The Pink Panther The first film in the series had an animated opening sequence, created by DePatie–Freleng Enterprises, featuring The Pink Panther Theme by Mancini, as well as the Pink Panther character. This character, designed by Hawley Pratt and Friz Freleng, was subsequently the subject of his own series of animated cartoons which gained its highest profile when aired on Saturday mornings as "The Pink Panther Show." The character would be featured in the opening of every film in the movie series except "A Shot in the Dark" and "Inspector Clouseau". Although the original film was actually centred on the Phantom/Sir Charles Lytton,
The Pink Panther Show which were variations on Mancini's "Pink Panther Theme". By the time of the show's 1969 debut, fitting cartoon and children shows with a laugh track was standard practice. In keeping with this standard, NBC added a laugh track to all seasons of "The Pink Panther Show", marking the first time in history that theatrical films were fitted with a laugh track for television broadcast. (Season 2 utilized an inferior laugh track, utilizing isolated laugh clips from Season 1.) This was an anomaly, as other theatrical cartoon series' that were aired successfully on television (i.e. "Tom and Jerry", "Woody Woodpecker", "Looney