When did you become a Pink Panther fan?

[Clouseau]

i don't remember just how old i was the first time i saw the Pink Panther, but i remember when i was in elementary school, they used to show Pink Panther shorts on TV before school... it wasn't a Pink Panther TV show - just one 6-minute short per morning - but i absolutely loved it... i thought the Pink Panther was the coolest cat in town, for sure!

then, when i was in my early teens (12-13?), i remember my mom watching one of the Peter Sellers movies on TV... when she told me it was a Pink Panther movie, i was confused, because i came in about halfway through, and i wondered when the cartoon character would appear... of course, he didn't, but i still thought it was a funny movie, and from then on, any time one of the Pink Panther movies was on TV, i wanted to watch it!

that, my friends, is how it all started for me, to the best of my recollection...

so what's your story???

[Mancini]

I'm not exactly sure. What I do know is that it came out of being a Sellers fan (hence my bias against the non-Sellers Pink Panther films). I loved, and still love, Dr. Strangelove, The World of Henry Orient, things like that, and I think the first one I saw was The Pink Panther Strikes Again, and the gym scene (with the punch-bag and the parallel bars) had me hooked. ;D

I guess that was when I was about 13 or 14.

[Strangelove]

Not terribly long ago. Maybe a year ago I checked out The Pink Panther Strikes Again and watching the beginning but never finishing it. Then maybe about a month ago I rented the new Pink Panther and didn't like it very much, so I decided to go back to the earlier ones and checked out A Shot in the Dark and the Original Pink Panther, both very good. And I'm still working on seeing the rest of them.

[georgelytton]

I actually have been a Pink Panther fan all my life. The Pink Panther I ever saw, fully, was RETURN. I got hooked, and watched STRIKES AGAIN and REVENGE, which got me more excited, then the rest... Except for INSPECTOR CLOUSEAU, I've never seen that until this year. Its OK, but not like the rest (better than CURSE actually, and certainly better than TPP06).

I really love, love, loved the Peter Sellers PANTHERs. The worst thing about them, is that they never finished the series off with a style (unless TRAIL, CURSE and SON is stylish ending for you..).

[thecolonel93]

I have been a fan since STRIKES AGAIN was released when I was in Kindergarten. I used to make audio tapes of the film off of television and wrote adaptations of the films in journals while in grade school. By junior high, I was writing and directing audio plays based on the films and working on a story treatment for a second Clifton Sleigh adventure. I abandoned the series around 1985 as I had most of the series on SelectaVision Video Discs which became obsolete and I lost faith believing the series was dead.

I received a VHS of Return (the J2 Communications release) for my 18th birthday in 1989, it was a throwaway gift that reignited my passion for the series. Months before Son was released, I owned the screenplay and was building a collection of Panther scripts. I started several second scripts for Benigni as an ambitious if foolhardy twentysomething between 1993 and 1997 and inundated folks like the late Tony Adams and Jeff Kleeman (formerly of MGM/UA) trying to get them to give me a break. I hounded George Feltenstein when he was at MGM/UA Home Video to get the Arkin film released (finally succeeded in 1996). The five classic Panthers were my first DVD purchase. The best thing about the Steve Martin film was the opportunity to own the entire series on DVD for the first time.

I am an ardent supporter of Blake Edwards and willing to give Steve Martin and Bob Simonds the benefit of the doubt that they can do a better job with a script they didn't inherit the second time around. And yes, my wife and kids are all fans of the series as well. The best things to come of my Panther connection has been my involvement with The One-Take Tanney Diaries (a series of emails with Blake Edwards' rep company member, Dr. Herb Tanney that I've had published) and developing a friendship with the incomparable Jason Simos of The Peter Sellers Appreciation Society. I look forward to 2007 and production of the next Panther film.