Pepé Le Pew (character)

This article is about the character. For other uses, see Pepé Le Pew.

Pepé Le Pew
'Ello, ma petit coquelicot…
Species	Stripped skunk
Gender	Male
Member of	Tune Squad
Affiliation	Penelope Pussycat Bugs Bunny Daffy Duck Fifi La Fume
Father	Not Mentioned
Mother	Not Mentioned
Other relative(s)	One cousin, Pitu Le Pew, in The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries
Marital status	Single
First appearance	LT: Odor-able Kitty (1945)
Played by	Mel Blanc (1945-1989) Greg Burson (1990-1995) Maurice LaMarche (1996) Billy West (2000-2003) Joe Alaskey (2000-2010) Bruce Lanoil (2003) Jeff Bennett (2006-2009) René Auberjonois (2011) Jeff Bergman (2012-2015) Eric Bauza (since 2017)
Odor-able Kitty
Space Jam
File:BLT Pepé.png Baby Looney Tunes
File:BIA Pepé.png Looney Tunes: Back in Action
The Looney Tunes Show (season 1)
The Looney Tunes Show (season 2)
File:NLT Pepé.png New Looney Tunes

Pepé Le Pew is an anthropomorphic French skunk and one of the recurring characters of the Looney Tunes animated franchise. He is a romantic, yet egotistical Casanova who usually goes in constant search for romance, but his foul scent, self-delusion, and overly persistent mannerisms inhibit his efforts. Pepé's target of love is usually a female black cat (namely Penelope Pussycat), whom he mistakes for another skunk due to a white stripe painted on her back. His voice was originated by Mel Blanc using a French accent.

Pepé's protégé in Tiny Toon Adventures is Fifi La Fume.

Character description

Pepé is a black and white skunk defined by his amorous, yet narcissistic personality. Although he presents himself as a charming individual looking for "l'amor" (love), he is oblivious of his foul scent, which crops up as a running gag of his many apprarances; side characters encountering skunks (either Pepé or Penelope) would run away from their smell and/or their skunk-like appearances. Pepé's odor is one of the contrubiting factors of his constant rejections by Penelope (or "la belle femme skunk fatale," as Pepé puts it).

Apart from his stench, another weakness that Pepé attributes is his sheer persistance. His aggressive flirting and overconfidence are opposite to the cat's refusal to be in a relationship with him. Pepé would attempt to use his romantic efforts onto Penelope, such as sharing kisses at her, but would instead be treated with the cat escaping from his grasp, and would sometimes (if rarely) get comeuppance through slapstick violence. He either has no sign of narcissistic injury or never loses his motivation to pursue Penelope, no matter how many times he gets rebuffed.

Pepé has a grasp of the French language, although what is usually presented is a pseudo-French or Franglais. This often includes the use of French articles such as le and la, a creative mangling of both English expressions and French grammar, such as the phrases "Ah, my little darling, it is love at first sight, is it not, no?" and "It is love at sight first!", and adding French phrases and/or words to his speech ("Vive l'amour").

Pepé's aggressive traits are occasionally toned down in later media, although he is still usually presented as a hopeless romantic who exhibits a bad odor, and sometimes, an inept view of love.

Appearances

TV series

• The Bugs Bunny Show
• Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny & Friends
• Tiny Toon Adventures
• Animaniacs (1993)
• Bugs 'N' Daffy
• Baby Looney Tunes
• The Looney Tunes Show
• New Looney Tunes
• Animaniacs (2020)

Movies

• The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie
• The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie
• Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island
• Space Jam
• Tweety's High-Flying Adventure
• Looney Tunes: Back in Action
• Bah Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas
• Looney Tunes: Rabbits Run

Shorts

• Looney Tunes
  • Odor-able Kitty
  • Odor of the Day
  • Scent-imental Over You
  • For Scent-imental Reasons
  • Wild Over You
  • Dog Pounded (cameo)
  • The Cats Bah
  • Who Scent You?
  • A Scent of the Matterhorn
  • Louvre, Come Back to Me!
  • Carrotblanca

• Merrie Melodies
  • Scent-imental Romeo
  • Little Beau Pepé
  • Past Perfumance
  • Two Scent's Worth
  • Heaven Scent
  • Touché and Go
  • Really Scent

Biography

Pepé Sells Out

Pepé briefly appears in the Animaniacs episode "Yakko Amakko," when an unseen animator draws him in the scene. When the animator erases him, Pepé pleads not to because he does not like the void.

