Relent d'amour

Like just about every Pepe Le Pew cartoon, there's a female cat who's mistaken for a skunk because of white paint that conveniently forms a straight line on the cat's back. As a result, Pepe falls madly in love with her while she is repelled and tries to escape with her running frantically and he just hopping along without a care in the world. That's the premise of the nearly whole series in a nutshell but this one has a twist at the end that makes For Scent-imental Reasons somewhat worthy of the Oscar it eventually won. In fact, I was pretty amused throughout most of the cartoon. And I always wonder how much of the French was real and how much of it was gibberish! Ah well, Say la vie!

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.

This cartoon won an Oscar for Pepe Le Pew almost ten years before Bugs Bunny won for Knighty Knight Bugs. Pepe is one of my favorite characters and this is one of the better cartoons in the series, although not my personal favorite (that's Touche and Go). Pepe discovers wht it's like to have the shoe on the other foot in this one. Great fun in this one. It should be in-print. It has been in the past, most notably on the tape A Salute to Chuck Jones from the Golden Jubilee series. Cartoon Network shows it fairly often. Recommended.

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.

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.