As a spin-off of it's PINK PANTHER series, begun in 1971, Gold Key Comics added a series devoted to DePatie-Freleng's other starring character, THE INSPECTOR, running for 19 issues beginning in 1974.
Today, we focus on THE INSPECTOR # 9 (Cover Date: May, 1976), and one oddity found therein.
In the issue, we have such stories as "The Case of the Missing Commissioner"...
..."The Case of the Stolen Statues", and "The Case of the Mysterious Arsonist".
As per the cover, there is also a PINK PANTHER backup story - "Pink Profiteer"!
Hmmm... Something seems to be wrong here, but I'm not sure what!
Let's dolly-in a little bit, shall we?
A little more...
By now, even The Inspector must have a clue!
Yes! The Inspector's LOGO has been placed on the Pink Panther story!
Just for the sake of setting things right, here's the opening splash panel of the Pink Panther backup from THE INSPECTOR # 11, with the Pink Panther logo as it should be...
Perhaps this instance of "Logo Supplanting"is just The Inspector's tiny bit of revenge for the way he is generally treated on PINK PANTHER covers!
Sometimes, he who showers last (after all that physical abuse) laughs best!
14 comments:
Does the story not feature poor Clouseau at all? (Or, at least, the "small white mustached guy" who, sans trenchcoat, often antagonizes the Panther, and whom I had always assumed as a youngun was a variation of the Inspector, in the same loose sense that the modern DuckTales cast "are" the Barks characters.) That would make the logo justifiable.
And, say, between that and the discussion of the Stanleymonstrous takeover of Fox and the Crow (plus our private Sterling correspondance), that's quite a lot of mismatched, unrightful and otherwise fraudulent logos… why, one would think you were the Logo-police!
…did someone say Logopolis? Let's hope none of us climb a metal tower and fall to our actor-changing dooms!
While we're talking recasts, here's a thought to ponder: if, in the 1980's, the studios had gone through with their inexplicable but hilarious idea of recasting Inspector Clouseau as Roger Moore, do you suppose the comics would have followed suit and redesigned "their" Inspector?
Just fodder for the theory that the Panther is an anthropomorphic abstract representation of one of the 3 aspects of the live-action Inspector's psyche, I guess. Probably the id. The cartoon Inspector is the ego.
Or the art director finished this at 3 am.
In those days, there was never any commentary. No "Oops, we made a mistake in the last issue" or anything like that. Aside from the monthly promotional page spotlighting the current month's crop of comics, and this was purely ad copy for coming attractions, Gold Key never offered any editorial insights or comments to their readers regarding any of the comic books they published. The ONLY time I am aware of where there was any editorial comment directed toward the readers was in the anniversary edition (I think it was number 300 but I don't have it in front of me) of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories in the mid-60's. There was a nice article that expressed appreciation of the readership and suggested sales were still strong for WDC&S and gave a little history of the publication of said book. I have not found another instance of the editors speaking directly to the readers in the Gold Key comics.
But back to the Inspector. Of course, I have fond memories of the Inspector, especially with regard to my own creative endeavors which dated back to the early Pink Panther comics. I was, of course, delighted when the Inspector got his own title...although overall the early PP backup stories seemed stronger. Still, 19 issues is a respectable run. (Laff-a-Lympics didn't get that many, nor did the Marvel incarnations of Yogi Bear and The Flintstones--unless you count them together as one book, which they sort of were.) The Inspector comic book never quite reached the heights it could have, but it was still a fun read.
I wonder if anyone at Western even noticed the error?
Sorry, but things have been so (…all together now) “Horrifically Busy” around here that I’ve been unable to get to Blog comments until today! Also, check out our last post, where Elaine has some wonderful comments to share – that I also didn’t get to until just now…
Achille:
The particular Pink Panther “guest” story in question did not feature The Inspector, but was one of the many great Panther stories of the period by Warren Tufts! …Though maybe that’s him entering the story’s splash panel at right, in a clever disguise!
I’ve always regarded The Inspector and the other similar-looking character whom I referred to as simply “The Guy” back when I first saw these cartoons on TV, as two separate and distinct characters. “The Guy” functioned as an “all-purpose Elmer Fudd and/or Yosemite Sam” to the Pink Panther’s “Bugs Bunny”. And, since The Pink Panther cartoons were developed by the great Warner Bros. director Friz Freleng, why would he not do this? You can really see echoes of the Michael Maltese/Phil DeLara “Daffy Duck vs. Elmer Fudd” Dell comics in many of these Panther tales!
