The Pink Panther Series - A Question

In true Clouseau fashion, I'll start by saying that I have seen everything... and I have seen nothing. And the point is:

Having recently watched the mediocre new entry in the series by Steve Martin, I've felt the need to revisit the older titles -only the Sellers one, not the Benigni abomination or the Alan Arkin spinoff- due to the fact that here in Spain they've been re-released separately out of the 5-disc box everybody but me seemed to have bought long ago.

So last week, I bought & watched the first Peter Sellers/ David Niven one which I found okay to good, and yesterday I did the same with A Shot in the Dark (you know, the one that should have been released before the original, and scripted by Blake Edwards AND William Peter Blatty!). Supposedly, it's the best in the series, but to me: oh, the horror...

I mean, the humor is supposed to be a bit dated -sex farces are not what they were nowadays- and pratfalls may get a bit tiresome after the twentieth, but are the rest of the movies like that, only in declining quality as the series go? I watched them all like a decade ago with my dad and I remember us busting our asses off with the Dreyfuss murder attempts, but do they hold up today for a grown up 28 year-old that still considers The Party and Dr.Strangelove as Sellers' best?

Thanks my man. I just noticed you don't get red when excited anymore, BTW.

Just like Devin wrote, I found some saving graces in Martin's film, namely in some dialogues or at the end -the curtain-disguise gag or Martin & Reno's improv dance- but I also noticed the other day while reading the backcovers of the DVDs that the Sellers movies 3 to 5 look exactly the same. After that, I plan on buying the third (is it the one where David Niven returns?) and forget about the other two. At 8 euro apiece doesn't seem too much of a loss, right?

EDIT: Shit, Mastro outran me. I hope Strikes isn't the fourth. Now I'm confused.

Agree with that. The music is great an so are the credits and pre-credits tracking shot scene (are we talking James Bond or what? Oh, how I miss movies with animated titles sequences), but otherwise, I didn't exactly find much to like except Sellers, of course, and some of the running gags -the parking next to the fountain, Clouseau getting arrested in every stakeout, Dreyfuss' murder attempts. Apart from that, it all felt like if everyone gradually lost interest in the (repetitive) plot and the Dreyfuss jealousy was awfully out of place and heavy handed. Oh, and I don't have too many kind words for Elke Sommer either.

Let's see what Strikes Again does for me. BTW, I just found that Trail of the Pink Panther is the one in which David Niven returns. The one with the conjointed fotage and "homages". Damn, even the DVD synopsis makes it look worse than it seems to be.