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Franchise / The Pink Panther

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Think Pink!

The Pink Panther is an American comedy film multimedia franchise. In its original form, it totaled nine films over 30 years. The first of them were directed and co-written by Blake Edwards and starred Peter Sellers. Henry Mancini composed the soundtracks, including an iconic main theme.

The Films

  • The Pink Panther (1963): Sir Charles Lytton (David Niven) is a Gentleman Thief who operates under the identity of "The Phantom". Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Sellers) is a French detective who is trying to track him down in Switzerland before he can steal the prized treasure of the kingdom of Lugash, the Pink Panther diamond (a large gem so named because of a pink, panther-shaped flaw), from a visiting princess. Alas, Clouseau is such a fool that he is easily outsmarted by way of the combined forces of the Phantom, his nephew, the princess herself, and the Phantom's key accomplice... Clouseau's own wife. While the thieves were the focus of this film, Clouseau was the character the subsequent films were based around, starting with...
  • A Shot in the Dark (1964): Clouseau, now single, is called to the aristocratic Ballon household to solve a murder. His judgment is immediately clouded by his infatuation with the prime suspect, Maria Gambrelli, even as more murders pile up around her. His bungling drives his boss, Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus (Herbert Lom), to homicidal madness. In the meantime, we also meet Cato Fong (Burt Kwouk), Clouseau's Chinese manservant who - on Clouseau's orders - keeps springing surprise martial arts attacks on him.
  • Inspector Clouseau (1968): Sellers and Edwards opted out of this installment in which Clouseau, now played by Alan Arkin, investigates a bank robbery in England, leading to him having to stop a gang and uncover The Mole in Scotland Yard. Lacking any other recurring characters, this one is generally disregarded.
  • The Return of the Pink Panther (1975): The Pink Panther is stolen from a Lugash museum, and Clouseau is called upon to seek it out once more. The evidence suggests the Phantom is responsible, but in fact Sir Charles Lytton has been framed. The film follows the parallel plots of Clouseau trailing Sir Charles' wife to Switzerland, and Sir Charles' journey to Lugash to try and find out who actually did it. Dreyfus' attempts to kill Clouseau lands him in an institution at the end, leading directly into...
  • The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976): Three years later (though the film was only made one year after), Dreyfus is seemingly cured, but having to meet up with Clouseau before he can be released, the therapy is undone. Dreyfus escapes and organizes a criminal gang that kidnaps an inventor and his daughter. Forcing the former to build a Disintegrator Ray, Dreyfus threatens to unleash it on the world unless Clouseau is killed, and many countries immediately send assassins after Clouseau as he sets out to stop Dreyfus himself.
  • Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978): Clouseau is now so famous that the head of the French mob, to prove his mettle to the American Mafia, puts out a hit on him - three actually, as Clouseau's luck saves him from death each time. The thing is, the third time appears to have been the charm to everyone else, leaving Clouseau to go undercover with Cato to figure out who wanted him dead. Oh, and Dreyfus is "cured" by the news of Clouseau's death, and set free again.
  • Romance of the Pink Panther: Never made because Sellers Died During Production. Peter Sellers, who bought out the rights to the character after having a falling-out with Blake Edwards, wrote a script in which Clouseau falls in love with the Classy Cat-Burglar he is chasing. Eight days after Sellers delivered the script to United Artists in 1980, he died. Nowadays one can find said script floating around the internet.
  • Trail of the Pink Panther (1982): Using mostly deleted scenes from Strikes Again and new footage with other regulars, Clouseau once again is called to Lugash to seek the stolen Pink Panther. When his plane vanishes, TV reporter Marie Jouvet (Joanna Lumley) decides to investigate his disappearance by interviewing those who knew him well, turning the second half of the film into a Clip Show. The film was shot alongside...
  • Curse of the Pink Panther (1983): One year after Clouseau's disappearance, Dreyfus sabotages the search for a great detective to seek him out. Instead, the world's worst detective, Clifton Sleigh of New York City (Ted Wass), is put on the case. The audience learns the ultimate fate of Clouseau and the diamond, but Sleigh...not so much.
  • Son of the Pink Panther (1993): Ten years after the previous film's events, a Revision of what happened in A Shot in the Dark reveals Clouseau sired a son, Jacques Gambrelli (Roberto Benigni). One day on his beat in the south of France, his path accidentally crosses with those of the kidnapped Princess Yasmin of Lugash and Dreyfus all at once. Then Dreyfus realizes, given the father's track record, that it might not be such a bad idea to have this junior Clouseau track her down. This had the misfortune of being the final film of both Henry Mancini and Blake Edwards.
  • The Pink Panther (2006): A reboot of the film franchise with Steve Martin as Clouseau and Jean Reno as a new sidekick, Ponton. Aside from Clouseau, Dreyfus was the only character carried over from the original films.
  • The Pink Panther 2 (2009)
  • Untitled CGI Pink Panther film (TBA): Another reboot directed by Jeff Fowler (of Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) fame). For the first time ever, this film is planned to have the animated Pink Panther himself play an active role in the story, instead of being present in the opening and ending credits.

