Page Notes
Episode published on Sunday 3rd of January, 2016.
It was always my intention to get a character heavily inspired by Inspector Clouseau into the comic, as Britain vs. France is a friendly rivalry that's been going on for years. Also I admit that I've loved the Peter Sellers Pink Panther films since a kid and I still get a kick out of them even though they look incredibly dated and you can see the slapstick jokes coming from a mile away.
I would later fall in love with the long running Japanese animation Lupin III, which features Inspector Zenigata as a minor recurring antagonist. Zenigata is one of my all-time favourite cartoon characters and the whole "catch me if you can" trope is one I intend to indulge in significantly.
Going back to the Pink Panther, I don't like the Steve Martin films at all. They lack the sophistication of the originals and Martin's accent is just terrible, whereas master vocal performer Peter Sellers really nailed a Frenchman trying to speak English. The best modern Clouseau performance I've seen was actually Ty Burrell as Jean Pierre Napoleon in Muppets Most Wanted. It's a fantastic Clouseau-esque performance and he even admits that he was just mimicking Sellers' performance in the making of, I believe.
Typing out a Frenchman speaking English is a different matter. In fact, it was such a chore that I wrote a script to do it for me which you can try out for yourself to speak (or write) silly French accents. Enjoy!
Tagged:
Inspector Jacques Russo,
Location - Detulux HQ,
Location - Paris, France,
Max Valerion,
Melvin Pratt the Environ-mental Protestor,
Snowball the cat
Comments
Transcript
Title - 90: "An Inspector Calls"
Subtitle - i. "A Lead in the Case"
(Pain sits at his desk in a slightly worn and battered office chair, slowly working through a large tower of papers on his desk. His cat Snowball is curled up asleep next to the papers.)
Voice: Ah 'ave been assigned to hees case.
(Our view moves to outside the building, watching Pain work through his paperwork through his office window.)
Voice: Mr. Pain, the world-famous arms-collecteré 'as eluded the airthoritais fere too long.
(Our view moves out further still, so we can see the entire Detulux HQ building.)
Voice: Rumair has eet een the criminal undairworld that he is operateeng useeng the global conglomerate Detulux Incorporated...
(Our view moves into Paris, to the Eiffel Tower.)
Voice: ...but without sufficiont evidonce there 'as nevair been an investigashe-on on the facilité just outside of Paris.
(Our view moves to the blue front doors of a building signposted as the "POSTE DE POLICE". Two police cars are parked outside.)
Voice: But, they nevair had a weetness before.
(Our final view is inside the building, in the interrogation room. A man, an inspector, with long black hair and a long handlebar moustache smirks as his eyes look over his left shoulder. Sat behind him, rather scruffy and uncomfortable, is Melvin the environ-mental protestor from back in the first chapter.)
Inspector: A weetness...like I 'ave.
Episode tagline: The populace of France will look up and shout "Your interpretation of English in a French accent is awful!"...and I'll look down and whisper "Non."
