Odor-Able Kitty

This short, a formative cartoon featuring Pepe Le Pew, concerns a cat who thinks he'll solve all his problems by pretending to be a skunk. Trouble is, he attracts the most unwelcome attention of an honest and for truly skunk (our hero, Pepe, entering stage left) being decidedly more attentive, shall we say, than M. Cat would like. Every great plan has its drawbacks, but this one's a corker! I wonder if Jack Warner got a call from the Hays Office over the fact that Pepe and the object of his adoration were both male. After all, Betty Boop was in part responsible for the Production Code coming into existance. Subsequent "conquests" were clearly and most definitely female. Very good cartoon, but Pepe is a character who works better as the focal point, rather than supporting. Well worth watching. Recommended.

. . . "A rose by another name would smell just like a skunk." We went to the zoo yesterday, but all the skunks from last summer were gone. The zookeeper who gave me a lift to the gift shop at closing time informed me that menagerie personnel had live-trapped and removed most if not all of the stinkers this spring. Be that as it may, only the most hopeless maggot would refer to the Warner Bros. White striper as anything other than "Henry," or perhaps "Hank." This malingering miscreant's pathetic attempts to avoid child support payments while pursuing inter-species relationships beyond the pale of acceptable behavior leaves Hank in a weak position as a permanent butt of crude jokes.

And thus was born the most amorous skunk ever to grace the silver screen. While the plot has an abused cat painting himself like a skunk and inadvertently attracting Pepe Le Pew (called Henry here), Pepe certainly steals the show. No doubt Chuck Jones realized that this love-seeking member of the genus Mephitis had that special something necessary to be a star in his own right, and so he cast Pepe in "For Scent-imental Reasons" four years later, firmly establishing PLP's enduring presence on screens everywhere.

So, while "Odor-Able Kitty" may be a place holder otherwise, I try to imagine watching it for the very first time in 1945. Could anyone have guessed that this supporting character would soon join the ranks of Bugs, Daffy, Porky, and the rest? Whether or not anyone did, Pepe remains one of the most likable characters to this day. C'est l'amour!

The brilliant Chuck Jones, master of Warner Bros. cartoon comedy, brings us the first (?) Pepe LePew cartoon. An alley cat, tired of being pushed around, paints himself in the colors of a skunk, and with a healthy dose of Limburger, turns the tables on his tormentors. Then along comes Pepe, and you know the rest. Many of Pepe's famous gags were born here, including his chase/hop, in which he hops casually along while his prey runs himself to exhaustion.

In my opinion, Warner Bros. cartoons became less inventive and more ho-hum in the 50s. This 1947 'toon is one of the few examples of Mel Blanc putting his absolutely crazy voice into Pepe's mouth. But the kicker is the ending, where Pepe is revealed to be an American "wolf in skunk's clothing"! A must see! Classic Warner Bros...

. . . controversial piece of animation given the dread snipping of the ubiquitous censor bots employed by this site. Compounding this travesty, these evil bots are totally clueless--they give commentators absolutely no tips as to how a review can be modified to pass their incomprehensible scrutiny. Perhaps merely typing in the title of what is being reviewed constitutes an unforgiveable transgression in their dim eyes, as some of the outside discussion threads suggest. Maybe it is the use of certain forbidden words, which could share a syllable or letter with something on their E-list. Possibly exceeding the bot limit on words of six letters or more is enough to do in a "user review." Only The Shadow knows.