Beyond the films, there are also a plethora of animated cartoons starring the animated Pink Panther present in the opening and ending credits.

The cartoons

Video Games

Pinball

Now has a character sheet; there are loads and loads of them, so feel free to help it grow.

The series also inspired a fan-made feature film known as Shadow of the Pink Panther.

In 2020, another reboot was announced to be in production by MGM, this time being a live action/CGI hybrid focused on the Pink Panther character. The film is currently poised to be directed by Jeff Fowler of Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) fame and to be produced by not only film series creator Walter Mirisch but also Julie Andrews, the widow of Blake Edwards.

The films feature examples of:

  • Abhorrent Admirer: Inspector Clouseau has the title character drawing the attraction of the middle-aged extremely Scottish wife of Superintendent Weaver, much to Arkin's dismay. In the plane ride home, she reveals herself to Clouseau as the widow of Weaver (due to Mr. Weaver being clubbed to death) and at first Clouseau thinks she wants revenge... only to pull out some lingerie and say it's for their first night alone in Paris. Cue Clouseau bailing out of the plane with a parachute!
  • All Asians Wear Conical Straw Hats: When Clouseau goes to Hong Kong in the third act of Revenge, he initially wears a stereotypical "Chinaman" disguise, conical straw hat and all.
  • Amusing Injuries: Dreyfus in particular is prone to these.
  • Animated Credits Opening: A series tradition. De Patie Freleng Enterprises (later Marvel Productions, Ltd.) produced them for most of the films, although Richard Williams' studio did the honors for Return and Strikes Again. Kurtz and Friends produced the title sequence for the 2006 remake - and it's a great one!
  • Animation Bump: Richard Williams' Return and Strikes Again title sequences are a spectacular example of this trope, with both sequences showcasing far smoother and fluid animation compared to the other sequences.
  • The Anticipator: Parodied when the late Peter Sellers plays Inspector Clouseau. Clouseau has directed his manservant Cato to attack him at random to sharpen his defensive skills. Though he knows Cato has The Determinator perseverance, only inconceivably foolish counters and stupefying luck have thwarted all of Cato's attempts.
    • This running gag is reversed in the reboots, in them Clouseau is the one trying to attack his partner and Ponton is the one anticipating and effortlessly fending them off, though in his case it's simply because Ponton actually knows how to defend himself.
  • Anti-Hero: Clouseau. Also Dreyfus in A Shot in the Dark until his Face–Heel Turn, and again in the last four original-flavor films after two movies of straightforward villainy. He's strictly this in the reboot.
  • Artifact Title: Strikes Again, Revenge, and Son don't involve the Pink Panther diamond at all, but they had to work in the animated character somehow...
  • The Bad Guy Wins: In Curse we have a case of "The Bad Girls Win," as Chandra turns Clouseau to the dark side and gets him to become her consort, and then Lady Litton (Clouseau's ex-wife) steals the Pink Panther diamond, and this time the Littons apparently hang on to it permanently.
  • Beta Couple: Maria Gambrelli and Charles Dreyfus in Son.
  • Big Bad
    • Dreyfus in The Pink Panther Strikes Again, while serving as a secondary villain in A Shot In The Dark and Return Of The Pink Panther and an antihero in his six other appearances.
    • The French Connection in a three-film story arc, Revenge, Trail and Curse. Douvier is their boss in Revenge while Bruno Langlois is their boss in Trail and Curse.
  • Black Comedy: Most of A Shot in the Dark and The Pink Panther Strikes Again, owing to unusually high body counts. (Son of has that too, owing to the nature of the villains and the climactic siege, but that's typical action movie background fodder.)
  • Breakout Character: Clouseau might be film's most successful example, or at least a close second to Captain Jack Sparrow. The Pink Panther animated character counts as well.
  • Brick Joke: In the opening title sequence for the original 1963 movie, the Pink Panther cartoon character walks up and prepares to conduct an invisible orchestra, only to be pulled off stage by a Vaudeville Hook. In the 2006 reboot he returns and manages to conduct the actual paper notes.
  • Butt-Monkey: Several characters, but Dreyfus is the poster boy of the franchise, even when he becomes a Big Bad in Strikes Again.
  • The Cameo: Several over the original series, either unbilled or under a pseudonym.
    • In Curse Roger Moore, billed as "Turk Thrust II", plays the post-Magic Plastic Surgery Clouseau.
