Penelope Pussycat

Penelope Pussycat is a fictional character, an anthropomorphic cat featured in the Warner Bros. classic "Looney Tunes" animated shorts. Though typically a non-speaker, her "meows" and "purs" were most often provided by Mel Blanc using a feminine voice. In the 1959 short "Really Scent", she was voiced by June Foray. And in her only real speaking role, she was voiced by Tress MacNeille in the 1995 short "Carrotblanca". It can be postulated with the inconsistencies in her naming that every sighting of her is simply a random black cat until 'Penelope' was named on screen in "Carrotblanca" using the black cat animation.

Character history and personality

Penelope Pussycat is best known as the often bewildered love interest of Looney Tunes star-skunk, Pepe Le Pew. Penelope is a typical black and white pussycat, though by some means or another, she often finds herself with a white stripe down her back. She talks very seldom, and has a somewhat shy personality...until she falls in love. When Penelope falls in love, and there is nothing to get in her way, she can be just as aggressively passionate and unstoppable as Pepe. Penelope is always on the lookout for romance, but often that romance comes paired with a disturbingly foul odor.

While she finds herself constantly being chased by the overly enthusiastic Pepe, their relationship is certainly not a one-sided attraction. On more than one occasion she has been shown to harbor an equally powerful desire to chase, capture and smother Pepe in overwhelming amounts of passion and romance (much to Pepe's fright, as he, perhaps because of his accustom to being the chaser and not the chasee, has an ironic phobia of women trying to capture him). However, while she does find Pepe to be attractive, it is his smell that she cannot stand.

Despite their differences, and a smell strong enough to kill plants where they stand, Penelope is "very" much in love with Pepe when given the proper opportunity to be with him. On many occasions she will go to great lengths to separate Pepe from his odor, and in the moments where she succeeds, she easily turns the tables on him and amorously hunts him down with reckless abandon.

Name controversy

For many years, Penelope remained a nameless character, simply referred to as "the black cat". She was eventually given a name in the 1954 short, "The Cat's Bah", where her master referred to her as "Penelope". The name was later contradicted in the 1955 short, "Two Scent's Worth", where she was identified as "Fifi". In the 1959 short, "Really Scent", she was referred to as "Fabrette". Confusingly, her Mother was named "Fifi".

She remained without an official name for many years, up until "Carrotblanca" (a parody of "Casablanca") was released in 1995. Her name was then canonized as "Penelope Pussycat", as many advertisements for the short credited her as "Penelope Pussycat in her first speaking role".

Appearances

Classic shorts

*"For Scent-imental Reasons" (1949)
*"Scent-imental Romeo" (1951)
*"Little Beau Pepe" (1952)
*"The Cats Bah" (1954)
*"Past Perfumance" (1955)
*"Two Scent's Worth" (1955)
*"Heaven Scent" (1956)
*"Touche' and Go" (1957)
*"Really Scent" (1959)
*"Who Scent You?" (1960)
*"A Scent of the Matterhorn" (1961)
*"Louvre Come Back to Me!" (1962)

Other media

*Tiny Toon Adventures episode "It's a Wonderful Tiny Toon Christmas Special" (1992)
*"Carrotblanca" (1995)
*"Space Jam" (1996)
*"Tweety's High-Flying Adventure" (2000)
*"Bah Humduck!: A Looney Tunes Christmas" (2006)
*Loonatics Unleashed episode "The Hunter" (2007) - (cameo, along with Pepé)

Most notable appearances

For Scent-imental Reasons

The Academy Award-winning 1949 short For Scent-imental Reasons ended with an accidentally painted (and now terrified) Pepé being romantically pursued by a madly smitten Penelope (who has been dunked in dirty water, giving her a ratty appearance). Penelope locks him up inside a perfume shop, hiding the key down her chest, and proceeds to turn the tables on the now imprisoned, and odorless, Pepé.

Little Beau Pepé

In another short, Little Beau Pepé, Pepé, attempting to find the most arousing cologne with which to impress Penelope, sprays a combination of perfumes and colognes upon himself. This resulted in something close to a love-potion, leading Penelope to fall madly in love with Pepé in an explosion of hearts. Pepé is revealed to be extremely frightened of overly-affectionate women ("But Madame!"), much to his dismay, as Penelope quickly captures him and smothers him in more love than even he could imagine.

Really Scent

And yet again, in Really Scent, Pepé removes his odor by locking himself in a deodorant plant so "Fabrette" (in this instance a black cat with an unfortunate birthmark) would no longer be afraid of him. However, Fabrette had decided to make her odor match her appearance and had locked herself in a Limburger cheese factory. Now more forceful and demanding, Fabrette quickly corners the terrified Pepé, who, after smelling her new stench, wants nothing more than to escape the amorous female cat. Unfortunately, she will not take "no" for an answer and proceeds to chase Pepé off into the distance, with no intention of letting him escape.