Must… resist… stinker/Love Guru jokes bubbling… up… in… brain… Okay, we’re good: Mike Myers, who at times in his career has rivalled Jim Carrey for appearing to be a live-action Warner Bros. cartoon character, has apparently become attached to voice one of the studio’s actual creations, love-hungry skunk Pepe Le Pew.
Originally launched in 1945, and most famously voiced by ‘toon tonsil legend Mel Black, Pepe has always been something of a second-tier Looney Tune player, despite healthy popularity and even an Oscar (awarded to Chuck Jones’ For Scent-imental Reasons in 1949) under his belt.
But, like many of the Looney bunch, Pepe’s career has dwindled somewhat over the years and Warners is now looking to relaunch several of its beloved creations in the hopes of Delighting Children Around The World*. The studio has already kicked off plans to get Bugs Bunny back in cinemas, and now it has grabbed the chance to get Myers on board for Pepe.
Though while Myers has obviously enjoyed the success, paydays and relatively easy work making the Shrek movies, we’re concerned that Warners’ plans for Pepe might end up mis-firing, as the current idea is to go the Garfield/Marmaduke/Yogi Bear route and blend CG characters for the smelly hero and the object of his affection, Penelope Pussycat, with live-action humans, which rarely works all that well. We can see Warners’ point, though: when it does click with audiences (remember how much the first Garfield and both Chipmunk movies made?), it’s a solid revenue stream for studios.
**And making money. *