    • In Son, Nicoletta Braschi, Roberto Benigni's wife and frequent costar turns up at the end as Jacques's twin sister.
  • Can't Get in Trouble for Nuthin'
  • Celebrity Paradox: It's never outright stated — but obvious to the audience — in Curse that the reason Clifton Sleigh doesn't realize that Clouseau had Magic Plastic Surgery is because he now looks, and is played by, Roger Moore, and Moore and the James Bond movies exist in this universe.
  • Character Outlives Actor: Trail of the Pink Panther was made after the death of Peter Sellers. Rather than having the character of Inspector Clouseau die in the film, he is instead shown to be alive and well on a deserted island after surviving a plane crash; the subsequent film Curse of... reveals he got Magic Plastic Surgery to look like Roger Moore, and did a Face–Heel Turn to settle down with a jewel thief countess.
  • Classy Cat-Burglar: Claudine in Return and Simone in Curse. The unmade Romance of the Pink Panther had one of these as the film's antagonist, and would have ended with Clouseau making a Face–Heel Turn out of love for her.
  • Clueless Detective: Clouseau might be the best-known example.
  • Color Character
  • The Comically Serious: George Sanders as Benjamin Ballon, though footage of him (and most of the other actors who worked with Sellers) corpsing has surfaced.
  • Continuity Snarl: Chief Inspector Dreyfus himself is the only, but big one in the whole series, which otherwise seems pretty consistent with itself. Starting from the ending of the second movie, Dreyfus always eventually turns mad, tries to murder Clouseau and is always taken to an insane Asylum… The movie following the first time this happened included the idea that he was supposedly cured (though meeting Clouseau again makes him turn mad again), and subsequently released; however, at the end of this movie, he gets killed off. In the next, he's back at the insane asylum for no particular reason, and once again thought cured, and once again released. And it's not that the previous movie is not canon to the others — there are references to it made in later movies. In the next movies, he's just back as chief inspector with no explanation at all. Apparently, nobody remembers that 1° he was previously disintegrated and 2° he had destroyed the U.N. building and sabotaged a satellite before that.
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment: In Strikes Again, the method Dreyfus uses to torture the professor's daughter is by scratching a chalkboard while wearing meat-packer's gloves.
  • Da Chief: Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus is a comedic example. From Strikes Again onward, Clouseau himself takes over this position (though he is more gentle to his subordinates in comparison to Dreyfus), and Dreyfus resents this when he finds out.
  • Dating Catwoman: Provides the premise of the unmade Romance of the Pink Panther. The Russian Spy in Strikes Again counts as well.
  • Depth Deception: A faked alien invasion in an episode of the animated series.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: In A Shot in the Dark, Cato only wears his signature black outfit the first time we see him, and has a bunch of other outfits he wears throughout the film. In all the films that follow he sticks to his black outfit, outside of the odd disguise in Revenge.
    • The Pink Panther is an even bigger example. Let's see: No Chief Dreyfus, no Cato. Clouseau isn't the main focus, with David Niven appearing in far more scenes! It's also the longest Pink Panther film, clocking in at almost two hours. And while there is still a little slapstick comedy present, it's nowhere near the levels of the sequels, with most of the humor being very dry. Needless to say, it's a jarring experience if you've seen any of the sequels first.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Clouseau was just a supporting character in the original movie.
  • Fake Shemp:
    • Any time you can't clearly see Clouseau's face in any of the three '70s sequels, odds are he's being played by Peter Sellers' stunt double, Joe Dunne. Peter Sellers' health was rapidly declining in these years from the heart disease that eventually killed him in 1980.
    • Trail is built around this concept, though flashbacks to his youth near the end have him played by younger actors in a variant on The Other Darrin.
  • Filming for Easy Dub: The later entries with Sellers used this with his stuntmen; Trail does this with a stand-in to tie the deleted scenes together.
  • "Friends" Rent Control: It's hard to imagine how Clouseau could afford that huge apartment overlooking the Seine on an Inspector's salary, especially when you consider the fact that he and Cato wreck the place every movie.
  • From Bad to Worse: The opinions of critics and viewers alike on the films after Peter Sellers died.
