Friz Freleng so popular that United Artists, distributors of "The Pink Panther", had Freleng produce a short cartoon starring the character, "The Pink Phink" (1964). After "The Pink Phink" won the 1965 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons), Freleng and DePatie responded by producing a whole series of Pink Panther cartoons. Other original cartoon series, among them "The Inspector", "The Ant and the Aardvark", "The Dogfather", "Roland and Rattfink" and "Crazylegs Crane", soon followed. In 1969, "The Pink Panther Show", a Saturday morning anthology program featuring DePatie–Freleng cartoons, debuted on NBC. "The Pink Panther" and the other original DePatie–Freleng series would
Jim Crane share. He was opposed to the EGL and CEVA merger. Crane took his profits from EGL and formed Crane Capital Group. He also became a director and shareholder (less than 1%) in Western Gas Holdings, LLC, the general partner in Western Gas Partners, LP, a mid-stream (mainly pipelines and natural gas gathering assets) energy company operating in the southeastern Rocky Mountain region and southern Mid-Continent area (Oklahoma and Texas) of the United States. Western Gas Holdings and Western Gas Partners are majority owned by Anadarko Petroleum Corporation. Crane is also the majority shareholder in Crane Worldwide Logistics LLC., director of