The 1979 Pink Panther cartoons have been a mixed bag, the weakest ones (Pink Breakfast, Pink Quackers and especially String Along with Pink) are very mediocre and the best ones (Toro Pink, Pink in the Woods and particularly Pink Pull) being only decent. They all share the same big flaws, though the best of them still manages to have some fun moments, a less slack pace and some entertaining interplay between characters.
Spark Plug is somewhere in the middle, but if asked whether it's neither the mediocre or decent category, for me it's towards the mediocre.
What is good here is the theme tune, which is still very catchy, without being repetitive or annoying, and a timeless classic if there ever was one. Pinky is as ever cool and likable, with decent( though it has been noticeably stronger due to having much better material before) comic timing even without speaking. In terms of the animation, most of it is not that impressive at all, but Pinky is drawn very well with fluid movements and drawn with a vibrant pink that doesn't jar too much with the rest of the colours. The dog character is enjoyably crafty and the interplay between them is decently done. There is one good gag too, which is the bone inspector one, though that's more amusing than hilarious, but it's the least predictable gag, is reasonably clever, is the only gag in the cartoon that didn't feel that badly drawn out and it's the only gag where the music actually fits. One does also feel sorry for Pinky at the end, though it was not that hard to figure out that that was going to happen.
However, apart from Pinky and his expressions, the animation is really not great as a result of lower budgets and tighter deadlines. The drawings in Spark Plug Pink do look very hurried-looking and are completely lacking in smoothness, while the colours lack vibrancy instead coming over as both flat and garish and the backgrounds are very scrappy and sparse in detail. When the dog beats up Pinky from behind the fence, all the shots look the same, like recycled material. All the Pink Panther cartoons adopt a minimal animation style, but a lot of the post-1975 cartoons looked more too simplistic than the elegantly simple animation style of the early cartoons. While it was nice to hear a glimpse of the theme tune, the music score is basically recycled themes repetitively used and on the most part doesn't fit, rarely matching the pretty slow pace of the cartoon or Pinky's characteristics and the placement often sounds random. The bone inspector gag and the very beginning were the only times where the scoring was appropriate, the rest of the cartoon sounds over-scored, stock and lacking energy and slinky elegance.
On the most part as well, Spark Plug Pink is lacking in laughs with most of the gags being too drawn out in pace and predictable (the stilts gag had a déjà vu feel, like the one used in the Sylvester and Tweety cartoon Dog Pounded and while it wasn't the most imaginative of gags in the first place it was funnier in that cartoon than to here. The story is tired and routine, with Pinky's attempts to get the spark plug from the dog being too repetitious and becoming increasingly lacking in imagination. When he got it back eventually, it felt too easy. It also feels like it belongs more in a Looney Tunes cartoon, and that previous Pink Panther cartoons did a far better job giving a situation that one can identify with and sympathise with Pinky, I didn't get that at all this time in Spark Plug Pink.
All in all, not terrible or a complete waste but pretty mediocre for the Pink Panther. 4/10 Bethany Cox
