He sells fiberglass and Brazilian yogurt, eats lunch with Japanese office ladies, brings silent cheer to sick children and hovers above Macy's Thanksgiving parade. One look at him, and you start mouthing his song.

He's hot--hot pink--and today the Pink Panther turns 25. This week, which his creators have dubbed "Paint the Town Pink" week, he is celebrating with a slew of visits to hospitals, cheerleading contests at malls and a celebrity-studded charity fund-raiser.

Monday, he was honored with proclamations in Hollywood and in Culver City, where his home office, MGM/UA Communications Co., is located.

To accept his Culver City award, the debonair cat was chauffeured in a 1959 pastel pink Cadillac convertible from the MGM/UA building kitty-cornered from City Hall. The 6-foot-tall, slender panther, dressed in black-sequined tuxedo jacket with tails, ruffle-front shirt and metallic silver bow tie, hopped over the car door, waving and landing elegantly on his watermelon-sized feet. "He's the Fred Astaire of cartoons," said Friz Freleng, 82, who created the cat with Dave DePatie. "He doesn't dance, but he's very graceful."

"Pink," as he's affectionately called at MGM/UA, caused a stir among the residents who had come to the City Council meeting to talk about housing and budget issues. Councilman Steven Gourley read a proclamation calling Pink a "citizen of the world (who) has kept a special place in his heart for Culver City," while the rest of the council sang the Pink Panther song. Pink, his jaws fixed in a grin, kissed Mayor Jozelle Smith.

The now-famous cat had humble beginnings, his name coming from the pink jewel stolen in the first "Pink Panther" film.

Freleng, also a mastermind behind Porky Pig, Sylvester the Cat, Tweety Bird and Bugs Bunny, was asked by director Blake Edwards to fashion an animated title for the 1964 movie, in which Peter Sellers tries to stop David Niven from nabbing the legendary "Pink Panther" gem. Henry Mancini had not yet written the snappy Pink Panther tune, but gave Freleng a tempo to go by. "It was 7 1/2 minutes long--probably the longest title that was ever done" at that time, Freleng said.

Pink "became silent because he couldn't talk over the title," Freleng said. He also became "a real egotist," pushing signs with his name onto the screen every time the credits to the human actors appeared.