Name: Pepe Le Pew
Birthdate:January 6, 1945
Birthplace: Warner studio's
Mission: To win the love of all the felines.


History

Creator: Originally: Michael Maltese
Charles (Chuck) Jones
Voices: Mel Blanc
First Appearance: "Odor-able Kitty."
Interesting Info: A suave French Skunk oozes amour and is ready to run after every female of his kind that crosses his path. In the tradition of a great French lover, he believes that he is irresistible. But there are the occasional setbacks, which will never daunt him; the problem is only the timidity of his overwhelmed partner. But little does he know that he is so offensive that his presence evacuates buildings, much less that he uniformly traumatizes those he would woo. Love may be blind, but there are other senses to consider.
Yet, Pepe Le Pew, holds a special charm for his director, Chuck Jones. "He's the man I always wanted to be," said Jones. "I never had much luck with girls when I was in school. But there is somebody who is absolutely certain about his own sexuality, who's so secure with women that it's inconceivable to him that he could offend them. So Pepe was something very personal to me. I tried to get some of his personality inside of me so I could draw on it in my relations with women."
After Pepe had originally been conceived by Michael Maltese. his essence would take years before he would be fined tuned. A close forerunner of the character had its debut in Jones' 1945 "Odor-able Kitty."
In "Odor-able Kitty" a orange tomcat who grows tired of the world's abuses (from boots and bulldogs and the like) decides to disguise himself as a skunk to achieve some solitude; with the help of some white paint, black paint, Limburger, onions, and garlic.
But soon enough a real Pepe catches his scent and leaps upon him and pants with, French coos, and caresses, showing him that there are worse alternatives than the life he had known. But at the end of the cartoon, Pepe turns out to have kids and a wife (a wife with a rolling pin).
Two years would pass before Chuck Jones worked with the character again. And in 1947's "Scent-imental Over You" the hallmarks began to fall into place: A hairless Mexican dog, female and petite, is laughed at by the luxuriantly-coated pedigrees on New York's Park Avenue, and so she obtains a skunk fur to dress up in. But a French skunk - identified on a mailbox as "Stinky" - mistakes her for the real thing, and immediately begins "zee woo-eeng" all through a city park. Ultimately, however, when the Mexican hairless reveals herself to be a dog. Pepe also transforms himself into a hound.
The components of the Pepe series would be locked in with the character's next film, 1949's "Scent-imental Reasons". Set in France, Pepe is in a perfume shop - a sight that drives the shop's owner to paint a stripe down the back of a curvy pussycat in the hope of luring Pepe away. As Pepe lunges after the terrified cat with clutches and tender words ("Ah, c'est l'amour…Ahhh, c'est toujours!"). Her writhing horror will not stop Pepe for an instant.
Pepe's name was derived from that of Pepe Le Moko, a character played by Charles Boyer in the gurgly love-classic Algiers. But the skunk's unctuous accent, was patterned not only on Boyer, but on all the French actors. " In particular, Jones had the sound of Maurice Chevalier in his ear when he worked with Mel Blanc on developing Pepe fetid Franglias. Another ingredient in the Le Pew series is the structure of the love-struck chase; the panicky cat who frantically scrambles away as a smiling Pepe hops along with leisurely aplomb, and for Jones, the Pepe series would have another distinguishing feature. While the history of animation is indeed clogged with chase cartoons - cat and mouse, cat and canary, Road Runner and Coyote - they usually had one thing in common. "It was a matter of eating somebody, but for Pepe he was unique in that he was after that cat, well, …"

Filmography

1945: Odor-Able Kitty
Pepe Le Pew: January,6; LT; Chuck Jones
Note: In one scene the tomcat disguises himself as Bugs Bunny. It should also be noted that Pepe
is chasing a male cat, and in the future the pseudo-skunks were to be decidedly female.
An orange tomcat decides the only way to get respect, is to disguise himself as a skunk. But the plan works too well. As he attracts the attention of Pepe Le Pew, a hot-blooded skunk who pursues his new found love all over the countryside. In the end, "Pepe's" wife and kids appear and brings the odorous Casanova home. This tormented tabby happily returns to his former identity,a hungry and abused alley cat.

