History Trivia / ThePinkPanther

* ThreeShorts: Nearly every iteration of The Pink Panther show, would follow this format, featuring two cartoons centering on the Panther, while the middle segment would always be any of the other DePatie/Freleng series of films, such as ''The Inspector'', ''The Ant and the Aardvark'', or ''Crazy Legs Crane'', among others. Often times in syndication, the shorts would always be jumbled, at least showing one Panther cartoon.

** There were plans in the late 80s for a primetime ''Pink Panther'' series on Creator/{{CBS}}, to capitalize on the popularity of ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'', with a live-action human detective (or in some accounts a newspaper reporter) played by a young Creator/CharlieSchlatter, assisted by the animated Panther (who could talk much like he eventually did in the 1993 series, though it's unclear who was cast in the role here). [[http://www.cataroo.com/065_04.html Per John Cawley]] (working at Creator/FilmRoman at the time, mostly for ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends''), the pilot was scrapped when a new network president came in and didn't like it (the reasoning being Panther talked, and it "wasn't the real Panther").

** ''Inspector Clouseau'' almost had Sellers return to the title role when he was made aware that the Mirisch Corporation was going ahead with another Clouseau film even though he and Blake Edwards had refused to do a third. He said he'd be willing to reprise the role but only if he got final script approval, stating only he could play Clouseau. Walter Mirisch said no so Sellers did as well and the role ended up going to American actor Creator/AlanArkin. Sellers would stand corrected.

* ScheduleSlip: An unusual example that happened because of highly inconsistent orders from United Artists: the original cartoons ran from 1964 to 1969, took a year long break to return with 9 new shorts in 1971, then ''3 more years'' passed before two more shorts got released in 1974 (at a very inconsistent and random placement), before the series finally got back to having regular releases between 1975 and 1977, then ''another break'' took place between 1977 and 1978 after which the made for TV shorts (noticeable for being much more kid friendly) were released at a regular pace until 1980.

* ThreeShorts: Nearly every iteration of The Pink Panther show, would follow this format, featuring two cartoons centering on the Panther, while the middle segment would always be any of the other DePatie/Freleng series of films, such as the Inspector, The Ant and the Aardvark, or Crazy Legs Crane, among others. Often times in syndication, the shorts would always be jumbled, at least showing one Panther cartoon.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Before airing on NBC in 1969, The Pink Panther Show was meant to be alot different. A pitch film from 1965 displayed all the original material pitched. It would've followed the ThreeShorts format, but with one Pink Panther short, and the other two being original creations, a than in production series of shorts based off The Inspector(which eventually premiered in theaters later that year), and a new segment featuring a WC Fields esque rhino named Magnificent B. Hornsby, who would've appeared in many different time periods helping historical figures, similar to Peabody's Improbable History.

!![[Franchise/ThePinkPanther The films]]:

!![[WesternAnimation/ThePinkPanther The cartoons]]:

!!Other:

!![[Franchise/ThePinkPanther The films]]

* ThrowItIn: Occasionally; for instance, the "synchronized watches" bit in ''Shot'' was largely improvised by Peter Sellers and Graham Stark.
** Also Clouseau's line 'a rit of fealous jage' was supposedly a slip-up (there is an outtake where Sellers and Creator/GeorgeSanders both crack up at it) which was later re-filmed as part of the script.
* UnfinishedEpisode: ''Romance of the Pink Panther'', the intended finale of the series, which would have seen Clouseau fall in love with a jewel thief (played by Creator/PamelaStephenson) and turn evil, with Creator/SidneyPoitier directing. It was scrapped when Creator/PeterSellers died.
** While Romance was never made, ''Curse of the Pink Panther'' seemingly adapts it into a subplot where Clouseau does go bad, but falls in love with a jewel thief's female accomplice who double-crosses him and he isn't evil. It still doesn't explain why Clouseau left the force for a life of crime, however.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen

!![[WesternAnimation/ThePinkPanther The cartoons]]

!!Other

* MoneyDearBoy[=/=]OneForTheMoneyOneForTheArt: Partial motivation for Sellers being willing to reprise the role of Clouseau in the 1970s. (The other was getting enough clout to get ''Film/BeingThere'' [[DoingItForTheArt greenlit]].)
* OldShame: Creator/AlanArkin, not surprisingly, considers making ''Inspector Clouseau'' a mistake. He has rarely spoken much about the film in the years since, but one time Arkin did explain why he took up the role. In the late 1960s he was becoming a fairly well-known actor and thought that as a movie actor, he could do whatever role was offered to him, and he could do it easily. He admits that the failure of ''Inspector Clouseau'' [[BreakTheHaughty knocked him off his high horse,]] stating that it taught him a valuable lesson; there's just some parts he can't play.

