Revenge of the Pink Panther as an informant to lure Clouseau into a trap, but the Chief Inspector's car and clothes are stolen by transvestite criminal Claude Russo (Sue Lloyd), who is unknowingly killed by Douvier's men instead. Subsequently, Douvier and the French public believe Clouseau is dead; as a result of this assumption, Clouseau's ex-boss, former Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus (Herbert Lom), is restored to sanity and is released from the lunatic asylum to perform the investigation (despite being seemingly disintegrated in the previous film). In Russo's clothes and insisting on his true identity, Clouseau is taken to the asylum himself but escapes into
Curse of the Pink Panther with the cartoon Panther (who talks) to solve crimes. This "Roger Rabbit" knock-off never aired. Finally, after much effort, Edwards's "Son" was released in 1993, starring Roberto Benigni as Clouseau's illegitimate son. However, like this and "Trail", it didn't do well at the box-office, signalling the end of Edwards' involvement with the franchise for good. A commercially successful revival, "The Pink Panther", starring Steve Martin as Clouseau, was released in 2006, though this film is a rebooting of the franchise rather than a continuation or remake. Martin once again played Clouseau in "The Pink Panther 2", though that film was