Development

Pepé Le Pew was the creation of director Chuck Jones and writer Michael Maltese. Jones loosely based his personality on his fellow Termite Terrace colleague and writer, Tedd Pierce, a self-styled "ladies' man" who reportedly always assumed that his infatuations would be reciprocated. In the short documentary, Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood, Jones told an interviewer (albeit jokingly) that he actually based Pepé on himself, except he explained that he was shy around girls.

According to Greg Ford, the Frank Tashlin-directed short I Got Plenty of Mutton (1944) contained a scene that could be read as a prototype for the Pepé Le Pew shorts. The short in question features a scene of a wolf dressing up as an ewe to fool a ram guarding a sheep. The ram proceeds to romance the disguised wolf in an aggressive manner, using the same French accent used in the later Pepé cartoons. As Pepé began to develop further as a character, Mel Blanc based the skunk's voice on French actor Charles Boyer, who played the character Pepé le Moko in the film Algiers (1938); itself an adaptation of the French film Pepé le Moko (1937). Blanc's accent for the character also closely resembled to the one used for Professor Le Blanc, a violin instructor on The Jack Benny Show.

Controversy

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Gallery

Main article: Pepé Le Pew/Gallery

Behind the scenes

• In French dubbings, Pepé is called "Pépé le putois," possibly due to it being a pun on "puer" (to stink), and because the French word for skunk is "moufette," which is perceived as a feminine word. He also speaks in an Italian accent due to it being associated as a "Latin lover" accent in France; it was more pronounced in the French dubs of his original appearances.

In popular culture

• In the Full House episode "Danny in Charge," Joey does an impression of Pepé Le Pew while speaking to a skunk that he and Jesse encounter.
• In The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air episode "Eyes on the Prize," when Will comes into the kitchen wearing a bathrobe after not being able to shower, Geoffrey asks him to stand downwind, to which Will apologises for smelling like Pepé Le Pew.
• In the Rugrats episode "Chuckie Gets Skunked," Stu attempts to douse Chuckie's skunk odor with Didi's expensive "Eau de Joie" perfume. Chas retorts that it never worked, saying that Chuckie smells like "a skunk who's getting ready for a hot date."
• In the "Odour Zone" storyline of Fleetway's Sonic the Comic #72, the anthropomorphic skunks of the Underground Movement speak in a French accent similar to Pepé.
• In the Moesha episode "Labor Day Jammy," Moesha refers to her younger brother, Myles, as Pepé Le Pew.
• In the Gilmore Girls episode "Kill Me Now," Drella asked the French Michel for help by calling him Pepé Le Pew.
• In the My Wife and Kids episode "A Little Romance," Michael calls his brother Pepé Le Pew after Claire recognizes that his Caille rôties for dinner translates to quail in French.
• In the My Dad the Rock Star episode "Call of the Wild," a skunk resembling Pepé appears inside of the Zilla mansion, when eldest sister Serenity notices that many wildlife animals have been living in her home.
• In a game of "Questions with Wigs" of the December 12, 2005 episode of the American Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Ryan wears a skunk wig and imitates Pepé while flirting with Colin as one of the leads of Charlie's Angels.
• In the audio commentary of the Stargate SG-1 episode "Unending," writer Robert C. Cooper nicknamed Teal'c Pepé Le Pew when he gained a white streak in his hair.
• In the 2024 film Joker: Folie À Deux, Arthur watches For Scent-imental Reasons on television. Pepé's scenes in this short can be seen on the TV set while Arthur is in custody at Arkham State Hospital.

• 

  My Dad the Rock Star

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

• "Kimmy Makes Waffles!:" Idiot Randy discusses with a cat whether or not a skunk could be fooled by a white line painted across a cat.
• "Kimmy Meets a Drunk Lady!:" Titus calls Kimmy "Peppy Lew Pew," after being too peppy in the morning for him.