* TalkingToHimself: The Ant and Aardvark, both voiced by John Byner.

* ThreeShorts: Every iteration of The Pink Panther show, would follow this format, featuring two cartoons centering on the Panther, while the middle segment would always be any of the other DePatie-Freleng series of films, such as the Inspector, The Ant and the Aardvark, or Crazy Legs Crane.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Before airing on NBC in 1969, The Pink Panther Show was meant to be alot different. A pitch film from 1965 displayed all the original material pitched. It would've followed the Tropes/ThreeShorts format, but with one Pink Panther short, and the other two being original creations, a than in production series of shorts based off The Inspector(which eventually premiered in theaters later that year), and a new segment featuring a WC Fields esque rhino named Magnificent B. Hornsby, who would've appeared in many different time periods helping historical figures, similar to Peabody's Improbable History.

* DiedDuringProduction: In 1980, Creator/PeterSellers was co-writing a script for the series for the first time, ''Romance of the Pink Panther'', that he intended as a GrandFinale. He submitted a revised draft of it to Creator/UnitedArtists shortly before his death in 1980. It ultimately was never produced. Creator/BlakeEdwards decided to continue the series his own way (he was quite specifically not to have anything to do with ''Romance''), writing out Clouseau and introducing new character Clifton Sleigh over two films shot at the same time, ''Film/TrailOfThePinkPanther'' (which featured clips of Sellers from the previous films) and ''Film/CurseOfThePinkPanther''. The results were disastrous.

* RereleasedForFree: The 1970's and 1993 cartoons, as well as ''Pink Panther and Pals'' have large portions of their archive uploaded for free on Website/YouTube [[https://www.youtube.com/user/PinkPanther/featured page]].

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: While most of the original series does show off its age (1960s-90s), the GentlemanThief concept is something that belongs to the early/mid-20th century.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece:
** "Psychedelic Pink" is truly a product of [[TheSixties the late 1960s]]; just the title alone gives it away!
** "Think Before You Pink" has the Pink Panther trying to cross a busy intersection with a pedestrian crossing signal that uses the words "DON'T WALK" and "WALK." After the 20th century ended, the number of pedestrian signals with said words began to quickly decrease, due to many of them being replaced with modern signals using orange hand and white walking body symbols (along with countdown timers at more busy or dangerous intersections.)

* RoleReprise: John Byner came back to voice the Ant and Aardvark for the 1993 series.

* While Romance was never made, ''Curse of the Pink Panther'' seemingly adapts it into a subplot where Clouseau does go bad, but falls in love with a jewel thief's female accomplice who double-crosses him and he isn't evil. It still doesn't explain why Clouseau left the force for a life of crime, however.

* FranchiseKiller: Oh, boy. Where to even begin? This franchise was killed at least '''three''' times in its history. The original series was killed by the one-two punch of ''Trail of the Pink Panther'' and ''Curse of the Pink Panther'' (both of which were made without Peter Sellers' involvement; he had died by that point), both of which were box office failures and lambasted by critics. A decade later, an attempt to resurrect the original series with ''Son of the Pink Panther'' ended up becoming an enormous failure and sealed the original series' fate for good. The ContinuityReboot series with Creator/SteveMartin had an even shorter life. While the first film did well at the box office despite negative critical reception, the sequel three years later not only received more negative critical reaction, but it ended up under-performing the first film and put the series back on the back-burner once again. Time will tell whether or not the series gets rebooted yet again.

* OldShame: Creator/AlanArkin, not surprisingly, considers making ''Inspector Clouseau'' a mistake. He has rarely spoken much about the film in the years since, but one time Arkin did explain why he took up the role. In the late 1960s he was becoming a fairly well-known actor and thought that as a movie actor, he could do whatever role was offered to him, and he could do it easily. He admits that the failure of ''Inspector Clouseau'' [[BreakTheHaughty knocked him off his high horse.]]

** With the release of Kino Lorber's ''[=DePatie=]/Freleng Collection Volume 2'' in 2018, every Pink Panther spinoff was made available on home media. The original shorts had received several DVD releases by then; ''The Inspector'', ''The Ant and the Aardvark'', and ''Roland and Rattfink'' also received earlier releases.