"ATTACK OF THE FIFTY FOOT PENELOPE"
by Joe
Ekaitis
(not affiliated with Warner Bros.)
The opening credits appear over a series of shots showing a
spaceship navigating a course toward our solar system and,
eventually, planet Earth. The gigantic spaceship hovers over a
meadow outside of Paris where Penelope is lying on her side
napping at the base of a tree. A hatch opens at the bottom of the
space ship and a set of huge stair steps is lowered. A giant
black cat, as tall as the tree under which Penelope is sleeping,
descends the steps. He's wearing a shiny metallic cape and a
utility belt around his waist. The giant cat takes a ray pistol
from a holster on his belt. He turns a knob on the pistol toward
a + symbol, then fires the ray at Penelope for a few seconds.
Enveloped in an eerie blue glow, Penelope yawns, rolls over on
her back and continues napping. The giant cat climbs the steps
back into the spaceship. The steps are retracted and the space
ship zooms off into the sky.
The space ship disappears
into the distance as Penelope, still sleeping, begins to grow.
Eventually, she, too is the height of the tree. From off in the
distance, we hear the pseudo-French singing of a familiar amorous
animated skunk. Penelope hears it, too, and at the sound of the
approaching Pepe le Pew, she snaps awake in terror. In a panic,
she shimmies up the comparatively tiny tree, trembling so
violently that all the leaves are shaken from the tree. Realizing
she's exposed, Penelope takes off running and finds a safe hiding
place behind the Louvre. As the sound of Pepe's singing grows
louder, Penelope cringes even lower, eventually finding herself
nose-to-nose with a horse yoked to a small carriage. The horse
notices, too. He rears up and whinnies, then turns and tears away
at a full gallop. Neither the carriage driver nor his passengers,
a couple locked in a passionate kiss, seem to notice the sudden
change in speed. Penelope stands up to watch the tiny horse and
carriage zoom off, then looks down at her own foot, conveniently
occupying the space between a parked Peugeot and a Citroen. The
impatient driver of a small Renault blows his horn and Penelope
moves her foot. "Merci, Mademoiselle Big Kitty!" says
the driver.
Penelope realizes what's
going on. A thought balloon inflates over her head and in it, we
see a montage of flashbacks from her past encounters with Pepe le
Pew. The balloon deflates and disappears. Penelope looks in the
direction of the approaching Pepe. The innocent look on her face
is slowly replaced by an evil grin.
Pepe strides into the square
in front of the Louvre. "Where are you, Pigeon?" he
calls as both pigeons AND people flee the square at his approach.
"It is time to stop playing Hide and Go Seek! Come out, come
out, wherever you are, Cupcake!" His call is answered by a
huge black paw that appears from behind the Louvre and slams down
onto the cobblestones mere inches from his nose. Penelope pulls
the rest of herself into view. Pepe slowly tilts his head back so
far that his nose is pointing straight up. He turns toward the
viewer.
"Too much of a good
thing?" he asks. Penelope lets fly with a roar that would do
a male lion in his prime justice. Pepe turns 8 shades of white
and is about to take off running when Penelope pins his tail to
the pavement with her back foot. She rips a street lamp out of
the ground and, turning it over, holds it like a croquet mallet.
She draws back the lamppost/mallet and smacks Pepe with it,
causing him to careen off of lamp posts, parked cars, mailboxes,
trees and eventually, through the Arc d'Triomphe. Pepe slams into
a kiosk and unrolls into a heap as his normal coloration returns.
Penelope extends a claw on her right paw and scratches the words
"PENELOPE:1 PEPE:0" into the exterior wall of the
Louvre. She drops the lamppost and takes off after Pepe.
Before Pepe can rise to his feet, Penelope pounces on him. She
sits up and gives Pepe a bone-crunching hug that changes his
shape into a limp hourglass. "DEFINITELY too much of a good
thing" says Pepe weakly. Penelope kisses Pepe so hard that
his face is turned in on itself. "So" he says in a
muffled voice, "that's what my eyes look like!" His
face pops back to normal.
Penelope looks around,
wondering what to do next to Pepe. She notices a mural painter's
scaffold erected near a building. One of the cans on the scaffold
contains black paint. Penelope carries Pepe over to the scaffold,
sits down and holds Pepe by his tail between her thumb and index
finger. She daintily picks up a paintbrush, dips it in the black
paint and deftly covers the white stripe on Pepe's back, then
paints a thin pair of whiskers on each side of Pepe's nose. Still
holding Pepe by the tail, she happily trots toward a fence with
the words "L'Pound du Bow-Wow" on it. She dangles Pepe
inside the fence while uttering a couple "Meows!"
setting off an eruption of barks and howls from the occupants of
L'Pound du Bow-Wow. She bobs Pepe up and down, delighted at how
she can control the barking. During one of his downward trips,
Pepe manages to unhook the latch on the gate. It opens and the
dogs pour into the street and surround Penelope. Penelope drops
Pepe and takes off with the dogs from the pound in pursuit. She
passes several well-known Parisian landmarks as the pack of dogs
swells into the hundreds.
She skitters up the Eiffel
Tower and the base of the tower is soon completely encircled by
the barking dogs. A close-up of one part of the crowd shows Pepe,
with his white stripes visible once more, jumping up and down and
barking along with the dogs. Eventually, the dogs notice, too and
soon, all of the dogs disperse in a panic, leaving only Pepe to
jump up and down and bark. Penelope climbs down the Tower far
enough so she can grab Pepe again. She carries Pepe to the very
top of the tower just as the giant spaceship returns. The hatch
at the bottom opens again and a powerful tractor beam pulls her
and Pepe inside. The hatch closes and the space ship appears to
be preparing to take off. Instead, several exclamation points
appear above it.
The space ship wobbles
erratically back to the meadow where Penelope was sleeping. The
bottom hatch opens once more and the giant Penelope along with
the normal-sized Pepe are dropped to the ground, shrouded in a
green cloud. Pepe lands on the ground, face down. The giant black
cat from outer space pokes his head out. Holding his nose with
one paw, the giant cat fires the ray pistol once more at Penelope.
This time, she's enveloped in a yellow glow and begins shrinking
back to her normal size.
Pepe sits up and Penelope,
thinking she's still fifty feet tall, raises her paw as if
threatening to grab Pepe again. Pepe puts his paw in hers and
pulls Penelope into a passionate embrace, kissing her repeatedly.
Penelope squirms free and takes off, leaving Pepe to remark
"Too much is never enough." He takes off after Penelope.
Iris out. "That's All Folks!"
Looney Tunes Larger Than Life!

