Um…Daniel, can you read?
I just wrote:
I am most certainly not ‘knocking’ the cartoons…
Please go back, read the thread, and then give an opinion.
I also said:
I just compared cartoons to friggin’ SHAKESPEARE fo crying out loud!
I am trying to have a mature debate about cartoons if you dont mind! (get it? a mature debate about cartoons.)
I remember in a lot of the pepe cartoons,once the paint wore off the cat,he didn’t want her anymore,then She suddenly wanted Him,and started pursuing Him! I think most cartoons are characters chasing another,and never catching them. 
To answer the Olive Oyle question she was a tramp. I remember one cartoon both Bluto and Popeye ask her to marry her. How does she decide? Einy Meeny Miney Moe. I choose Popeye. So Bluto beats up Popeye and goes to the church. Hey Olive it looks like Popeye stood you up. What does she say “Ok Blutto your dressed I’ll marry you.”
Or the time she makes Popeye and Bluto shave (sings I want a clean shaven man.) then at the cartoon’s end she dumps them both for a professor with a beard.
The list goes on and on… And by the way usually Bluto can beat up Popeye straight up (well he is 3 times as big) till Popeye has to use spinach.
As for Pepe I will defend him. You will note the cat doesn’t like him because he is a skunk, NOT because he is harrassing her. Poor guy is a testimonial to people with bad hygene that yet still strive to prove their worth in a hyper cleanly society.
I also distinctly remember several cartoon that had a pro-America theme…about patriotism and such like…I don’t think it too much of a stretch to assume that they might have put some adult innuendo in there as well.
kelli, in your original question, you said you found it disturbing the way Pepe tried to force himself on the poor hapless cat. My comments were in response to your original post, not your second post where you changed from worrying about the theme of rape to the comparison to Shakespeare.
What you have done is like complaining about Larry Flint as a possible scum sucker to stating that he is the greatest pornographer of all time.
My comments were telling you that if you find American cartoons unsettling, then you should compare them to anime which can get pretty raunchy at times. More disturbing than just that, it seems that the Cartoon Network is now airing some of the stuff.
If you have time, watch an episode of Sailor Moon and tell me if it is more disturbing than Pepe Le Peu!
To me, the most haunting Popeye cartoon is the one that starts out as an actual Depression-era black-and-white movie. A little boy gets the tar beaten out of him by a gang of bullies. Crying, he picks up his Popeye book and the animation jumps off the page, so to speak. After a lesson from Popeye himself, the little boy gets his hands on a big can of spinach, wolfs it down, and proceeds to kick the bullies’ behinds in a most impressive fashion.
I wonder how many wimpy little kids tried to imitate this cartoon and were disillusioned when spinach failed to give them the promised super-human strength?
And speaking of Wimpy, could this hamburger- gobbling cartoon character be a major cause of high cholesterol and heart disease among the Baby Boomers today??? 
Holly, I don’t believe that ANYONE looked upon J. Wellington Wimpy as a role model!
Well, he had a good vocabulary, I’ll give him that, at least in comparison to the other residents of his town.
“I should like to invite you up to the house for a duck dinner…you bring the ducks.”
Uke
sigh
I find that ONE cartoon disturbing…just that one.
I am trying to debate the ‘meaning’ or ‘theme’ of that ONE cartoon.
My OP talks about the way PePe tries to force himself on the kitty…even children didnt find it funny. What were the animators saying. (Dont say its only a cartoon) We have seen posts from mambers talking about economic cartoons, political cartoons etc…so we KNOW they must have meant something.
Was there something going on at the time of PePe’s creation that the animators are trying to convey?
Are they trying to show us that men can be sexually aggressive? That women really ‘want it’? Are they poking fun at some social issue of the time?
I am not slamming the industry, in part of in whole. I love cartoons.
I merely thought this would be an interesting debate with people who watch as much cartoons as me.
That japanese stuff is crap. Watching sailor moon can actually SUCK the I.Q. point right out of your head.That fucking Pokemon too.
And I’m telling you they’re not condoning stalking, interspecial breeding, or painting white stripes on black cats- they’re satirizing the stereotype of the French. Obviously too subtle.
