Back to the Drawing Board: The Pepe Le Pew Movie

I remember it like it was yesterday. The Alvin and the Chipmunks movies were a huge success, and attempts were being made to cash in. It seemed as though every pre-1990s cartoon character was getting a live action/CGI-hybrid film. Huckleberry Hound. Speedy Gonzales. Marvin the Martian. Hong Kong Phooey. The Berenstain Bears. All of them were announced... and none of them ever happened.

Although Warner Bros. is apparently still trying to get a live action Bugs Bunny movie off
the ground. We'll see where that goes.

One of those characters was Pepe Le Pew. Around the time the Yogi Bear movie was released, it was announced that they would making a live action Pepe Le Pew movie with a CGI Pepe voiced by Mike Myers of all people. Here is the script for that movie:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Zo-T3XFeLg7p6s6o_tDVipPrpUIj7evf/view

I'm not one hundred percent sure why the film didn't get made. From my understanding, it's just one of those films that was announced but never came to fruition. Of course, any chance Pepe has now of getting a movie is very, very small now that he's been "banned" by Warner Bros (and yet Fifi La Fume is allowed to appear in the Tiny Toons reboot. Go figure).

Looney Tunes characters have never had a great track record with movies. Nor is there a great track record for live action movies based on cartoons (although I personally didn't think the Yogi Bear movie was that bad). But who knows? Let's take a look at the script and see if this would've been a good movie or another Space Jam.

We open with the Warner Animation Group logo floating in front of a night sky. The script starts talking about how animation has come a long way. The sun rises, and a flock of ducks flies by. One of them is Daffy, who mutters, "Typecasting. DESPICABLE."

After that, we travel through the clouds down to the City of Lights itself, Paris. The script starts talking to us in the first person again. Not a character. The script itself. It says, "Oh my god lucky us. Have you been? It's fantastic! Well parts are fantastic, you know, if you have friends there. And luckily, we have a friend there." I like how the script is actually talking to us.

Pepe's voice welcomes us to Paris. "Home to the best art, the best food, the best fashion, the best anything, everything. It would be very easy to get lost," he says. "But luckily, you know someone fantastic." Emerging from a dumpster in a back alley, he adds, "It's me." Suddenly, there's a ruckus from the dumpster behind him, and he hurriedly climbs up a drainpipe and across a fire escape, the camera following him until he makes it to the top of a restaurant.

Pictured: the most controversial Looney Tunes character ever.

"Paris is the birthplace of love," Pepe tells us. "No one had ever been in love before even once until Paris bloomed into life, and this is a true and real fact that is recorded in many books and also some websites. It was the start of all communication, because love, is a conversation." Yeah, by now it should be obvious that Pepe's a bit ignorant. Then he makes a run for it, and we see that he's being chased by three characters: a bulldog named Spike, a terrier named Chester, and a "sleazy, nouve-riche raccoon prince of crime" named Jacques Versaille.

For those unaware, Chester and Spike are Pepe's fellow Looney Tunes characters, though I don't believe they ever appeared in the same short as Pepe. They were in two shorts: 1952's Tree For Two and 1954's Dr. Jerkyl's Hide. Here's a picture of them:

Jacques, on the other hand... er, paw? Never appeared in a single Looney Tunes production. I Googled his name, and all I got was a link to this very script. I don't think there are even any Looney Tunes shorts that FEATURE a raccoon, at least not as a major character. He's just a character made up for this one production, like Swackhammer in Space Jam and Tweety's love interest in that Tweety's High-Flying Adventure film.

Since there apparently aren't any raccoons in the original Looney Tunes shorts, here's a picture
of that new raccoon character in the Tiny Toons reboot.

Anyhow, Jacques, Spike, and Chester are after Pepe for whatever reason, but he manages to get away, escaping to the safety of a flower-covered balcony. On an opposite railing, three "sexy French Pigeons" (I don't like the thought of them trying to make pigeons "sexy") greet Pepe, and he causes them to faint with a wink. Then Pepe leaps off the edge, slides down a railing, backflips off a streetlight, bounces off an awning, flips off a double-decker bus, and finally lands in a cafe. All the humans in the cafe flee in horror ('cause, y'know, he's a skunk), while their pets sigh in dreamy wonder.

Pepe teaches the pets all about how to talk to "a new romance" while the male pets film him on their iPhones. It feels so weird seeing a script for something Looney Tunes-related mention iPhones. Alas, Jacques and Spike locate him and the chase continues. A Running Gag here is that Pepe seems surprisingly calm about the whole situation, talking to us nonchalantly as he runs for his life. "You might say, Pepe, how can I be like you, and meet so many women?" he says. "See, you misunderstand: I only seek to meet one woman; yes, I meet a lot of others along the way, but my goal is to find a true love, a woman who sees me as the other half to put into her whole. But what do I know, I am just one skunk; not to be confused with my cousin from Spain, Juan Skunk, who's actually a really wonderful guy."

Here's some concept art for the film.