  • Funny Foreigner: Clouseau; his disguises incorporate other nationalities in the same manner.
  • Gay Paree: With occasional detours to Italy, Germany, Hong Kong, etc.
  • Gentleman Thief: Sir Charles Lytton and his associates. The boredom motivation is key to the plot of Return.
  • Girl of the Week: Shot, Strikes Again, and Revenge all have these. The first was given a Revision for Son.
  • Going for the Big Scoop: Marie in Trail, especially as it becomes clear that there are a lot of people who would prefer Clouseau gone forever.
  • Half-Identical Twins: In Son, Jacques and Jacqueline Gambrelli.
  • Halfway Plot Switch: Trail, which starts as a typical Clouseau misadventure and makes the switch when he goes missing, turning the protagonist role over to Marie as she investigates the disappearance.
  • Heel–Face Revolving Door: Dreyfus goes from antihero to villain in A Shot in the Dark, remains a villain in The Return of the Pink Panther, appears to have recovered his sanity at the beginning of The Pink Panther Strikes Again but ends up becoming the film's main villain, and seems to have, for the most part, reformed in the subsequent films.
  • Hero Insurance: One has to wonder who would be stupid enough to provide Clouseau with homeowner's insurance given how frequently his flat gets trashed.
  • Hollow-Sounding Head: In Son Jacques Gambrelli accidentally knocks on his mother's forehead (he'd been knocking on a door she'd suddenly opened) producing a loud empty sound.
  • Homage: Sellers' portrayal of Clouseau is more than a little evocative of Jacques Tati's Hulot character (even the names are similar), while the slapstick physical comedy in the series owes a great deal to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, etc.
  • Hypercompetent Sidekick: Cato Fong in the original series, Ponton in the Reboot.
  • Hypocritical Humor: When Clouseau first meets Yuri, he mocks his Russian accent:
    Clouseau: I'll be honest with you. I - I find your accent quite funny. Where are you "fvam"?
    Yuri: From Russia. Gluant recruited me from the Russian military gym.
    Clouseau [mocks Yuri]: Do-do-do-ba-ba-loo. You need to work on your accent.
  • Iconic Sequel Character: Cato and Dreyfus didn't appear until the second film.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: From Return onward, all of the titles (and credits) involve the Pink Panther phrase and animated character even if the diamond is not part of the plot.
    • The Pink Panther animated shorts all have the word "pink" in the title, and most of the Inspector shorts are puns on French words or phrases.
  • Idiot Hero: Trope Codifier.
  • In Case You Forgot Who Wrote It: Some of the '70s films have Edwards' name as part of the full onscreen title, i.e. Blake Edwards' The Return of the Pink Panther.
    • The cartoons have the title "Blake Edwards' Pink Panther" when he appears.
  • Incredibly Obvious Bomb: Plenty from Return onwards.
  • Insistent Terminology: CHIEF Inspector Clouseau (from Strikes Again onwards) frequently reminds us of his full title.
  • Inspector Oblivious: Clouseau's opening scene in Return hinges on him getting distracted from a bank robbery. Moreover he's dim enough to accept bombs - the Incredibly Obvious kind, mind you - from suspicious persons without a thought, only realizing what they are just before it's too late. (Revenge: "Special delivery, a bomb! Were you expecting one?")
  • Instrumental Theme Tune: One of the catchiest ever, courtesy of Henry Mancini.
  • Juggling Loaded Guns: Chief Inspector Dreyfus keeps in his office desk both a real gun and a lighter that looks just like said gun. Hilarity Ensues with predictably violent results, such as when his assistant Francois, hearing a gunshot, bursts in the office to see the top half of Dreyfus' face looking up at him from behind his desk:
    Dreyfus: Don't just stand there, idiot — call a doctor. And then help me find my nose!
  • Karma Houdini:
    • Lytton and his accomplices; as the trope entry points out, they are never caught in any of their appearances. Clouseau and Chandra are almost this at the end of Curse - they aren't found out by Sleigh, but Lytton's wife steals the diamond from them!
    • At the end of Shot, Dreyfus accidentally murders several people trying to kill Clouseau and has a nervous breakdown. He is still Chief Inspector in Return, where he does the same thing again, only this time he is actually committed for it.
    • The Pink Panther Strikes Again takes it up to eleven. Dreyfus disintegrates the UN building, attempted to destroy England, yet two movies later, Trail, he is Commissioner again and no one talks about it (this is either a Plot Hole or just Negative Continuity).
      • A similiar thing happened before Trail in Revenge of..., nobody remembers Dreyfus' scheme in Strikes Again, and they even ask him to give a eulogy to Clouseau's (faked) funeral.
