The Pink Blueprint

Pink Panther Odyssey Part XVIII

This Oscar-nommed short (and the first to be played on telly) feels like a wise doubling-down on the original Pink format a bit - going back to the template of the original and essentially just being a series of abstract obfuscations involving only the panther and the "little man". It's solid, gently surreal but the laugh track is a dated contrivance that prevents it from absolutely recapturing the original's vibe.

This cartoon was nominated for a Academy Award. It's a fairly good cartoon, although it is quite similar to The Pink Phink in conception, tone and execution. Not really a terribly novel cartoon by any means, but great fun and very entertaining. Recommended.

The pointy nose man is building a generic-looking house, while the Pink Panther wants him to build a huge, modern and slick-style house mansion. He attempts to exchange his blueprint with the man's, but his plan doesn't work. Therefore, the panther secretly uses the man's materials to build the house according to his plans.

It's a pretty slick and funny cartoon, with a good helping of slapstick humor and gags, including the part where a bed of nails lands on the man. There's a lot of back and forth of building, and tearing down and rebuilding. But, it has a good pace to it and serves us quite a bit of laughs.

Grade B+

The Pink Blueprint involves the Pink Panther's efforts to replace a construction workers boring blueprints with one of his own, which would result in the construction of a crazy looking futuristic house. He and the worker get into a funny competition of sorts, each trying to use the same construction site to build totally different buildings. It's set up in a series of short scenes that each involve a run-in between the two as they work on their projects, and the Pink Panther is generally the winner of these confrontations, which usually end in some hilarious mishaps for the poor construction guy. The film is pretty dated, but it's still pretty entertaining, and it features an unexpected ending in which the Pink Panther does not exactly get the last laugh. I saw this short film on a videotape with the fourth James Bond film, Thunderball. Both were good shows.

I do like most of the Pink Panther cartoons a good deal. And I do like The Pink Blueprint, though it is not the Pink Panther at his best. The story is not much new and is rather predictable at times, and I agree that the laughter track is both annoying and unnecessary. Despite these, The Pink Blueprint does have some very funny gags, there's a lot of them and a lot of outsmarting and it all works. The ending especially is great. They do help let the cartoon go at a good pace despite a story that could have easily make it do otherwise. The animation style is simple but clean and carefully and beautifully coloured. Both Pinky and the construction worker are well drawn too. The music is fittingly orchestrated and matches the gags and action very nicely, it is also catchy. The theme tune is still infectious even for a theme tune that is as iconic and oft-heard as it is, there are theme tunes around that are so good that they can't get annoying and that is the case with that for the Pink Panther. Pinky is cool and funny, and the construction worker works well with him without outshining him.

Overall, an entertaining Pink Panther cartoon but not one of the best or among my favourites from him. 8/10 Bethany Cox