Jacque, Spike, and Chester tackle Pepe and start beating the stuffing out of him, but Pepe manages to slip away and make his escape via a handful of red, blue and white balloons. "I'm sure this situation will resolve itself momentarily, in the meantime, wow, look at that view!" he exclaims. Too bad for him Jacques runs up a telephone pole and jumps on the balloons, snarling. "This is just a minor setback, but - oh wait he's up there now. That's actually pretty bad," Pepe admits, giving us the funniest joke in the script thus far.

Jacques slashes the balloons, yelling at Pepe about how he knows Pepe stole "it". To get away, Pepe leaps onto the side of the Eiffel Tower and starts climbing the girders. But he STILL can't get Jacques, Spike and Chester off his tail. It doesn't occur to him to just spray them as skunks are known to do. Eventually, they all wind up onto a renovation site where construction workers are doing repair work on the tower. Spike starts firing at Pepe with a nail gun. Pepe starts climbing the Eiffel Tower, Jacques and Spike in hot pursuit, and eventually he winds up getting pounced on by them again. Fortunately, Pepe casually snakes around every blow they throw at him. According to the script, "It's incredible to watch: the bizarro physics of Looney Toons [shouldn't that be Looney TUNES?] mixing with the choreography of a modern action film - holy smokes, is the whole movie going to have this stuff?

Short answer: Yes."

Pepe grabs a ride on the Eiffel Tower's elevator, giving him a getaway from the raccoon and dogs. "No! No one makes Jacque Versaille look like a fool!" Jacque declares before jumping into the elevator shaft... and promptly getting creamed by the elevator's counter weight, sending him plummeting. "Poof of smoke where he hits, of course," says the script. "This IS a Looney Tune, after all. But yikes. Jacque just fell off the Eiffel Tower. I wonder if that will have 80 or so pages of consequences."

At the top of the tower, Pepe takes a look at the whole city spread out in front of him. "Beautiful, right?" he asks. "Animation's come a long way."

Here's a screencap from Ratatouille that should give you a pretty good idea what
Paris would've looked like in the movie.

Meanwhile, on the steeple of Sacre-Coeur, one of Paris' oldest churches, a cat is sneaking around. The cat's name is Penelope Blanc. Penelope, for those unaware, is the name of the black cat that Pepe usually chases under the impression that she is a skunk. Her surname being "Blanc", though, that's just the script's invention. It's likely supposed to be a reference to Mel Blanc. The script describes Penelope as, "A black cat with a white belly. Look, I don't want to just describe her physically; that's lazy screen writing, and arguably sexist or what have you, you freak, but at this point, the less you know about this feline, the better." She peers down at the crowd with a pair of binoculars, spots two dopey American tourists, and then dives off the side of the building. Seems like an incredibly risky thing to do, but perhaps she's aware that, since she's a Looney Tunes character, the fall won't kill her. I mean, Elmer shoots Daffy in the face multiple times in shorts like Rabbit Seasoning and Duck! Rabbit! Duck! and Daffy is fine, just singed.

Remember when Penelope was featured in promotional stuff for Space Jam 2
only to not appear in the movie at all? I guess Warner Bros. didn't want another
female Looney Tunes character to be on the Tune Squad, lest they overshadow
their precious Lola Bunny (Granny's okay, though, because she isn't "hot").

Penelope emerges from underfoot in the crowd, being trampled by people, and the American tourists recognize her. "It's like this cat has been following us all over Paris! Our lucky little French friend!" one of them says. Penelope asks the tourists (via meowing) for some money because she's "Meow meow working my way through college meow meow!" So they give her some money, and after she walks away it's revealed that - GASP! - she's a con artist!

She heads to the park, where she climbs up a tree and starts counting her money. Also in the tree is another cat, Claude Cat... he's the yellow-furred cat with a tuft of red-hair, usually tormented by those two little rats-in-mice's-clothing Hubie and Bertie. "What I wouldn't give to have just a little bit of that moolah..." Claude says menacingly, only for Penelope to flip him over her shoulder and onto he branch across the street. Wow, Penelope's strong. Penelope says, "This is almost enough. I might be able to bargain them down, you know. I can be pretty persuasive in the right situation." Claude comments on how impressive it is that she's only been running hustles for a week and yet she's already got enough money to go back to America. Oh, and apparently Penelope has a boyfriend who she blames for the raccoons being after her.

Speaking of raccoons, Penelope notices some shifty-looking ones down in the park. Claude tells her that she's gotta get to the black market - "That's where you can buy a pet Visa, you'll be outta Paris and back to the US of A by midnight tonight!" he claims. But how will Penelope find it? It's the most secret place in all of Paris. Claude says that he could show her... for a price. Then Penelope threatens him and he agrees to take her there for free.

Here's what Claude looks like, for those of you who aren't HUGE Looney Tunes
fans.

