The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection Vol. 3: 1968-1969 (1968)

4 Stars (out of 4)

In the Pink

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Kino Lorber has released their third excellent collection of Pink Panther cartoons, 22 on one Blu-ray. (Please see my reviews of The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection Volume 1: 1964-1966 and The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection Vol. 2: 1966-1968 for more details about this series.)

The set includes: Put-Put Pink, G.I. Pink, Lucky Pink, The Pink Quarterback, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Pink, Pink Valiant, The Pink Pill, Prehistoric Pink, Pink in the Clink, Little Beaux Pink, Tickled Pink, Pink Sphinx, Pink Is a Many Splintered Thing, The Pink Package Plot, Pinkcome Tax (all 1968), Pink-A-Rella, Pink Pest Control, Think Before You Pink, Slink Pink, In the Pink of the Night, Pink on the Cob, and Extinct Pink (1969).

Highlights include: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Pink, in which Pink buys a plot of land that inadvertently blocks the view from the Little Man's observatory; Little Beaux Pink, in which Pink is a shepherd trying to find a place for his sheep to graze, and crossing an angry Yosemite Sam-like cowboy; Pink Sphinx, in which Pink and a funny little camel head out into the desert to find buried treasure; Pink Is a Many Splintered Thing, in which Pink (wearing a bowler hat a bow-tie) tries to get a job as a lumberjack; Pink-A-Rella, in which Pink finds a magic wand dropped by a drunken witch and helps a poor girl win a date with "Pelvis Parsley" (this one features some fun, off-the-wall imagery); and In the Pink of the Night, in which Pink tries to find an unbeatable alarm clock, finally facing off with a persistent cuckoo bird.

The sound and picture quality on each cartoon are top-notch. Extras include commentary tracks on 14 of the cartoons by author Mark Arnold, historian Jerry Beck, filmmaker Greg Ford, cartoon writer William Hohauser and animator Mike Kazaleh, plus a 10-minute vintage featurette: "Behind the Feline: The Cartoon Phenomenon," and a theatrical version of Pink Outs (minus the laugh track... see Vol. 2 for more details). I look forward to many more of these collections!