Sky Blue Pink

Pink Panther Odyssey Part XXXVII

There's no throughline here. Our guy is flying his kites, then the whole thing becomes totally sidetracked by the little man and his business. Vengeance being the principle nature of that business. I dig these panther shorts, I really do, but would it have killed them to practice a bit of circuitous storytelling? That being said, the biplane end tangent is rather inspired.

A bi-plane fact to get us up to the required character length:

The concept of "stacking wings" on an aircraft was suggested by a Sir George Cayley way back in the 1840s who correctly identified the core four forces which dictate flight. He died decades before powered flight was ever achieved.

Most of this cartoon is the Pink Panther and his many futile attempts to become a successful kite flier. After watching others do it, and buying a "Make Your Own Kite Kit" from Acme (who else?), he has trouble getting the blasted thing off the ground as a dog runs through it, he runs through it and various other people and inanimate objects make it difficult. The poor little "white guy," as I call him because that's his color from head to toe, gets inadvertently involved on a number of these kite attempts, all with slapstick endings that are harmful to him.

Finally, the little guy has had enough. At that point, the cartoon began to get a lot better as he does his World War I flying ace 'Red Baron' imitation and goes up in the sky to shoot down the Pink Panther who is attached to his kite and flying.

Overall, except for the last two minutes, I didn't think this was anything special.

After seeing a bunch of kids flying kites, the Pink Panther decides to construct and fly a kite of his own. As he does so, he runs into a horde of obstacles, including a dog, and the pointy-nosed. The panther just about makes life miserable for the man, including disrupting the his gardening and his barbecuing, and, at one point, setting the man's house on fire. So, while the Pink Panther sores through the air on his kite, the man decides to take revenge and attempts to shoot down the flyer with the airplane he was piloting, resulting in a hilarious outcome.

Much fun and action here - very entertaining cartoon with lots of laughs!

Grade A

Sky Blue Pink is decent enough but also unexceptional. The story is both routine and predictable and not as vibrantly paced as other Pink Panther cartoons. The gags are amusing at least but they never rise to more than that, the funniest it gets is the ending and The Little White Guy's priceless expression at the state of his wrecked house. And while Pinky is a charismatic character in his own right he has been much funnier and more likable before and since Sky Blue Pink. The Little White Guy makes more of an impression here, you do feel genuinely sorry for him and can relate to him, he is a good character and works well with Pinky. The best thing about Sky Blue Pink is the ending, which is both funny and exciting, while the rest of the cartoon is decent but lacking the last two minutes really shine. The animation is simple, but clean, elegantly coloured and very nicely drawn. And the music is still catchy and infectious, no matter how many times you hear the theme tune or any of the scoring it never gets old. To conclude, unexceptional but has a good ending and support character. So it's certainly worth watching but ranking The Pink Panther cartoons it's around the lower-middle end. 6/10 Bethany Cox

In this lame short the Pink Panther sees a bunch of kids playing with kites and decides he wants to have such fun himself, only he's completely unable to get the kite in the air, and whenever he does it's only for a few brief moments and usually at the extreme cost to someone else.

I didn't find this cartoon awfully funny and it barely managed to get a couple of mild smirks out of me. Nothing here is inspired or witty and it just seems to be going through the motions with little in the way of visual narration or cohesion between the randomly ordered sketches. Another one to file near the bottom of the pack.