Drawn and Quartered Does Valentine's Day -- Episode One -- Love Stinks (presented by P.W. Fontaine)

The Drawn and Quartered post for Scalp Trouble will not be seen today, so we can bring you something else that's always getting tangled in my hair.

Hi, I’m Penelope Whitaker Fontaine, a.k.a “P.W. Fontaine,” “Penny Fontaine,” “Penelope  Whitaker,” (that was before dear ol’ dad remarried, and only was used when I got in trouble in school. It wasn’t always, but it happened), and in the world of Warner Bros. cartoon discussions, “The Pew Whisperer.”

The usual presenter for this — C.L. Young, I think her name is. Temp agencies can be a bit disorganized — binge-watched some surreal British comedy and is out on personal leave until next week to get her head on straight. She’s fine, but watching The Mighty Boosh and Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy with little to no context can be jarring to some and she tends to go down rabbit holes and get distracted, so I’ll be subbing. We could have gotten Sarthurva U and Andrea Hicks for this, but they’re currently on vacation in the desert. Incidentally, I’m a big fan of their Porky/Sylvester horror vacation cartoon podcasts. Hey, guys, when’s the last one coming out? I’m starving!

Don’t fret, Drawn and Quartered fans. I was given the notes for this, and I do happen to know about the subject at hand. It was the thesis for my Gender Images in Animation class. Okay, that bit’s not entirely true, but I do remember writing actual paper journal entries and some early 2000s classic cartoon forum posts about the Pepe Le Pew shorts because, hey, we all do cringey stuff as teenagers. I just can’t believe that now, it’s taken seriously.

Now, what can be said about the Pepe Le Pew cartoons that I haven’t already written about on TV Tropes...and the Looney Tunes Fandom wiki? Well, the Kirsten Moana Thompson essay, “Ah, Love! Zee Grand Illusion: Pepe Le Pew, Narcissism, and Cats in the Casbah” (a good read, but she does get some of the titles and information wrong about the filmography) from the book, Reading the Rabbit: Explorations in Warner Bros. Animation, the Pepe Le Pew series is “...a comedy of mistaken identity and sexual failure,” characterized by our romantic hero, Pepe Le Pew, a skunk with an unshakable belief in his own erotic appeal (despite his stench saying — or is that smelling? — otherwise), and a comically unlucky female tuxedo cat (retroactively named Penelope, though technically, she went by different names, like Fifi and Fabrette, or just wasn’t named. There’s also the fact that “Odor-Able Kitty” had a male cat, “Scent-imental Over You” had a chihuahua, “Odor of the Day” was basically a typical, Looney Tunes slapstick short that a lot of online armchair critics have claimed isn’t a true Pepe cartoon just because there’s no painted cat, amorous chase, or picture postcard sights of Paris or a French-speaking part of the world; “Dog Pounded” had Sylvester the Cat, “Wild Over You” had an escaped wildcat from a Parisian zoo, and one Looney Tunes comic had the bull from “Bully for Bugs”) who finds herself painted up like a skunk (most times, accidentally; sometimes, intentionally) and becomes the target of Pepe’s unwanted advances for the rest of the short. While most end with Pepe continuing chasing her (or, at least, the heavy and unfortunate implication that Pepe has captured her with no reassurance to the audience that she’ll escape [though “The Cats Bah” did have that, however small it may have been]), you have “Odor-Able Kitty” end with the reveal that Pepe Le Pew is actually a married skunk named Henry who’s not French and whose wife beats him with a rolling pin for cheating on her in full view of not just her, but her children, who strangely look happy that their father is doing this; “For Scent-imental Reasons,” “Little Beau Pepe,” and “Really Scent” end with Pepe getting what’s coming to him by having the cat pursue him and him freaking out and calling for her to control herself (hyprocritical humor at its finest, ladies and gentlemen); “Scent-imental Romeo” end with Pepe being found by the zookeeper and taken back, with Pepe actually sad that his amorous chase has come to an end (it kinda-sorta explains why in “Little Beau Pepe,” Pepe is seen with luggages in hand going to a French Foreign Legion recruitment office and tearfully telling the officer to take him because he has a broken heart and wants to forget, despite the brave front he put up at the end of “Scent-imental Romeo”), and “Past Perfumance” end with Pepe finding out that the “female skunk” he’s been chasing all along is a painted cat, but blacks out his tail and continues anyway because the entire series is one, long joke about chasing pussy...cats.