Then we cut to the highest level of Notre Dame Cathedral, where Chester and Spike are walking down a darkened hallway. Chester is yammering about how mad "Versaille" is going to be. They reach a huge oaken door, which Spike pushes open, revealing a spooky chamber where pigeons are roosting, a shadowy figure is sitting behind a "desk" that's actually a soda vending machine, and a torn down "JEWELS OF THE LIGHT" poster is hanging up on the wall, along with dozens of White Flags, hung up haphazardly and lit from below with candles. "These white flags, what do they mean? We'll know eventually. It's very cool, I assure you. But we'll need someone who knows a little bit about French history to tell us," the script explains. The far end of the room is lit by stolen road warning and hazard lights that flash in different sequences, creating a bizarre unsettling series of spotlights, combined with pools of shadow and fractals from gigantic stained glass windows.

Whose office is this? Why, none other than Matthieu Versaille, a massive raccoon with white fur and black stripes on his face, Jacque's uncle. When Chester brings up Jacque, Matthieu demands to know what happened to him. "Could it be that perhaps the two buffoons I trusted to assist him in catching a thief let things out of control, let something terrible happen, perhaps even let him FALL OFF THE EIFFEL TOWER?!" he guesses.

I gotta say, I'm pretty surprised - we're in Notre Dame and we haven't gotten a single hunchback joke yet.

I think this photo is a good representation of Versaille.

Versaille asks if they got "the blueprint", which is apparently the whole reason why they were chasing the thief in the first place. Chester says no, they thought it was a cat but Jacque was convinced it was "Le Pew". "Everyone in Paris knows Le Pew," Versaille says darkly. "Those jewels will be mine. No one can stand in my way. It is my destiny... call the rest of the boys. Call EVERYONE. Get me my blueprint. FIND. THAT. SKUNK."

Claude leads Penelope across the glass ceiling of Les Halles, Paris Metro's biggest station and the largest underground station in the world (as the script helpfully informs us). They reach a balcony looking over the outdoor courtyard, where a bunch of construction workers are fixing up a storefront. Claude tells her that the entrance to the black market is down through a ventilation shaft. And just in time, too - ten raccoons are running along the roof in the distance. Much like Pepe before, Penelope does some fancy acrobatics, while Claude is the victim of WHACKY SHENANIGANS. Then, Penelope spots something over her shoulder - it's Pepe! Yeah, remember him? He's still in this script. And coincidentally enough, he's heading for the black market too. Penelope doesn't know who Pepe is, so Claude explains: "He's a fixer, a grease man: if something's going wrong, you call Le Pew to fix it, and if something's going right, you call Le Pew to make it go wrong, and if something's going like mediocre to okay to unremarkable, you call Le Pew and he'll push it in any kind of direction you can imagine! Everyone who knows him loves him and if they don't love them they hate him and if they don't hate him they fear him and if they don't fear him they wanna BE him."

After seeing Pepe enter the black market without the rat, squirrel and crow guards out front raising a fuss, Penelope gets an idea. She grabs a can of white paint and uses it to give her back a white stripe down it. Then she tells the guards that she's Pepe's significant other. The guards start imitating the Three Stooges, and then Penelope tells them that Pepe will be mad if they don't let her in. Within seconds, she's inside the black market.

Formerly a repair bay for derelict subway cars, the black market is now a hustling Mos Eisley Cantina-esque place full of "every type of weird thing our gifted animators here at Warner Brothers can imagine". One dealer is selling catnip. Another is selling laser pointers. Across the black market, Pepe is casually walking around waving to various creeps, kooks and psychos. "Yes it's true, some people call me a criminal, to which I say: 'ehhhhHHhhhHh'," he tells us. "You know, most animals, they're nocturnal; ze sleep in the day, they LIVE in the night. I myself am a creature of two worlds, lightyness... and darkyness. To understand the nature of the heart, you must understand the balance of needs versus wants. A want is a desire of the mind, a need is the desire of the body. But when one of them outbalances the other, that leads to desperation, and desperation leads to people like this."

He is referring to a figure in an old subway car: Cecil Turtle, the Looney Tunes character who's big claim to fame is that he actually triumphs over Bugs Bunny. Which he does via cheating at footraces. He's not a particularly likeable character. He's described as "massive and hulking in the small space". I don't recall Cecil being that big. But he's also "sweet, quiet, gentile, soft spoken, kind" according to the script... is this the same Cecil Turtle as the one from the shorts? I mean, I wouldn't exactly call a character that cheats to win footraces "kind".

He's at least less of a jerk than that Gremlin, who picked on Bugs unprovoked, at least.

Anyway, Cecil is happy to see Pepe, but he warns Pepe that he shouldn't be there even though they had an appointment because all of his debts have gotten worse. Pepe gives Cecil a model Formula One race car (Rene Arnoux's car, in fact) and then there's a bang at the door. "Word on the street is someone is after you," Cecil warns Pepe. Everything's gotten pretty dangerous since the Jewels of the Light came into town. Pepe doesn't know what the Jewels of the Light are, so Cecil gives some exposition. They're the Royal Jewels of France, there's talk of a plan to steal them, and people say that Pepe is involved. Pepe is sure that he can clear this up with a simple conversation, but when he opens the door, in comes Penelope. Of course, Pepe is instantly smitten.

