Tag: Henry Mancini

In the 1963 feature film The Pink Panther starring Peter Sellers, the Animated Credits opening featured our first look at the Pink Panther.

The cartoon series was made by DePatie-Freleng studios…the first short, “The Pink Phink,” won the 1964 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Subject…the first time an animation studio had won one with its very first cartoon.

What adds to the Pink Panther is Henry Mancini‘s popular theme music. The cartoon would not be the same without it. I bought the set years ago and showed them to my 6-year-old son at the time. He liked it as much as I did.

I watched it as a kid and it is probably the reason I ended up liking silent movies so much. Each show’s story has no dialog and is centered around the Pink Panther and “the little man” along with Mancini’s music.

There were 124 Pink Panther shorts were released between 1964 and 1978…there were some tv specials after the original series ended.

They tried having him talk in two episodes. It didn’t work and ruined the effect.