Pepe Le Pew is a French skunk with complete faith in his own charm and no idea that he smells. He pursues Penelope Pussycat, a black cat who has accidentally acquired a white stripe, with tireless confidence, treating every escape as a lovers’ game. Chuck Jones and writer Michael Maltese built the series on that single blind spot, and it earned Jones his first Academy Award.
| Species: | Skunk |
|---|---|
| First appearance: | Odor-able Kitty (released January 6, 1945) |
| Created by: | Chuck Jones (director) and Michael Maltese (writer) |
| Original voice: | Mel Blanc (1945 to 1989) |
| Signature lines: | "Vive l'amour!" |
| Frequent co-stars: | Penelope Pussycat |
Pepe first appeared in Odor-able Kitty (1945) and became a series star after For Scent-imental Reasons (1949) won the Academy Award for best cartoon short subject. Jones and Maltese repeated the core situation with variations through the 1950s and early 1960s.
Jones wrote that Pepe’s confidence is absolute: rejection, to him, is only a temporary setback. Jones contrasted that with his own shyness at eighteen and called Pepe the person he had always wanted to be. The joke depends on Pepe being the only one who does not know about his odor; when he does find out, in For Scent-imental Reasons, it is a moment of pure panic.
The series remains one of Jones’s most honored. In recent years critics and audiences have reassessed Pepe’s pursuits of an unwilling partner, and Linda Jones has shared her perspective on that debate in a post on our blog.
If you can’t do it yourself, animate somebody who can–Pepe le Pew, for example. Pepe’s sexual confidence is absolute. He sees rejection as no more than a temporary setback and every pursuit as an interesting variation on the road to inevitable success. (For myself, as an eighteen-year-old I took every expression from every girl as a rejection. If I couldn’t find a rejection I liked, I would invent one.)
Pepe is the individual I always wanted to be, so sure of his appeal to women that it never occurs to him that his attentions might be unwelcome or even offensive. I tried to make Pepe’s confidence a part of my own personality, hoping to share in his sexual success. On the screen, it worked.
The skunk may, at first sight, seem to be an unlikely lover, but these films would never succeed if the hero were a human being with bad breath, underarm odors, or smelly feet. Boot odors are simply not funny. It is only when an animal such as a skunk is unaware of his problem, which is built in and instantly obvious to everyone else, that the situation has comic potential. Pepe fit quite nicely into this role.
Pepe cannot know that he smells. He is clearly shocked to be informed about his odor in For Scentimental Reasons, so shocked that he pulls out a gun and threatens to shoot himself (I missed, fortunately for you).
– Chuck Jones
Every piece in our Pepe Le Pew collection is certified by the Chuck Jones family. Browse originals, limited editions and prints below, or contact our art consultants with any questions.
