I'm sure some of you cartoon fans are familiar with DePatie-Freleng. A studio founded by Friz Freleng and David H. DePatie in the wake of the shutdown of Warner Brothers' animation studio. And of course they made "Pink Panther" cartoons. What's not stressed enough, however, is that they were the last studio to make cartoons for regular theatrical distribution. Their cartoons were being released to theatricals via United Artists for years, with the last one being released in 1980.
The market of theatrical cartoons started to dry up in the mid 1950s and it was almost non-existant by the time sixties rolled out. Despite that, DePatie-Freleng (DFE for short), which was founded in 1963, landed a deal with United Artists to distribute Pink Panther shorts to theaters, after the success of the animated opening for the Blake Edwards' film.
As the years went by, DFE created other series for UA. Chances are you're familiar with "The Inspector" and "The Ant and the Aardvark", since they were frequently being re-runned with the Panther in television. And if you were around in the seventies, you've probably seen "Texas Toads", which was actually the theatrical "Tijuana Toads" with offensive Mexican accents re-dubbed.
So what we're the other series like? Well, I've decided to write about each of them. What it was like, how they hold up, etc. To start it off, let's dive in on what is probably their most obscure series, Roland and Rattfink.
 The series was initially created during the ever-growing Vietnam War, as well as the protests that went on. The first short, "Hawks and Doves" (directed by Hawley Pratt), was a satire on the war itself, where the peaceful Doveland (ruled by Roland) is forced to go into war with the war-ridden Hawkland (ruled by Rattfink). It was unusually political for a DePatie-Freleng cartoon, especially in the end. Doveland ultimately won the war and Roland is given a big reward. However the tax collector soon comes and takes all the money away (save for one coin for Roland to have). The tax collector then proceeds to donate the entire loot to the defeated Rattfink as a "rehabilitation aid". Of course, Rattfink keeps all the money to himself, refusing to even give his mom, herself a defeated war veteran, a single dime.
 The second short also has a social commentary bent. In "Hurts and Flowers" (also directed by Pratt), Roland is a flower child who spends the entire cartoon giving message of peace. Of course Rattfink (a weed) doesn't like Roland's intention and does everything he can to spread hate, from having him fall into a well, getting him stung by a hoard of bees, and even getting him high on "hate gas", which only worked temporarily. But each attempt only leads to Roland giving Rattfink flowers. Rattfink doesn't give up and continues to spread hate to Roland, to the point that it literally killed him (in one of the unsuccessful attempts involving a tank of nitroglycerin and a banana peel). This short is notable in that it was mostly dialogue-less. In fact, there was only one line of dialogue and that was at the end.
Unfortunately, despite the great start with the first two shorts, "Roland and Rattfink" would go downhill from here. In the rest of the cartoons it was just a generic "good vs. evil", with each short taking place in different time and settings. One short took place in Yukon, while another in a rolling skate rink, for example. There were few amusing ones, but they were not up to par with the first two shorts.
One of the later R&R short that I thought was interesting was "The Great Continental Overland Cross-Country Race", where Roland and Rattfink were competing in a 1901 car race. Rattfink easily gets a head start, due to Roland's car malfunctioning. Along the way Rattfink kidnaps Roland's girlfriend, who literally screams during the entire race (complete with word balloon). Meanwhile, Roland spends the entire cartoon trying to fix his car, and eventually gets it running. Rattfink was just about to cross the finish line when the gas runs out in his car. Just then Roland shows up and accidentally hits Rattfink's car, giving him the push needed to win the race. In many ways this was a subversion to what's usually expected in cartoons. Unlike what goes on in "Wacky Races", the villain actually wins the race fair and square, with the only dastardly thing he's done being the kidnapping. Of course, in a true cartoon fashion Rattfink loses anyway due to Roland being, as he himself admits, a sore loser.
Hawley Pratt would direct one more short for the series; the rest were directed by Art Davis (an animation veteran going all the way back to the silent years), with Gerry Chiniquy directing a few. Grant Simmons, who just shut down his Grantray-Lawrence studio, would direct one before his untimely passing.
"Roland and Rattfink" lasted 17 cartoons and was released theatrically from 1968 to 1971. They never aired on broadcast network television, although they may have been part of a syndication package for local stations to air. They're big television debut was probably in the late 1980s when a cable channel TNT started airing these shorts on a regular basis (along with the rest of the DFE package). Cartoon Network aired them for years until around 2000.
All 17 shorts got a DVD release from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, but the only way to get them is through a Pink Panther cartoon set. There are currently no single-disc release.
All images © MGM/UA
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