    • Return ends with nobody going to prison for the actual theft of the diamond. Partially justified in that a lot of people thought Colonel Sharkey was in on the conspiracy and he's too dead to defend himself. Claudine Lytton the actual culprit is not seen in the epilogue, though.
  • Left Stuck After Attack: In Curse of The Pink Panther, the renowned martial artist Ed Parker plays an enforcer for the antagonists, who punches through a metal shed door and gets his arm stuck for a solid twenty seconds before managing to free himself.
  • Lethally Stupid: Inspector Clouseau. Ask Dreyfus.
  • Licensed Pinball Table: Released by Gottlieb in 1981, and very loosely based on Return; click here for details.
  • Mama's Boy: Jacques Gambrelli in Son of the Pink Panther, who lives with his Italian mother, Maria Gambrelli, who was married to Inspector Clouseau, which makes Jacques Gambrelli the son of Inspector Clouseau.
  • Mate or Die: How Jacques Gambrelli was conceived, according to Maria's explanation in Son of...: She and Clouseau were stranded on a snowy night, and he suggested they make love to keep warm. Their affection for each other was not a romance for the ages, however (she regards it as a youthful folly), and she never revealed to him that he'd sired a son.
  • My Beloved Smother: Maria Gambrelli, who told Jacques that his father was a classical musician for fear that he might follow in his father's footsteps and get hurt.
  • Not Even Bothering with the Accent: France seems to have a lot of people with British or American accents in these films, with prominent examples including the original Dreyfus, Benjamin Ballon in Shot, and Philippe Douvier in Revenge. Of particular note is Bruno Langois of Trail and Curse. The "French Godfather" would sound more at home running one of New York's Five Families — and unlike Douvier, whose accent they at least tried to Hand Wave by establishing that he had spent a lot of his early career working for the American Mafia before returning to his native France, Bruno's accent is never explained at all.
  • Not Me This Time: In the reboot, The Tornado, a serial thief, was believed to have resurfaced and stolen various treasures around the world, including the Magna Carta, the Turin Shroud, the Imperial Sword, the Pink Panther Diamond (allegedly), and the Pope's ring. Turns out, he never actually committed those crimes (for one thing, he would have deduced that the Pink Panther Diamond on display was in fact a forgery had he truly stolen it), it was his scorned lover, Sonia who did the deed, eventually killing him before they located him.
  • Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: Original series only. The Simpsons made a joke about this: "We now return to The Return of the Pink Panther Returns".
  • One-Steve Limit: There are two characters named Charles: Sir Charles Lytton (The Phantom) and Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus (Clouseau's superior).
    • Jacques Gambrelli, though it's justified because he is Clouseau's son.
    • There are even two Simones: Simone Clouseau/Lytton, and Simone LeGree (the Girl of the Week in Revenge).
  • Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Clouseau's accent in Return tends to veer between the more normal-sounding voice he used in the first two films, and the thicker, more nasal accent he uses in Strikes Again and Revenge.
  • Phantom Thief: The Phantom in the original movies. The Steve Martin movies have the Tornado.
  • Plot Hole: Trail says that Lytton married Simone after the events of the first film. If so, where does Claudine, his wife in Return, fit in?
  • Put on a Bus: Blake Edwards did this to Clouseau himself to make way for Son of the Pink Panther. That was not a good idea.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: One reason the Running Gag of Clouseau's costumes became more pronounced in Strikes Again and Revenge was because Peter Sellers' health had become too frail for him to perform as much slapstick as he wanted to. Trail and Curse, of course, were completely conceived/made after Sellers had died, and the plots work to compensate for this absence.
  • Reassigned to Antarctica: Dreyfus frequently threatens to send Clouseau to Martinique for exasperating him. In A Shot in the Dark, Clouseau was about ready to leave when he is reluctantly reassigned to the Gambrelli case by Dreyfus.
  • Refrigerator Ambush: Cato pulls one off in Return, and again in Son.
  • Revenge of the Sequel: Return of, Strikes Again, Revenge of, Trail of, Curse of, Son of.
  • Roger Rabbit Effect: Several of the films end with the animated Pink Panther interacting in some fashion with the live-action characters. Son of... does this in the opening credits.
