Penelope Pussycat

Penelope Pussycat
First appearance	For Scent-imental Reasons (November 12, 1949)
Last appearance	The Looney Tunes Show (May 3, 2011-present)
Created by	Chuck Jones
Voiced by	Mel Blanc (1949-1989) June Foray (Really Scent) (1959) Tress MacNeille (Carrotblanca) (speaking role) (1995)
Information
Species	Cat
Gender	Female

Penelope Pussycat is a fictional character, an anthropomorphic cat featured in the Warner Bros. classic Looney Tunes animated shorts. Though typically a non-speaker, her "meows" and "purrs" were most often provided by Mel Blanc using a feminine voice. In the 1959 short "Really Scent", she was voiced by June Foray. As of 2009, her only real speaking role was in the 1995 short Carrotblanca where she was voiced by Tress MacNeille. It can be postulated with the inconsistencies in her naming that every sighting of her is simply a random black cat until 'Penelope' was named on screen in Carrotblanca using the black cat animation. In 2011, she will be voiced by Tara Strong in The Looney Tunes Show.

Character history and personality

Penelope Pussycat is best known as the often bewildered love interest of Looney Tunes' anthropomorphic skunk, Pepé Le Pew. Penelope is a typical black and white pussycat, though by some means or another, she often finds herself with a white stripe down her back, whether painted intentionally or by accident.

She finds herself constantly being chased by the overly enthusiastic Pepè, but on occasion the pursuing has been done by Penelope. On one occasion, Penelope has fallen into a barrel of water and develops a cold, and finds herself strongly attracted to Pepe after he has fallen into a bucket of blue paint. In another short (where she is called "Fabrette"), she is a black cat with an unfortunate fur pattern of a white stripe down her back making her resemble a skunk and having difficulty finding love because of her appearance. She is attracted to Pepe, yet cannot cope with his odor. Both try to overcome this using similar methods. She locks herself in a limburger factory, and presumably uses the stinky cheese to make herself not only attractive to Pepe with her scent, but also in an effort not to smell his odor. At the same time Pepe, has immersed himself in deodorants in efforts to neutralize his odor "problem".

Penelope Pussycat will appear in The Looney Tunes Show voiced by Tara Strong.

Name confusion

For many years, Penelope remained a nameless character, simply referred to as "the black cat". she was eventually given a name in the 1954 short, "The Cat's Bah", where her mistress referred to her as "Penelope". The name was later contradicted in the 1955 short, "Two Scent's Worth", where she was identified as "Fifi". In the 1959 short, "Really Scent", she was referred to as "Fabrette". Confusingly, her mother was named "Fifi". In a model sheet from the early 1990s, she was referred to as "Le Cat".

She remained without an official name for many years, up until "Carrotblanca" (a parody of Casablanca) was released in 1995. Her name was then canonized as "Penelope Pussycat", as many advertisements for the short credited her as "Penelope Pussycat in her first speaking role".

Appearances

Classic shorts

• "For Scent-imental Reasons" (1949)
• "Scentimental Romeo" (1951)
• "Little Beau Pepe" (1952)
• "The Cat's Bah" (1954)
• "Past Perfumance" (1955)
• "Two Scent's Worth" (1955)
• "Heaven Scent" (1956)
• "Touché and Go" (1957)
• "Really Scent" (1959)
• "Who Scent You?" (1960)
• "A Scent of the Matterhorn" (1961)
• "Louvre Come Back to Me!" (1962)

Other media

• "Tiny Toon Adventures" episode "It's a Wonderful Tiny Toon Christmas Special" (1992)
• "Carrotblanca" (1995) (Her only speaking role provided by Tress MacNeille)
• "Space Jam" (1996)
• "Tweety's High-Flying Adventure" (2000)
• "Looney Tunes: Back in Action" (2003) - (appears in the deleted scene)
• "Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas" (2006)
• "Loonatics Unleashed" episode "The Hunter" (2007) - (statue of her can be seen in trophy room)
• "The Looney Tunes Show" (2011)

Most notable appearances

For Scent-imental Reasons

The Academy Award-winning 1949 short For Scent-imental Reasons ended with an accidentally painted (and now terrified) Pepé being romantically pursued by a madly smitten Penelope (who has been dunked in dirty water, giving her a cold and a ratty appearance). Penelope locks him up inside a perfume shop, hiding the key down her chest, and proceeds to turn the tables on the now imprisoned, and odorless, Pepé.

Little Beau Pepé

In another short, Little Beau Pepé, Pepé, attempting to find the most arousing cologne with which to impress Penelope, sprays a combination of perfumes and colognes upon himself. This resulted in something close to a love-potion, leading Penelope to fall madly in love with Pepé in an explosion of hearts. Pepé is revealed to be extremely frightened of overly-affectionate women("But Madom!"), much to his dismay, as Penelope quickly captures him and smothers him in more love than even he could imagine.

Bah Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas

In this film, Penelope is seen as a customer in the perfume department, where Pepè Le Pew works. When he's trying to help her to choose a perfume for herself, Daffy appears, trying to show Pepe what he should do, to sell her something, but in the end Penelope punches Daffy in the face. At the end of the movie, she kisses Pepè under the misletoe.

Really Scent

And yet again, in Really Scent, Pepé removes his odor by locking himself in a deodorant plant so Penelope (Or known as "Fabrette", in this instance a black cat with an unfortunate birthmark and thus an arguably different character) would no longer be afraid of him. However, Penelope had decided to make her odor match her appearance and had locked herself in a Limburger cheese factory. Now more forceful and demanding, Penelope quickly corners the terrified Pepé, who, after smelling her new stench, wants nothing more than to escape the amorous female cat. Unfortunately, she will not take "no" for an answer and proceeds to chase Pepé off into the distance, with no intention of letting him escape.

MetLife

In this 2012 commercial for MetLife titled "Everyone", Penelope can be seen sitting uptop the back of Battle Cat going to gather up with other famous toons, which immediately has Pepe Le Pew follow her.