Thursday, July 24, 2008

Pew!

Let's take a break from Sam for a moment, to shine a spotlight on another LT character.

Pepe Le Pew was probably my least favorite of the Looney Tunes characters as a kid. However, as I got older I began to appreciate these cartoons more and more. The dialogue and mock French wordplay really is clever and funny. I can imagine Jones and Maltese had a great time coming up with that stuff. Sadly, Mr. Le Pew (like Mr. Leghorn) has been woefully underrepresented on the current Looney Tunes DVDs. I doubt I'd be able to sit through an entire disc of nothing but Pepe, but I sure wouldn't mind seeing more released. Anyway, in honor of Pepe here's a music video that Cartoon Network used to run as filler in-between shows titled "L'amour a une Odeur" by Pink Martini.


9 comments:

Acme Girl said...

Pepe Le Pew! Le yay! My favorite Looney Tune! ...and my first cartoon crush. (LOL) And what girl doesn't love Pepe? I mean, other than the pussycats with the white stripes painted on their backs that Pepe chases. (LOL part deux) I wish all his cartoons could be released on DVD. (Hear that, WB? We want more Pepe!) Ah, well. An LT fan can dream, can't she? And what a dream he is, too. (LOL, le fin)

bobblog said...

In the 80's there was a video compilation (the series with the blue box) dedicated to Pepe. He used to annoy me a lot in the past but I think he's slowly becoming my fave character.

Duck Dodgers said...

I've always liked Pepe as a character, but not for the cartoons.

S.L said...

You could love Pepe or hate him: this is an important factor also for the male audience of the LT cartoons! Most of them the first time they see him are sort of disgusted, but slowly with the time they change idea about this charachter and appreciate him (or his cartoons)

A possible reason of this change is given from an explanation by Chuck Jones himself: every male wish to be attractive and self confident while flirting with us Ladies, and what Looney Tunes charachter reppresents best an icon of eternal latin lover, certain to have all the features to seduce a female from an opposite animal species?

At the same time girls are just crazy for Mr. Le Pew, since despite he's a skunk (and as consequnce- we know- he stinks)he doesn't become a "victim" of his physical defects: in fact Pepe perfectly knows that he stinks, but that's not important, because he correctly thinks that Ladies who are seriously interested at engaging with him won't give any importance to his odour, but to his charming personality and charisma!

Personally I'm not so crazy about Pepe, he's a charachter that simply I like, but there's a friend of mine who's just a fanatic of him, and sometimes she confesses me to be Pepe's Wife!

Sorry for the funny anecdote, but I need to tell it to you all LT fans!

(Scusa Gugu-Ale :D ! )

Anonymous said...

I like Pepe as a character, even if his cartoons are kind of one-note. At least Jones knew that it was a premise without legs and had the sense to alter the cartoons' locations each time, in order to vary the types of gags that could be thought up. That, if anything, keeps Pepe's cartoons from becoming monotonous for me.

And also, Mike Maltese's writing was always brilliant on the Pepe shorts. I can't remember which cartoon it was off the top of my head, but one of my favorite Pepe gags involves the cat hiding in the knothole of a tree - you only see her eyes in the darkness, then suddenly, Pepe's eyes appear alongside them and he says "Marry me!" It's just really well-timed.

J Lee said...

The Pepe cartoons -- like the Speedy shorts, the Hippety Hopper shorts and (to a lesser extent) the Foghorn shorts are ones best watched one or two at a time due to their repetitive story lines (something that I assume even Mike Maltese and the rest of Jones' crew had problems with, since as soon as Chuck was away Maltese got together with Abe Levitow and did "Really Scent", which basically takes all the series standard parts and throws them out the window).

Anonymous said...

[QUOTE]I wish all his cartoons could be released on DVD. (Hear that, WB? We want more Pepe!) [/QUOTE]

Shouldn't be too hard, considering that, excluding Odor-able Kitty, For Scentimental Reasons, and Heaven Scent (which is going to be on the sixth Golden Collection set coming next month), there are only 13 Pepe cartoons left to be put on DVD (14, if you count that Sylvester and Tweety cartoon that had Pepe near the end), and those can fit on one DVD (or half of one if WB ever gets the crazy idea to put Looney Tunes on a double-sided DVD)

Anonymous said...

I LIKE PEPE LE PEW.

Anonymous said...

When we produced the Larry Doyle shorts, there was a concern of the WB suits that Pepe came across as sexually assaulting the female cats. Silly but true. That may explain the absence of this character from all WB promotional materials.

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