3903. Pink Panther

The Pink Panther is the main and title character in the opening and closing credit sequences of every film in The Pink Panther series except for A Shot in the Dark and Inspector Clouseau. His popularity spawned a series of theatrical shorts, merchandise, a comic book, and television cartoons. He starred in 124 shorts (either theatrical or televised), 10 television shows and three prime time specials.
As of September 2007, the cartoons can be viewed on Boomerang, Voom HD Networks, MGM HD, Animania HD, Teletoon Retro, Hulu, This, and the full collection has been made available on DVD. As of October 2009, Cartoon Network had been running The Pink Panther Show weekdays at 12:30 PM/ET, however on December 18, 2009 Cartoon Network removed The Pink Panther from its lineup. Spanish-dubbed versions of Pink Panther cartoons also air on Monday, Tuesday and Friday late nights on Telemundo. As of 2010, Tooncast carries The Pink Panther Show with The Inspector and The Ant and the Aardvark.

The animated Pink Panther character's initial appearance in the live action film's title sequence, directed by Friz Freleng, was such a success with audiences and United Artists that the studio signed Freleng and his DePatie-Freleng Enterprises studio to a multi-year contract for a series of Pink Panther theatrical cartoon shorts. The first entry in the series, 1964's The Pink Phink, (which was also his first appearance) featured the Panther harassing his foil, a little white moustached man who is actually a caricature of Friz Freleng (this character is officially known as "The Man"), by constantly trying to paint the little man's blue house pink. The Pink Phink won the 1964 Academy Award for Animated Short Film, and subsequent shorts in the series, usually featuring the Pink Panther opposite the little man, were successful releases.
In an early series of Pink Panther animated cartoons, the Pink Panther generally remained silent, speaking only in two theatrical shorts, Sink Pink and Pink Ice. Rich Little provided the Panther's voice in the latter shorts, modelling it on that of David Niven (who had portrayed Clouseau's jewel-thief nemesis in the original live-action film). Years later Little would overdub Niven's voice for Trail of the Pink Panther and Curse of the Pink Panther. All of the animated Pink Panther shorts utilized the distinctive jazzy theme music composed by Henry Mancini for the 1963 feature film, with additional scores composed by Walter Greene or William Lava.