If you’re left wondering, “What kind of sick mind would come up with this?”, that’s normal. I felt that way when I first watched a Pepe cartoon as a teenager (it was “Wild Over You,” for those wondering) and realized this wasn’t as kid-friendly as I remember it. The ToonHeads episode about Pepe Le Pew (which is the last half-hour episode; the episode after it was a special one-hour episode about how Ub Iwerks, Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, and Isadore “Friz” Freleng went from working with Walt Disney in Kansas City to moving to Hollywood and becoming famous on their own) explains that Chuck Jones gave Pepe all the sexual/romantic confidence that he felt he lacked as a teenager (this was confirmed on the documentary, Chuck Jones: Extremes and In-Betweens: A Life in Animation), which, these days, makes sense if you write or know anything about fanfiction. However, a former colleague of mine explains that Pepe Le Pew was meant to be a spoof of French actors Charles Boyer and Maurice Chevalier (you can hear the Boyer influence in Mel Blanc's vocal performance, but the Chevalier personality is there, too. If you've seen any of the pre-Hays Code musical rom-coms Chevalier was in, you'll recognize it) and how those two men were typecast in romantic roles because of the stereotype that French men were considered more suave and debonair than American men, as well as a jab on fellow Termite Terrace writer, Tedd Pierce, who was a notorious womanizer, often brushing off the rightful rejection as “flirting” or “playing hard to get” and an unnamed WB executive who sexually harassed female coworkers to the point that the women quit their jobs rather than sue (since sexual harassment in the workplace wasn’t recognized as a crime until the 1970s). So, to answer the question: Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese (with some help from Tedd Pierce, since he did write “Odor-Able Kitty” and half of “Scent-imental Over You”) were the sick minds behind this, but it wasn’t meant to be sick. Sure, by today’s standards, it is, because of heightened concern over sexual harassment and abuse, particularly male-on-female, but I think it was Vincent Alexander who said it best:

“Pepé Le Pew is a caricature of an egotistical guy who thinks he’s a ladies’ man, like Johnny Bravo. The cartoons don’t condone his behavior, and he frequently gets his comeuppance. If there's any moral to the cartoons, it's that if you act like Pepé, you stink.”

Though, as the Pew Whisperer, I do have to make some corrections: Pepé only ever got his comeuppance three times with the female cat chasing after him, once when it’s revealed he’s an unfaithful husband and family man who a fake accent (that could have easily been the final cartoon, if you ask me), and another time when the chase ended because he had to go back to the zoo. I guess you can count “Wild Over You” being Pepé getting his comeuppance, because, while he does get to join the hot air balloon version of The Mile High Club with the wildcat who keeps beating him up -- whose thrashings he enjoys on a sexual level -- it will end with both of them dying from suffocation from being that high up in the atmosphere...if the Looney Tunes cartoons followed reality. They don’t, but considering Chuck Jones’ and Michael Maltese’s dark humor, it’s fun to think that they implied that.

Which brings me to why I enjoy these cartoons more as an adult and why the shorts have stuck with me when I was young and naïve: the backgrounds and layout art are gorgeous, particularly when Maurice Noble did them. However, if you’re a credits nerd like me, you’ll notice that Maurice Noble didn’t do all the Pepé cartoons, as this list I made shows:

Odor-Able Kitty

Earl Klein

Robert Gribbroek

Scent-imental Over You and For Scent-imental Reasons

Robert Gribbroek

Peter Alvarado

Odor of the Day

Don Smith

Phillip DeGuard

Scent-imental Romeo and Little Beau Pepe

Robert Gribbroek

Phillip DeGuard

Dog Pounded

Hawley Pratt

Irv Wyner

Wild Over You, The Cats Bah, Touche and Go, Who Scent You?, A Scent of the Matterhorn

Maurice Noble (credited as “M. Maurice Nobelle” on “A Scent of the Matterhorn”)

Phillip DeGuard (credited as "M. Philipé DeGuard" also on “A Scent of the Matterhorn”)

Past Perfumance

Robert Givens

Phillip DeGuard

Two Scents Worth

Robert Gribbroek (credited)

Maurice Noble (uncredited)

Philip DeGuard (credited)

