Smile Pretty, Say Pink

Pink Panther Odyssey Part XX

With the newly nailed-down formula of Pink v the bloke - this one takes us Pinkstone National Park with some photography-themed foolishness - it's got some good bits in it but the ending is severely flat, and you severe miss the meta stings of some of the previous ones.

"Smile Pretty, Say Pink" is a typical Pink Panther's classic cartoon with all the ingredients which makes these cartoons terrific: very entertaining, great fun and classic humor. Besides, the designs and backgrounds are simple, but quite good and the comical music is typically Pink Panther.

The story, as usual, is very funny: after a naturalist (who happens to be a cheapskate) kicks the Pink Panther's donation box, the revenge of the Pink Panther is synonym of hilarious moments to makes us laugh and laugh...

Whenever the naturalist tries to take a picture, the Pink Panther appears secretly in the picture, but the little man doesn't notice this. Pinky does this so many times that drives the little guy crazy.

It's also funny how, by commanding a wooden bridge, the Pink Panther makes the naturalist always go to the wrong way and then sends him to the river.

But the most hilarious part of this short is when the Pink Panther swallows the flashbulbs from the little dude, thinking they were eggs. The effect is bombastic: Pinky lights up whenever he hiccups, scaring everything away and ruining (once again) the naturalist's pictures. Brother, that is hysterical! The ending is funny, but my least favorite part of this short.

Overall, one of the funniest Pink Panther's cartoons and one of my personal favorites.

A photographer goes to Pinkstone National Park to take pictures of pretty scenery. But when he fails to donate any amount of money to the donations box at the entrance, the Pink Panther feels obliged to make his trip hell.

Again it's a thin set-up for pranks and games of outsmarting each other, but Pinky does play enough clever tricks (like the one with the revolving bridge) on the photographer to make it worthwhile. The ending is predictable and some of it is uninspired but it's overall an above average Pink Panther cartoon. I still don't understand why Pinky swallowed that box full of flash bulbs. Did he think they were marshmallows or something?

Maybe the ending is a tad predictable, but because it was also funny it is easy to overlook. Smile Pretty, Say Pink to me is one of The Pink Panther funniest cartoons. The premise is a very simple set-up and much of the humour revolves around Pinky and his foil(the cameraman this time around) outsmarting one another, but when the humour is good the simplicity and routineness(somewhat) works. And it certainly worked in Smile Pretty, Say Pink, there are a lot of gags here and they all worked, the best being Pinky lighting up every time he hiccoughs. Pinky is still the cool and likable character as he always is, and the scenario doesn't undermine him in any way. The cameraman is a good foil, working very well with Pinky, and the outsmarting between the two is funny to watch. The animation is elegant and well drawn, not too busy, not simplistic and not too sparse, it is just right. The music, from the incidental music to the iconic theme tune, are as energetic and infectious as they can be. Overall, so much fun and one of my personal favourites from The Pink Panther. 10/10 Bethany Cox

In reply to the previous commenter who wondered why the Pink Panther swallowed the photographer's flashbulbs... no, Pinky didn't think the flashbulbs were marshmallows --- he thought they were EGGS, because the flashbulbs were round and white, and they were sitting neatly in their compartmented box, just like eggs in an egg-carton. If you go back and look at that scene carefully, you'll see that Pinky thinks of an egg (a bird's nest with an egg in it and the words "GRADE 'A'" momentarily appear in a "thought bubble" in front of him) as he's happily looking at the tray of flashbulbs that is sitting right there on the photographer's picnic blanket among the other eating utensils and the salt and pepper shakers, all of which are right next to a picnic basket. And so (even though the tray that the flashbulbs were in only had ten compartments instead of the usual twelve that a regular egg-carton would have) Pinky assumed that the flashbulbs were edible eggs, since they were situated with other food-related items.

P.S. One mistake I noticed about the revolving bridge scene --- the last time that Pinky rotates the bridge, he only turns it around halfway, and stops the bridge so that it's pointing parallel to the stream, causing the photographer's car to plunge off the end of the bridge and into the water. But the car comes out of the wrong end of the bridge that time --- since Pinky rotated the bridge clockwise, the car should have come out of the RIGHT end of the bridge, not the left end.