I had no idea he was still alive, but I share everyone's sentiments.
I got to play Clouseau in my final play as a senior in high school. We did The Pink Panther Strikes Again, and it was a poorly written script. So my friend Dave (who was playing Cato) and I decided to spruce it up a bit. We rehearsed a very complicated fight scene between Clouseau and Cato, ending with the dreaded phone call. We broke into the Gym and got fencing swords. We used pizza trays for shields, and rehearsed diving off of a sofa onto some pillows hidden behind it.
Only, we didn't tell the director, our theater arts teacher Mr. Terry. So when we did the bit, he lost it! He was so ticked at us! But he had to admit it was funny, and clever. So he allowed us to do it the second night, too. Win!
Our Infernal Machine was cool, too. It had blinking lights, dried ice "smoke" coming out of it, a whirling radar dish on the top. Ah, those were good times.
BTW, my favorite scene in a PP movie is in Return, when Clouseau is disguised as the Mafia don, and he walks into the meeting with all the Italians, saying, "Rigatoni! Spaghetti!", and then he swallows the cotton balls he had put in his cheeks. The ultimate in-joke on Marlon Brando. Priceless!