I suspect readers will want to share a story from this week, or at least one of the images that go with it. This page gives them a place to point others to.
Let’s start with the story, from True’s 26 October 2025 issue, which led off with this about the October 19 raid on the Louvre:
Not Now, Cato!
The daring daylight theft of 88 million euros (US$102 million) worth of crown jewels from the Louvre in Paris, France, has sparked imaginations worldwide. An Associated Press photographer at the scene snapped a shot of police at the museum which reveals a very dapper young man with a thin moustache, dressed in a suit and tie, fedora, and thigh-length trench coat, and carrying an umbrella. Online wags suggested, “Inspector Clouseau?”, the fictional bumbling-yet-successful French police detective played by the late Peter Sellers. When the AP inquired of the Paris Prosecutor’s office who the man really is, they replied, “We’d rather keep the mystery alive ;)”. About the same time as the photo was released over the AP wires, This is True posted a gag A.I.-generated photo of Peter Sellers dressed as Clouseau in front of the Louvre with the caption, “France puts its top detective on the case.” The man is apparently just a passerby, not a detective. (RC/AP)…Art imitating farce.
Images
First, there is the A.I.-generated image (I won’t say photo, since it only appears to be a photograph) that I posted on True’s social media pages [Facebook, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky] the evening of October 19.
For the record, I hadn’t heard of (or seen) the so-called “Inspector Clouseau” AP photo until the following Friday or Saturday (Oct. 24 or 25), when I started researching stories for this week’s edition. You’re welcome to grab it from here and share it if you wish, or share it from the social media links above.
Of course, when I saw it, I laughed out loud …and doubted the guy, as several people who posted the AP photo had claimed, was a detective brought in to the case.
That seems to have started with writer Melissa Chen on Twixxer: as she has more than 300,000 followers there, it rapidly went viral:
I think it’s hilarious that it’s apparently “just a guy” walking by — and that Thibault Camus, the photographer himself, apparently didn’t think of the man as a Clouseau-like figure. Camus told the New York Times he was simply drawn to the man’s outfit and how it visually resonated with the historic Louvre setting, describing the passerby as “old-fashioned like a museum can be.”
I couldn’t find Camus’s age, but indications are he’s at least 20 years into his career, so probably 45ish or older. Maybe the Pink Panther films weren’t big in France….
Hopefully you already know who Cato was!
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I may be showing my age, but the original Cato isn’t even who I think of! His most recent appearance seems to be 1993 (Wikipedia). I have seen the newer, younger Cato in the recent Green Hornet movie — still playing a similar role to when he performed with Pink Panther. 😉
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I’m a little unclear. Burt Kwouk originated Cato for the Pink Panther series, starting with the second film (A Shot in the Dark, 1964). Bruce Lee originated Kato for the Green Hornet TV series in 1966, but that character goes back to the radio days — 1936! As far as I can tell, Kwouk is the only one who played Cato, and never played Kato. -rc
That’s not Inspector Clouseau, that’s Inspector Gadget (specifically as played by Matthew Broderick).
A steampunk version of Clouseau or Gadget maybe.