| For Scent-imental Reasons | |
|---|---|
 The title card ofFor Scent-imental Reasons | |
| Directed by | Charles M. Jones[1] |
| Story by | Michael Maltese |
| Produced by | Edward Selzer (uncredited) |
| Starring | Mel Blanc Bea Benaderet |
| Music by | Carl Stalling |
| Animation by | Ben Washam Ken Harris Phil Monroe Lloyd Vaughan |
| Layouts by | Robert Gribbroek |
| Backgrounds by | Peter Alvarado |
| Color process | Technicolor |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures The Vitaphone Corporation |
Release date |
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Running time | 6:55 |
| Language | English |
For Scent-imental Reasons (stylized asfor Scent-imental Reasons) is a 1949Warner Bros.Looney Tunes short directed byChuck Jones and written byMichael Maltese.[2] The short was released on November 12, 1949, and featured the debut ofPenelope Pussycat[3] (who is unnamed in this cartoon).
It won theAcademy Award for Best Animated Short Film in1949 and was the firstChuck Jones-directed cartoon and the second short produced byWarner Bros. Cartoons to win this award (afterTweetie Pie won in1947).
A Parisian perfume shop owner is horrified to find a skunk,Pepé Le Pew, sampling his fragrances. The man calls upon agendarme for assistance. Unhelpfully, the officer also recoils from Pepé's scent and flees the scene.
A black-and-white stray cat winds around the shop owner's legs, trying to comfort him. Deciding to have her remove Pepé, he tosses her into the store. She slides across the floor, slams into a table, and overturns a bottle of white hair dye. This leads to a white stripe down her back and tail.
Pepé immediately mistakes the cat for a skunk and falls for her. Despite her clear aversion to his smell, he persistently tries to woo her. After failing to scrub off the dye, she locks herself in a glass case (much to his annoyance).
Eventually, she mimed through the glass that she won't come out because he stinks. Heartbroken, he pulls out a gun, puts it to his head, and walks out of the frame. A "bang" is heard, so she frantically rushes out—only to find that he'd tricked her ("I missed, fortunately for you!"). The chase resumes, with Pepé leisurely hopping after the hightailing cat.
The pursuit ends on the second story, where she jumps onto a window ledge. Believing that she is about to end her life out of love for him, he tries to save her. When she slips from his grasp, he dramatically leaps after her. She lands in a barrel of rainwater, and he in a can of blue paint.
Not only has the water washed away the cat's stripe, but it has also given her a cold. She looks so bedraggled that Pepé (who is completely blue) doesn't recognize her. So, he wanders off to search for his "young lady skunk". As he walks away, the cat notices how muscular the paint makes him look. Coupled with the fact that her sinuses are now blocked, she falls in love with him.
Meanwhile, Pepé goes back inside the shop. As soon as he crosses the threshold, the door slams and locks. He turns to see the cat leering at him. She pockets the key in her fur and begins to approach him. Realizing that the tables have turned, he starts running for his life. The cat follows, using his trademark hop, and Pepé ends the cartoon by remarking "is it possible to be too attractive?"
In 1957, this cartoon was reissued as aBlue RibbonMerrie Melodies. However, like all cartoons reissued between 1956 and 1959, the opening rendition of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" still plays and the original ending title with the original closing theme was kept.