Oh, I’ve been a member in good standing of the “Benevolent Order of Logo Police” or (BOLP) for a very long time. Hence these and future such posts! When we’re not actively on-duty, we wait around in the BOLPen, like a relief pitcher waiting to take the mound… he says, resisting the temptation to ask “Take it WHERE?”
On that “metal tower thing”, I’ve always thought that “Darrin” from BEWITCHED underwent his “unexplained change of actor” as a result of an Endora Magic Spell that went wrong… but maybe HE, too, was secretly a Timelord!
If Roger Moore became the new model for the comic book Inspector, they might have had to get Dan Spiegle to draw it, rather than Pete Alvarado or Roger Armstrong!
‘Rehab:
I’m opting for your “3 AM Theory”!
Just like the one Dell story that was title-logo-ed “Pig Porky” - an error that was RETAINED in its Whitman reprint. …No time to look up the issue numbers right now but… Yes, really!
True, The Guy definitely has something in common with the likes of Elmer (more Elmer than Sam, I feel; in his first cartoons he's a neutral character who may be a bit stubborn, but whose actions are no less evil than the Panther's). Funny thing, I read somewhere that the animators actually based The Guy's appearance on Friz himself — and I see it, in hindsight. Do you?…
But as I said, "Inspector = Guy" was only my pronouncement as a child. It did seem to make sense — two hapless, not-really-villainous-but-certainly-not-heroic little mustached guys with eyebags associated with the Pink Panthers cartoons? How were we ever expected to keep it straight? And surely it was no coincidence that "clumsy mustached guy" was felt to be the right choice for the target of the Panther's mischief.
…I think it's one of those Egghead/Elmer Fudd situations where one character evolved into the other, but at the end of the day they're thought of as speate you can even have modern Looney Tunes comics where the two interact.
Oh, about that Bewitching guess: very possible! There is similar speculation that Harry Potter's Professor Dumbledore borrowed a flask of Elixir of Life from Nicolas Flamel in-between films to go from Richard Harris to Michael Gambon.
And as for Time Lord idea, this feels like the right time to mention that the TVtropes crowd have made it a running gag on their website to postulate that just about anyone from any fiction ever is a Time Lord based on the most tenuous of evidence. They're a lark. It's been used to explain Batman's personality-changes throughout the ages, why Calvin's "time machine" is "disguised" as a cardboard box, why Chip'n'Dale's tree-trunk house is bigger on the inside every time we see it… not to mention that Mary Poppins is obviouslythe queen of all Time Ladies, though that theory actually has serious following outside of TVtropes's little joke.
P.S.: Why yes, I have finally figured out how you do links in html and am gleefully abusing my newfound powers. Why do you ask?
Joe-responding-to-Rehab: well, obviously, they must have thought that the story was a spy-film parody. "Pig… Porky, Pig." (Or, more likely, "P-p-p-pi-ppp-p-gg-pgg-…p… f-fine, just c-call me P-P-Porky.")
Scarecrow:
Yes, that was WDC&S # 300, and a VERY RARE thing it was, alas!
The 19 issue run of THE INSPECTOR was indeed respectable for its time. The “Graveyard of Unsuccessful 1970s Comic Books” is littered with the rotting corpses (Sorry, I’m still mentally in Halloween!) – um, that is “decomposing pages” (not really that much better) of titles with shorter runs than 19 issues! And, of course, THE INSPECTOR continued on in the pages of THE PINK PANTHER comics, from whence he came!
“ I wonder if anyone at Western even noticed the error?”
I doubt it… Unless Chase Craig or Del Connell are following this Blog from the Great Beyond! …And, if they are, I’d like to think that they’d be proud of all the praise – and outright appreciation – for their historically great work on the Dell and Gold Key Comics that emanates from this Blog’s host and its readers!
Achille:
Sometimes I see more than a bit of Sam’s temper in The Guy, and sometimes he’s just an innocent and unwitting victim like Elmer, hence the duality!
Perhaps no one thought The Inspector and The Guy would be confused, or even visually linked (beyond a DePatie-Freleng “house style”), because they initially appeared in two separate and distinct theatrical cartoon series – and nobody thought far enough ahead to the day when both series would be part of a 30-minute Saturday morning cartoon show.
