The Pink Panther The Pink Panther The Pink Panther is a British-American media franchise primarily focusing on a series of comedy-mystery films featuring an inept French police detective, Inspector Jacques Clouseau. The franchise began with the release of the classic "Pink Panther" film in 1963. The role of Clouseau was originated by and is most closely associated with Peter Sellers. Most of the films were written and directed by Blake Edwards, with theme music composed by Henry Mancini. Elements and characters inspired by the films were adapted into other media, including books, comic books and animated series. The first film in the series
Henry Mancini albums and film soundtracks. (Relatively little of his music was written for recordings compared to the amount that was written for film and television.) Beginning with his 1969 hit arrangement of Nino Rota's "A Time for Us" (as his only "Billboard" Hot 100 top 10 entry, the #1 hit "Love Theme from "Romeo and Juliet"") and its accompanying album "A Warm Shade of Ivory", Mancini began to function more as a piano soloist and easy-listening artist primarily recording music written by other people. In this period, for two of his best-selling albums he was joined by trumpet virtuoso and "The