Shark Bytes

1993 - the second some idiot hired the extremely unfunny and annoying Matt Frewer to provide a voice for the character. The Pink Panther didn't need a voice in the original run, and it sure as hell didn't need a doofus like Matt Frewer to provide one.

The Pink Panther actually did the Shark Jump in network switching from NBC to ABC TWICE--once during 1979, when Crazylegs Crane was added to the cast; and when The Pink Panther and Sons launched sometime later. Had the Pink Panther ever aired on CBS, the cartoon would undoubtedly have been a complete train wreck. As it was, the quality of the PP cartoons had started to suffer when director Hawley Pratt left and was totally unwatchable with the ABC toons.

My favorite PP was when the Fairy God Mother put roller skates on PP's feet.
Fairy God Mother grants him three wishes
1st wish Out of control skates for PP's feet.
2nd wish Remove the skates
3rd wish Put the skates on the Fairy Godmother. HILARIOUS CARTOON.

Also loved Ant and Aardvark,Misterjaws,and Inspector so much so I bought video tapes at Suncoast (remember them?)at the mall
as soon as they came out which was back in the eighties at twenties a pop.

pink panther rocks

The shows I remember were from the late 60's and early 70's. I had never heard of the PP and the first opening I remember showed some sort of car zooming up the road. It turns out it's driven by some kid. Anyway, the show up at the theatre and get out of the car and walk in. At the end of the 1/2 hour show, the go back out to the car but PP is late and he has to run after the car. The other version was an hour, featured the Jackie Mason Aardvark and featured some lame ass Muppet wannbes. I remember Flem Flamingo who was basically the host and the abominble snowman who was an idiot. The only time he spoke that I remember was at the end of cartoon he says "Why can't man be more like animals."

As a kid this was sophisticated and foreign when you are weened on HannaBarbera and Warner Bros cartoons.
I liked when Pink spoke that famous line. Pink Panther Was OK.
Ant and Aaardvark RULE.
This is what I remember most from all my cartoon watching: the anteater spending entire cartoons lying to this ant so he could eat him. I am obsessed by this simple premise. Even today my friends know at some point when I'll say in John Byner/Anteater voice: "Come here, Ant, I just want to talk to you."
A brilliant metaphor for life even today. "Come here, Ant, I just want to talk." Yes yes yes.

The Pink Panther cartoons jumped the shark when they started being made primarily for television in the early seventies. I've just started seeing these again, after not seeing them in close to thirty years (courtesy of the recent comprehensive DVD release of the Pink Panther cartoons). Previously, I hadn't really thought much about the fact that the Pink Panther cartoons had been made by the same people (Depatie-Freleng) that made the post-1964 Warner Brothers cartoons. Now, when I see them, it's apparent -- The "house style" is quite evident, as are some classic WB cartoon gags being recycled yet again. I actually prefer the early Pink Panther cartoons to the Warner Brothers cartoons that were made at the same time. I know that the Pink Panther cartoons were made primarily for theatrical exhibition up until 1970 or so, when the focus became more on production for television (although I can recall still seeing these in the cinemas occasionally through the seventies), and the quality of the earlier cartoons reflects this. I suspect the contemporary WB offerings, by comparison, were being made primarily for television after 1964. Also, given that the Pink Panther series started in 1964, you don't find yourself making comparisons with a more glorious past -- watching post '64 WB cartoons, one can't help thinking of the glory days of the forties and early fifties. Finally, I think that the character of the Pink Panther was better suited to the more expressionistic and limited animation that was the standard on these cartoons after 1964.

PP jumped when Hawley Pratt stopped directing the cartoons. His last one was in 1971. I agree with an earlier poster that PP wasn't the same under Gerry Chiniquy's control; the poor cat lost a lot of punch. Robert McKimson made the PP reverse-jump with some funny episodes in 1975 and 1976--some of his last cartoons before dying in 1977.

Ummm...I think around the 1970s. Gerry Chiniquy, who was one of the main director for Pink Panther and other DFE shorts, became really boring here and PP should have ended around this time. Also, the laugh tracks were annoying. It took the fun out and laughed at parts where it wasn't funny!!! DePatie-Freleng had 8 theatrical series released by United Artists. They were Pink Panther The Inspector Roland and Rattfink The Ant and the Aardvark Tijuana Toads (redubbed as Texas Toads to keep it PC) The Blue Racer Hoot Kloot The Dogfather When NBC first aired the show, it was just Pink Panther and Inspector. Then "The Ant and the Aardvark" got into the bunch, and finally, "Tijuana Toads", but to keep it politically correct, they changed it to "Texas Toads". When Cartoon Network aired it, it was Panther, Inspector, Aardvark, and new to TV, Hoot Kloot, and Roland and Rattfink. "The Dogfather" and "The Blue Racer" was left out (come on! Anyone remember Blue Racer. I saw Dogfather being mentioned but not this serpent!) "The Dogfather" probably never aired because it was incredibly boring. "The Blue Racer" was however pretty good. The series never aired because Blue Racer (talks like a cross between Paul Lynde and Sylvester the Cat) was homosexual (at least acts like one). But the cartoon was funny. I think it however jumped the shark when DFE had one BR cartoon to be done in Australia and other in UK which was pretty dull, although the Australian "Blue Racer" cartoon "Aches and Snakes" was bizarre

