Growing up, The Pink Panther was one of the “off-brand” cartoon characters that filled up my Saturday mornings and lazy afternoons. He wasn’t one of Mickey’s pals over at Disney. He didn’t exist with Bugs and Daffy in the Looney Tunes-verse. Cripes, he wasn’t even part of the convoluted Hanna Barbera cast.

To young me, he got lumped together with characters like Woody Woodpecker and Droopy (and other Tex Avery MGM characters). They were loners without a huge supporting cast.

Importantly, The Pink Panther also felt… old. To a kid in the 80s, it was a character very obviously from before my time. He wasn’t rebooted or revamped for my generation. And, truth be told, I didn’t quite “get” it. I didn’t understand the humor, the minimalism, the storylines, or the caricatures.

Why did every cartoon have the same exact music? What the heck was “60s cool”? Why didn’t anyone talk? This shouldn’t have been weird, especially for someone who adored Tom & Jerry, but it just made the shorts feel even more alien.

In a nutshell, The Pink Panther was just… odd.

I mean, for cryin’ out loud, the character spun out of the opening credits of a 1963 spy comedy and really didn’t change all that much.

It wasn’t until I was much older that I went back and revisited some of those animated shorts… and found a LOT to like.

If you’ve ever wanted to explore the character, boy oh boy do I have good news for you. The good folks at Kino Lorber have been slowly releasing collections on Blu-ray that gather together all the shorts in chronological order. And they’ve finally finished and blessed us with a massive box set.

In one place, you can get all 124 shorts (800 minutes!) produced by DePatie-Freleng from 1964 through 1980. Across the set’s six discs (each also available separately), you also get dozens of audio commentaries, documentaries, making-of featurettes, and specials about creator Friz Freleng.

Of the 124 shorts, 92 were originally released theatrically between 1964 and 1977, but all of them eventually aired on Saturday morning TV under various names.

But the most important feature of this set? The cartoons are presented in their original theatrical format – WITHOUT laugh tracks (which were standard on TV in the late 60s and 70s). Thank goodness.

It’s certainly a deep dive into the character, and I don’t think anyone expects you to binge more than 13 hours of silent cartoons backed by a Henry Mancini theme on endless repeat. But these collections are a veritable goldmine of animation history, and I’m thrilled to make room for them on the shelf.

In addition to The Pink Panther, Kino Lorber Animation has a surprisingly healthy catalog of classic DePatie-Freleng series from the 60s through the 80s. If you’re a fan of those shows (e.g., The Ant and the Aardvark, Misterjaw), you’ll find a lot to love.