Richard H. Thomas (uncredited)

Heaven Scent

Ernie Nordli

Phillip DeGuard

Really Scent

Samuel Armstrong

Phillip DeGuard

Louvre Come Back to Me

Strangely, there are no layout credits, and Maurice Noble is credited as co-director to Chuck Jones (it can be assumed that Noble did do layout work for this)

Tom O’Loughlin

Phillip DeGuard

------------------

So, according to this, Maurice Noble was credited for more shorts than the others. While he did a fabulous job evoking a romantic aesthetic to what would essentially be a horror movie (particularly the slasher kind with the final girl escaping the bloodthirsty and possible sexually disturbed maniac) if taken out of context, Ernie Nordli’s work on “Heaven Scent” is very nice for those who prefer a more Disney approach to it, Robert Givens was trying to evoke Maurice Noble, but it looked kinda flat (which, if you think about it, goes with how "Past Perfumance" takes place in a movie studio, where everything is built on deceiving the audience), and Robert Gribbroek with Phillip DeGuard do a serviceable job before Noble was brought in (“Little Beau Pepé” looks very Noble-esque, despite Noble himself not being credited for it).

Anyway, I’m getting in too deep in the Pepé stuff. We’re all here for the censorship, are we not? I’ll be dropping fun facts along the way. All others you can look up online...or wait until the upcoming blog cover all 1000 classic theatrical shorts, as well as some made after.

In a twist to what C.L. normally does, I’m putting the video up first. It’s of my own creation (with the notes as my guide), broken up in two parts: one covering “For Scent-imental Reasons” and “Scent-imental Romeo” and the second covering “The Cats Bah,” “Past Perfumance,” and “Touché and Go.” 

For Scent-imental Reasons (1949)

Summary: When a perfume shop owner finds a skunk (Pepé Le Pew, still unnamed [he wouldn’t identify himself as Pepé Le Pew until “Little Beau Pepé” in 1952]) in his shop and the gendarme can’t help him, he desperately uses the female cat that just rubbed up against his legs to help him chase the skunk out...and, thanks to a bottle of upset white hair dye, the poor kitty gets trapped in the perfume shop and becomes the target for the skunk’s unwanted sexual/romantic advances.

Fun Facts: 

• Probably the most fun fact of all: this short is the only Pepé Le Pew cartoon to win an Academy Award (“Little Beau Pepe” was put in the running some years later, but wasn’t nominated), not for being particularly good (though the glass case part is said to be the best part of this), but because Chuck Jones’ boss at the time, Eddie Selzer, hated the character and didn’t find any of the fractured French (created by both Tedd Pierce and Michael Maltese) funny, despite audiences saying otherwise. So what did Chuck Jones do? Put it up for Oscar nomination. When it won, Selzer himself accepted the award and Chuck and Mike were bitter about it, but continued with the shorts anyway, because, hey, they showed Selzer. There are similar stories about Eddie Selzer not thinking a now-popular piece of Looney Tunes media would be popular only to be proven wrong, like the creation of “Bully for Bugs” (1953, Jones), pairing Sylvester the Cat with Tweety Bird, and the Tasmanian Devil being created as Bugs’ adversary.
• This is actually the first appearance of the female cat who ends up getting targeted by Pepé thanks to getting painted (retroactively named Penelope), but an actual tuxedo cat named Penelope wouldn’t appear until 1954’s “The Cats Bah” and it wouldn’t be until “Carrotblanca” in 1995 that the tuxedo cat we see here and in the next short (1951’s “Scent-imental Romeo”) would become the cat associated with being chased by Pepé Le Pew.
• The 1984 Christmas horror comedy Gremlins and the 2024 jukebox psychological thriller, Joker: Folie à Deux (which, sadly, isn’t as revered as the 2019 predecessor simply called Joker) both used clips from “For Scent-imental Reasons” in their respective films. Personally, I haven’t seen either of them, but I’m so sure, if the short is in there, it’s germane to the plot in some way.

The Channel(s): ABC, ITV (a British channel), and Cartoon Network and Boomerang (2003-2010).

