The Pink Panther Show

History

When The Pink Panther Show debuted in 1969, each half-hour episode typically opened and closed with a Pink Panther cartoon, while a single Inspector cartoon played in the middle. However, because of the total number of shorts available, two episodes reversed this format, placing a Pink Panther cartoon between two Inspector entries. To tie the segments together, the show used bumper sequences that showed both the Panther and the Inspector on screen together, with announcer Marvin Miller providing off-camera narration as he spoke to the Panther. These bumpers mixed newly animated material with recycled footage taken from existing cartoons such as We Give Pink Stamps, Reel Pink, Pink Outs, and Super Pink, and were given fresh incidental music and new voice-over work by Miller.

Starting with A Fly in the Pink, Pink Panther shorts produced after 1969 were created for both television and theatrical release. They usually aired on TV first and later went to theaters through United Artists.

Several new series also emerged during this period, including The Ant and the Aardvark, Tijuana Toads (later redubbed Texas Toads), Hoot Kloot, Misterjaw, Roland and Rattfink, The Dogfather, and two spinoffs from Tijuana Toads: The Blue Racer and Crazylegs Crane. Later iterations, such as The New Pink Panther Show, featured freshly animated bumper segments that included the Panther, the Ant and the Aardvark, Misterjaw, and the Texas Toads. Around this time, some cartoons were considered too violent, so they were re-edited for television by cutting out violent scenes to make them more family-friendly.

Syndication

In 1980, United Artists Television put The Pink Panther Show into syndication, offering stations the full package with its original bumpers and laugh tracks added to the cartoon shorts. Two years later, MGM Television started syndicating individual cartoons separately, letting local stations program them however they wanted. This stripped-down version ditched the bumpers and the laugh track.

The cartoons included in MGM's 1982 package were The Pink Panther, The Inspector, The Ant and the Aardvark, Tijuana Toads (also known as Texas Toads), and the made-for-TV series Misterjaw. Left out of that deal were Roland and Rattfink, The Blue Racer, Hoot Kloot, The Dogfather, and the TV-only Crazylegs Crane. Most TV stations went with the 1982 package, airing the cartoons on their own without the original bumper sequences. The laugh track was silenced for every entry except Misterjaw.

Chicago's WGN-TV was one of the few outlets that stuck with the 1980 syndicated version, complete with bumpers and laughs. Meanwhile, its sister station in New York City, WPIX, ran an even more bare-bones version, dropping the laugh track, bumpers, and even the theatrical opening and closing credits. The original Pink Panther Show (which ran from 1969 to 1971) and The New Pink Panther Show (1971 to 1974) have since been remastered in their original format.

Reruns

In the UK, these shows previously aired on BBC Two, UK Gold, BBC One, Boomerang (from 2000 to 2009), and Cartoon Network (from 1993 to 2002). In Canada during the late 2000s, Teletoon Retro aired them weekday mornings at 8:00 am. That channel showed all 32 episodes of The Pink Panther Show featuring the Panther and the Inspector, all 17 episodes of The New Pink Panther Show with the Panther and the Ant and the Aardvark, and selected episodes from the first syndicated Pink Panther Show series—specifically those where the middle cartoon was an Ant and the Aardvark short. Teletoon Retro also aired all 16 episodes of The All New Pink Panther Show, which paired the Panther with Crazylegs Crane.

For most of these broadcasts, the laugh track was muted. The episodes on Teletoon Retro used remastered prints, but the wrap-around segments were in rougher shape. One Inspector cartoon, Tour de Farce, was shown with the wrong title card—it displayed the one meant for Reaux, Reaux, Reaux Your Boat instead.

German version

The German broadcast of the show, titled Der rosarote Panther – Zu Gast bei Paulchens Trickverwandten, first aired on ZDF in 1973. Each episode typically held four cartoons. The lineup usually began with a Pink Panther short, followed by an Inspector cartoon, then another Pink Panther, and it often closed with an Ant and the Aardvark short.

After the twelfth episode, however, cartoons from The Gerald McBoing-Boing Show by UPA started appearing, which made the episode structure less consistent than in other versions. Some episodes would start with a Pink Panther, then show a longer UPA cartoon, and finish with another Pink Panther. Others swapped out the second Pink Panther for a UPA cartoon, and a few episodes even stitched together two or three UPA shorts to fill a single segment. Bumpers were used in the first 42 episodes only.

All cartoons had their opening and closing credits removed; when a cartoon ended, it faded directly into a bumper, and after the bumper, the next cartoon began without any title or credits. When ZDF picked up The All New Pink Panther Show in 1980, they edited it to match this same format. Some episodes in that run would start with one Pink Panther short, then a Crazylegs Crane cartoon, another Pink Panther, and end with another Crazylegs Crane.

Others began with two Pink Panther cartoons, followed by a Crazylegs Crane, and closed with a third Pink Panther. Three specific cartoons—Yankee Doodle Pink, Pet Pink Pebbles, and The Pink of Bagdad—were skipped because they were reissues of earlier shorts. This version of the show had no laugh track on any of its series. The Pink Panther character was given the name Paulchen Panther, and the Pink Panther cartoons included narration written by Eberhard Storeck and spoken by voice actor Gert Günther Hoffmann.

A new theme song for the intro and outro, Wer hat an der Uhr gedreht?, was composed by Fred Strittmatter and Quirin Amper Jr., with new one-minute-long intro and outro sequences assembled from existing animation. Most episodes ran 24 or 25 minutes, but the ones that premiered on ZDF in 1978 contained only two Pink Panther cartoons, and their intro and outro sequences were just 20 seconds each, making those episodes only 11 minutes long. Three specials, each 23 minutes in length—A Pink Christmas, Olym-Pinks, and Pink at First Sight—also aired under this show.