Behind the Tunes: The Charm of Stink - On the Scent of Pepe le Pew

"A romantic womanizer of the ninth degree" is the way critic Leonard Maltin describes the cartoon character "Pepe LePew," a creation of writer Michael Maltese and director Chuck Jones.

Maltin loves the character's fake French accent and language and the fact that the locales for many of the cartoons have such a European flavor, especially French. These LePew cartoons have a lot of style to them.

Film director Joe Dante says young people today have no idea Pepe is a parody of classic-era actor Charles Boyer. "It's the only link these younger people have with the famous actor," he notes, "because they've never heard of Charles Boyer."

Everyone in this DVD bonus feature - about a half dozen people, compliment the work of Jones on these cartoons, even though most of the plot lines were all the same! They point out the amazing colors, artwork and style they have over the other Looney Tunes cartoons.

The men in here also comment about Pepe's always-optimistic personality and drive. Personally, I never though the cartoons were that funny but after listening to this behind- the-scenes documentary, I have a new appreciation of them.

In a way, Pepe Le Pew - more than any of the other Looney Tunes - represents that deep down desire that so many men have. The mini-documentary "Behind the Tunes: The Charm of Stink - On the Scent of Pepe le Pew" explains his hilarious delusion of being the world's greatest lover while actually repelling the women. People like Leonard Maltin and Joe Dante put in their two (s)cents.

I think that I may have heard that Pepe was based on French actor Charles Boyer, but this featurette clarifies the whole thing. I guess that it's another example of knowing the parody before knowing the original (heck, without even knowing that the parody is a parody). Kind of like how the first time that I saw "What's Opera, Doc?" when I was really young, I had never heard of Richard Wagner, or that I learn about many pop songs by hearing "Weird Al" Yankovic's spoofs.

But anyway, this short does a good job looking at Pepe Le Pew. I agree with another reviewer that the mini-documentaries on the Looney Tunes DVDs improved with Volume 2.