Part(s) Edited: Remember how I said the glass case sequence was considered the best part of the short and was most likely the reason why this netted an Oscar win? Yeah, well, that got cut on ABC and ITV because it ended with Pepé becoming so despondent that the cat says he stinks that he pulls a gun from his body pocket to blow his brains out and the cat, horrified  that she drove Pepé to suicide, runs out to see if he’s really dead, only to learn it’s a trap. Cartoon Network and Boomerang were cool about it between the 1990s and 2002. From 2003 to 2010, they decided to cut it too. It wouldn’t be until 2011 that they reinstated the scene, and, by then, most viewers have given up on Cartoon Network because it was no longer a classic cartoon channel.

Further twisting the knife is the scene in the upstairs bedroom, where the painted cat is about to jump out the window, Pepé thinks the cat is committing suicide to prove her alleged love for him, then rescues her, only for the cat to slip through his fingers. Pepé, ever the chivalrous pervert, salutes as he declares, “Vive l’amour! We die together!” ABC and ITV cut Pepé’s line about the cat committing suicide for his love, as did 2003-2010 Cartoon Network and Boomerang, with the only difference being that ABC and ITV cut the entire line, while Cartoon Network and Boomerang left in “Oh, but of course...” before cutting off the rest of the line. Another difference is that ABC and ITV shortened “Vive l’amour! We die together!” to just “Vive l’amour!” before stepping off the window ledge and dropping into the can of “Le Paint” (I also would have accepted Pepé wordlessly stepping off the window ledge — or looking surprised as the cat slips through his fingers, dealer’s choice — and dropping into “Le Paint”) while Cartoon Network and Boomerang...didn’t cut or alter the line in any way.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): Let’s start with the fact that Cartoon Network and Boomerang just arbitrarily decided to edit the glass case sequence and the first verbal reference to suicide after years of airing it uncut with no problem. Then, we’ll work our way down to Cartoon Network and Boomerang reinstating the scene years later with little to no fanfare. Finally, let’s stop at the fact that 1961’s “A Scent of the Matterhorn” has a similar, and more sexually threatening, take on the same scene of the painted cat threatening to jump and Pepé thinking it’s a “suicide as a declaration of love” ploy and neither ABC, ITV (I’m assuming), Cartoon Network, nor Boomerang cut or altered it. Turns out the stench of hypocrisy and double standards does exist outside of the Pepe Le Pew cartoons...

Availability Uncut: Since this is the one Pepé cartoon that’s considered iconic (though the others have cult followings — and I’ll make sure they do, whether people want it or not) even to those who don’t care much for the shorts, it does have good home media circulation:

• The Looney Tunes Video Show (volume 10, 1984, VHS)

• Warner Bros. Cartoons Golden Jubilee 24 Karat Collection:
• “A Salute to Chuck Jones” (1985, VHS) [had this as a kid]
• “Pepé Le Pew's Skunk Tales” (1986, VHS and Beta) [got parts of it in a tape trade]

• Classic Looney Tunes Cartoons: Pepé Le Pew (1990, VHS, UK release)

• Stark Raving Looneys (1993, VHS)

• Looney Tunes: The Collectors Edition (1999, volume 2: "Running Amuck", VHS)

• Looney Tunes Golden Collection (2003, DVD, volume 1, disc three, with optional commentary by Michaels Barrier and Maltese [with the latter in archive audio, as Maltese died in 1981. Coincidentally, he died on February 22nd, which was also the death day for Eddie Selzer and Chuck Jones])

• Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection (2003, DVD, volume 1, disc 2, as well as the 2018 repack that combines volumes 1, 2, and 3 of the Spotlight Collection).

• Looney Tunes Collection All Stars (2004, DVD, volume 1, UK release)

• Looney Tunes Collection All Stars (2004, DVD, volumes one and two, disc 1, Australian release)

• Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection (2008, with optional commentary by Greg Ford. I actually like this one more than the Michael Barrier one on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, but Barrier does make a great point that the Pepé cartoons are both limited because of its formulaic plot, and rich, because of the character and his psychology, the inspiration behind the character, the wordplay, and the hidden risqué jokes and lame puns that are funnier if you know French).

• Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1970s (2009, volume two, disc 2, part of CBS’ The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour)

• 3 Spooky DVD Treats (2010, a repackaged compilation of "Bugs Bunny's Howl-Oween Special," "The Best of Bugs Bunny," and "Looney Tunes All-Stars.")

• Looney Tunes Super Stars: Pepé Le Pew: Zee Best of Zee Best (2011). It should be noted that this is the best place to get all the Pepe cartoons, because all 17 of them are literally on the disc.

