Re: Phatima…I got news for u. Shocking news.
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Although as noted above the Pink Panther did speak briefly at the very end of one of the original cartoons, that was an isolated incident during that run. The true JTS moment was when they brought back the character in the early 90s and had him speak in every episode. The whole point of the Panther was that he was funny through his actions and reactions to what happened around him, without saying anything. This allowed the plots to move along fairly quickly. Also, the other characters usually were silent as well, or else screamed if something fell on them (I’m talking about the Panther cartoon itself, not the Ant/Aardvark or any of the other cartoons). Having them speak ruined the premise of the humor; it felt like a ball and chain had been shackled to the plots, so now everything had to be explained before it happened. I remember watching a few episodes when they first came on; there had been a big hoopla in the media about the character speaking for the first time. I stopped watching after a few weeks because to me it wasn’t the Pink Panther, just some generic toon with a bland central character wearing the Panther’s fur. BTW, trivia note: Matt Frewer (of Max Headroom fame) did the new voice. But it didn’t sound right at all, and on top of that, knowing who was doing the voice, I kept waiting for the Pink Panther to speed up and slow down his speaking and have abrupt jump cuts to the next sentence, like Max. Come to think of it, that would’ve been more interesting…
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Actually, the Pink Panther did speak throughout the episode “Pink Ice” in a British accent, which I found worse suited for him than the voice of Matt Frewer. As for the 1993 series, there were a few good episodes (it’s not necessarily bad for the Pink Panther to actually speak, in my opinion-as long as speech is only used when truly necessary,) but a lot of bad ones. The shame was that they could have made a good series. However, the Pink Panther arguably jumped the shark from the mid-1970’s on. The 1960’s episodes just seemed to be better constructed, with a better sense of comic timing. Also in the 1970’s, the series was getting to be a little too cutesy, and the Pink Panther was becoming too much of a goody two-shoes. The Pink Panther was funnier when he had a bit of malice in him.
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I actually remember the Pink Panther Christmas special. I only remember it being depressing. Wasn’t it about him and this ‘poor little match girl’ type? I preferred the Little Rascals Christmas special, another show that aired only once or twice.
When I first saw the new version of the cartoon and heard the Pink Panther talking…
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