mancini’s soundtrack

The soundtrack comes directly from Edwards’ film, with Peter Sellers in the role of Inspector Clouseau who must prevent the theft of a very precious diamond called the Pink Panther. The director had asked Freleng to invent a character for the opening and closing credits and he pulled out of the hat the feline with sinuous movements, a distracted look and the ability to adapt to any situation without losing his composure, unlike his deuteragonist policeman of the Parisian Sûrété, also in a caricatured way, and to interact with the other elements of the film.

The attitude of the public and critics who particularly liked the acronym – Time magazine, in its issue of 27 April 1964, published that the animations of the title were better than the film – pushed to propose the Pink Panther again in a series of cartoons that would become total 124 and will end in 1981. Right from the start it was decided to give up spoken words and to focus on mimicry and the suggestion of Mancini’s music to underline the screenplay’s ideas, as well as naturally the natural full of sympathy that released the feline with an unrealistic color, red nose and yellow eyes. The choice immediately proved to be a very happy one, and the Oscar Award he immediately won eloquently demonstrated the public’s acclaim with exceptional timing.

The designer had grown up with Disney and had signed the successes of Warner Bros

Freleng knew a lot about cartoons, even if he himself was surprised by the overwhelming success. He had in fact worked for the Disney studios alongside Ub Iwerks (creator of Mickey Mouse) and then for Warner Bros, dedicating himself to the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series, giving character to Bugs Bunny, Sylvester the Cat, Tweety Bird and Speedy Gonzales and seeing his creative streak rewarded with four Academy Awards. With the closure of the Studios, with over thirty years of experience, he set up his own business by creating a company with DePatie (DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, or DFE Films) and designed the Pink Panther. The animation was achieved through the rotoscope technique that had made the fortune of Max and Dave Fleischer and their characters Popeye (Popeye) and Betty Boop. The scenes were shot by real actors, then the film was projected onto glass and the movements were traced by the animators, busy reproducing every single frame, to obtain astonishing realism and superlative dynamic plasticity.

The movements and attitudes inspired by Cary Grant and James Dean

Freleng was inspired by Cary Grant and James Dean, but he had a strong charge of originality in giving soul to the Pink Panther, completely departing from the school of Walt Disney and any other competitor in setting up the anthropomorphic figure. The character is sometimes aristocratic, sometimes bourgeois, sometimes busy and other times disenchanted, concrete and dreamy, stubborn and curious, at ease and lost, sensitive and caustic. Everyone likes it because it doesn’t pretend to be infallible, highly intelligent, politically correct and unfailingly loyal like its competitors in the world of fantasy on the big and small screen.

The character will live on at the cinema in combination with all the films with Inspector Clouseau and his followers, with his own life in cartoons, and then on TV (the NBC series sold to the whole world), with gadgets, merchandising, games, comics. In the course of the evolution and changing of society and customs, he will find the word, he will have two children, Pinky and Panky, with Hanna & Barbera Production who had won the rights, he will even break away from his creator in the 1993 series branded Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He kept three generations company, also resisting the invasion of Japanese cartoons and the changing tastes of kids. What has never changed is Henry Mancini’s music. Freleng will rightly say that the Pink Panther would never have been as successful without that soundtrack.