Penelope Pitstop

Penelope Pitstop is a fictional character who appeared in the Hanna-Barbera animated series "Wacky Races", and starred in the spin-off "The Perils of Penelope Pitstop", voiced by Janet Waldo, 1969.

Background

In "Wacky Races" she drove the Compact Pussycat, a pink, stereotypically feminine car with personal grooming facilities. She was called by the race announcer as the "Glamour Gal of the Gas Pedal". Also, as Wacky Races was inspired by The Great Race, Penelope was inspired by the Maggie DuBois character (played by Natalie Wood in the film).

According to Iwao Takamoto, Penelope was an afterthought in the development of "Wacky Races". Joseph Barbera requested that a woman be added among the racers, so Takamoto and Jerry Eisenberg designed Penelope and her car in about two hours. [cite video|people=Iwao Takamoto (interviewee)|year=2004|title=Wacky Races|location=Los Angeles|medium=DVD|publisher=Warner Home Video]

"The Perils of Penelope Pitstop", a spinoff from "Wacky Races" which featured Penelope as the lead character was set in the 1920s. Penelope was a traditional "damsel in distress" stock character as in the old serial "The Perils of Pauline". Her catchphrase was "Help, help!" (spoken in an affected upper-class U.S. South accent, and pronounced "HAY-ULP!"). Here she displays a curious combination of ingenuity and helplessness. She often figured out clever ways to get out of perils, and was very athletic; if any sport happened to be mentioned, it was revealed that she was the women's champion in said sport in college. Nonetheless, when her archnemesis The Hooded Claw, voiced by Paul Lynde (which, unknown to her, is her guardian Sylvester Sneakley) grabbed her, she would somehow be incapable of doing anything other than yelling for help. Also in the background helping her out of her perils (or even becoming a pain in the rear) is the minuscule Anthill Mob and trusty old classic car Chuggaboom which is actually based on another team from "Wacky Races").

Compact Pussycat

In the series, Penelope's car is called the "Compact Pussycat". It is pink, with front bumpers that look like a pair of red lips. It has an umbrella on the top and is equipped with various beauty machines, making it essentially a beauty salon on wheels.

Penelope Pitstop in popular culture

*Janet Waldo reprised her role in the Wacky Races video game.
*Penelope has appeared in the web-based Shockwave cartoon "Penelope Pitstop GT", though this variation of the character is far more capable of protecting herself. [http://ghostbot.com/media/all/1.swf]
*Penelope Pitstop --in the Compact Pussycat-- was the User in a racing game in the episode, "Firewall", in the CGI cartoon, ReBoot. The User's line was Penelope's famous, "Help! Help!".
*The character was mentioned in the Type O Negative song "How Could She?".
*Penelope rode again in the Dead Ringers Parody of Wacky Races.
*The character was mentioned in the Jurassic 5 song "The Influence".
*Penelope's nemesis - the Hooded Claw - is mentioned in the song The Power of Love by Frankie Goes to Hollywood
*A range of Penelope Pitstop graphic shirts have been released in Singapore under Zara Kids

Penelope Pitstop in other languages

*Portuguese: "Penélope Pitstop"
*Brazilian Portuguese: "Penélope Charmosa"
*French: "Pénélope Jolie-Cœur"
*Polish: "Penelopa Samwdzięk"
*Spanish: "Penélope Glamour"
*Chinese: "小晶晶"

References

# cite video|people=Iwao Takamoto (interviewee)|year=2004|title=Wacky Races|location=Los Angeles|medium=DVD|publisher=Warner Home Video

External links

* [http://www.hotink.com/wacky/pitstop/ Hotink] Penelope Pitstop site
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* [http://www.comedy-zone.net/cartoons/characters/penelope-pitstop.htm Comedy Zone - Penelope Pitstop]