Penelope Pitstop
Encyclopedia
Penelope Pitstop is a fictional character
who appeared in the Hanna-Barbera animated series Wacky Races
, and starred in the spin-off The Perils of Penelope Pitstop
, voiced by Janet Waldo
, 1969.
she drives the Compact Pussycat, a pink, stereotypically feminine
car equipped with an assortment of beauty supplies. To carry over the theme Penelope also wears a bright pink racing uniform with white gloves, maroon tights, and white go-go boots
. She is called by the race announcer as the "Glamour Gal of the Gas Pedal". Also, as Wacky Races
is inspired by The Great Race
, Penelope is inspired by the Maggie DuBois character (played by Natalie Wood
in the film).
According to Iwao Takamoto
, Penelope was an afterthought in the development of Wacky Races. Joseph Barbera
requested that a woman be added among the racers, so Takamoto and Jerry Eisenberg designed Penelope and her car in about two hours.
The Perils of Penelope Pitstop
, a spinoff from Wacky Races which features Penelope as the lead character, is set in the 1920s. Penelope is a traditional "damsel in distress
" stock character
as in the old serial The Perils of Pauline
. Her catchphrase is "Help, help!" (spoken in an affected upper-class U.S. South accent, and pronounced "HAY-ULP"). Here she displays a curious combination of ingenuity and helplessness. She often figures out clever ways to get out of perils, and is very athletic; if any sport happens to be mentioned, it is revealed that she was the women's champion in said sport in college. Nonetheless, when her archnemesis The Hooded Claw, voiced by Paul Lynde
(who, unknown to her, is her guardian Sylvester Sneekly) grabs her, she is somehow incapable of doing anything other than yelling for help. Also in the background helping her out of her perils is the minuscule Ant Hill Mob and trusty old classic car Chuggaboom (which is actually based on another team from Wacky Races).
on them. It has an umbrella
on the top and is equipped with various beauty appliances, making it essentially a beauty parlor
on wheels.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
who appeared in the Hanna-Barbera animated series Wacky Races
Wacky Races
Wacky Races is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera. The series features 11 different cars racing against each other in various road rallies throughout North America, with each driver hoping to win the title of the "World's Wackiest Racer." Wacky Races ran on CBS from September...
, and starred in the spin-off The Perils of Penelope Pitstop
The Perils of Penelope Pitstop
The Perils of Penelope Pitstop is an American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions that premiered on CBS on September 13, 1969. The show lasted two full seasons, with a total of 17 half-hour episodes produced and released, the last first-run episode airing on January...
, voiced by Janet Waldo
Janet Waldo
Janet Waldo is an American actress and voice artist with a career encompassing radio, television, animation and live-action films. She is best known in animation for voicing Judy Jetson, Penelope Pitstop and Josie McCoy in Josie and the Pussycats...
, 1969.
Background
In Wacky RacesWacky Races
Wacky Races is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera. The series features 11 different cars racing against each other in various road rallies throughout North America, with each driver hoping to win the title of the "World's Wackiest Racer." Wacky Races ran on CBS from September...
she drives the Compact Pussycat, a pink, stereotypically feminine
Feminine
Feminine, or femininity, normally refers to qualities positively associated with women.Feminine may also refer to:*Feminine , a grammatical gender*Feminine cadence, a final chord falling in a metrically weak position...
car equipped with an assortment of beauty supplies. To carry over the theme Penelope also wears a bright pink racing uniform with white gloves, maroon tights, and white go-go boots
Go-go boots
Go-go boots are a low-heeled style of women's fashion boot worn since the mid-sixties when fashion silhouettes focused on accentuating the leg...
. She is called by the race announcer as the "Glamour Gal of the Gas Pedal". Also, as Wacky Races
Wacky Races
Wacky Races is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera. The series features 11 different cars racing against each other in various road rallies throughout North America, with each driver hoping to win the title of the "World's Wackiest Racer." Wacky Races ran on CBS from September...
is inspired by The Great Race
The Great Race
The Great Race is a 1965 slapstick comedy film starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Natalie Wood, directed by Blake Edwards, written by Blake Edwards and Arthur A. Ross, and with music by Henry Mancini and cinematography by Russell Harlan. The supporting cast includes Peter Falk, Keenan Wynn,...
