The Perils of Penelope Pitstop

As Fred Silverman shed his CBS Saturday morning lineup of violent cartoons in the late 60s, he struck gold with several successes. They were The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour, The Archie Show, Scooby Doo, Where Are You? and one of the few network cartoon spinoffs, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop.

The show was a spoof of movie melodramas of the 20s and 30s and emphasized comedy rather than violence. Two things I really enjoyed about Penelope Pitstop were Paul Lynde's portrayal of the evil Hooded Claw and the outstanding narration of Gary Owens. If you watch the closing credits carefully, you'll notice that in the voices section Paul Lynde doesn't receive any screen credit. Let's not overlook The Ant Hill Mob and their car Chugaboom. They were an intrical part of the storylines as they saved Penelope from The Hooded Claw's evil plans.

I used to enjoy this as a kid but it always puzzled me how the Hooded Claw hoped to bump off Penelope by tying her to a railway track when she inhabited the same world where Dick Dastardly could be run over by a train and although he might feel a bit flat for a while generally he was OK at the end of the day. What's more the Anthill Mob were often blown up by the dynamite the Claw had intended for Penelope and it didn't seem to do them much harm. Penelope has a big following and I upset this girl I know who used to be a fan by saying it was kinky the way the Claw was always tying her up. She said I'd spoiled her illusions! Still, great fun.

I am a fan of Hanna-Barbera and have enjoyed watching some of their TV series and films, such as "Charlotte's Web" and "Heidi's Song." I have nostalgic memories of watching Wacky Races on Teletoon many years ago. Penelope Pitstop and her Compact Pussycat were always my favorite racers. I was perplexed by her car's moniker, The Compact Pussycat, because it bore no resemblance to a cat. The show was a success, spawning spin-off shows such as Dastardly and Muttley in their Flying Machines and The Peril of Penelope Pitstop. In the 1960s, Wacky Races set the stage, but the characters and settings of The Perils of Penelope Pitstop strongly resembled the 1920s and 1930s.

I'd bought the complete series on DVD, and after watching all seventeen episodes, I thought it's a very funny show; it has scenes you will remember and make you laugh your head off. In this series, Penelope's sinister guardian (voiced by Paul Lynde), Sylvester Sneekly, aka The Hooded Claw, constantly chases her, as she is unaware she is a heiress to a vast fortune. The Ant Hill Mob (also from Wacky Races) and their anthropomorphic car Chug-A-Boom (like Herbie from Disney's The Love Bug) are always there to help her. But they sometimes screw up the rescue, and it's always Penelope who ends up saving them.

They never explain why Penelope is a wealthy woman. Why are the Ant Hill Mob Penelope's friends? They just jump right through it. I have an imagination. Penelope was the daughter of a wealthy family. When her parents died, Sylvester Sneekly, her "dear daddy's" secretary, became her constant companion. He was her oracle, guide, and hero. Maybe that's why she refuses to believe that Sylvester is the Hooded Claw. The Ant Hill Mob are her friends because she may have reformed them with her kind heart, or perhaps they had already reformed years ago. So overall, I love this series and would watch it again and again.

We had this cartoon on VHS and I remember watching it SO many times when I was a kid. The one thing that gets stuck in my head from this cartoon is the theme song. I can still hear the theme song of Dastardly and Muttley called '..Catch the pigeon, catch the pigeon..' it is very funny.

Although I wasn't that fond of Penelope Pitstop, my favorite character was Muttley.

This is one of the good creations from Hanna-Barbera and this cartoon (also the series about Dastardly and Muttley) is widely known by almost all children born in the 70's and the 80's. I'm feeling quite nostalgic thinking about this, so I just might watch it again soon on Youtube.

It's been many years since I saw this show, but as I recall it was a lot of fun with a combination of slapstick humor and clever dialog. I often caught my parents laughing at it. Penelope was a wealthy fashion plate Southern gal and The Hooded Claw (now there's a name!) was always cooking up ingenious ways to destroy her (e.g., explosive pastries called "bombs-bombs") and get his grubby hands, err, claws, on her fortune. He was aided by identical twins, the Bully Brothers, who did everything in unison, even when crying "Oh no!" when a plot backfired on them. But they always failed, often due to the timely intervention of the Ant Hill Gang in a smart car long before KITT came along.