The Cartoon Sophisticate

The 1960s were just horrible for theatrical cartoons. If your local movie house ran them at all, you were subjected to Honey Halfwitch, Cool Cat or, if you were really unlucky, the Beary Family. But there was one theatrical series that was a real bright spot.

The Pink Panther.

Friz Freleng, Hawley Pratt and the other creative people who came up with the idea hit on the right combination. Instead of the aging concept of funny animals chasing each other, the Panther was plunked into a human world. Making him a pantomime figure instead of a lippy Bugs Bunny type caused John Dunn and the other writers to rely on sight gags enhanced by Friz’s (and Pratt’s) perfect timing. The gags were pretty imaginative. And the use of Henry Mancini’s Panther movie theme as the main background music gave each short a sly and jazzy air.

Here are a couple of stories about how the Panther cartoons came about. The first is from United Press International, February 4, 1965, the second from the Los Angeles Times syndication service, originally published December 24, 1964.

The Panther series kind of petered out in 1971 but theatrical cartoons continued to be released into 1977.

Cartoon Panther Is A Box Office Tiger
By Vernon Scott
HOLLYWOOD—UPI—If you have been to the movies recently you have probably noticed the comeback of an old theater standby, the animated cartoon. With the increasing disappearance of double features, theater owners are filling out the bill with animated hijinks.
Moviegoers will be seeing more of Woody Woodpecker, Bugs Bunny and the ubiquitous Tom and Jerry. They will also be entertained by a skinny and malevolent character named the Pink Panther.
The Panther made his debut when the credits flashed on the screen more than a year ago for the feature film thriller-comedy, The Pink Panther, starring Peter Sellers. Audiences enjoyed the animal's rapscallion adventures almost as much as the phenomenally successful film.
Director Blake Edwards, along with David Depatie and Friz Freleng (who created the animated prologue), saw gold in the Pink Panther and forthwith turned him into a star in his own right.

Depatie-Freleng Enterprises have been contracted by United Artists to turn out 13 Pink Panther short subjects a year.
Thus far they've produced three, all with the theme music from the Pink Panther movie; all without dialogue of any kind.
“We think of the Panther as an adult cartoon character, but geared for children, too,” said Depatie at his cartoon headquarters near Warner Bros. studio. “But our dilemma is whether to give him a voice or keep him in pantomime.”
His partner, Freleng, added, “we were as surprised as everyone else with the Panther's popularity.
“He captured public imagination because here was a character fussing around with the credits of a movie which are supposed to be a serious undertaking. He was the first cartoon 'personality' involved in main title credits and was therefore, different.”
Depatie and Freleng hope to stockpile more than 100 Panther cartoons and dump them on the television market which gobbles up cartoons faster than it does old movies.
According to Freleng, adults enjoy cartoons in theaters as much—or more so—than their offspring, but will not admit it.
Freleng is an old hand at fathering cartoon characters, having originated Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Sylvester and Tweetie Pie, Yosemite Sam, Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales. He foresees as big a future for the Panther as any of his previous children.
“The Panther is egotistical, effeminate, affete, [sic] chic, and very pink,” said Depatie.
“He's not in-step with the regular pattern of a cartoon cat chasing a cartoon mouse,” Freleng said. “We're staying out of the trap of creating another Bugs Bunny.
“You could say the Panther is sophisticated.”

New Craze Started by ‘Pink Panther’
DePatie and Freleng Reveal Story Behind Cartoon Series
BY PHILIP K. SCHEUER
Times Motion Picture Editor
Having flipped over “The Pink Phink,” an animated cartoon being released with “Kiss Me, Stupid,” I hastened to call a high-level conference with its creators—primarily two chaps with the arresting names of David H. DePatie and Friz Freleng. They had introduced their Pink Panther, who reappears in “The Pink Phink,” in the picture of that name—behind the opening credit titles. Since almost everybody thought the credits deserved more credit than the picture, the Mirisch Corp. and Blake Edwards urged DePatie-Freleng to keep the sly young fellow alive in a series.
“The Pink Phink” is the first. Four others are ready: “Pink Pajamas,” “We Give Pink Stamps,” “Dial P for Pink” and “Sink Pink”—in which the PP is refused entrance to Noah’s Ark “because there’s only one of you.”
Friz Freleng, older of the pair, is roundish, bald and mustached. (Actually, he apparently served as the model, consciously or not, for the only other character in “The Pink Phink.”) “My real name is, of all things, Isadore,” he explained. “There used to be a cartoon-strip character called Congressman Frizby—and years ago, at Warners, they somehow hung the tag on me.” DePatie is taller and has curly black hair.
Pair Partners For 10 Years
Both are veterans of the cartoon field, only Friz is a veteran veteran. He came west from Kansas City about the same time Walt Disney did and went to work for him in 1927, later moved on to MGM (“Krazy Kat”) and Warner Bros. (“Looney Tunes,” “Merrie Melodies”), for whom he originated such characters as Porky Pig, Sylvester, Tweety Pie, Yosemite Sam, Speedy Gonzales and Daffy Duck. Eventually he tied up with DePatie, who had begun his career as a film editor at Warners and returned there later as head of the studio’s commercial department. They have been partners for 10 years.
When, in May of last year, Warners decided to drop its commercial and animation divisions the pair took them over—as DePatie-Freleng Enterprises. “But now,” Friz said, “we have resumed for them with a contract for 39 cartoons—this in addition to our other work. This includes titles for other pictures (‘A Shot in the Dark,’ ‘Sex and the Single Girl,’ ‘The Satan Bug,’ ‘The Best Man,’ ‘How to Murder Your Wife’ for Ross Hunter and, coming up, ‘The Great Race’), a trailer for ‘John Goldfarb’ and the pilot for a Screen Gems TV series, ‘I Dream of Jeanie,’ with Barbara Eden.
He’s a Natural For Animation

The idea for their new beastie was born when Blake Edwards approached them and said, “I have a picture that is a natural for animation, ‘The Pink Panther.’” Continued Friz, “Edwards and the Mirisches gave us complete freedom—and now all the other producers who wouldn’t, want us.”
DePatie nodded agreement. “The pinks are being geared for the adult intellect; kids will watch anything that moves. Our first give are in pantomime only—far more difficult to do, by the way, than with a voice. But since they may later be put together three at a time for a half-hour TV show—and TV won’t sustain without dialogue—we are using dialogue in No. 6. The panther will speak with a kind of Rex Harrison voice—knowledgeable, the ultimate in sophistication. In the past the industry has missed by making cartoons that adults might enjoy but that were a little immature. The exceptions were Disney, in some of his, and UPA.”
I asked how they thought they compared with Hollywood’s Saul Bass and Maurice Binder, in Europe, as creators of opening titles. “They use more abstract designs and graphics; we’re more character animation.” The most successful big-scale commercial title makers are Pacific Title and National Screen Service. On the financial side, they estimated from $17,500 to $18,000 as the cost of their own title-making for a picture. Pretty reasonable, since they figure their opener for “The Pink Panther” has added $1.5 million to its gross—“gives people something to talk about.” Another by-produce that could develop into a bonanza is merchandising. United Artists in New York has been making tie-ups for the Pink Panther in comic strips and joke books, toy manufacturers, etc. He is, incidentally, the first new character to be invented for theater exhibition in eight years.