I suppose that, if you stretch it enough, ANYONE could possibly be a Time Lord! How else would you explain James Bond, Superman, or Django of Spaghetti Westerns, and more recently even Captain Kirk! Perhaps the ultimate regeneration might be Doctor Smith of LOST IN SPACE going from Jonathan Harris (1965), to Gary Oldman (1998), to Parker Posey (2018)!
Hmm… A “Pig Spy Thriller”, eh? Lesse, now… “Porkfinger”, “You Only Live Tw-twi-twi… aw, TWO TIMES”, “On Her MUD-jesty’s Secret Service”, “For Your OINKS Only” , “Moonporker”, and, of course, “OctoPORKY”!
Th-Th-That’s REALLY all, folks!
There's a LOT of fanart linking Mary Poppins with Time Lords. And having David Tennant playing Scrooge gave us "Ducktor Who".
And It's a pity that Titan Comics hasn't done any crossovers with their Doctor Who license. I'm curious as to what "Mars Attacks Doctor Who" would look like, or "Doctor Who/The Dreaming", given Neil Gaiman having written two episodes of the show.
Roger Moore as Inspector Clouseau wouldn't be too difficult to draw if they kept the ice bucket on his head. I would want Kevin O'Neill to draw a "Inspector Clouseau" comic book, because he draws a perfect caricature of Roger Moore in "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", so...yeah, a five-issue mini-series that explains how/why Clouseau decided to keep the Pink Panther diamond for himself and live at Joanna Lumley's health spa as "Turk Thrust the 2nd"..
My sensitive soul shudders at the very thought of "Mary Poppins Fan Art"!
I suppose keeping it linked to Time Lords would be acceptable... I suppose!
Hostely not entirely sure what you mean with that, Joe.
But yes, plenty of Scrooge/Tenth-Doctor mashup fanart, including a great piece by James Silvani (who draws a lot of creative Disney mashups on his tumblr, you should all check it all sometime). Mind, Don Rosa got there first — he drew two cartoons where Scrooge has somehow gained possession of the Tardis: https://scrooge-mcduck.wikia.com/wiki/Tardis_for_Sale and https://scrooge-mcduck.wikia.com/wiki/Ducktor_Who. Back then, amusingly enough, it was the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) whom Don had in mind.
You know, I have sometimes reflected that the history of the Who fandom has interesting parallels with the Disney Comics fandom. Steven Moffat is pretty much Who's Don Rosa — complete with sincere and deep love of the amterial, copious continuity references, more sentimentality and romance than the viewers were used to, taking the universe more "seriously"… and being detested by some fans and idolized by others. Both even started out with now-cult-classic affectionate-parodies of the francises they ended up revitalizing (Curse of Fatal Death for Moffat, Return to Duckburg Place for Don Rosa), in which, in hindsight, you can see the roots of a lot of ideas they ended up implementing in their official works. Timeline-wise, it even lines up, except one decade further each time: Classic Barks in the 1950's, Don Rosa revival in the 1980's/1990's; Classic Who in the 1960's, Moffa/Davies revival in the 2000's. Seriously, somebody oughtta write a book. People familiar with other long-running fandoms — does this scheme repeat itself? Or is this a freakish coincidence?
And 'Rehab, there have been a couple of comic-book “Who” crossover — first, Death's Head (a Transformers robot with ties to the Marvel universe… yeah, I know…) met the Doctor in someof the 1980's Marvel UK comics; and more recently there was Assimilation^2, the one where the Doctor and the Cybermen crash into the Star Trek universe and the Cybermen ally with the Borg. Not much more than that, though. I suppose the terrible, terrible 1990's EastEnders crossover special scared the BBC away from Who crossovers.
Going back to the Pantherian topic: oh, the idea was bonkers, but a Roger Moore Pink Panther film would surely have been a delight. They could have incorporated some of Peter Sellers' unfinished script on which the brief Roger Moore scene was based, perhaps. And a comic-series version might be fun. Would anyone be up to the task of also using it to reconcile movie-continuity with the canon of the Inspector cartoons and comics, I wonder? Let us be bold! (Though as far as Clouseau continuity goes, there's not much to be done about how Dreyfus somehow came back to life in-between films, and somehow got back his job as chief even though he'd disintegrated the freakin' U.N. building… oh, well.)
Achille:
You write: “Not entirely sure what you mean with that, Joe.”
Oh, just that fan art tends to go in some strange non-G-rated directions sometimes. Google Family Guy, The Simpsons, and even The Flintstones…
…I’m trying not to consider what could be done with Mary Poppins!
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