The Perils of Penelope Pitstop

As Fred Silverman shed his CBS Saturday morning lineup of violent cartoons in the late 60s, he struck gold with several successes. They were The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour, The Archie Show, Scooby Doo, Where Are You? and one of the few network cartoon spinoffs, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop.

The show was a spoof of movie melodramas of the 20s and 30s and emphasized comedy rather than violence. Two things I really enjoyed about Penelope Pitstop were Paul Lynde's portrayal of the evil Hooded Claw and the outstanding narration of Gary Owens. If you watch the closing credits carefully, you'll notice that in the voices section Paul Lynde doesn't receive any screen credit. Let's not overlook The Ant Hill Mob and their car Chugaboom. They were an intrical part of the storylines as they saved Penelope from The Hooded Claw's evil plans.

I've been catching reruns of this old cartoon on Cartoon Network over the last couple of weeks, and frankly I'm probably in the minority. I actually like this show. It stars Penelope Pitstop (a female racer from "Wacky Races") who is being constantly on the run by her laywer Sylvester Sneekly (aka The Hooded Claw who is just Sneekly in disguise) whom wants to elude of her since she inherited a fortune, and would give it to him if something were to happenn to her (you know like death or something like that for an example). But Penelope has protection thanks to my fave characters from "Wacky Races" the Ant Hill Mob (those guys rule!!!!!) who will keep our damsel in distress from being captured by the Hooded Claw.

I really like this cartoon a lot. I know that Hanna Barbera has made some lame spinoffs in the past, but this is great. 10/10

We had this cartoon on VHS and I remember watching it SO many times when I was a kid. The one thing that gets stuck in my head from this cartoon is the theme song. I can still hear the theme song of Dastardly and Muttley called '..Catch the pigeon, catch the pigeon..' it is very funny.

Although I wasn't that fond of Penelope Pitstop, my favorite character was Muttley.

This is one of the good creations from Hanna-Barbera and this cartoon (also the series about Dastardly and Muttley) is widely known by almost all children born in the 70's and the 80's. I'm feeling quite nostalgic thinking about this, so I just might watch it again soon on Youtube.

I used to enjoy this as a kid but it always puzzled me how the Hooded Claw hoped to bump off Penelope by tying her to a railway track when she inhabited the same world where Dick Dastardly could be run over by a train and although he might feel a bit flat for a while generally he was OK at the end of the day. What's more the Anthill Mob were often blown up by the dynamite the Claw had intended for Penelope and it didn't seem to do them much harm. Penelope has a big following and I upset this girl I know who used to be a fan by saying it was kinky the way the Claw was always tying her up. She said I'd spoiled her illusions! Still, great fun.

I liked this series when I was a boy. The horrid cackle of the evil Hooded Claw (brilliantly voiced by veteran US actor the late Paul Lynde)used to give me goosebumps. I recently watched the whole series online and while I still very much enjoyed it,I was rather bemused at all the elaborate traps devised by HC to bump off his female victim The finale ending the series was inconclusive. I had hoped the evil Claw might himself be killed by one of his own devices thus ridding Penelope of him for good or being captured and unmasked as the treacherous Sneekley Indeed he did blow himself up at the very end by accidentally tripping and falling on a detonator plunger but sadly he survived it,and swearing to continue to think up further nefarious ideas to murder Penelope. Verdict? Still very watchable but disappointed there was no definite outcome to the series.