Release Date:

November 12, 1949

Main Character(s):

Pepe Le Pew, Penelope

Summary:

The owner of a perfume shop in France is horrified to see Pepe Le Pew in his shop sniffing the various perfumes. After a gendarme is too repulsed by Pepe’s scent to throw him out, the owner throws in Penelope to chase him out, but she only ends up getting a stripe from white hair dye poured down her back. Pepe mistakes her for a female skunk and chases her all over the shop until eventually the tables turn.

That’s Not All, Folks:

The production number is 1104 and was released as a Looney Tune.

The cartoon was given a Blue Ribbon reissue.

This is the second Warner cartoon to win the Academy Award and the only time Jones won the Oscar (he would receive two more in his lifetime, one for his animated documentary from the same year, “So Much for So Little”, which was also made at Warner Bros., complete with animation from Jones’ unit and music by Carl Stalling, and another for his 1965 MGM cartoon “The Dot and the Line”).

This is the first appearance of Pepe’s regular object of desire, the black female cat known as Penelope (it wouldn’t be until 1954’s “The Cats Bah” where she would get that name). With the exceptions of 1953’s “Wild Over You” (where he chases after a female wildcat who paints herself to look like a skunk in order to avoid being captured and taken back to the zoo) and his cameo appearance in 1954’s “Dog Pounded” (where Sylvester’s final scheme to get Tweety in that cartoon is painting a white stripe on his back to scare off the dogs in the dog pound he had been trying to outsmart, only for Pepe to come in out of nowhere), Penelope is who Pepe chases for the remainder of his appearances.

This is also the cartoon where all of the elements of Pepe’s cartoons are established which include the following: Pepe is a French skunk who lives in France, everyone speaks in fractured French often saying “le” at the start of every sentence, Penelope gets a white stripe down her back, and Pepe chases her.

This was yet another one of Eddie Selzer’s criticisms that proved incorrect as he believed that audiences wouldn’t find skunks who speak fractured French to be funny. However, when this one won the Oscar, Selzer gladly allowed Pepe to become a continuing character.

The title is a pun for “for sentimental reasons”.

In real life, hair dye is not a liquid as shown here.

The cartoon was used in the 1979 compilation movie “The Bugs Bunny-Roadrunner Movie”.

The cartoon is seen in the background during the bar scene in the 1984 movie, “Gremlins” (which Jones incidentally contributed to via cameos of Bugs and Daffy).

What I Like About This One:

The owner is first seen bicycling along while singing fractured French lyrics (original lyrics by Michael Maltese) in tune to “The Latin Quarter”. Upon reaching his shop, his cheerful mood turns to horror upon seeing something inside: “Sacre maroon!” He runs off to a gendarme for help and frantically explains the trouble upon finding him (I particularly love Mel Blanc’s line delivery on the owner presumably saying the word “monte”). The gendarme confidently agrees to help: “Pouf, Josef! Gendarme can le fix!” (animated by Lloyd Vaughan)

They both walk back to the shop with the owner thanking the gendarme for his help, but when he looks in, the gendarme is equally as horrified at what it is: “Sacre cerise! Le Pew!”, where it’s revealed that Pepe is looking at the numerous perfumes while singing “Time Waits for No One” in fractured French. The gendarme becomes even more repulsed: “Le kitty qu’el terriblay odeur!” as Pepe sniffs one of the perfumes and comments, “Un smelly vou finay!” (animated by Vaughan)

The gendarme runs away as the owner desperately calls for him to come back, before he breaks down crying: “I am ze bankrupt!” Penelope attempts to comfort him by rubbing against his legs: “Le mew. Le purr”. The owner picks her up, delighted: “Ah, le pussy ferocious! Remove zat skunk! Zat polecat pole from ze premises! Avec!” and tosses her inside (animated by Vaughan) where she hits a table that has a bottle of white hair dye on it. It falls over and spills down her back, creating a skunk-like stripe (animated by Ken Harris).

