Pepé Le Pew is an Academy Award-winning fictional character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons, first introduced in 1945. A French anthropomorphic skunk that always strolls around in Paris in the springtime, when everyone's thoughts are of "love", Pepé is constantly seeking "l'amour" of his own.

However, he has two huge turnoffs to any prospective mates: his malodorous scent and the fact that he comes on too aggressively or with too much passion, to both of which he is cheerfully oblivious. Furthermore, he can't take 'no' for an answer, blissfully convinced that the girl is flirting with him, even when she physically assaults him. Pepé Le Pew storylines typically involve Pepé in an unconsented-to pursuit of what appears to be a female skunk ("petite femme skunk").

But, invariably, the supposed female skunk is actually a black cat (retroactively named Penelope Pussycat) who has had a white stripe painted down her back, often by accident. Usually Penelope runs away from him anyway due to his putrid odor or because of his overly aggressive manner. However sometimes, Penelope reciprocates Pepé's amorous feelings.

Chuck Jones, Pepé's creator, wrote that Pepé was based (loosely) on the personality of his Termite Terrace colleague, writer Tedd Pierce, a self-styled "ladies' man" who reportedly always assumed that his infatuations were requited. Pepé's voice, provided by Mel Blanc, was based on Charles Boyer's Pépé le Moko from Algiers (1938), a remake of the 1937 French film Pépé le Moko. Eddie Selzer, animation producer—and Jones' bitterest foe—at Warners then once profanely commented that no one would laugh at those cartoons.

However, this did not keep Selzer from accepting an award for one of Pepé's pictures several years later. There have been theories that Pepé was based on Maurice Chevalier. However, in the short film, Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood, Jones says Pepé was actually based on himself, but that he was very shy with girls, and Pepé obviously was not.

Similar to 0 things you like: