The Ant and the Aardvark

The Ant and the Aardvark is a series of 17 theatrical short cartoons produced at DePatie–Freleng Enterprises and released by United Artists from 1969 to 1971.

[1] The cartoon series follows attempts of a blue aardvark (voiced by John Byner,[2][3][4] imitating Jackie Mason[5]) attempting to catch and eat a red ant named Charlie (also voiced by Byner,[2][3][4] imitating Dean Martin[5]), usually doing so by inhaling with a loud vacuum cleaner sound.

[6] In several bumper sequences of The Pink Panther Show, he is called "Blue Aardvark".

Seventeen theatrical shorts were produced in the original series, and were subsequently featured in various television syndication packages, usually shown with DFE's other characters such as the Pink Panther and The Inspector.

As such, the character's solid colors allowed them to stand out clearly against the multi-colored backgrounds featured prominently in the series.

For the first time in animated cartoons, all six musicians—Ray Brown, Billy Byers, Pete Candoli, Shelly Manne, Jimmy Rowles and Tommy Tedesco—received on-screen credit.