Penelope tells Pepe that she's in trouble with the raccoons and she needs his help. Cecil peers through a periscope out the top of his train car, and indeed, there are a dozen raccoons approaching from all directions. Pepe holds out his hand for her to take. After a moment's hesitation, she does. He pulls her to him, then opens up a trapdoor that allows them to make their escape.

We get another chase scene, and it's here I realize that chase scenes aren't quite as exciting to read about as they are to actually watch. At one point the raccoons ride motorcycles, and a tourist does my job for me and asks if the motorcycles are human motorcycles or if they're tiny raccoon-sized motorcycles and if it's the latter, who built them? Is there some sort of raccoon motorcycle factory? Did the raccoons build them themselves? Eventually Penelope nearly loses her money but manages to grab it, only for Pepe to notice it and say, "Oh, great idea!" Then he snatches the money and flings it into the air to distract the raccoons. Penelope is initially horrified, then enraged.

More concept art.

Pepe reassures her that they will find her some more, then says that "I will take care of you like I take care of all my responsibilities: loosely. You are a muffin and I the wrapper that envelopes the muffin completely! Except that most precious part of the muffin, the muffin-top; in this case: your face! Shining boldly to the world, unwrapped and glorious, oh, let me kiss your muffin top!" Penelope, not happy with Pepe's advances, does the "LOOK OVER THERE!" trick and runs off.

Meanwhile, Cecil is being interrogated by Chester, Versaille and some raccoons. Versaille demands to know if Pepe tried to sell the blueprint, then smashes a cabinet of Cecil's things. "I don't know anything about a blueprint," Cecil claims. "Mr. Le Pew was here and then he left with that lady skunk. I'm sure he didn't mean any harm by it, he's just a client, and a good friend. He really helps me come out of my shell." This, as it turns out, was a dumb thing to say, because puns make Versailles mad. So mad that he smashes more of Cecil's things, culminating in him snapping that Formula One car model Pepe gave Cecil in half. Wow, this script actually made me feel sorry for Cecil Turtle.

Versaille tells the raccoons to get their paws on Penelope. As for Pepe, he has someone else in mind. "Someone dangerous. Someone intelligent. Someone whose plans never fail. Yes. We're bringing in... LE PROFESSIONAL," he declares. Oh, boy! I wonder what Looney Tunes character this "Le Professional" will be!

At Rue Cremaux, Pepe catches up with Penelope. He points out that it's not safe for her to be out all alone with those raccoons after them. Penelope claims that she has an owner and a boyfriend. This doesn't phase Pepe. "You remind me of my old girlfriend Romi, the model, but you are more beautiful," he says. "And of my former love Fiona, the ballerina, but you are more graceful. Or perhaps my sweet Alissa, the theoretical physicist: but you are more... beautiful." Eventually, Penelope tells him that she's not interested and to buzz off, then laments that every time she tries to help herself she just makes things worse.

Believe it or not, Pepe gets the hint. "I... apologize, madam. I was swept up in waves of emotion, now I see it was more a shipwreck than a pleasure cruise, I'll excuse myself," the skunk tells her. After some more banter, he leaves. Then we cut to Charles De Gaulle International Airport, where two raccoons in trenchcoats and sunglasses are waiting on a private runway for "Le Professional"... who turns out to be Wile E. Coyote, riding the Jet Bike he used in 1956's Gee Whiz-z-z-z-z-z-z.

This concept art, by the way, is by Sylvain Deboissy. You can find more of his work
on his ArtStation page.

I gotta ask... if Wile E. can't catch the Road Runner, no matter how many ACME gadgets he's got up his sleeve, what makes Versaille think he'll be able to catch a skunk?

Cut to the Batignolles, a former slum now gentrified into one of Paris' hippest neighborhoods. It's bustling with people having a good time. Little do they know that there's a pickpocket among them - none other than Sylvester the Cat, who the script describes as the opposite of Pepe. "Where Pepe's smooth, he's clumsy, where Pepe's on rooftops and balconies, Sylvester's in gutters and garbage," it claims.

Suddenly, Penelope bursts out of nowhere and tackles Sylvester. Apparently, he's the "boyfriend" that she was complaining about earlier, seeing how she rants about him leaving her out there in the streets alone with the raccoons on their tail. They argue for a few minutes, with Sylvester becoming outraged by the revelation that his girlfriend has been palling around with another guy. "TYPICAL! You would end up as some rich skunk's trophy wife, while I STRUGGLE FOR LIFE IN THE STREETS!" he shouts. "We wouldn't have been in this mess at all if you hadn't stolen that stupid blueprint!" Penelope snaps. "Now you're attacking me for being ambitious!" Sylvester yells. "I did that for us! It was your idea in the first place! You were always pressuring me to do bigger things! You're such a bully, and that's just ONE of the MANY things about you that's easy to criticize!"