I agree with Mojo, and I disliked the PepeLePeu cartoons, even as a kid.
Obviously the cartoons are NOT simply satirizing the stereotype of the French (although they definitely do that). The whole thing about the cat being found desirable or not desirable on the basis of her “stripe,” as has been pointed out above, is a key part of the cartoon and is not explained away by the French theory in itself. The Pepe cartoons have more going on in them than just that.
Thank you Mikan…
Give us more, what do you think is going on there?
See, this is what I was hoping for.
Petote Coyote, WHY didnt you like it as a kid?
Holly wrote:
It was more like, “Confucious say, ‘Female, she is fickle!’ Ug-ug-ug-ug-ug-ug!”, where the "ug"s are supposed to be Popeye’s laugh. He might not have actually mentioned Confucious, but he was definitely making fun of Chinese accents.
I’m not flying fast, just orbiting low.
Apart from the stripe thing, I was just thinking that what makes this cartoon (as opposed to other WB cartoons build around the theme of chase/pursuit) is that the cat herself looks so terrified by the whole ordeal. Road Runner and Tweety Bird never show signs that they are concerned about their predicaments – only this cat, and she can’t even say “beep beep!”
The only thing that makes these cartoons funny (to me) is the comments about l’amour that Pepe makes to the “camera” as he prances daintily along after his prey. But of course I never appreciated them when I was a kid.
Dear Kellibelli:
I thought it was dumb – I guess that is the best way to explain it. Here is this arrogant skunk (an animal I’m not particularly fond of) with an atrocious accent who bounces around in a ridiculous fashion.
Also, I thought it was always a one-note cartoon. Pepe LePeu always did the same damn thing. At least there was some variety to the other WB cartoons.
Whoops – in my post just up there I meant to say “what makes this cartoon disturbing …” (As if it mattered.)
You’re all wrong, by the way. Popeye’s quote on the subject of the inconstancy of women:
You can bet your last nickel
That women is fickle
Says Popeye the Sailor Man!
According to Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, The Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons, the first Pepe LePew cartoon was made in 1945 . . . the last one in 1962.
The great majority of these cartoons were not originally made for children . . . but for adults. It’s only been since the advent of television that cartoons were relegated to children’s fare.
Chuck Jones, the director of all those Pepe LePew cartoons, said he had Charles Boyer in mind when he created the character. . . he was famous for his “great lover” roles. This also answers another question in this thread: in “Algiers,” Charles Boyer invites Hedy Lamarr to the “Casbah.”
It’s quite unfair to ascribe 1990’s sensibilities to work that is of an older and vastly different time.
And besides, it’s just a cartoon, dammit!
your humble TubaDiva
Ah, yes, they are just cartoons, created simply for entertainment value. Still, I don’t know about the rest of y’all, but I watched a LOT of cartoons when I was a kid. Old cartoons, new cartoons… the same cartoons over and over. The writers may not have INTENDED anything by them, but my impressionable mind was indelibly marked. In fact, my very first crush was on… I’m ashamed to admit this… Popeye.
I remember some Tom and Jerry cartoon about death; Tom died and was going to be sent to Hell if he didn’t get Jerry’s signature on a note of apology so he spent the entire cartoon trying to convince Jerry to sign before it was too late. Watching this cartoon as an adult, it seems really benign- hardly worth remembering. As a kid, though, I thought it was awfully scary even though in the end you find out Tom was just having a bad dream. Even scarier was that one about the cat who’s being driven insane by the cuckoo in the cuckoo clock. That one gave me nightmares.
Okay, maybe I was just a weird kid.
Well, one can say that it’s “unfair” (to … whom?) to ascribe 90s sensibilities to cartoons produced decades ago. But on the other hand, these cartoons are still being shown and watched today (aren’t they?), tus there’s no reason to look backward for some kind of pristine, original “meaning” to them. Whatever the creators of these pop cultural artifacts had in mind is entirely beside the point.
(Not trying to be contentious here; just doing what I can to help make Pepe LePew worthy of the Great Debates forum!)