• Looney Tunes Platinum Collection (2012, Blu-ray and DVD, volume one, disc 1 on both of them)

• Looney Tunes Showcase (2012, Blu-ray, volume one. A second volume was never made).

• Looney Tunes Center Stage (2014, DVD, volume 1)

• Looney Tunes Center Stage (2015, a repackaged compilation DVD featuring Looney Tunes Center Stage, volume 1, as well as the DVD version of "The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie" and the DVD version of the direct-to-home media movie Looney Tunes: Rabbits Run)

• Looney Tunes Triple Feature: 3 DVD Collection (2016, literally the same as the 2015 pressing)

• As a bonus cartoon on the 2023 Blu-ray release of the 1962 animated musical, Gay Purr-ee, starring the voices of Judy Garland and Robert Goulet. Fun fact: Working on this movie actually got Chuck Jones fired from Warner Bros., though, given that it was around the time that the theatrical shorts were starting to become less and less funny and the whole idea of watching shorts before movies was fading, Jones should have just quit then and there.

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: As of 2025, it’s included as part of the Tubi 786 WB shorts uploaded on the platform. It’s unavailable on digital download and not even HBO Max in Latin America and Brazil included it in the early 2020s. I understand HBO Max in America, but LatAM and Brazil?!

Scent-imental Romeo (1951)

Summary: It’s springtime at the Paris zoo, and a tuxedo cat tries to mew and purr her way into getting food from the zookeeper. When that fails, she finds a paint shed, puts a white stripe down her back, and breaks into the skunk enclosure to get a free steak...and ends up paying for it when Pepé Le Pew wakes up and sees what he thinks is an attractive female waiting for him.

Fun Fact: This is the first Pepé Le Pew cartoon of the 1950s, and the first Pepé Le Pew cartoon that’s a Merrie Melodie rather than a Looney Tune (I know there’s not much difference between them now, but, once upon a time, there was. The Merrie Melodies were the ones that were more musical, while the Looney Tunes were more about wacky characters and their antics). Of the 17 original Pepé shorts from the Golden Age of Warner Bros. cartoons, seven of them are Merrie Melodies (joining this are “Little Beau Pepé,” “Two Scents Worth,” “Past Perfumance,” “Heaven Scent,” “Touche and Go,” and “Really Scent.”) while the other ten are Looney Tunes.

The Channel(s): ABC, Cartoon Network, and Boomerang

Part(s) Edited: Here, we have a classic case of different TV channels having varying opinions on what they consider unsuitable for children. In this corner, we have ABC’s version from The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show, where the scene of the painted cat beating Pepé on the head with a wooden club was drastically shortened (though not the scene of a brain-damaged Pepé pointing out, “The one in the middle may remain. The rest of you...another day,” not even for continuity reasons). Over on Cartoon Network and Boomerang, the sequence of Pepé serving champagne to the cat and the cat trying to find an escape from the (according to Greg Ford’s commentary) “come-up-and-see-my-etchings” apartment set-up that Pepé turned his zoo enclosure into was cut, going from Pepé putting on a romantic record to the cat immediately running into the wall and clawing and scratching at the backdrop.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): Hurray, more hypocritical censorship! Since ABC also censors alcohol references and sexually suggestive scenes too, why did that slip by? I used to be pissed that Cartoon Network edited “Scent-imental Romeo” since I remember seeing it uncut on Nickelodeon and thought Cartoon Network would get away with it, too, but now I’m more mad that ABC dropped the ball on censoring WB cartoons, since ABC was the undisputed king of that (it’s years later and I still won’t accept the uncut version of “Hare Trimmed” because the edited version played so often thanks to them. More on that later...). And Cartoon Network isn’t blameless in this, either. They cut champagne serving in a romantic setting here, but the next cartoon I go over (“The Cats Bah”) gets away scot-free? Where’s justice? Or common sense, for that matter?

