| Director: | Friz Freleng Co-director: Hawley Pratt |
| Story: | John W. Dunn |
| Editing: | Lee Gunther |
| Music: | William Lava Theme song: Henry Mancini |
| Producer: | David H. DePatie Friz Freleng Mirisch-Geoffrey-DePatie-Freleng |
| Animator: | Don Williams Bob Matz Norman McCabe Laverne Harding |
| Layout Artist: | Dick Ung (uncredited) |
| Background Artist: | Tom O'Loughlin |
| Studio: | Mirisch-Geoffrey-DePatie-Freleng Productions |
| Distributor: | United Artists |
| Runtime: | 6 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
The Pink Phink is a 1964 American animated short comedy film directed by Friz Freleng. It is the first animated short starring the Pink Panther, based on the character created for the opening credits of Blake Edwards' film released a year earlier.[1] The short won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short at the 37th Academy Awards.
The Pink Panther and an unnamed painter (known as the "Little Man") compete over whether a house should be painted blue or pink. Each time the painter attempts to paint something blue, Pink thwarts him in a new way, and paints the object/area pink. At the end, the exasperated painter inadvertently turns the house and everything around it pink (first by repeatedly shooting at the elusive panther with a shotgun that Pink had poured pink paint into, and then by burying the panther's pink paint cans in the soil outside the house, where they "sprout" and grow pink grass and trees), and Pink moves in. But just before he moves in, he paints the white man completely pink. The painter bangs his head against the mailbox outside in frustration as Pink then walks into the house as the sun (also turned pink) sets to make the sky turn blue and the cartoon fades out.[2]
The Pink Phink was the first Pink Panther animated short produced by DePatie–Freleng Enterprises and by winning the 1964 Academy Award for Animated Short Film, it marked the first time that a studio won an Academy Award with its first animated short. It is also both the only animated Pink Panther short and the only installment in the franchise to win the award.[2]
A laugh track was added to the theatrical Pink Panther cartoons when they were broadcast as part of the Pink Panther Show aired on NBC,[2] and this laugh track still appears when the show is aired on the Spanish language Boomerang TV channel, and the France Channel Gulli. Most American broadcasts currently air minus the laugh track. The Pink Phink can be viewed in its original form with full titles and sans laugh track on The Official Pink Panther channel on YouTube along with the MGM Television logo.