The Pink Panther is a fictional animated character whose popularity spawned a spin-off franchise of theatrical shorts, television cartoons, and merchandise. He appears in the opening and closing credit sequences of every film in The Pink Panther series except for A Shot in the Dark and Inspector Clouseau. In the storyline of the original film, the bumbling Inspector Clouseau travels to Rome to catch a notorious jewel thief known as "The Phantom" before he conducts his most daring heist yet: a valuable pink diamond named for a flaw that showed a "figure of a springing panther" when held up to the light in a certain way.