Availability Uncut: The home media releases aren’t as robust as “For Scent-imental Reasons,” but they’re there:

• Warner Bros. Cartoons Golden Jubilee 24 Karat Collection: “Pepé Le Pew’s Skunk Tales” (1986, VHS and Beta)

• Looney Tunes Collection - Pepé Le Pew (1996, VHS, UK release)

• Looney Tunes Super Stars: Pepé Le Pew: Zee Best of Zee Best (2011)

• Looney Tunes Platinum Collection (2012, Blu-ray and DVD, volume one, disc 1 on both of them)

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: Unlike “For Scent-imental Reasons,” this is available on the Latin American and Brazil feed of HBO Max (or “Max,” as it’s known in some parts of the world). In the good, ol’ U.S. of A, it’s on Tubi. And, like “For Scent-imental Reasons,” there’s no available digital download as of yet (and probably never will be, what with Pepé getting canceled).

The Cats’ Bah (1954)

Summary: An unseen viewer (definitely female, since Pepé refers to her as “ravishing,” and “golden girl”) willingly(?) spends an evening with Pepé Le Pew, who tells her the story of how he lived in Morocco’s Casbah (next door to Pepé Le Moko) and found “ze greatest love of [his] life” — which amounts to an abduction, as the latest painted cat/“female skunk” he sees had an owner and was on a leash led by her female traveler.

Fun Facts: 

• This is the last Pepé Le Pew cartoon scored by Carl Stalling. From “Past Perfumance” to “Louvre, Come Back to Me,” Milt Franklyn takes over.

• Pepé Le Pew living next door to Pepé Le Moko is a reference to Pepé Le Pew being based on Charles Boyer’s character from the 1937 movie, Pepé Le Moko and its 1948 remake, Algiers.

• The French translation for this short is “Chatsablanca” (“Catsablanca”), not to be confused with “Carrotblanca” from 1995. Honestly, I feel that could have been a better title...if more Casablanca references were put into the cartoon.

• Judging by the size and scale of everything, I believe that, much like “Claws for Alarm,” this was supposed to be a 3D cartoon just like “Lumber-Jack Rabbit,” but plans fell through.

• This was part of the final installment of Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon, which aired on September 11th of 1999 (yeesh! Yeah, it's two years off, but is anyone going to believe that?), joining “Porky in Wackyland,” “The Daffy Duckaroo,” “To Beep or Not to Beep,” “Tree for Two,” and “Of Rice and Hen.”

• The beginning of this is a reference to this old television show from the 1950s called, The Continental, a sort-of interactive show where lonely women and bored housewives can feel like a debonair, European lover is romancing them. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because that’s where Saturday Night Live (and, by proxy, Christopher Walken) got it from, and the SNL spoof is the closest we have to a live-action Pepé Le Pew, so enjoy it. The Continental is one of those things where the parody of it is the only reason anyone in this day and age knows that this show existed, since the early 1950s didn’t really preserve television shows, legally or otherwise. While I do like the Christopher Walken/Saturday Night Live take on The Continental, the MAD magazine version (issue #14 from August 1954, which came out five months after “The Cats Bah” was released theatrically) is funnier to me.

The Channel(s): ABC

Part(s) Edited: The entire pre-flashback beginning where Pepé welcomes the unseen viewer to his digs and offers champagne was cut.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): As mentioned above, Cartoon Network didn’t edit this, despite “Scent-imental Romeo” having a part cut for the same reason (“no alcohol drinking [not even verbal or visual references to it] in kids’ shows”). If you’re going to do something that most aren’t going to agree with (i.e., censoring cartoons for TV), be consistent with it.

What I will grudgingly accept is the fact that ABC actually had a good reason to cut this for Saturday morning TV — and not just because it contains cigarette smoking and champagne consumption. As I explained in the video, the whole opening vibe is just so sexually charged that airing it sandwiched between more kid-friendly WB shorts feels kinda...off (and that goes for when this was on Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon, even though that was uncut there. I still remember Pepe changing in front of those white curtains after all these years [no eight-year-old should have that in their memory bank]. As for Cartoon Network...well, Cartoon Network’s homegrown programming had just as much questionable content as the WB shorts they acquired, and they, at least, aired this during evening hours, so, I’m not that shocked and outraged over it). Of course, that doesn’t explain why the ending where Pepe and the cat are chained together and the cat uses a nail file to saw her way out wasn’t cut on ABC.

