Pink DaVinci is the 74th cartoon produced in the Pink Panther series. A total of 124 6-minute cartoons were produced between 1964 and 1980. This is the first Pink Panther cartoon directed by Robert McKimson, a veteran Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Cartoons

Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. was the in-house division of Warner Bros. Pictures during the Golden Age of American animation. One of the most successful animation studios in American media history, Warner Bros. Cartoons was primarily responsible for the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical...

 animator and director.

Plot

The Pink Panther is strolling the streets of Italy when he spots The Little Man

The Little Man (The Pink Panther)

The Little Man, was a regular character who appeared in the original Pink Panther shorts created by David DePatie and Friz Freleng.-History:The Little Man first appeared in 1964 in the first entry of the Pink Panther animated series, The Pink Phink...

 who plays Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...

 painting what appears to be his newest masterpiece, the Mona Lisa

Mona Lisa

Mona Lisa is a portrait by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. It is a painting in oil on a poplar panel, completed circa 1503–1519...

. Da Vinci paints a grumpy mouth on the Mona Lisa, but the Pink Panther decides to covertly replace the frown with a teeth-filled smile. When the smile wins the appreciation of an art patron, as da Vinci is enraged and repaints the unhappy frown back onto Lisa. da Vinci and the Pink Panther then repeatedly swap back and forth between the frown and smile until the feline's version of the classic painting ends up in the Louvre—complete with the panther's pink paw print stamped on the painting.

Laugh track

The Pink Panther Show

The Pink Panther Show

The Pink Panther Show is a showcase of cartoon shorts produced by David H. DePatie and Friz Freleng between 1969 and 1979. The television series was produced by Mirisch Films and DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, and was broadcast on two American TV networks:...

contained a laugh track when the Pink Panther cartoons were broadcast on NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

. Though most entries in the series later muted the audience, the laugh track version airs on Boomerang

Boomerang (TV channel)

Boomerang is a 24-hour American cable television channel owned by Turner Broadcasting System, a division of Time Warner. Boomerang specializes in reruns of animated programming from Time Warner's extensive archives, including pre-1986 MGM, Hanna-Barbera, Cartoon Network, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises...

.

Further sources

• Meet the Pink Panther; by Hope Freleng and Sybil Freleng http://www.amazon.com/dp/0789313081, (Universe Publishing, 2005).
• The Pink Panther Classic Cartoon Collection http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009S4J2I (2006). [DVD set]. New York: MGM Home Video.
• DePatie-Freleng website