For Scent-imental Reasons

When a French perfume shop owner opens up one morning he finds Pepe Le Pew using the perfumes in his store. He runs to the police, but they are unable and unwilling to help him. Desperate, he paints his cat like a skunk in order to distract Pepe and get him out of the store.

Looking back now it is often difficult to watch these cartoons in the order they were made. For this reason it is often difficult to know which came first and which were just copies of more original cartoons. However, this short is famous as it was one of the first Pepe Le Pew cartoons and it won him an Oscar in 1950. For this reason it is one of my favourite Pepe shorts. It may not be the best but the others just kept repeating this one gag until it killed it.

The plot is the usual deal but it has some nice touches at the start and end that make it different enough to be amusing. It is unfair to really look back on this short with the knowledge that Pepe just kept doing the same stuff over and over, I don't really like him for this reason, but this short is still good and helped me get over the repeating issues.

Overall this is an enjoyable short that is better than it comes across if you try and remember that this was fresh when it was made, as opposed to his other films that generally retread this gag. Not sure it deserved to be called an Oscar winner but it was funny and the fresh quality of the film has managed to shine through despite the numerous repeats.

Chuck Jones's 'For Scent-imental Reasons' is a brilliantly witty cartoon for which Pepe Le Pew won a well earned Academy Award on only his fourth outing. As a child I hated the Pepe Le Pew cartoons for several reasons. Of course, I thought love was yucky but also the pseudo-French gags and more verbal approach to comedy went completely over my head. Bearing in mind that these sexually charged cartoons were never meant for young eyes, it's hardly surprising that I have come round to loving Pepe and his straight-to-camera witticisms. Having said all that, even as a Pepe-hating child I still enjoyed 'For Scent-imental Reasons'. There was something about it that made it stand out over the other Le Pew shorts and clearly the Academy agreed.

Set in and around a perfume shop, 'For Scent-imental Reasons' finds Penelope the cat locked in with the amorous skunk after a bottle of white hair-dye bestows the obligatory deceptive markings down her spine. There follows a series of great gags, two of which involve aborted suicides! The best gag in the whole cartoon is when Penelope locks herself in a glass case causing Pepe to go absolutely insane with frustration until finally he pulls out a gun, puts it to his temple and walks out of sight. Hearing the shot, the guilt-ridden cat unlocks the case and leaps out straight into Pepe's arms. "I meesed" he tells her! 'For Scent-imental Reasons' is a lovely piece of work and undoubtedly one of the best Pepe Le Pew cartoons. From its familiar setup through to the table-turning ending, it's a classy and classic short.

Paris, France: A perfume shop owner discovers that the amorous skunk Pepe Le Pew is generously sampling his perfumes. The distraught shop-owner flings a cat inside to eject the skunk. The feline femme fatale, of course, has her back dyed white, and when Pepe sees this, he of course tries to woo her (sometimes forcibly), blissfully unaware that she is trying to escape his scent-imental attentions.

"For Scent-imental Reasons" was the first Pepe cartoon I ever saw, having seen it on tape in "The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie". The ending and beginning are a bit funnier and more unique than usual, and some of the humor comes from sources besides Pepe, which is unusual. Certainly one of his best efforts, although not the best of all.

Pepe Le Peu is trying out various perfumes in a shop. A shocked shop owner retrieves a policeman who promptly runs away. A black and white female cat catches the shop owner's attention. He throws the cat into the shop and commands her to drive the skunk out. White hair dye falls off the counter and paints a white stripe down the middle of the female cat. Pepe Le Peu mistakes her for a skunk.

Pepe Le Peu is problematic in the modern era, but some allowances must be made for the times. It helps to have the table turned on him. The early part has a lot of French. I would suggest less French and just do the fake French accent. This is standard Pepe Le Peu and is probably fine even today.

This was the cartoon that formed Pepe Le Pew as we know and love him. It was this cartoon that Chuck Jones found the correct formula to make Pepe a true winner.

Earlier, producer Eddie Seltzer thought that no one would believe that a French-speaking skunk was funny. Jones and Seltzer really battled on that. But when this cartoon won an Academy Award in 1949, he was proven wrong, and stepped up to receive the award anyway!

According to Chuck, Pepe, like Bugs Bunny, is one of his aspirations. He held a place in Chuck Jones' heart. He claimed that he never had much luck with 'les femmes' when in school, and Pepe is a character with so much security in his own sexuality that he contained much will power. So Pepe's a very personal character to Mr. Jones.

In the past, the humorous 'talking-through-the-glass' scene was cut due to the suicide reference. However-Pepe: I meesed...fortunately for you!"

His name was a spoof of Charles Boyer's character in the French film Algiers, a character named Pepe Le Moko.

A truly great for the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes collection.

BTW: I am saddened by the fact that Mr. Charles M. Jones, the last of the original Looney Tunes directors and creator of such a great Looney Tune, passed away just recently.

*sniff* Goodbye, Chuck Jones... >_<