1947: Scent-imental Over You
Pepe Le Pew: May,8; LT; Chuck Jones
All the fancy dogs except a little female Mexican hairless are sporting new coats. After trying on the furs on her owner, she finally glues on one that fits - a skunk fur. She tries to join the other dogs, but they all run from her. Crying, she attracts the attention of Pepe Le Pew, who chases her all over the city. Eventually, she tires of the chase, and Pepe brings her to his tree home (mailbox reads "Stinky"). She reveals that she is just a little dog. Pepe is delighted, "I too am zee canine!" As they embrace, Pepe reveals to us that he's really a skunk after all.

1948: Odor of the Day
Pepe Le Pew: October,2; LT; Arthur Davis
It's snowing and a homeless dog is looking for a place to sleep. He takes shelter in a doghouse, eagle's nest and a turtle's shell, which he gets thrown out of them. Finally the dog finds a house with a real bed. Pepe Le Pew walks in and climbs under the covers to sleep. The dog smells something, sees the skunk, holds his nose, and throws the stinker out. When he returns to bed, Pepe is there again. The dog puts a clothespin on his nose and attacks the skunk, fighting with him under the bed. They chase each other outside. The dogs falls into frozen water, Pepe chops him out of the ice, and snow the dog has a cold and can't smell. He locks Pepe out and returns to his sleep. Pepe throws a brick through the window with a note. "Colds can be fatal, get help now!" The dog calls for a doctor, and Pepe arrives in disguise. He puts the pooch in a washing machine, and hangs him out to dry. It actually cures the cold! Smelling the skunk, the dog runs from the house, lands in the lake, and catches cold again. The dog sprays Pepe with perfume, causing Pepe to run from the house. He falls in the lake, catches a cold as well. Unable to smell each other, they give up and sleep together. There is no dialogue in this film, except for a mutual "Gesundtheit" at the end.

1949: For Scent-imental Reasons
Pepe Le Pew: November,12; LT; Chuck Jones
Pepe Le Pew is in a perfume shop sniffing the various scents. The shopkeeper runs in horror and recruits a female cat to lure the skunk out of the shop. She tosses the cat inside, and a bottle of dye falls over, painting a white stripe down the cat's back. Pepe pursues the cat, intent on making love. The frightened cat hides in a glass case. Pepe pretends to shoot himself. The cat runs out, concerned. Pepe peers over the transom, boasting, "I am zee locksmith of love!" and chases the cat out the window. She falls into a water bucket, and he plops into a can of blue paint. The paint blocks his smell, and, thinking Pepe is a fellow feline, the cat falls in love with Pepe and chases the skunk. Running in horror, Pepe declares, "You know, it is possible to be too attractive!"

1951: Scentimental Romeo
Pepe Le Pew: March,24; MM; Chuck Jones
"Ah ze l'amour! Ah ze toujour! Ah ze grande illusion!" Mam'selle kitty, in order to get in on feeding time at her zoo, paints a white stripe down her back, and before you can say "Django Reinhardt," Pepe Le Pew is whispering sweet nothings and sweet something's in her ear. Pulling down theatre-set walls from nowhere, he turns his cage in the zoo into a hotel room for a rendezvous. By the time he's opened the champagne, she's fled, and be becomes ze lovair chaser, pursuing her all over the park and zoo ("Where are you, my stutz-bearcat of love?"). When she climbs a wall, Pepe is there to do an impression of Chevalier singing, "Baby Face." When she dashes down an alley, he engages her in an Apache dance. When the keeper drags Pepe back to his zoo, he waves a sad farewell. "Sweeting is a such part sorrow!" This last "generic" Pepe. Future entries mixed in other elements (usually settings) This doesn't make much use of the zoo or the park background except for a good bit in the tunnel of love and could use a stronger ending. All one can say is "Viva L'amour!" Theme: "April in Paris." More music: "Strolling Through Le Park" (sung by Pepe), "Latin Quarter," "Kiss Me Again."

1952: Little Beau Pepe
Pepe Le Pew: March,29; MM; Chuck Jones
The Foreign Legionnaires are attending to business as usual, drilling and marching, when who should arrive but "ze disillusioned" Pepe Le Pew. "I weesh to eenlish in ze Foreign Legion so I may forget." On getting a whiff of the new applicant, not only does the recruiting officer scram-ez vous, so does the entire company! Pepe deduces this is because they have already appointed him to their highest post of honor: left to defend the fort! But even honor can wait when Pepe casts his eyes on a la belle femme skunk fatale (actually, a pussycats who passed under a freshly-painted ladder). With "Le Vie En Rose" in the background, Pepe smothers his little demi-monde with kisses, but of course she wishes to "put on her face before we continue with ze wooing (such dainty rabbits these ladies!)". La Belle flees around the upper wall (seeing Pepe in Napoleon costume) and into a barrel ("Like shooting fish in a barrel, is it not?") and dashes out of the fort, he taking the dunes in his stride. By the time they make it to an oasis she has passed out. Dressed as a Valentino-style sheik, he carries the prostrate pussy into a tent. Wondering how she can rest with him so near he "decides to restoke the furnace of love" with a mixture of Aromas Arabienne the function as an aphrodisiac. The haunting primitive love song he strums for her overstrokes the furnace, and she chases him: "Le rowr-rowr!"

