The Pink Panther/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


The films

  • Awesome Music: Henry Mancini's epic Pink Panther Theme of course. Each film would have a different version of it, but the original is the most remembered. (He also wrote an Inspector theme.)
  • Complete Monster: Dreyfus himself (out of all men) became this at the end of Strikes Again, as he was about to completely destroy England, probably killing millions of people all just because of his obsession over Clouseau. If it weren't for Clouseau being there to stop him, think about the things that would happen...
  • Crosses the Line Twice: The Running Gag involving a gun and a cigarette lighter that looks like a gun in Return.
    • Dreyfus crosses the line in Strikes Again, as he blackmails the world into killing Clouseau.
  • Ear Worm: The theme tunes from both The Pink Panther (which would also be used for the subsequent films) and, to a lesser extent, A Shot in the Dark - even more so once the cartoons got hold of them. The theme from A Shot in the Dark was first used in cartoons in the Panther short Dial P For Pink and later became the theme for the Inspector cartoons.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: And how; the 1963 version of The Pink Panther was meant to be the first in a series of films about the Phantom, the master thief who stole the eponymous diamond played by David Niven, but ended up being all about Clouseau.
    • The animated Pink Panther character too, he even got a couple of animated series.
    • Dreyfus may count too. Besides Sellers' epic portrayal as Clouseau, his insanity caused by Clouseau is one of the others reasons people watch the films. Because of this, Dreyfus would even be carried over into the reboot films.
    • And don't forget Cato. He has a fanbase too.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: For some - if not most - fans, only the five films Sellers actually did count. As for Trail of... the scenes of Sellers it used can be counted as the deleted material from Strikes Again that they actually were; the rest of the film can be taken or left. Even some VHS and DVD packages of the films only include the Sellers entries that MGM/UA has the rights to (see Missing Episode). Many die-hard fans consider the newer movies to not count, and generally avoid them at all costs.
  • Funny Moments: The time that Clouseau... oh, you know what? This deserves a page of its own.
  • I Am Not Shazam: The Pink Panther is not Clouseau or, as MGM once stated, Sir Charles Litton, but the diamond that they were involved with.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Dreyfus until he jumped off the slippery slope.
  • Just Here for Godzilla: Many critics have argued, especially in the wake of the reboot, that as popular as they were these were never great films or even good ones. They were loved for Peter Sellers' performances and the animated title sequences, which was why continuing the series after his death didn't work. Interestingly, the Biopic The Life and Death of Peter Sellers has an invented scene where Peter uses the premiere of one of the films to insult Blake Edwards, calling him a hack, and then claiming that people only come to see him perform. The scene is intended to paint him in a bad light, but when you consider this trope, the fictionalized Peter could be seen as just speaking a blunt truth!
  • Memetic Mutation: Clouseau's Funny Accent and Misprononcations (like "beump" instead of "bump"), all courtesy of Peter Sellers.
    • "I would like a "damburgah!"
    • Dreyfus getting his Twitching Eye because of Clouseau and trying to kill the latter.
    • The hilarious fights between Clouseau and Cato.
  • Nightmare Fuel: The whole of Shot, especially if you hate murder mysteries.
    • The animated credits - and the jazzy theme - come right after the first of fourteen murders.
  • Replacement Scrappy: Two, in Clifton Sleigh (in "Curse") and Jacques Grambelli/Clouseau Jr. (in "Son of"), since both characters and actors were fighting a losing battle with the memory of Clouseau. Many fans didn't appreciate it very well that there are other persons like Clouseau in the world. However, Clifton and Jacques II were a bit more sane and sophisticated then Clouseau Sr. And they were also more a klutz while Clouseau was a total fool.
    • For some fans and/or critics, anyone who is not Peter Sellers and still gets to play Clouseau. YMMV, though Alan Arkin and Steve Martin portrayed Clouseau very well, Sellers is and always will be the one and only Clouseau. Trail of even lampshades this at the beginning of the credits with a tribute message to Sellers saying "To Peter, the one and only inspector Clouseau."
  • Sequelitis: Exhibited several of the symptoms listed at the trope entry in the 1970s films, but no one seemed to mind much until Sellers was gone.
    • 1968's "Inspector Clouseau" is this towards "The Pink Panther" and "A Shot In The Dark" for many fans, simply for not featuring Sellers and Blake Edwards.
  • Surprisingly Improved Sequel: A Shot In The Dark, regarded by many as the best of the films.
    • The Pink Panther Strikes Again is considered by many to be better than the previous movie, Return and if not, the best in the entire series.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks: The thoughts on the original series after Peter Sellers died.
  • Values Dissonance: In the Sellers films, Clouseau often refers to Cato as "you yellow x" or "my yellow x." The reboot dropped Cato and replaced him with Ponton, a French policeman, and in the second film makes Clouseau an insensitive lecher who blatantly stereotypes everyone he meets by nationality or race, and plays it for laughs.

The cartoons

  • Adaptation Displacement: You'll be surprised at how many people think the movies are about an anthro pink panther or who thought the 2006 movie was supposed to be a Live Action Adaptation.
  • Growing the Beard: As the series progressed, so did the quality of writing.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Rich Little, who voiced the Pink Panther at the end of "Sink Pink" and in "Pink Ice," had to dub an extremely ill David Niven in Trail and Curse.
  • Ho Yay: In "The New Pink Panther Show": Manly Man, and Eggz the chicken from Hamm-N-Eggz, who falls into Camp Gay territory.
  • Jumping the Shark: The Pink Panther and Sons.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/The_Pink_Panther/YMMV?oldid=963533"