"THE PINK PANTHER: CLASSIC CARTOON COLLECTION"
DVD Review
by Kevin Carr
| MOVIE: **** (out of 5 stars)
DVD EXPERIENCE: *** (out of 5 stars) Not Rated Studio: MGM Back to DVD Review Home |  |
When I was a child, watching televisions on the independent stations in Ohio, I saw a lot of the “Pink Panther” cartoons. Then, when my parents started taking me to the movies in the mid-1970s, I was thrilled to go to the “Pink Panther” films. However, I was always a bit disappointed that I only saw the real Pink Panther in the opening sequences.
For many years, even after I developed a fondness for Blake Edwards’ films about the bumbling detective Inspector Clouseau, I always had a soft spot for the animated Pink Panther shorts. In fact, all those years, I thought the cartoons came first.
Years later, I learned that the Pink Panther cartoons were inspired by the Clouseau films and emerged from the brilliant and stylized opening title sequences.
In conjunction with the theatrical release of “Pink Panther 2” and the re-release of several other “Pink Panther” items (including the Collector’s Edition of the original “The Pink Panther” from 1963), MGM has released a spectacular DVD set – “The Pink Panther: Classic Cartoon Collection.”
Not often in the weekly slate of DVD releases is there a collection as complete and slickly packaged as these Pink Panther cartoons. Nine separate discs contain the complete collection of Pink Panther and other Mirisch short films spanning nearly two decades. There are 192 cartoons comprising more than 21 hours of viewing material.
You could literally spend all day watching these short films... and enjoying every minute of them.
The nine different discs are assembled chronologically for the most part, often giving a theme to the series. Two discs focus entirely on “The Inspector,” featuring an animated version of Peter Sellers’ original Clouseau, which differs from the generic foil for Pink from the earlier days.
Of particular interest, in the middle of the set is an entire disc devoted to “The Ant and the Aardvark,” which was a series of more than a dozen films about an ant (who sounds like Dean Martin) and an aardvark (who sounds like Jackie Mason) who is trying to eat him. It’s a more sophisticated version of the old Tom & Jerry cartoons, offering many of the same gags in the punchy look from the 1960s and early 70s.
By the end of the series, which features films that run all the way through February 1980, there’s a slate of special features on the last disc. These include featurettes on the cartoon phenomenon, how to draw the Pink Panther, bringing the cartoon from page to screen and the “pink blueprint” for the cartoons.
Fans of the Clouseau films can revisit the opening title sequences from “The Pink Panther,” “A Shot in the Dark,” “The Pink Panther Strikes Again,” “Revenge of the Pink Panther” and “Trail of the Pink Panther.”
Finally, there’s a featurette of the series from American Cinematographer, a look at the story behind the animation and a spot honoring legendary animator Friz Freleng.
I have always loved the Pink Panther cartoons, with the cool cat who still gets in trouble and the bumbling heel who always gets it worse. And while I generally don’t enjoy a lot of films from the 1960s, I can’t help but adore the animation style and Henry Mancini musical riffs from that age.
“The Pink Panther: Classic Cartoon Collection” is a wonderful box set to have today.