I wonder if Sylvester's being Penelope's boyfriend here is supposed to be a reference to the 1995 short Carrotblanca. That's the only short I can think of where Sylvester and Penelope are paired up (and the only short where Penelope talks).

This would've been a rare post-1970s production where Sylvester appeared
without Tweety. Then again, there's a fifty-percent chance some Warner Bros. executives
would've shoehorned Tweety into the movie as Pepe's sidekick in the hopes of selling
more merchandise (in fact, I'd be shocked if a theatrical Tweety movie was never proposed).

"Let's not even get started on your TRUST ISSUES!" Sylvester continues. "Or don't you remember how you ended up a stray cat in the first place." Uh oh, I smell more exposition coming on. "You know, this is the reason you don't have any friends, Penny. You don't care about anyone but yourself!" Sylvester adds. Penelope claims that she has friends, which Sylvester scoffs at. He tells her that she can't act like such a jerk in Paris because he's the only person willing to put up with her. And he's apparently got a plan to get them out of this mess. But if she's going to go with him on it, he needs "a real commitment". "Love isn't just given: it's earned," Sylvester declares. "And you have almost done enough to deserve mine."

Okay, long story short, Sylvester double-crosses Penelope and sends her falling. She lands smack dab in the middle of Spike, Chester, and the Raccoons. Penelope tries to fight them, but Spike overpowers her and stuffs her in a sack. "The cat's in the bag," he quips.

But what about Pepe, you might be wondering? Well, he makes it to a junkyard, where he meets The WB mascot himself, Michigan J. Frog. Boy, are there any Looney Tunes characters that DON'T make appearances in this script? When do Bugs, Foghorn and Pete Puma show up?

Now I'm curious... what would a theatrical Michigan J. Frog-starring movie be like?

Michigan warns Pepe about Matthieu Versailles' wanting his head on a stick, then when Pepe brings up Penelope and all of his previous girlfriends, he suggests that they likely wouldn't be so quick to walk away if they thought they were special. "You're in real trouble this time. Word on the street is two animals with black and white fur stole some kind of air conditioning equipment," Michigan explains. Pepe realizes that this is why the raccoons were chasing Penelope. He's also horrified when Michigan tells him that Versailles trashed Cecil's place, and that Jacques fell off the Eiffel Tower chasing him. Because it's totally Pepe's fault that Jacques was dumb enough to jump into an elevator shaft. And that Versailles threw a fit over Cecil's making a pun. After Michigan tells him that his sources have a lead as to who really stole the blueprints - we know it's Sylvester - Pepe declares that he will find the thief and return him to Versailles.

Penelope is thrown into a cat carrier by Spike, then finally meets Versailles face to face. "You can't do this to me! I have an owner, she'll come looking!" she protests. "Oh, I think we both know that's not true. I'm more interested in your partner," Versailles says. He claims that Pepe stole the key to his throne, and Penelope is about to tell him that Sylvester's the one he should be going after, but then decides on a whim to lie. Lie about how she's Pepe's fiancee and how he's going to come and beat Versailles up. Versailles, upon hearing that, tells Wile E. to set his traps, then informs Penelope that there's a pretty good chance she'll drown before Pepe arrives. You see, somebody stuck a faucet in the back of the cat carrier, and now it's filling up with water.

Pepe, meanwhile, has found Sylvester. Sylvester, who knows about "Le Pew" and his being awesome, starts making up lies in an attempt to save his fur (that's one thing she and Penelope have in common) and eventually things escalate into a fight scene. Or, as the script describes it, "An INSANE ACTION SEQUENCE that is BRILLIANTLY ANIMATED with SO MANY GAGS that to WRITE THEM ALL HERE would TAKE A LOT OF PAGES and NOT BE VERY FUNNY". They wind up in a restaurant, a bicycle marathon, and some sort of red carpet fashion event before Animal Control shows up in the form of Yosemite Sam.

I feel like at this point in the movie's production, it was going to be entirely animated as opposed to a live action/CGI hybrid. There are no major human characters, and I sincerely doubt that they were going to go the Dave Seville/Ranger Smith route and have a live actor playing Yosemite Sam. I can't even think of any actors who LOOK like Yosemite Sam...

Sam starts firing off tranquilizer guns randomly, and the fight between Pepe and Sylvester continues in all the chaos. Eventually, Pepe manages to get some answers out of Sylvester: Penelope got taken by the raccoons. He tried to get help, but there were too many of them (which we know is a lie). He gave the blueprint back to the guy he stole it from (likely a lie, but we don't know for sure yet).

