Pink 8 Ball

The Pink Panther chases a basketball with a mind of its own - literally, as it turns out: it catches a taxi, impersonates a mannequin head, falls in love with a volleyball, etc. Each strange turn of events comes across as just another desperate attempt to keep the cartoon going. If the basketball had bounced so as to LOOK as though it was obeying the laws of physics the surrealism might have had some charm and the contrivances might have had some zest ... hell, if the basketball had even had a minimal personality, the cartoon might have worked. The artwork is disappointing, too.

The Pink Panther was gift-wrapping a basketball when it drops to the floor and bounces out the window, knocking the pointy-nosed man below on his balcony swimming pool and rolls down to the street. The Pink Panther chases the bouncing basketball into a zoo, which crosses path with an ostrich and two seals. The ball seemingly develops a mind of its own and decides to bounce away from the pursuing panther.

For a cartoon, I thought a bouncing basketball with a mind of its own was over-imaginative and thought up with not much substance and clever ideas. The cartoon is basically just the Pink Panther chasing the ball around - not much to laugh about and not much entertainment to go out.

Grade D---

This is not unlike a couple of other Pink Panther cartoons in which the panther goes chasing after an object that got away from him Recently, I watched one in which he chased an automobile tire all over town. In this story, it's a basketball. He had wrapped it as a present but it broke through the paper, bounced out the window of his high-rise apartment.....and the gag was on.

This ball, as others have mentioned, seems to have a mind of its own as it hides in back of a tree in one scene. Anyway, we follow it as it bounces from the city street below, to the zoo, to a taxi cab, to a department store, on and on. (By the way, we have a department store chain in this area that goes by the name that's in here: Bon-Ton.)

Highlights included the Panther momentarily regaining possession of the ball, only to lose it again to a jealous ostrich, who dribbles it away, and later the basketball disguising itself as a head-mannequin to place wigs on.

The ending to this animated short is very bizarre, and I'm sure it was very satisfying, just very strange.

There are better Pink Panther cartoons but also worse, Pink 8 Ball while short of classic status is an improvement over the previous cartoon, the pointless Pink-In. Admittedly the ending is too ridiculous to really take at face value(yes even for a cartoon that even from knowing about the storyline that it was going to be a strange one), while elegantly coloured the animation is a little too simple and rushed-looking and the story is on the predictable side. The music though is zesty and almost seductive with the classic theme tune still not ageing a jot. There are some fun gags too, if very unusual ones, especially with the ostrich and with the ball impersonating a mannequin. It is true that Pink 8 Ball is in some ways a surreal cartoon, but amidst the silliness there is also a fair degree of charm and the pacing has zest(even with the ending and story not being as strong the gags keep things afloat), which makes that unusual feeling tangible at least. Pinky is still very cool and is always watchable, his comic timing without fault, but the basketball has the most effective gags and is the funnier character perhaps, but there have been more interesting support characters in the Pink Panther cartoons. All in all, an enjoyable if very strange entry(providing that you don't find it too weird to not properly like it) in the Pink Panther series, not among the best or the worst, more at a comfortable position in the middle. 7/10 Bethany Cox