That's saying a lot seeing as of the five seen so far, this and Toro Pink are the only ones that are decent (while containing flaws). Pink Breakfast, Pink Quackers and String Along in Pink had their moments but were on the whole underwhelming, looking and sounding cheap with slack timing and not being very funny.
Pink in the Woods is imperfect, but especially in the execution of the gags, timing and character interaction it's already vastly improved from the previous cartoon String Along in Pink. The animation in pretty much all of the later (post-1975) Pink Panther cartoons was not that great, sadly that is the case here as well in Pink in the Woods, Pinky and his expressions are fine and the Little Man's design is true to the style of the earlier cartoons but the colours lack vibrancy, backgrounds are scrappy and sparse with little detail and almost everything apart from the two main characters is drawn in a rushed and cheap-looking way. Also don't think much about the music, while the theme tune and that it's incorporated more are great, the same cannot be said for the rest of the music, which is basically themes recycled from the 1976-1978 cartoons and used over and over in a very loud and hasty-sounding manner. And apart from the part of the train none of it fits, with the slower pacing of the cartoon it was in need of more subtlety as well as energy like the slinky elegance of the earlier cartoons, instead it goes against Pinky's characteristics rather than add to them like the scoring of the early outings did so brilliantly. The story is formulaic and occasionally feels rushed.
However, the theme tune is great, a classic even, and it was really nice to hear more of it which some of the later Pink Panther cartoons didn't do enough of. The pacing is not perfect but it is much crisper and more involving than most of the 1979 Pink Panther cartoons, certainly more so than String Along in Pink which was little more than a series of repetitive string gags done dully. Pink in the Woods is also the most consistently amusing of the 1979 batch, they may not be all that surprising and the ending of Toro Pink alone is funnier than any of the gags here, but they are timed well while not feeling abrupt or drawn out, are a mix of amusing and hilarious and have enough variation to stop them from feeling too repetitive. The reason why I put it above Toro Pink is that while it had the most fitting music and the funniest gag of all five cartoons it did lack originality and felt like a retread of Bully for Pink (a pretty good one at that though). Pinky has lost none of his suavity or likability, and manages to be funny even without a word being said, while the Little Man is a character the viewer feels amusement and pity for. The dynamic between the two characters is immensely enjoyable to watch, and very true to what made their chemistry click so well in the first place, a quality that was missing in Pink Breakfast, Pink Quackers and String Along in Pink.
All in all, not great but decent Pink Panther cartoon and the best overall of the 1979 batch. 7/10 Bethany Cox
