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It all started in 1968...
A spin-off of the popular The Wacky Races (home of Muttley and Dastardly and Hong Kong Phooey), the Perils of Penelope Pitstop debuted on 09/13/69.
Penelope was an heiress to a huge fortune would go to her lawyer, Sylvester Sneekly if anything ever happened to her. To protect his future fortune, he decided to kill Penelope to get his hands on the money. Disguising himself and calling himself "The Hooded Claw," Sneekly hatched many a plot. Of course, Penelope never recognized her lawyer through the disguise and always escaped harm, although Sneekly always got his, usually calling vainly "I'll get you next time Pitstop! Wait and see. And I'll even get you too!" as she got away unharmed.
Helping Penelope (and her cool car, the Compact Pussycat) whenever they could was the Ant Hill Mob. Also members of the Wacky Races as well, the Mob was a gang of tiny gangsters. The leader, Clyde, sounded like Humphrey Bogart. Softy always found something to cry about. Yak Yak laughed all the time. Pockets was like a boy scout- always prepared. Zippy was like his name implied, quick. Dum Dum was dumb, and Snoozy fell asleep at the wheel of the Clugaboom. Even though they were entered in the race as well, they couldn’t resist coming to the aid of the beautiful Penelope. Of course, Penelope could hold her own against any bad guy by using "Mission Impossible"-like weapons; lipstick, nail file and compact mirror, and of course, the trusty Compact Pussycat for speedy getaways.
Sneekly had his own men to do his bidding. the Bully Brothers, two twins who spoke in unison. The brothers did very little to assist Sneekly and most often ended ruing his plans.
An interesting bit of history: The series was modeled after the silent films series of the 1920s, The Perils of Pauline. |
