Pink Panther Theme - Henry Mancini & His Orchestra

[A Thug Named Slickback]

I've known this song my entire life. It's the theme from the first Pink Panther movie in 1964. The tune is a slick jazzy instrumental, which I'm sure most people have heard at one time or another!

I only recently discovered that it many of his themes, including this one, were released as a singles. This one came out in 1964.

Even though this is clearly Mancini's signature, it kind of flopped back then reaching #31 in the US and didn't chart in the UK. Several of his other hits fared much better.

Anyway, nothing left to say about this song: It's great and very memorable.

[mst3k]

Classic... anyone who grew up watching cartoons during the late '60s or '70s has this song burned into their brain.

Another one of his compositions that probably everyone recognizes is "Baby Elephant Walk"... amazingly, it never became a hit single.

[Hervard]

Dead ant
Dead ant
Dead ant dead ant dead ant dead ant dead aaaaaant....

[irock]

It is a cute little tune, instantly recognizable to anyone who's ever seen any of the cartoons or movies even if they didn't grow up back in the day.

Since you brought this up, it occurs to me that early in the sequence of Pink Panther movies the producers did something that - as far as I know - has never been done before or since in a film series: they took the characters, the actors who played them and the director, Blake Edwards, not to mention the music of Henry Mancini, and put them all into a movie that had nothing to do with others movies in the series. All of the feature films with the words "pink panther" in the title are about the pink panther diamond and Inspector Clouseau. But one of the best of the Inspector Clouseau pictures had nothing to do with the Pink Panther.

The film was 1964's A Shot In The Dark, and like the best PP movies it featured Peter Sellers as Clouseau and Herbert Lom as his boss in the Paris gendarmerie, Inspector Dreyfuss. Unlike the others, though, this is a murder comedy/mystery starring Elke Sommer as an obviously guilty (or not) seductress in whose innocence - despite a rapidly mounting death toll and an unceasing avalanche of incriminating evidence - Clouseau steadfastly believes.

If you like the PP pictures, you really should take a look at this overlooked old classic. It's every bit as good, if not better. A few sample lines:

[Arriving at Camp Sunshine]
Clouseau: I am here on official business and I am looking for someone in the recreation area.
Camp Attendant: Not unless you take off your clothes...
Clouseau: You, sir, are under arrest.
Camp Attendant: Arrest? What for?
Clouseau: For making lewd and suggestive remarks to an official of the French government.
Camp Attendant: Lewd and suggestive remarks?
Clouseau: Also for indecent exposure... doesn't anyone wear any clothes around here?
Camp Attendant: No.
Clouseau: What!
Camp Attendant: This is a nudist colony.

[later]

Dreyfus: What about the maid?
Clouseau: The maid?
Dreyfus: Was he jealous of her too? He strangled her.
Clouseau: It is possible that his intended victim was a man and that he made a mistake.
Dreyfus: Mistake?... in a nudist camp?

That nudist camp sequence is worth the price of admission alone. The gimmicky camerawork used to keep from revealing anything is ingenious!

[johnnywest]

Rick Dees played a drop of it while introducing a song by Beyonce.