1953: Wild Over You
Pepe Le Pew: July,11; MM; Chuck Jones
"All is love in fair and war." A female wildcat escapes from the zoo at the Paris Exposition of 1900, providing Pepe Le Pew not only with something a little out of the ordinary to chase (she gets a white stripe down her back, self-applied to scare off a zoo keeper and dog), but a witty setting to chase through. He thinks she is a "Keeng-sized belle femme skunk fatale." Each time Pepe gets close to her he makes with the sweet nothings and the kisses ("You are ze corned beef to me, I am ze cabbage to you"). Their embrace becomes a dizzying blur of flying claws, after which Pepe emerges not the least bit discouraged, saying, "I like eet." The amorous pursuit takes them through a fortune-teller's tend ("You are going to meet a small dark male who weel bring romance into your drab existence"), around various wax works (she is Marie Antoinette's stole, he as Daniel Boone's coonskin) and other exhibits (suites of armor for amour and Madame Pompadour's coach). The wildcat thinks she's gotten away when she leaves the earth in a balloon, but guess who's in the basket with her? As they ascend skyward out of sight, she starts clawing again, and he tells us, "If you have not tried eet, do not knock eet!"

1954: The Cat's Bah
Pepe Le Pew: March,20; MM; Chuck Jones
The fourth Le Moko epic (after Pepe le Moko, Algiers and Casbah), and Le Pew's most direct homage to Boyer in the film that inspired his name. "You are here to interview me about ze greatest love of my life, yes?" says Pepe to the camera. "Come with me to the Casbah, a very long time ago, when I had set up Bachelor's Quarters and was putting the finishing touches to my toilette before setting forth in search of amorous adventure." The object of said search is a "belle americaine touriste femme skunk," actually the victim of dripping white paint, whom he "liberates" from her lady owner. "Just theenk, radiant flower, you do not have to come weeth me to ze Casbah, we are already here!" She hides in one of a hundred ceramic jugs placed on the seat of a camel built for two (who has learned to put up with everything). Out of a nearby basket comes Pepe, making like a snake ("and you have charmed me"), into Omar Tent's (where Pepe misquotes the Rubiyat). Funniest of all, into a Rick's inspired café that affords Pepe the opportunity to spoonerize "As Time Goes By" in his phony French. After the flashback, the cartoon ends on a kinky note: "Now we are inseparable," says Pepe, meaning literally ball and chain. "Are we not, darling?" She nods in agreement, but immediately gets to work on the chain with a hacksaw!

1955: Past Perfumance
Pepe Le Pew: May,21; MM; Chuck Jones
Paris, 1913: the casting director for animals (Arthur Q. Bryan) at Super Magnifique Productiones (Studios de Le Picteurs Motion) has procured all the creatures necessary for M'sieu Le Directeur's new motion picture (including "Chimps Elysees"), except for one odorless skunk, a female cat with white stripe on her back. Pepe enters the studio and frightens everyone off the set, including the animal trainer who leaves the female pseudo-skunk directly to Pepe! Pepe chases his latest love interest all over the studio. They run across the set for Julio and Romiet, wherein Pepe, looking adorable in pantaloops, calls her his "little much ado about something." In the midst of a Dumasian action scence, he finds that the other two musketeers are less than anxious to have Pepe as their third ("Le yipe"). After removing her from the film magazine, he finds his "pink rabbeet" next in a room de projection, his aroma causing a black and white silent sheik on the screen to exclaim, "Un pole cat de pew es en le audience! Take it vous on le lam!" The pair run past sets for Uncle Tom, Tarzan, and "Daring Young Flea on the Manly Trapeze" and the "Pearls de Pauline." When the white stripe washes off the cat, Pepe continues the chase, painting over his own stripe. "If you can not beat them, join them! Wait for baby!"