, Penelope is inspired by the Maggie DuBois character (played by Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood, born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko was an American film and television actress. After first working in films as a child, Wood became a successful Hollywood star as a young adult, receiving three Academy Award nominations before she was 25 years old.Wood began acting in movies at the...
in the film).
According to Iwao Takamoto
Iwao Takamoto
Iwao Takamoto was a Japanese-American animator, television producer, and film director. He was most famous as being a production and character designer for Hanna-Barbera Productions shows such as Scooby-Doo....
, Penelope was an afterthought in the development of Wacky Races. Joseph Barbera
Joseph Barbera
Joseph Roland Barbera was an influential American animator, director, producer, storyboard artist, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of fans worldwide for much of the twentieth century....
requested that a woman be added among the racers, so Takamoto and Jerry Eisenberg designed Penelope and her car in about two hours.
The Perils of Penelope Pitstop
The Perils of Penelope Pitstop
The Perils of Penelope Pitstop is an American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions that premiered on CBS on September 13, 1969. The show lasted two full seasons, with a total of 17 half-hour episodes produced and released, the last first-run episode airing on January...
, a spinoff from Wacky Races which features Penelope as the lead character, is set in the 1920s. Penelope is a traditional "damsel in distress
Damsel in distress
The subject of the damsel in distress, or persecuted maiden, is a classic theme in world literature, art, and film. She is usually a beautiful young woman placed in a dire predicament by a villain or monster and who requires a hero to achieve her rescue. She has become a stock character of fiction,...
" stock character
Stock character
A Stock character is a fictional character based on a common literary or social stereotype. Stock characters rely heavily on cultural types or names for their personality, manner of speech, and other characteristics. In their most general form, stock characters are related to literary archetypes,...
as in the old serial The Perils of Pauline
The Perils of Pauline (1914 serial)
The Perils of Pauline is a motion picture serial shown in weekly installments featuring Pearl White as the title character. Pauline has often been cited as a famous example of a damsel in distress, although some analyses hold that her character was more resourceful and less helpless than the...
. Her catchphrase is "Help, help!" (spoken in an affected upper-class U.S. South accent, and pronounced "HAY-ULP"). Here she displays a curious combination of ingenuity and helplessness. She often figures out clever ways to get out of perils, and is very athletic; if any sport happens to be mentioned, it is revealed that she was the women's champion in said sport in college. Nonetheless, when her archnemesis The Hooded Claw, voiced by Paul Lynde
Paul Lynde
Paul Edward Lynde was an American comedian and actor. A noted character actor, Lynde was well known for his roles as Uncle Arthur on Bewitched and Harry MacAfee, the befuddled father in Bye Bye Birdie...
(who, unknown to her, is her guardian Sylvester Sneekly) grabs her, she is somehow incapable of doing anything other than yelling for help. Also in the background helping her out of her perils is the minuscule Ant Hill Mob and trusty old classic car Chuggaboom (which is actually based on another team from Wacky Races).
Compact Pussycat
In the series, Penelope's car is called the Compact Pussycat. Bearing a numeral 5 on the sides, it is a pink car, with front bumpers that look like a pair of red lips with lipstickLipstick
Lipstick is a cosmetic product containing pigments, oils, waxes, and emollients that applies color, texture, and protection to the lips. Many varieties of lipstick are known. As with most other types of makeup, lipstick is typically, but not exclusively, worn by women...
on them. It has an umbrella
Umbrella
An umbrella or parasol is a canopy designed to protect against rain or sunlight. The term parasol usually refers to an item designed to protect from the sun; umbrella refers to a device more suited to protect from rain...
on the top and is equipped with various beauty appliances, making it essentially a beauty parlor
Beauty salon
A beauty salon or beauty parlor is an establishment dealing with cosmetic treatments for men and women...
on wheels.
Appearances in other productions
- Janet WaldoJanet WaldoJanet Waldo is an American actress and voice artist with a career encompassing radio, television, animation and live-action films. She is best known in animation for voicing Judy Jetson, Penelope Pitstop and Josie McCoy in Josie and the Pussycats...
reprised her role in the Wacky Races video game. - Penelope (in her Wacky RacesWacky RacesWacky Races is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera. The series features 11 different cars racing against each other in various road rallies throughout North America, with each driver hoping to win the title of the "World's Wackiest Racer." Wacky Races ran on CBS from September...
version) had a cameo appearance in another Hanna-Barbera cartoon, Yogi's Treasure HuntYogi's Treasure HuntYogi's Treasure Hunt is a segment that kicked-off in 1985 as the first of the programming block, The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera. It also ran as a regular series in syndication from 1985 to 1988.-Plot:...
