I know it doesn’t seem likely, and I don’t actually think there was any real direct connection here, but I noticed something that I can’t get out of my head, like that family of voles that’s taken up residence on my bald spot and has become a sort of biological toupee. That’s more on my head than in it, but you get the idea. The something I’m talking about has to do with the animated opening sequence to the 1964 Blake Edwards movie A Shot In The Dark, the second movie in what would be known as the Pink Panther series. This opening sequence features a bit of animation that sure as hell reminds me of the light cycle scene in the Disney movie Tron, from 1982. I’ll explain.
First, I should note that the Pink Panther himself does not appear in these opening credits as he did in the first Pink Panther movie, and then did again in other movies in the series from 1975 on. Instead, this sequence just features an animated version of Inspector Clouseau, played by Peter Sellers as the staggeringly accident-prone French police inspector. Honestly, I’m amazed the fictional dude isn’t very comprehensively dead many times over.
The sequence that really reminded me of Tron’s light cycle scene was in the opening credits, which were animated by the DePatie-Freleng firm based out of Burbank. The scene features a trenchcoated Inspector Clouseau character interacting with a variety of situations and objects in a highly stylized manner. That’s why getting in taxi results in something like this:
As you can see, the cab stretches as it drives, leaving a narrow, wall-like extension of itself as it drives.
Turns are perfectly 90°, and when speed is needed, it’s available:
The 90° turns and narrow barrier wall that follows the path of the front of the car should feel extremely familiar to anyone who has seen this incredibly famous scene:
I mean, if you look at how the light cycles actually behave and operate, it sure as hell looks a lot like a slicker, CGI version of that little animated stretchy-cab.
Remember the animated Pink Panther credit scene there came nearly 20 years before; yet it feels the same, and you’d think that a little time and focus could have led to something even more like the light cycles.
Of course, the light cycles themselves were a sort of three-dimensional re-imagining of an earlier concept, the “snake” game. First seen in 1976 in Gremlin’s arcade game Blockade, the game started a genre of one- and two-player games featuring deadly-trail-leaving vehicles or animals, most commonly snakes that sought out apples to eat, like in that joke about the tapeworm.
This game ended up in many varied forms, from early Atari 2600 cartridges like Surround to the game of choice on the ubiquitous Nokia phones of the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was well-known enough to merit being translated into glossy ’80s 3D computer graphics for Tron, and somehow that sequence ended up with vehicles that really remind me of the animated credits of a comedy murder-mystery from 18 years prior.
A Shot in the Dark is also notable for having some fantastic cars in it, too, as you probably guessed just from it being a ’60s French movie. Like the amazing police cars, which were Renault Dauphines:
Mon dieu, that’s an adorable freaking cop car! How could one be intimidated by cops when they’re buzzing around in those charming little rear-engined gumdrops? I love them!
Of course since it’s France, there’s some Citroën IDs and DSes. And they’re stunning, like they always are.
Especially interesting is Clouseau’s car, which was a sort of luxury version of the Austin Mini, this one built by a coachbuilding company called Hooper, though a company called Radford is much better known for building swanky Minis.
The headlight surrounds are different from a stock Mini, and there’s chair caning applied to the doors and sides, much like woodgrain would be applied to wagons. This is a very French sort of decorative touch to be found on such a British car, and was also seen on a special Parisienne edition of the Renault 4:
What a world, right? Now I’d appreciate it if someone with more time and talent than me would re-work the Tron light cycle scene to have the animated Clouseau and cab look. Thanks in advance.
Ha. Actually not at all outside of the realm of possibility for that animated taxi to have provided at least some modicum of inspiration for the Tron light cycles. Those Pink Panther films were indeed extremely popular, especially among the more creative types who would have been involved in game design and the like; interposed among foreign films with subtitles the first two Pink Panther films were staples of the arthouse cinemas of my childhood (yeah, this was before the third one, The Return of the Pink Panther, came out in ’75.)
Wouldn’t it be something if the first Pink Panther film from ’63 actually provided some kernel of inspiration, however peripheral, for Donkey Kong as that film had a chase scene involving a 1960 Autobianchi Bianchina cabriolet in an utterly lovely shade of coral pink being driven by someone in a gorilla suit: http://imcdb.org/i020722.jpg
Tron was ruined by the terrible writing and acting. But put that aside and it was a real technological breakthrough. The computers used at the time to use for the 3D scenes were insanely expensive and even then had hardly enough memory to process the graphics. It took over 6 hours to render ONE frame. And when it was done a camera was aimed at the monitor: Digital transfers weren’t even a thing yet.
MOST of the animation was actually traditional cell-based hand drawn stuff. I used to make animated cartoons in college and we would use contact sheets as a means to inform camera action. The sheets used on tron were sometimes in excess of 70 feet long. Insane. And all of that was done in Hong Kong.
I am of the age group that just escaped the ubiquity of video games. I was in my mid 20s when Tron showed up in the game room of the Officers Club and, honestly, I paid it no mind. Likewise, I missed the film completely during its theatrical release. I did see it years later in video, but by the it’s effects were passé. I do, however, vividly recall “A Shot in the Dark.” The family packed into our VW bus and went to a drive-in for the event. My favorite memory centers around a running gag in the film. Inspector Clouseau is trying to solve a series of murders centered around chambermaid Maria, played by the pulchritudinous Elke Summer, whom he refuses to believe is guilty. The pair are repeatedly and coincidentally around whenever a murder occurs and end up getting hauled in by the police in a van with two gendarmes who ride on the back bumper facing out toward following traffic. This happens over and over. When Clouseau and Maria are arrested after a murder in a nudist camp, they’re again transported in the van but this time, instead of facing out, the gendarmes are perched on the bumper peering in through the back windows. Pretty funny to a seven-rear-old.
“Like the amazing police cars, which were Renault Dauphines:”
My daughter has a stuffed dolphin that she named “Dauphine” when she was younger, that I’ve been calling “Renault” as a joke for so long that now it’s known primarily as Renualt.
He fights for the users!
Now I just watched all of the fight scenes between Clouseau and Cato.
Not completley relevant but at least kinda complementary, anyone else enjoy the reimagined light cycles of Tron Legacy? I liked the meta bit that the tech of the world evolved just as ours does but they still kept the essential features, like how when activated, the bike forms around the rider in an iterative way.
I thought the whole movie was better than the credit it got. And the Easter eggs in the extras (on YouTube now) were fantastic. End of the line.
I remember being quite thrilled by the teaser trailer that came out a few years earlier with the new lightcycles and goofy CGI faces. Thankfully they polished the CGI up quite a lot for the movie. I thought it was pretty good.
I’m cautiously looking forward to Tron Ares. Nine Inch Nails doing the soundtrack is as inspired as Daft Punk IMO.