Back at Notre Dame, Penelope manages to pick the lock of her cat carrier, allowing her to escape. While sneaking around looking for an exit, she runs into Cecil, who was taken hostage as well. Unfortunately, the bad guys catch up with them. Now it's time for Versaille to fill us in as to what, exactly, his plan is. "You see, France is ruled by a democracy now," he says. "It inspired George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and all those other idiots... but before that, things were rather different. France used to be a glorious monarchy, ruled by the elite, the ones who were chosen by fate, and destiny to command with complete control! The Rrroyalty! Everyone knows it's best when only one tiny group of people are in absolute control for reasons they can't clearly explain! But the foolish commoners rose up, in a revolution, and toppled the kingdom! But one young prince eluded the mobs, and escaped into seclusion. It's his legacy that will come into glorious fruition tomorrow night."

Interesting thing to note - during this scene, Versaille is showing Penelope some tapestries that portray the monarchy as roosters. And occasionally Versaille squawks like a chicken. Very interesting... if it turns out that he's actually Foghorn Leghorn in disguise or something, I'm... well, actually, I'm not sure HOW I'm going to react.

At the courtyard of the Hotel Foquet's Barriere (which the script informs us only has four and a half stars on TripAdvisor because they apparently have no respect for history), Elmer Fudd is having difficulty taking a photo on his cellphone. Pepe just so happens to be nearby, and he recognizes Elmer as being part of Fuddifweeze Refwigewation and Vewy Convenient Cooling Solutions. He says that he's a big fan, to which Elmer says that he has some experience with big fans. Ba-dum-ksssh. Pepe then tells him that his air conditioning system has put them all in great danger and he's going to need the blueprint. It starts with one air conditioning system set one degree too low. Then it spreads. Global temperatures fall. Soon there's a chill in the air worldwide, then there's snowfall in Hawaii. Then Australia. Egypt. The entire world is ushered into a Second Ice Age. The people are freezing, the world stops spinning, and Elmer becomes an evil dictator. But there is still good in him - the love of his wife and children. They love him, and in this moment, Elmer remembers the one opportunity he had to prevent all of this... when Pepe asked for the blueprint. It does the trick. Elmer hands Pepe the blueprint. Pepe bids Elmer farewell, and after Pepe leaves Elmer calls up his wife and tells her that he can't wait to get home to Cincinnati and how happy he is that he's not the Ice Emperor.

Here's a question: who exactly were they going to cast as the voices of the other Looney Tunes characters in this? Would it have been Jeff Bergman as Sylvester, Billy West as Elmer, etc. as per usual? Or would EVERYONE have been voiced by a celebrity? After all, celebrities now dominate voice acting in theatrical animated movies, and Warner Bros. has shown multiple times that they're not opposed to casting celebrities as Looney Tunes characters... was Pepe even still going to be voiced by Mike Myers at this point? Mike wasn't exactly a popular name when this script was written in 2016. Would they have cast another celebrity as Pepe? Would they have cast professional voice actors as Pepe, Sylvester, Cecil etc. and then cast big names as Penelope and the original characters to fulfil their "celebrity voices we can slap on the poster" quota?

Anyhow, Pepe and Michigan sneak into Notre Dame, where Pepe finds Penelope back in the cat carrier, which is almost completely flooded. Pepe saves her. When Penelope asks why he came even after what she said to him, Pepe declares, "Words aren't always law, sometimes they're a product of the moment. Besides, you're a cat! They never want to be held, they always try to get away, it's in their nature. That doesn't mean they don't still come and give you a lick at night."

Yes, Pepe knew that Penelope was a cat the whole time. What a twist!

Then Pepe gives us his backstory. When he was just a little skunk, nobody liked him. "Pepe, you stink, you're stupid, you're a skunk and everybody hates skunks and also you specifically are the worst of this large group of skunks and perhaps of all the skunks in the world and certainly in Europe," they would tell him. But when he came to Paris, he was inspired. He wanted to BE Paris. So he tried to learn to charm, to impress, worked hard to be sure that everybody loved him. "I create Pepe Le Pew as a show; part the real me, and part the person I want to be," he tells us. "And maybe... Maybe I use that like you use the paint. To protect me." The script tells us that if they didn't animate Pepe's story elegantly enough to make the audience cry, they messed up.

Pepe and Penelope go to save Cecil, but when they find what they think is his shell, Pepe notices all the white flags hanging everywhere and identifies them as the flags of the old monarchy. And then it turns out that the shell is a fake! It falls on top of Pepe, and then Versaille shows up. Pepe hands him the blueprint, then apologizes for what happened to his nephew. Versaille declares that tomorrow he will cut power to the city and Paris will be overrun as he reclaims his birth right.

Oh, and get ready for the big reveal... no, it DOESN'T turn out that Versaille is actually Foghorn Leghorn in disguise. Which I honestly think is for the best. That would've been pretty stupid. Instead, it is revealed that the rooster prince took a raccoon commoner bride in secret. And Versaille is the result of that. He's some sort of raccoon/rooster hybrid. He dubs himself the rightful king of France, then tells Pepe that they were prepared for his showing up since Penelope told them he was coming, and now he's walked right into their trap.

