Pancham made his acting debut in Mehmood's Bhoot Bangla, and also featured in Pyar Ka Mausam, in a comic role as Mr Popat Lal.
Apart from film music, he also composed four non-film music albums of which two were notable -- The international album Pantera in collaboration with Latin American composer, Jose Flores, and Dil Padosi Hai, sung by Asha Bhonsle with lyrics by Gulzar. The others, which were not as well received, were Dil Tera Hua and Tera Mera Pyar Jawan.

R D Burman composed music for a great number of movies, of which 331 were actually released. 292 were in Hindi, 31 in Bangla, 3 in Telugu, 2 each in Tamil and Oriya and 1 in Marathi. He also composed for 5 television serials in Hindi and Marathi, and did a song for a documentary, Maa Ki Pukaar.