, in the episode Snow White and the Seven Treasure Hunters, acting as Snow WhiteSnow White"Snow White" is a fairy tale known from many countries in Europe, the best known version being the German one collected by the Brothers Grimm...
and in the episode Goodbye Mr Chump. - Penelope has appeared in the web-based Shockwave cartoon Penelope Pitstop GT, though this variation of the character is far more capable of protecting herself.http://ghostbot.com/media/all/1.swf
- Penelope Pitstop, in the Compact Pussycat, is the user in a racing game in the episode, "Firewall", in the CGI cartoon, ReBootReBootReBoot is a Canadian CGI-animated action-adventure cartoon series that originally aired from 1994 to 2001. It was produced by Vancouver-based production company Mainframe Entertainment, Alliance Communications, BLT Productions and created by Gavin Blair, Ian Pearson, Phil Mitchell and John Grace,...
. The user's line was Penelope's famous, "Help! Help!".
Penelope Pitstop in popular culture
- The character is mentioned in the Type O NegativeType O NegativeType O Negative was a gothic metal band from Brooklyn, New York City. The band also incorporated elements of doom metal and thrash metal. Their dramatic lyrical emphasis on themes of romance, depression, and death resulted in the nickname "The Drab Four"...
song How Could She?. - Penelope rides again in the Dead Ringers Parody of Wacky Races.
- The character is mentioned in the Jurassic 5Jurassic 5Jurassic 5 was an American alternative hip hop group formed in 1993 from members of two previous groups, Rebels of Rhythm and Unity Committee by rappers Charles Stewart , Dante Givens , Courtenay Henderson , Marc Stuart , and disc jockeys Mark Potsic and Lucas Macfadden...
song The Influence. - Penelope's nemesis - the Hooded Claw - is mentioned in the song The Power of LoveThe Power of Love (Frankie Goes to Hollywood song)Holly Johnson, former singer of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, recorded his own version of "The Power of Love" which was released on his 1999 album Soulstream and was released as a single which made #56 in the UK. The single stayed in the charts for 2 weeks...
by Frankie Goes to HollywoodFrankie Goes to HollywoodFrankie Goes to Hollywood were a British dance-pop band popular in the mid-1980s. The group was fronted by Holly Johnson , with Paul Rutherford , Peter Gill , Mark O'Toole , and Brian Nash .The group's debut single "Relax" was banned by the BBC in 1984 while at number six in the charts and...
. - A range of Penelope Pitstop graphic shirts have been released in SingaporeSingaporeSingapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
under ZaraZara (clothing)Zara is a Spanish clothing and accessories retailer based in Arteixo, Galicia, and founded in 1975 by Amancio Ortega and Rosalía Mera. It is the flagship chain store of the Inditex group; the fashion group also owns brands such as Massimo Dutti, Pull and Bear, Oysho, Uterqüe, Stradivarius and...
Kids. - Big Daddy KaneBig Daddy KaneAntonio Hardy better known by his stage name Big Daddy Kane, is an American rapper who started his career in 1986 as a member of the rap group the Juice Crew. He is widely considered to be one of the most influential and skilled MC's in Hip Hop...
mentions her name in his 1993 song Niggaz Never Learn
Penelope Pitstop in other languages
- Portuguese: Penélope Pitstop
- Brazilian Portuguese: Penélope Charmosa
- French: Pénélope Jolie-Cœur
- Polish: Penelopa Samwdzięk
- Spanish: Penélope Glamour
- Chinese: 小晶晶
See also
- Wacky RacesWacky RacesWacky Races is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera. The series features 11 different cars racing against each other in various road rallies throughout North America, with each driver hoping to win the title of the "World's Wackiest Racer." Wacky Races ran on CBS from September...
- The Perils of Penelope PitstopThe Perils of Penelope PitstopThe Perils of Penelope Pitstop is an American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions that premiered on CBS on September 13, 1969. The show lasted two full seasons, with a total of 17 half-hour episodes produced and released, the last first-run episode airing on January...
- List of works produced by Hanna-Barbera
- List of Hanna-Barbera characters