Pink Panther & Sons - I figli della Pantera Rosa

I love this cartoon. The rainbow panthers are cute and cuddly colorful cats (4 C's). The children of today should see those cartoons. I saw all the episodes and I enjoyed them all and like how the series followed the pink panther's cute sons, Pinky and Panky. For those of you that are interested, they're all on YouTube. Occasionally, the pink panther himself was seen in the cartoons and this spin-off series was one of the great kind of shows that aired in the 80's. Pinky and Panky do things together because brothers are special. The is also a little golden book based on this cartoon and I got it from the local antique shop.

I have been having a blast with this series. I watched it as a kid and now I watch it in Cartoon Network's Boomerang. At first, when I didn't remember it and saw it, I thought: "Boy, what a rip-off of the Pink Panther" Then I saw the title "Pink Panther and Sons" and I thought: "This must be just to capitalize in the success of the Pink Panther". Boy, was I wrong!!. This series is a quality product on it's own right. A very funny and creative take (if very 80's) on a classic, making the right move of creating new characters based of the originals instead of trying to force a character into a time not it's own. Many other series (Woody Woodpecker, The Flintstones) tried to be updated (or use the "child version of the original" formula) and failed, but this series shows how it should be done. Really enjoyable.

I saw a couple of episodes on YouTube out of curiosity. I saw the 1993 revival cartoon, which had some laughs but was disappointing overall. So how does this 1980's cartoon compare?

Even the 1993 series made an attempt, however halfhearted, to bring back the spirit of the old DePatie-Freleng cartoons. But this cartoon is nothing like the Pink Panther cartoons of the past. Basically the Pink Panther, though technically the father of the panther kids in the series, is really just a side character. Yes, other cartoon characters had children, such as various Disney characters such as Donald Duck and Goofy having nephews, or Sylvester the cat having a son. The problem here is that there is hardly any interaction between the Pink Panther and his children, who basically have their adventures without his involvement. In other words, any group of children could have been used in this series.

Perhaps acceptable to entertain little kids, but this hardly can be called a Pink Panther cartoon series in any real sense.