1955: Two Scents Worth
Pepe Le Pew: October,15; MM; Chuck Jones
"It is not a just a case of physical attraction, I admire her mind too!" In a little village nestled in the French Alps, a nogoodnik Apache-type hoodlum buys a fish, uses it as a bait to catch a cat, and, with the aid of white paint, transforms it into a skunk that he lowers into a bank. When everybody beats it, he cleans the place out. Meeting Pepe outside, the crook voluntarily locks himself in the nearest jail, leaving his unwilling accomplice, the pseudoskunk, even less willing to take part in Pepe's amorous activities ("Permit me to introduce myself, I am Pepe Le Pew, your lover"). She starts up the Alps in a ski-lift car, and runs to the top. This builds to a first-class chase sequence: Jones uses the idea of a snow-chase so effectively you wish he'd devised a Road Runner-type series with a winter backdrop. Riding down the ski ramp, the girl cat/skunk on one ski and Pepe on two, Pepe makes like a World War II pilot ("I pierce you with the ack-ack of love, flower pot"). Crashing into a tree fails to stop him-he swings through the branches like Tarzan and makes it back on to his skis. When she heads towards the end of the slope and backpedals furiously, managing to stop the ski just at the edge, it is time for Pepe to whoosh by. As he flies through the air, she grabs on to him for dear life. "She is no longer timid" Pepe notes as he releases his parachute.

1956: Heaven Scent
Pepe Le Pew: March,31; MM; Chuck Jones
This basic Pepe routine would be without any distinguishing characteristics were it not so funny. The femme cat applies the stripe to get past a bunch of relentless dogs who separate her from a basket of fish at the waterfront, and does it by rubbing her back against a freshly-painted flagpole. Pepe chases her through the park (that he sings about "strolling through") where she hides in a basket of grapes ready to be made into wine, then up a tree, where Pepe appears and says "marry me." Resolved to play "not quite so easy to get," he runs ahead of her saying, "Marriage, I don't know…" He heads her off at the pass and chases her through the mountains where he combines single echoes into the phrase "I love you" and advises, "all you need is a little occupational therapy, like making love." Pepe hangs from a cliff by his toes ("security isn't everything"), she runs into a tunnel. Pepe sees the sign, "No entre- Le tunnel is blocked."
Before he goes in "for the kill," he quotes, "as a distinguished colleague of mine once noted, there is very little difference between men and women," but, Pepe concludes, "Viva la difference!"

1957: Touche and Go
Pepe Le Pew: October,12; MM; Chuck Jones
Even underwater, Pepe Le Pew can sense the presence of a female skunk and makes a beeline for her. Well, she's not really a skunk but a cat who has been chased by a dog down a highway just as a painter is applying a white stripe to the road. Embracing her, Pepe starts singing his amorous air, "Ze arms of Pepe are upon you." When she runs from his side, he reasons, "Zere are pleenty of othair feesh in ze ocean…zat ees, eef you like feesh. Personally, I prefer a rock." He appears out of the drink offering to get her a glass of water. She's gone by the two seconds he takes to fetch it from the shore, so he pours the water onto the rock explaining how he never touches the stuff himself. Hiding on a yacht, she encounters Pepe in a Captain's cap. "I am ze captain and you are ze first mate, promotions will follow quickly!" The chase continues under water (Pepe needing no oxygen mask since a skunk can hold its breath for a long time). His aromatic strengths drives off a shark who swallows her and sends him yelping onto the beach like a dog. He searches for her in the sea. "Where are you, me leetle she-anemone?" She thinks she's safe when, hours later, she swims ashore on a desert island, but Pepe is waiting for her in Crusoe costume. "Friday? Monday? Right now?" The chase goes on. "One nice thing is, the game of love is never called on account of darkness." The camera pulls back to display the island's heart shape.

1959: Really Scent
Pepe Le Pew: June,27; MM; Abe Levitow
A breath of fresh air for a series that needs it. Here virtually all of the rules de Le Pew are reversed. June Foray narrates this tale set in old New Orleans, beginning on a momentous day in the lives of Pierre and Fifi Cat. This is the day their daughters are born, one little kitten, by a "calamity of birth" coming into the world with a white stripe down her back! It only matters to "Fabrette" the following spring. Her sister easily attracts an eager boy friend, but the local tomcats are frightened by her skunk-like stripe. As fate would have it, Fabrette's ship comes in - from France, and containing Pepe Le Pew! The two spots each other and instantly there are stars in their eyes. Their passionate embrace is disturbed only by her sad discovery that one whiff of her lover is enough to make her pass out! She tries to combat Pepe's pungency by holding her breath (turning all sorts of colors). Pepe mistakes her red face for blushing and sprays himself with perfume. Pepe decides to look up "what thees 'pew' means every time I appear." He declares, "For her I will make myself dainty" and heads into "Henri's Deodorizing Service," just as Fabrette, about to commit suicide, realizes, "If you can't lick them…" and dashes into "Pierre's Limberger Cheese Co." The last scene has the foul-smelling female chasing after the now-sanitary Pepe.

