Died at 119
male
Isadore "Friz" Freleng (1906–1995), sometimes credited as I. Freleng, was an American animator, cartoonist, director, and producer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from Warner Bros. He introduced and/or developed several of the studio's biggest stars, including Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the cat, Yosemite Sam (to whom he was said to bear more than a passing resemblance) and Speedy Gonzales. The senior director at Warners' Termite Terrace studio, Freleng directed more cartoons than any other director in the studio (a total of 266), and is also the most honored of the Warner directors, having won four Academy Awards. After Warners shut down the animation studio in 1963, Freleng and business partner David H. DePatie founded DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, which produced cartoons (notably The Pink Panther Show), feature film title sequences, and Saturday morning cartoons through the early 1980s. The nickname "Friz" came from his friend Hugh Harman, who initially nicknamed him "Congressman Frizby" after a fictional senator that was in articles in the Los Angeles Examiner. Over time this shortened to "Friz".
Inspector Clouseau is a loyal if one of the most unorthodox members of the Sûreté or French National Police and has been assigned to travel with a detachment to provide security detail for Princess Dala who has escaped the overthrow of her home country Lugash by its Secret Police who are sponsoring a religious fundamentalist regime and their own crime syndicates both wanting to impose an extremist Sharia law that grants them absolute power over all of Lugash's citizens. Only with the family jewel the Pink Panther will the claim to Lugash be sealed. Knowing that Dala's family jewel the Pink Panther will be too big of a prize for his archenemy the Phantom to resist, Clouseau hopes to set a trap for the thief he attempted to catch long ago while he, his comrades and extended family try to keep the princess safe and happy. The Phantom, also known as the English playboy Sir Charles Litton, steals jewels from very rich and corrupt people while leaving a white monogrammed man's glove with the initial 'P' on it as he enacts a breed of vigilante justice that baffles INTERPOL. As he moves to prepare a theft of the diamond, he starts to fall in love with the princess. Clouseau's stumbling, bumbling antics at times relieve the tension and keep the atmosphere from getting too grim, but they all take their toll on the sanity of Clouseau's immediate superior Chief Inspector Charles LaRousse Dreyfus, who at any moment could very well snap and try to do away with and kill Clouseau.