  • Running Gag / Sequel Escalation: Clouseau's accent, his disguises in the later films, Cato's attacks and the subsequent fights, Dreyfus' murder attempts and his eye twitch, and the Non-Fatal Explosions.
    • "Never look a gift horse in the mouth" is a popular philosophy amongst disparate characters in Curse.
  • Shaped Like Itself:
    Francois: Do you know what kind of bomb it was?
    Clouseau: (gravely) The exploding kind.
  • Sidekick: Hercule is this to Clouseau in Shot. Cato, whose role is largely confined to Clouseau's apartment in most of the films, becomes this outright in the second half of Revenge and later serves the same role in Son for Clouseau, Jr. In The Inspector animated shorts, Deux-Deux fills this role; in the reboot, it's Ponton who does the same.
  • Significant Birth Date
    • Used as an in-joke in Trail — Clouseau was born on September 8, which means he and Peter Sellers share a birthday.
    • In Curse, we learn that Dreyfus was born on April 1 (April Fools' Day).
  • Sins of the Father: Quite a few of the jokes of Son of the Pink Panther revolve around the secondary cast hating Jacques Gambrelli, even if he has not done anything to them personally (yet), because he is the son of Jacques Clouseau. That includes Dreyfus not knowing what to do because he's in love with Maria but Clouseau's breed would be his foster son if they marry and Balls pointing out that Clouseau never paid him in full for the many costumes he purchased and when Gambrelli asks for a disguise for the third act, Balls makes sure that the villains will know who to look for by placing a big "CLOUSEAU" on the back of it.
  • Somebody Set Up Us the Bomb: In the Sellers films it's a Running Gag from Shot onwards that somebody's going to try to off Clouseau with a bomb at some point, be it a Time Bomb or Incredibly Obvious Bomb.
  • Spiritual Successor: The Neil Simon-penned film After The Fox (1967) features Sellers as a master criminal nicknamed "The Fox" who uses a phony movie shoot as cover for a gold heist. Much of the humor is identical to that in the Panther films, and there is even a Panther-style opening credit sequence featuring a cartoon fox.
  • Token Good Cop:
    • In the original continuity, Inspector Cloueseau is an accident-prone Clueless Detective, his boss Dreyfus is a hammy, Ax-Crazy Butt-Monkey, and most of the Spear Carrier uniformed cops provide some bumbling slapstick, but Beleaguered Assistant Francois is competent enough in his Mr. Exposition role. Clouseau's assistant from A Shot in the Dark is very practical and conscientious, but, as revealed in a later film, he takes early retirement rather than keep working with Clouseau.
    • Clouseau's assistant In the reboot duology, Gilbert Ponton, is a Cloudcuckoolander's Minder with some good fighting and observational skills, while Clouseau is a Genius Ditz who normally puts an emphasis on the Ditz and Dreyfus and his staff vaingloriously pursue the wrong leads.
  • Translation Convention: Parodied as a Running Gag - everyone is assumed to be speaking French, but only Clouseau has a French accent.
  • Unto Us a Son and Daughter Are Born: Turns out that Jacques Gambrelli/Clouseau, Jr. has a twin sister!
  • Walking Disaster Area: Most of the films' humor revolves around the incredible amount of destruction and misfortune caused by the clumsy and idiotic Clouseau. In the second film, Dreyfus claims that with ten Clouseaus he could destroy the world. This is not meant as a compliment.
  • Wallpaper Camouflage: Clouseau and Ponton manage this in the reboot.
  • What the Fu Are You Doing?: Clouseau's impromptu "training sessions" with Cato.
  • Writers Cannot Do Math: In Curse of the Pink Panther, Dreyfus' birth year is said to be 1900. This movie was made in 1983, placing this character in his early 80s. Never mind the fact that Dreyfus obviously doesn't look that old (Herbert Lom was only in his 60s), but then comes Son of the Pink Panther which takes place 10 years later, meaning in that movie he must be in his early 90s! Even if Dreyfus was in his early 80s in Curse..., shouldn't he be retired from the police force by then?
    • It's more likely that, due to its voice tone at the moment, the computer that was regurgitating Dreyfus' basic information was going to reveal the last two digits after 1900, but was cut off by François because of how much it was starting to annoy Dreyfus.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: The plot of Inspector Clouseau wraps up pretty quickly after the gang's boat sinks without telling if they were arrested or if they got away.
    • In Revenge, Dreyfus and Cato are never seen again after the fireworks factory explodes until Trail.

Alternative Title(s): Inspector Clouseau

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