1960: Who Scent You ?
Pepe Le Pew: April,23; LT; Chuck Jones
A female feline studies a "Pleasure Cruise" travel poster and tries to board the ship. The cat sneaks under a freshly painted fence, and gets a white stripe on her black back. Pepe Le Pew spots the female from the shore and runs into the sea (running because he cannot swim) even the fish "smell" him! The captain abandons ship because of the female "skunk," leaving Pepe free to pursue his love. He uses great lines such as "Your aloneness is almost over!" and "You are my peanut, I am your brittle!" Pepe freshens up in the beauty salon, then chases the cat all over the abandoned ship. When the cat finally escapes in a life boat, Pepe is adrift with her. He hangs a sign, "This is the life" over the side.

1961: A Scent of the Matterhorn
Pepe Le Pew: June,24; LT; Chuck Jones
In the French mountains a highway-white-stripe painting machine gets loose and rolls to a nearby farm where it paints everything, including a female cat whom Pepe Le Pew naturally mistakes for a girl skunk. Pepe chases the feline with lines like, "Everyone should have a hobby - mine is making love!" and "You may call me Streetcar because of my desire for you!" Pepe chases her all over the mountain. Finally, the cat jumps off a cliff to escape and lands in Pepe's paws. They slide into an ice-cave, where the multiple reflections of the female drives Pepe wild. "Acres and acres of girls, and they're mine, all mine!"

1962: Louvre Come Back to Me
Pepe Le Pew: August,18; LT; Chuck Jones
It is Paris in spring and Pepe Le Pew, the lovesick skunk, is walking and singing in the park. Everything in his path melts or stiffens at his scent. The stink makes one female alley cat jump up a freshly-painted flagpole, painting a white stripe on her black fur back. Pepe pursues the feline through the Louvre Museum, where even the statues react to his smell. The girl's orange tomcat boy friend tries to chase after Pepe, but is done in by the smell. Pepe seeks out his love, asking, "Where are you, my little object d'art? I am going to collect you!" The tomcat catches up to Pepe (holding his breath with a clothespin on his nose). Pepe understands, and at great length, describes a duel they will have. The cat runs out for air. Pepe continues to search for his love, and finds her in the air conditioning unit in the basement, spreading his scent throughout the museum, causing the great paintings to react. The watches in Dali's "The Persistance Of Vision" pop their main springs; the farm couple of "American Gothic" hide their heads; Millet's "The Gleaners" run away; the paint from a Degas ballet portrait fall off, revealing it was "paint-by-numbers"; and the "Mona Lisa" just grins. "I can tell you chaps one thing. It's not always easy to hold this smile!"

Guest Appearances

1954: Dog Pounded
Tweety, Sylvester, Pepe Le Pew: January,2; LT; I Freleng
Note:Pepe makes a guest appearance.
A very funny series of blackout gags with Tweety in a nest in the middle of a city dog pound where hundreds of vicious bulldog Tweetie-protectors are just waiting for Sylvester to try and cross their yard so they can make mince-meat out of him. Freleng and Foster cram in more gag sequences. A few highlights are Sylvester's walk across a tight rope holding an umbrella for balance, the dogs collectively blowing a wind of doggie-breath at him; disguising himself in a dog suit, the dog catcher putting him right back in the pound (Blanc voicing Sylvester as a dog is terrific: like Jimmy Stewart imitating John Wayne). Sylvester gets the idea of mass hypnotism to knock out the pooches, but Tweety tricks him into blurting out the secret of how to restore them to normal. Tip-toeing through the apparently empty yard, and climbing Tweety's tree. Sylvester discovers the bulldogs all sitting on various branches. Trying to swing through the pound Sylvester has all the dogs jumping on the swing with him (uninvited). Sylvester manages at last to scare them all away with a phoney skunk strip painted down his back, but just as he is grabbing Tweety, Pepe Le Pew, out of nowhere, arrives to make love to him.