its only Academy Award in 1964. In 1966, DFE would receive another Academy Award nomination for The Pink Blueprint, before losing the award. The Pink Panther and other television series The Pink Panther theatrical series of cartoons became the basis of a Saturday morning television series, The Pink Panther Show on September 1969, which also included theatrical cartoons of The Inspector (introduced in 1966) and eventually The Ant and the Aardvark, Roland and Rattfink (introduced in 1968), and The Texas Toads (Tijuana Toads). Like most animated television cartoons at the time, The Pink Panther Show contained a laugh track with narration. The cartoons were edited and in some cases re-dubbed to meet television standards and practices for content. The Pink Panther Show had several incarnations during the 1970s. The show was very popular on NBC's Saturday morning line-up, starting as a half-hour program and expanding a few years later to 90 minutes each week. The studio provided the animated sequences for the 1969–1970 television series My World and Welcome to It based on the drawings of James Thurber. DFE was one of the subcontractors for the 1964–1967 Warner Bros. cartoons, along with Format Productions. The Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies shorts made by the studio can be easily identified by their modernized "Abstract WB" opening and closing sequences (although the "Abstract WB" opening and closing sequences were first used in three cartoons made by Warner Bros. Cartoons). However, select 1964–1967 DePatie–Freleng Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies (most notably those directed by Rudy Larriva) were panned by fans and critics alike. DFE did not continue doing Warner cartoon work until the late 1970s/early 1980s, with the TV specials Bugs Bunny's Easter Special (1977), Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales (1979), and Daffy Duck's Easter Egg-Citement (1980). DFE also created Return to the Planet of the Apes, which ran on NBC from 1975 to 1976 and The Oddball Couple, which ran on Saturday mornings on ABC from 1975 to 1977. One of the studio's television specials was The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas (1973), with Tommy Smothers voicing the little bear who goes out to find Christmas (in the human world) while his fellow bears head for hibernation. DFE was also responsible for a number of Dr. Seuss specials, including The Cat In The Hat and different incarnations of The Grinch. Later years In 1981, Freleng and DePatie sold DFE Films to Marvel Comics, and