Put a Panther in Your Tank

To his dying day King George V reportedly refused to see a film feature unless it was served up with a Mickey Mouse short first. But movie cartooning, which in the 1930s with Walt Disney's Snow White, Pluto and Donald Duck seemed a uniquely American art form, has in recent years all but given up the ghost. Of the nine Disney features to be produced this year, only one employs animation. M-G-M laid off its cartoon production unit in 1957, Warner Bros, followed suit in 1962.

Tenfold Boost. Now, both these studios are back in the business, and such top companies as the Mirisch Corp. and United Artists are also getting in on the action. What has happened is that the industry unexpectedly finds itself with a panther by the tail. He is, to be precise, the Pink Panther, and he made his debut in the lead-in cartoon title for the United Artists feature of that name. He then spun off into a starring role of his own. The film was called The Pink Phink -- and won an Oscar last April. The Panther's ten sequels, such as Dial "P" for Pink and Pinkfinger, have had nearly 16,000 bookings in U.S. movie houses, many of which had previously given up playing cartoons. Some exhibitors have found it good business to give the Panther equal marquee billing with the feature. As a result, the Panther's producers, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, are sure to gross in this, their fourth year, $2,500,000 -- a tenfold boost over their first.

The immediate success and polish of the Panther suggests that the series was not exactly beginner's luck. David DePatie, administrative chief of the producing team, is the son of a Warner Bros, vice president and winner of an earlier Academy Award (for sound editing) 14 years ago at age 20. And the artistic director, Isadore ("Friz") Freleng, 59, has directed no fewer than five Oscar winners, including Bugs Bun ny and Speedy Gonzales.

Bugs Resurrected. DePatie and Freleng were collaborating on cartoons for Warners when the studio finally decided it was time to scuttle. Dave and Friz disagreed and leased their old facilities on the Warners' back lot to prove the point. For the first months, they survived only with commercials (like Sun-Kist Tuna's Charlie). Then came their movie title for The Pink Panther, in which their cartoon creation bounded bumptiously about as the credits were [lashed, rubbing his furry body sensually along the letters spelling out Co-Star Capucine, then wolf whistling when the name Claudia Cardinale appeared--until her final "e" reached up and slapped his face. Also offended was Star David Niven, who felt his name had been upstaged by the Panther's pranks and threatened to sue.

Niven had a point. Key critics correctly gave the four-minute DePatie-Freleng titles better notices than the two-hour movie they introduced. Jack Warner has also had a second thought about cartooning, ordered up one a month from DePatie-Freleng, including a resurrection of the Bugs Bunny and Speedy Gonzales cartoons. What was the secret behind what DePatie-Freleng call their "cartoon renaissance"? Topicality and increased sophistication, figures Old Hand Freleng.

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