The original Pink Panther Show that debuted in the 1969-70 season was basically a collection of all of the great Pink Panther cartoons that I'd seen at the movies in the late 60s. These cartoons, as I recall, were pretty much the staple of the series throughout the decade. I remember one later version of the show that featured puppets between the cartoons and although I hated those pieces I stayed for the cartoons. I remember Pink talking in only one cartoon; it was at the end of the episode and was in a British accent. That wasn't enough to ruin the show for me, and I must be lucky because I've never seen any of the other "talkies" that other poster have mentioned. As to the other cartoons used in the show, I thought that The Inspector, Misterjaw, The Ant and The Aardvark, and The Texas Toads all ruled! Every one of these cartoons is a gem as far as I'm concerned. I have always thought in terms of 60s and 70s cartoon producers that dePatie/Freleng, who produced these cartoons, made better and more consistently funny cartoons than either Warner Brothers or Jay Ward...and that's saying something because I thought Jay Ward was a genius!

The "Pink Panther"- the original movie (and "Shot in the Dark"), the cartoon character, and the theme music- are all great and never jumped on their own. However, the "Pink Panther" cartoon series definitely jumped after the '60s episodes- most of which debuted in the movie houses. Did you know that Friz Freleng actually brought 150 different sketches to Blake Edwards for the original title sequence? Those '60s cartoons were great because the spare animation, the slinky pantomime Panther, and- above all- that marvelous Mancini music all worked. Don't forget that Sellers was at his best, too, and the classy-caper style of the movies rubbed off on the cartoons. The '70s series didn't work at all because Friz was way past his prime, putting the Panther into recycled bits from the great Looney Tunes of yore. The real spoiler? They altered, and even dropped, the Mancini music! The Pink Panther without that cool, slinky theme is not the Pink Panther! The music, for me, IS the character and the signature, both in the cartoons and the movies. Avoid '70s-and-later "Panther" toons at all costs!

For the zillionth time... It was when PP started talking. The new voices, accent, even lines were anything compared to the only two times that PP talked in the original run: "Sink Pink", and "Pink Ice". Does anybody remember "Hoot Cloot"? I remember him (a horse that walked funny), as one of the cartoons in the middle. I liked all the "middle" cartoon, except maybe for "Crazylegs" (sorry if I didn't translate it correctly - I used to watch the PP in Spanish - if that matters, lol). Still, PP is my favorite character of all time... and nothing will ever compare to my favorite episode of all time: "In The Pink Of The Night". Sometimes I feel that they wrote that episode thinking about me.

The Pink Panther Show rocked the first few years it was on...Then, in one of the first signs NBC would eventually give up the ghost on cartoons, The Lame Sorry Ritts Puppets were added as in studio hosts. I think the main host was this Abominable Snowman character who kept calling The Pink Panther "Our Great Leader" (maybe he was mistaking him for Kim Il-Sung), and also yammered on about "The Himalayan Mountains Of Tibet". I kept waiting for the snow monster from Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer to come and kick his ass!

As a kid I saw the original run, and NEVER the talking ones (glad of it, from reading other posts!). For me it was that lame-o “Mr. Jaws YEE-GOTCHA!”!! Man! What a lousy, transparent way to cash in on the “Jaws” fad! Of course, The Tom & Jerry Show was a fave until they added that STUPID “Grape Ape” around the same time, so they weren’t winning any prizes in my book either! It’s funny that the Simpsons made that subtle cross-reference with “Troy Mc Clure” who was “the voice of Christmas Ape” and “Christmas Ape goes to Hawaii”! Priceless! The other 2 sideshow cartoons fit well in to the landscape of PP before that. I felt the one liner PP did lend to the episode’s humor (making reference to the 60’s “Dr. Doolittle” movie if memory serves me) we kids all looked at each other in disbelief when it happened. It just showed how cartoon writers seemed to lose their ability to be creative without using dialogue. One of my personal PP faves was the mosquito one where 1) he’s lying in bed laughing at the pesky bug tapping on the window in the rain and suddenly a brick flies through; and 2) the phone rings and you hear a spacey buzzing echo as it flies through the line & out the phone receiver! Those are the fun things about its heyday I hold on to, not the other crap!

The best back up cartoon in the Pink Panther shows was The Inspectorfeaturing a character inspired by Inspector Clouseau (The signiture tune for The Inspector cartoons was the theme from the second and best Clouseau film A Shot in the Dark). In the New Pink Panther Show the Pink Panther cartoons weren't bad, but the Crazy Legs Crane and Blue Aaardvark cartoons were abysmal. By the way the film series jumped the shark with the last Peter Sellers Pink Panther, Revenge of the Pink Panther. The series had run out of steam before his tragic death.