PINK PANTHER – THE ANTHROPOMORPHIC CHARACTER

The Pink Panther is the main character in the cartoon series with the same name. He is an entirely pink mild mannered feline creature. The Pink Panther does not speak and does not wear any items of clothing. Still, he is an anthropomorphic character. The Panther engages himself in all sorts of everyday activities and, as doing so, at times unintentionally and in other cases on purpose, gets in the way of his foil, a short man with an entirely white body known simply as The Little Man. 

Pink Panther full review

One name that comes to mind especially in the modern age anytime something is said about the Pink Panther is Steve Martin.

In actual fact, the Pink Panther being a title of a franchise doubles as the name of the main character of the series. Before the recently popular film, the character appeared in the opening and closing sequences of all The Pink Panther film series except for Inspector Clouseau and A Shot in the Dark. The popularity of the character resulted in a number of comic books, merchandise, theatrical shorts, and, of course, TV cartoon series. It featured in over a hundred short films, 3 prime time specials, and about ten TV shows.

The first appearance of the animated character was in a live action film’s title sequence. It was directed by Friz Freleng and the success was enormous and popular especially with the audience that Freleng was signed on by the studio for, a multi-year contract that would earn him and his DePatie-Freleng Enterprises good money and lots of fame. The contract was to create a series of Pink Panther theatrical cartoon shorts.

When it made its first entry, it was shown, i.e., the Pink Panther, harassing his foil, a caricature of Friz Freleng, which was portrayed as a little white man with the moustache. The panther was always trying to paint the man’s house pink. The house was actually blue and the man was officially known as “The Little White Guy”. This was in 1964 and its works were appreciated and recognised, winning it the Academy Award in 1946 for the Animated Short Film of the year. Based on this success, a series of shorts were released, most of them featured the panther opposite the little.

Early series of the Pink Panther animated cartoon presented a rather silent panther that only spoke in two theatrical shorts – Sink Pink and Pink Ice. Rich Little did a great job modeling the voice of the panther on David Niven’s who happened to the be the nemesis of Clouseau’s jewel-thief in the live action of the original film. Little later overdubbed Niven’s voice with the production of Trail of the Pink Panther and Curse of the Pink Panther as a result of Niven not being in the best health condition.

If there is any cartoon character that has stood the test of time staying famous and accepted regardless of the dynamics in the motion pictures industry, it is the naughty Pink Panther.