Availability Uncut: Eh, the home media outlook is kinda weak, but there is some life on the streaming/digital download front. First, the physical media releases:

• Warner Bros. Cartoons Golden Jubilee 24 Karat Collection: “Pepe Le Pew's Skunk Tales” (1986, VHS and Beta)

• Longitude and Looneytude: Globetrotting Looney Tunes Favorites (1994, laser disc)

• Looney Tunes: The Collectors Edition (1999, volume 1: “All Stars”)

• Looney Tunes Super Stars: Pepe Le Pew: Zee Best of Zee Best (2011)

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: It’s on Amazon Prime Video (actual upload year unknown), it was on Boomerang streaming from 2017 to 2024, it’s on HBO Max in Latin America and Brazil, and is on Tubi.

Past Perfumance (1955)

Summary: It’s 1913 (13 years after the Paris World’s Fair that was seen on “Wild Over You”) and an animal wrangler in a French movie studio is searching for a skunk, and decides that painting a white stripe down a female tuxedo cat’s back is the best way to trick the movie-going audience into thinking that the studio got a skunk for their latest film. At the same time, Pepe Le Pew scares off the security guard after asking him if he can get an autograph of an actress...then scares off the director and the rest of the crew members...then scares off the animal wrangler who brings the painted cat to Pepe, who gladly takes her for himself, but, as usual, the painted cat puts up a fight by running and hiding.

Fun Facts: 

• As I mentioned on “The Cats Bah,” this is the first Pepé cartoon to have Milt Franklyn credited for music instead of Carl Stalling.

• This one is notable for its ending where Pepe finally discovers that the female skunk he’s been chasing is actually a painted cat...but that doesn’t deter him from continuing the chase, outside of blacking out the stripe on his own tail. If the Pepe series ended here, it would have made a great way to end it, in my opinion. I’ve heard people say they wanted “The Cats Bah” or “Really Scent” to be the end, but “The Cats Bah” is too problematic and having it end with the third and final time Pepe Le Pew gets the tables turned on him isn’t that bad, just predictable.

The Channel(s): Most, if not all, American TV channels and home media releases before the era of remastering and reformatting (I’m guessing).

Part(s) Edited: This one, I’m not even sure it’s an edit, but it is a difference between the 4:3 era of watching TV and movies formatted for TV and the 16:9 era. In the opening showing many visual gags associated with the Super-Magnifique Productiones (that’s how it’s spelled) studio, there’s a brief shot of a line of actors in costume waiting for an audition. The 4:3 version that aired on a lot of TV versions and some home media releases cropped the shot because the line of people had a white man dressed in a Native American (Cheyenne tribe, to be exact) headdress while the back of the line has an actor dressed as a Chinese peasant, complete with yellow make-up. The version I remember from Cartoon Network and the “Salute to Mel Blanc” Golden Jubilee VHS had the Roman centurion, the pirate, the cop with a pie in hand (reference to this old silent comedy series called “The Keystone Kops”), a bear with a stereotypically French thin mustache and goatee, a cowboy, and a blonde woman with her dress up to her eyes (who would be seen later in the cartoon in a spoof of the Rudolph Valentino romance, The Sheik) before cutting to the outside shot of David Butlaire’s office as a muscular man in a “Super Homme” suit struts by.

Surprisingly, there were no cuts to Pepe chasing the painted cat on the set of a movie adaptation for Uncle Tom’s Cabin called Uncle Tom’s Chalet. Maybe the mangled French and lack of blackface/stereotypically black caricatures saved it from being censored. Bravo?

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): Nothing, except the fact that I never noticed the edit until I bought a flatscreen and the Pepe Le Pew: Zee Best of Zee Best DVD that’s part of the short-lived Looney Tunes Super Stars series. “Past Perfumance” doesn’t feel like anything would be cut from it in the first place, so that’s why it was under the radar for so long. If anything grinds my gears about the cut is the fact that the Looney Tunes Fandom Wiki doesn’t cite it as a scene that got censored. That’s why this blog is here (that, and the fact that the Censored Cartoons Page hasn’t been updated in years).