So, just a recap - our villain is what happens when a raccoon and a rooster have a baby. I attempted to find a picture of a raccoon/rooster hybrid on Google Image Search, but came up empty-handed (since, presumably, such a being is biologically impossible). So I slapped this together out of random clipart in PhotoShop:

I imagine Versaille would have looked a lot creepier and more menacing than this... that, or he would've looked far goofier.

So now Pepe and Penelope must dodge a series of anvils falling their way, then axes, then chainsaws, then boulders on ropes, then flaming chainsaws, then swords, then knives, then chainsaws that don't have blades but instead have MORE chainsaws so they're sort of like Mega-Chainsaws and they're also on fire. "Basically imagine if every Wile E. Coyote trap you've ever seen was upgraded to 11," the script tells us. "The sheer amount of wild catapults, battering rams, crushing and slicing devices, rockets, everything..." and it's taking its toll on the building. Pepe and Penelope swing in and out of the windows, running across the face of Notre Dame, actually fight the Coyote in combat, etc. and eventually a huge explosion sends them crashing through the floor and into a secret tunnel that allows them to get away.

Once they've escaped to the catacombs, Pepe chews out Penelope for telling them that he was her boyfriend. "I met your BOYFRIEND, Penelope, and let me tell you: I AM NOT HIM," he snarls. Penelope claims that she was desperate and that she thought it was the only way to get them to leave her alone, to which Pepe snaps, "And how did that work out? Cause it seems to me like now they have EVERYTHING THEY WANT, and we have nothing! Mon dieu, Cecil! He's still in there. MY BACK, IT IS STABBED." Wow. Not every day we see an angry Pepe.

As they climb up and out of a gutter, Penelope claims that Pepe is overreacting. "You can't take this as a rejection or betrayal or something, I really thought you wouldn't come. No one in my life has ever done anything like that for me, why would the famous Pepe Le Pew be different?" she claims. "I didn't know about the little skunk alone in the rain! I just thought you were some dope..." "Some dope, right. No, I see you clearly now. You are what they call a confidence artist!" Pepe declares. "A liar, not just in life, but in love. Does anyone really know you? Maybe back home in America, you just pour paint on your head and call yourself a bald eagle or something..." Penelope tries to stop him from leaving, but Pepe's mad as heck and he's not gonna take it anymore.

Too bad Wile E. Coyote dives in out of nowhere (wearing his bat-glider suit) and kicks Pepe right into the path of the Animal Control van. Yosemite Sam reappears to shoot Pepe with tranquilizer darts. In a daze, Pepe shouts, "I BELIEVE I CAN FLY! REBOOT ANIMANIACS! RYAN REYNOLDS GREEN LANTERN WAS UNDERRATED! THERE MUST BE A HARRY POTTER CINEMATIC UNIVERSE..." Yeah, be careful what you wish for, Pepe. There actually IS an Animaniacs reboot now and it's not very good.

Wile E. lands next to where Versaille is perched atop the spire of Notre Dame, surrounded by dozens of raccoons and Chester and Spike. "OUR REVOLUTION HAS BEGUN!" Versaille declares. But before they can, y'know, revolt, Versaille claims that he must have the Jewels of Light. Meanwhile, Pepe wakes up in an Animal Control cell, which looks more like a jail cell than an actual Animal Control cell, but, as the script puts it, "let's not forget that in this movie a skunk not only talks but is fluent and seductive in multiple languages." He begs Sam to let him call his lawyer, but Sam refuses, claiming, "Doc said if I start talking to animals again I gotta go back on my GREEN PILLS, and I can't look bloated for summer!" Michigan is also there, in a smaller cage, and Pepe laments that he accidentally delivered the bad guy exactly what he needed to take over France, saved none of his friends, and found himself betrayed and imprisoned. "I thought I was the most important person in Paris, when, now I realize, Paris is the most important city I am in," he groans. Boy, if only Bugs Bunny were in this script. Surely HE could've stopped Versaille.

On the roof of the Louvre, several raccoons are taking up guard posts. Penelope watches as a few drag Cecil from rooftop to rooftop to a nearby power station. Thunder rumbles. Penelope thinks for a second, then gets an idea. She manages to locate Syvlester, who's hanging out with Claude, and starts acting all gaga and in love over him. Is she just super forgiving? Nope, it's a trick. She whacks Sylvester with a frying pan (Rapunzel would be proud), knocking him out. Then she does the same to Claude, who didn't really do anything wrong.

Back in the Animal Control cell, Michigan is basically acting like Pepe's psychiatrist. "Sometimes it's the things you don't want to hear that you need to hear the most, Pepe. If enough people tell you you're doing something wrong, sometimes it might be worth listenin', and if the thing people are saying is you ain't listenin', then maybe it's time to start?" he suggests. Then, all of a sudden, there's a crash from somewhere in the building. Claude runs by, chased by Sam. Then a chain wraps around the bars in the window, courtesy of Penelope. She gives us HER backstory: when she was little, she had an owner who loved her. But then she presumably kicked the bucket, and Penelope was stuck with her boyfriend... who was a dog person. And then he got a new girlfriend who was allergic to cats, so one night he let Penelope out... and never let her back in. "The only people I trusted to take care of me kicked me out, so I knew I couldn't trust nobody ever again," she says.

