The Pink Blueprint

A carpenter is trying to build an ordinary two-story house, using a set of plans printed on a large sheet of blue paper (called a "blueprint"). The Pink Panther thinks that this simple design is terribly dull and boring, and so he discreetly switches the carpenter's blueprint for an outlandish drawing of his own idea for a dream house, sketched on a similar-sized sheet of (naturally) pink paper.

Of course, the carpenter immediately recognizes that the pink page with its absurd building design is not the one he was supposed to be working from, and he tosses it away in disgust. So the Pink Panther decides that he will build the house his own way.

A long series of hilarious mishaps and disasters ensues as the carpenter and the Panther simultaneously attempt to build the same house two different ways. The carpenter always gets the raw end of things- toppling off ladders and scaffolding, getting buried under a pile of boards, falling into a big tub of cement (which, as you might have guessed, hardens immediately around him), being chased by a runaway power saw, and so on.

Finally the two would-be house-builders, each clutching their own precious sheet of construction plans, happen to come face-to-face. Seeing the carpenter glare fiercely and start to clench his fists, the Panther takes off running through the work site, with the carpenter in hot pursuit.

The Panther ducks into a paint shed and slams the door shut behind him. The carpenter is right behind the Panther, however, and sees him go into the shed. The exasperated carpenter hurriedly grabs two boards and nails them across the shed door to keep the Panther inside so the carpenter can work in peace. Then he turns away with a triumphant smirk to light his pipe. While he is doing so, the Panther glances around the shed and spies some cans of wood stain. One large can is marked "BLUE STAIN".

The resourceful Panther, thinking that his building plan's pink color is the only reason that the carpenter recognized it as being different from his own blueprint, dips the pink page in and out of the can of blue stain several times until the paper is dyed a deep blue, just like the one the carpenter was using. Then the Panther quietly sticks his paw out through a knothole in the door, deftly removes the blueprint from the carpenter's back pocket, and replaces it with his own set of plans, now colored a convincing blue.

The carpenter marches back to his worktable, spreads the Panther's blueprint out on it, and studies the page for some moments. Then he begins feverishly rushing back and forth with lumber, glass, plumbing parts, and so on.

Finally he gets done with the project, tacks an "OPEN HOUSE" sign on the front door, and heads back to the city in his pickup truck. The Pink Panther, who has just now dug himself out from under the wall of the shed, pops his head out of the ground and beams with delight as he sees the finished house. It looks just like the design he had drawn on his pink page (and is painted bright pink, as you might suppose). He quickly heaves himself out of the hole and makes a dash for the front door, flinging it open and then slamming it shut behind him.

As soon as he does, however, the whole front of the house tips forward and crashes to the ground- it had just been a huge wooden cutout in the shape of the front of the crazy castle-house that the Panther had designed! Behind this temporary "facade" is the real structure- just a simple blue house like the one in the carpenter's original plans! So the carpenter got the last laugh in the end.

Pink Panther, Big Nose Man

The second Pink Panther cartoon nominated for an Academy Award- this one lost.

William Lava provides the Pink Panther's theme music in the beginning of this episode.

Academy Award Nominee, Best Short Subject (Cartoon), 1967