Availability Uncut: Once again, “For Scent-imental Reasons” proves to be the most popular Pepe cartoon to be put on home media, though “Past Perfumance” does have more appearances than “The Cats Bah,” so that's a plus:

• Warner Bros Cartoons Golden Jubilee 24 Karat Collection:
• “A Salute to Mel Blanc" (1985, VHS) [that’s the one I have that is cropped to 4:3]
• “Pepe Le Pew's Skunk Tales” (1986, VHS and Beta) [same copy as above]

• Looney Tunes Collection - Pepe Le Pew (1996, VHS, UK release) [4:3]

• Looney Tunes: The Collectors Edition (2000, volume 3: The Vocal Genius) [4:3]

• As a bonus cartoon on the 2010 DVD release of the 1979 Looney Tunes Valentine's Day TV special, Bugs Bunny's Valentine (renamed Bugs Bunny's Cupid Capers) [possibly 4:3, though it could be 16:9]

• Looney Tunes Super Stars: Pepe Le Pew: Zee Best of Zee Best (2011) [16:9, remastered and restored]

• Looney Tunes Collector's Vault (2025, volume 1, disc 2) [same copy as above]

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: Just HBO Max (“Max”) in Latin America and Brazil and Tubi in America. No digital downloads or other streaming sites.

Touché and Go (1957)

Summary: In this, the last Pepé Le Pew cartoon to have parts cut on American TV (and the second to last one to be a Merrie Melodie), an accident involving a street painter wearing those Dutch wooden clogs (sabots, I’ve been told they’re called, and, yes, does have a connection with the word “sabotage”) and a dog chasing our very unlucky female tuxedo cat leads to the dog getting a butt-kicking and the female cat to unknowingly be painted and find herself the target of Pepé’s unwanted advances on the French beachside. Honestly, I don’t know who has it worse here.

Fun Facts: 

• Joining “Little Beau Pepé,” “Wild Over You,” “Dog Pounded,” “The Cats Bah,” “Past Perfumance,” “Louvre Come Back to Me,” and “Carrotblanca” (if you want to count post-Golden Age cartoons), those and “Touche and Go” are the only Pepé Le Pew cartoons that don’t have puns using the words “scent” or “odor.”

• Maurice Noble is back on layouts with this short (though he was uncredited in “Two Scent’s Worth” from 1955).

• This and “Odor of the Day” (a.k.a “that Art Davis cartoon that had Pepé Le Pew as a non-sexual screwball comedy character fighting a dog over who gets to stay in a winter cabin”) are the only Pepé cartoons that show that Pepé can use his bad odor as a weapon. Why this wasn’t included on “Louvre Come Back to Me” as well, I’ll never know.

The Channel(s): CBS (as part of The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show)

Part(s) Edited: Back in the 1970s and 1980s when CBS aired Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies as part of their Saturday morning line-up, this cartoon was cut to remove the part in the beginning where, after the dog crashes into the street painter, the street painter asks the dog why he crashed into him and the street painter kicks the dog down the road.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): Not much. It’s a fairly standard violence cut. I’m just surprised that ABC didn’t also cut that part, and neither ABC nor CBS cut Pepé smoking a pipe aboard a boat christened, “L’ardent Octopus,” which is an apt description of him.

Availability Uncut: This mostly had international home media releases, particularly in Australia and the United Kingdom, but America did put it on VHS and DVD, so it’s not a total loss, and it did air on television somewhat frequently (this is another “I remember this when Nickelodeon aired WB cartoons” short).

• The Looney Tunes Video Show (volume 19, 1984, VHS, international release only)

• Classic Looney Tunes Cartoons: Pepé Le Pew (1990, VHS, UK release)

• Looney Tunes Collection - Pepé Le Pew (1996, VHS, UK release)

• Looney Tunes: The Collectors Edition (2000, volume 13: Comic Cat-Tastrophes)

• Looney Tunes Special Bumper Collection (2001, volume 9, VHS, Australian release)

• Looney Tunes Super Stars’ Pepé Le Pew: Zee Best of Zee Best (2011, DVD)

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: As of 2025, it’s on Tubi. It was never on HBO Max (or Max), Warner Media RIDE, Amazon Video Prime, iTunes, or any other digital download or streaming platform prior to that. Besides the dog kicking and the smoking, I don’t know why this wouldn’t be included. I...guess it’s a part of the whole “Pepé Le Pew’s been canceled” thing, but that has enough holes in it as it is.

Well, it’s been fun going over the Pepé cartoons and their cuts. Hopefully, this will be my audition into C.L.’s blog (either this one or the look into all 1000 WB cartoons) and I’ll be hired for more contributions.

‘Til next time: Stay Looney, Be Merrie, and watch out for deluded French skunks with libidos as big as their egos!