Misunderstanding Among Warner Skunks

Chuck Jones Lends Fragrance to Scent-imental Romeo (1951)

A surest route to Employee Of The Month at Warner animation was to develop a new character that might catch on with exhibs and a public. Pepe LePew was such an invention, and I can imagine him as quite the fad before repetition/ennui set in. Like the Road Runner, this was a one-joke affair, but unlike RR with Coyote in pursuit, there was less variation at hand. Essential to all Pepes was his misidentifying a female cat as another skunk and potential mate. With Chuck Jones at ongoing helm, the idea bore fruit despite retelling, but no way could LePew be so frequent and welcome as was Bugs and Daffy. Part of barrier to longevity was his character, Pepe a lover rather than fighter in animated arena where romance was for briefest asides. Jones used the skunk as benign foreground to verbal gags, many of them sign-posted along Parisboulevards Pepe inhabits. In no place did Jones' sophistication (appreciated perhaps best by himself) get better airing, the LePews set at same subtle key as Ralph Phillips shorts the director had made. To put it in '52 election context, I'll bet Adlai Stevenson supporters were quietly amused by intellectual flatterer Pepe (and his director), while Eisenhower voters howled at Bugs. Like Adlai, Pepe would eventually lose.