But how will she get Pepe out of there? Easy - the other end of the chain is attatched to the back bumper of the animal control van. It goes into motion, bending the steel bars outward, and allowing Pepe and Michigan to escape. And just to make sure Sam doesn't notice that Pepe flew the coop, Penelope puts Sylvester in the cell. He gets tasered by Sam.

At the power station, the raccoons run over to the main circuit breaker and force Cecil to pull the big switch. Grid by grid, the city's power goes off. Pepe, Penelope, and Michigan are there to see it, and Pepe tells them his plan: he'll rescue Cecil, turn the power back on, and defeat Wile E. and Versaille while Penelope and Michigan watch in amazement. Penelope says that he has to let them help. Pepe then tells the audience that he's learned a valuable lesson about the importance of trust and vulnerability and blah-blah-blah.

Michigan sneaks over to the big switch, but is too small to throw it. And the raccoons have noticed him. "CECIL! I NEED YOU BIG GUY! I CAN'T DO IT ALONE!" he yells frantically. But Cecil is too scared. Pepe beats up Spike, Chester, and some raccoons. Wile E. chases Penelope around the Louvre. Eventually Pepe and Versaille are both in the museum, where Versaille steals the jewels. "This is it. This is my moment. I'm finally complete," he declares. "No, Versaille. No object can make you complete," Pepe insists. "You must accept yourself. I was like you once. An outcast who simply wanted to be loved. But this is the wrong way." But Versaille won't listen - "Everyone ELSE is the problem. The only answer is ME in COMPLETE CONTROL," he snaps.

I felt like we needed another picture here, so here's an angry raccoon. Pretend that this
is Versaille, please.

Versaille swipes the jewels and hops aboard Wile E.'s jet bike. Pepe jumps on the back, holding on for dear life, as they race through the museum and then smash through the glass pyramid into the open air. One thing leads to another, and they wind up on top of the Eiffel Tower. Cecil finally starts fighting the raccoons after he remembers what Versaille did to his toy car. Penelope and Wile E. wind up tangled in the power lines. Penelope slices one with her claw, and as Wile E. reaches for her, hits him with it - and he winds up getting electrocuted and goes rocketing into the distance. Boy, even without the Road Runner around, Wile E. just can't win. Then Penelope swings down on a wire and electrocutes the water that the raccoons going after Michigan and Cecil are standing in. The power comes back on.

On top of the Eiffel Tower, Versaille beats up Pepe, but just when it seems like Pepe's down and out, he reminds Versaille of the most important element of the animal kingdom - a little something called NATURAL SELECTION. He does what skunks are known to do and sprays Versaille in the face. The script tells us that it forgot he could do that and they've been saving it the whole movie.

So now Pepe and Versaille have themselves a fight scene that culminates in Versaille taking off with the jewels, but Pepe leaps off after him and tackles him in mid-air. He sprays Versaille again, and as a result Versaille is too discombobulated to keep flying and they plummet into the River Seine. Penelope gets over her fear of water to jump in and save Pepe. But then Versaille bursts out of the water and charges at them... oh, wait, never mind. Yosemite Sam just showed up and got him with a billion tranquilizer darts. Hooray for Deus Ex Machinas.

Versailles is hauled off by Animal Control, and Pepe and Penelope make out. At the Animal Control building, Versailles is thrown into the same cell as Sylvester, and upon seeing him and realizing that this is the cat who stole his blueprints, he goes berserk and beats him up. During the credits, we see Pepe and Penelope getting into whacky hijinks, the Eiffel Tower being repaired, Cecil getting a new toy car, Michigan taking them to dinner in the chandelier of a fancy restaurant... oh, and Jacque survived the fall. This ends the script on an ominious note.

Y'know, this was honestly pretty good. I like how it weaves in all of these different Looney Tunes characters in a way that doesn't feel too unnatural or like a parade of cameos. The plot is genuinely engaging. Most of the jokes work pretty well, though nothing had me in hysterics. The bad guy sounds like he would've honestly been quite menacing and creepy (if only because he's a cross between a raccoon and a rooster. How do you NOT make that creepy?). They even managed to make Cecil Turtle likeable! My one complaint is that Sylvester honestly gets a raw deal here. He's not a villain that we want to see brought to justice. None of the Looney Tunes antagonists really are (well, with the possible exception of Yosemite Sam), so to paint him in a villainous you-should-hate-this-character light feels very wrong to me. Still, it's a shame this didn't get made... I could see this actually making for a great movie.

Who knows? Maybe if this actually HAD been made, we would've gotten more Looney Tunes movies like it - fully-animated ones focusing on just one character, with others weaved in organically along the way. As opposed to, y'know, more Space Jam stuff or direct-to-video things like that King Tweety movie. Ah, what could have been...