Cat and the Pinkstalk

The Pink Panther takes on the Jack and the Beanstalk story, providing an unique but pretty much unfunny and not-very-entertaining cartoon entry. It's basically just a lot of running around and trying to escape the grasps of the story's antagonists, like the Giant and a cat.

The Pink Panther shrinks to a size smaller than a mouse, so, it made the panther an easy target for the creatures.

I thought that the cartoon would be more in line with the Jack and the Beanstalk plot, with the Pink Panther in the protagonist role, but, it's just a lot of scrambling. Not much fun here.

Grade D-

Despite being very fond of the Pink Panther, I didn't care very much for Cat and the Pinkstalk. It's marginally better than Pink-In and Pinkologist, at least it doesn't commit the crime of being pointless, but it is one of the weakest of the series and probably the second weakest of the 1978 batch.

It does have its good points. The Pink Panther cartoons from 1975 onwards did tend to have limited, scrappy animation that took minimal to extremes but the first two and half minutes of Cat and the Pinkstalk actually did see some nice animation, the drawings were quite smooth and the colours were vibrant. Pinky is as ever likable and fairly easy to relate to and the cat was a suitably crafty foil though didn't have an awful lot to do. A couple of moments were mildly amusing, one with the giant being covered in butter as Pinky tries to get away and the other was the reaction of the cat after being accidentally stepped on.

However, for the Pink Panther Cat and the Pinkstalk was very lacking and of all the cartoons adapting the Jack and the Beanstalk story(two were from Looney Tunes, one with Sylvester and Tweety and the other with Bugs Bunny) it is the most uninspired. Pacing was an issue here, the whole cartoon felt incredibly rushed and this is not just because of trying to cram too much story into nearly 7 minutes. The animation quality after starting off promisingly goes back into limited, scrappily drawn territory again once Pinky is on top of the beanstalk and stays simplistic and flat for pretty much the rest of the cartoon. The music is usually a high point in the Pink Panther cartoons, but for a lot of the 1978 batch(not all) apart from the still great theme tune the music is rather repetitive, rushed tempo-wise and very unsubtly orchestrated, the jazzy slinky style is missed so it gives a completely different feel to what was heard before. Cat and the Pinkstalk's best "funny" moments were only mildly amusing, the rest of the cartoon doesn't tickle the funny bone at all and feels predictable instead. The ending is also a cop-out cheat. Pinky and the cat I liked, but the giant was poorly drawn and a long way from vicious and the cow was pretty much pointless.

All in all, has its moments but for Pink Panther Cat and the Pinkstalk was very uninspired stuff. 4/10 Bethany Cox

In this version of the famous fairytale "Jack and the Beanstalk", the Pink Panther lives on the countryside and owns a cow who munches on the grass so loudly the panther can't sleep. He sells his cow to Honest Friz, who pays him with a handful of beans. The panther plants the beans outside his house, and overnight they grow into a beanstalk so huge it reaches far above the clouds, taking the house with it. Noticing a castle located on the cloud bank, the panther knocks on the door and soon confronts a vicious giant and his cat.

Very much plot crammed into just six minutes, so the story moves along very rapidly until we get to the giant's castle. However, the writer hasn't come up with a single original idea for this adaptation. Even the ending is poor. Forget it.