Pepe becomes aware of Penelope’s presence upon hearing her sniffing and believes she is “la belle femme skunk fatale”. She attempts to run out, but he beats her to the door and locks it, before putting his arms out in a hugging position as she ends up skidding into his arms. Pepe starts with, “Ah, my little darling. It is love at first sight, is it not? No? (smooches) Ah, do not come with me to ze Casbah! We shall make such beautiful music together right here! Ah, ze l’amour. Ah, ze toujour. Ah, ze l’amour” but she runs out of his arms before he smooches again. Upon realizing he’s not smooching anything, Pepe sees that Penelope is trying to wash off the stripe on her back via the sink. He believes that she is trying to make herself dainty for him. “For ze daintiness, I can wait”, Pepe decides as he files his nails while singing “Alouette”. He stops after a few seconds and announces, “The time is up. Dainty or not, we continue with ze wooing.” (animated by Harris)

Penelope then attempts to get out through the window, but Pepe again misinterprets this: “Zis little love bundle. Now she is seeking for us a trysting place. Touching, is it not? Come, my little peanut of brittle. I will help you. Wait for me, wait”. She runs off again (animated by Harris).

Pepe eventually finds Penelope hiding in a glass case, smirking. Neither can hear each other from their respective sides, with their dialogue only being made out with violin-like noises but it is very obvious as to what they’re saying. Penelope eventually tells Pepe he stinks, which shocks him so much that he facepalms and pulls out a pistol before going to shoot himself with it offscreen. After he apparently does, a horrified Penelope unlocks the case and comes out, only to find Pepe waiting happily. “I missed. Fortunately for you. So now, mon cherie. We can begin life anew”. After a few more smooches, she runs off again. “C’est la guerre”, Pepe shrugs (animated by Ben Washam).

Pepe does his hopping on all fours after her all the way up the stairs and into a room on the upper story (animated by Phil Monroe). When Penelope catches her breath behind the door, she finds Pepe peering above the transom: “Hello, baby. I am ze locksmith of love, no?” When she attempts to get away, Pepe hangs from the transom by his feet: “Come, darling. We must be grown up about this thing. Do not run away from ze love. Here”. She gets onto the windowsill just as Pepe gets down to the ground. “What is zis? Oh, but of course. This little one wish to commit suicide to prove her love for me. What a sweet gesture. Nevertheless, I must prevent it”, he decides, before running over to her. “Saved!”, he declares but she falls out of his arms anyway. Pepe salutes, “Viva l’amour! We die together!” and willingly steps off the windowsill (animated by Washam). Saluting all the way down, Pepe ends up landing in a can of blue paint labeled “Le Paint” (animated by Monroe).

Pepe emerges completely blue, unaware of his new color and unaware that the paint now blocks his odor. After shaking the excess paint off of him upon coming up as a blue blob, Pepe realizes, “I am not dead? No?” Coughing noises reveal that Penelope landed in the water barrel next to the blue paint as Pepe wonders, “What’s this? Is zat you, pigeon? Is zat- Huh?” but Penelope comes out very ragged-looking and now having a cold, making her unrecognizable. Pepe asks, “Oh, oh, pardon, ze grandmama. But have you seen a beautiful, young lady skunk?” (animated by Monroe)

Climbing out of the paint and walking off, Pepe starts calling out, “Where are you, pigeon? I am looking somewhere to find you. Yoo-hoo, rabbit. Where are you, hm?” Penelope gets a look at the paint-covered Pepe from the back, where it makes him look muscular, causing her to fall for him. Going back in the shop through the front door (with the owner’s bike still where he left it!), Pepe asks, “Are you here, then, golden girl?”, but then hears the door shut and turns around to see Penelope putting the key in pocket-like fur on her chest. “Eh, what can I do. to. help. you?”, he asks as he starts to become uneasy. When she comes nearer and nearer, he starts to become scared: “Eh, why do you lock ze- oh no! Control yourself, madame! You can not be in earnest! A joke, yes? (chuckles nervously) No” and runs off. With Penelope now doing the hop on all fours after him, a fleeing Pepe confides to us, “You know, it is possible to be TOO attractive!” (animated by Monroe)

Where Can I Watch It?

At archive.org!

Carrot Rating:

🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