The Pink Panther
The Pink Panther began as a title sequence. Blake Edwards's 1963 comedy is about a diamond called the Pink Panther, and DePatie–Freleng, the studio Friz Freleng and David DePatie had just set up, animated a cartoon cat for the opening credits to Henry Mancini's theme.
About The Pink Panther
The Pink Panther began as a title sequence. Blake Edwards's 1963 comedy is about a diamond called the Pink Panther, and DePatie–Freleng, the studio Friz Freleng and David DePatie had just set up, animated a cartoon cat for the opening credits to Henry Mancini's theme. Audiences liked the credits enough that the cat got a series of its own, and the first short, The Pink Phink, won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short in 1964. The character almost never speaks, which is part of why the design travels: a long pink silhouette, half-closed eyes and a cigarette holder in the early films, with the Mancini theme doing the work that dialogue would.
The name belongs to a diamond in the film; the cartoon cat was invented for its credits.
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Key eras
| Era | Years | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| Title sequence | 1963 | The opening credits of Blake Edwards's The Pink Panther. |
| Theatrical shorts | 1964–1980 | Starting with the Oscar-winning The Pink Phink. |
| Television | 1969– | Saturday-morning runs and later revivals. |