"The Pink Panther" is not the Clouseau character, but a large and valuable fictitious diamond which is the macguffin of the first film in the series. (It bears that name because the flaw at its center, when viewed closely, is said to resemble a pink panther.) The phrase reappears in the title of the fourth film, The Return of the Pink Panther, in which the theft of the diamond is again the center of the plot, the film in which Sellers returned to the role after a one film hiatus. The phrase has been used for all the subsequent films in the series, even when the jewel does not figure into the plot.
The first film in the series had an animated opening sequence set to the theme music by Henry Mancini that featured the Pink Panther cartoon character. This character would get its own series of animated films (as well as being featured in the opening of every film in the series except A Shot in the Dark) and came to be known simply as "The Pink Panther".
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