TV Cream

TV: P is for...

Perils of Penelope Pitstop, The

Penny grapples with the peril of a oral thermometer "The new season on BBC2...and the Top Gear boys fetch up in prohibition America!"

“HAYULP!” HYPER-SPINOFF from [cref 1021 WACKY RACES] featured the titular southern belle perpetually captured by nefarious silent movie villain the Hooded Claw, who always devised some stupidly elaborate delayed-action method of execution, set it going (“This one’s a doozy, Pitstop!”), and then buggered off. Stunted fellow ‘Racers the Anthill Mob (Clyde, Yakko, Pockets, Dum Dum, er… oh, sod it) in their spluttering car Chugaboom came falteringly to her rescue. Also the Bully Brothers (ficko henchmen) and the pointless Claw’s “disguise” as Pitstop’s rich guardian, Sylvester Sweetley. What the fuck was the point of that?

8 Comments

8 Comments

  1. johnnyboy

    October 3, 2009 at 11:49 am

    Wasn’t it Chugaboom itself that did most of the saving? If I remember, it possessed (oh!) some form of life and was always saving the Mob before they ended up saving the Pitster from whatever time-delayed peril she had been placed into.
    One question though – why was the Anthill Mob always following her, and why didn’t Penelope not just say “Enough of this – I’m calling the Services if you guys don’t bugger off pronto!”? She doesn’t seem rich, but then ‘gals’ who are, usually don’t: Scuffed shoes and holes in the jeans, but 50 trillion in the bank (normally from daddy).

  2. David Pascoe

    October 3, 2009 at 1:33 pm

    As a child I always found Bob Monkhouse vaguely scary due to his resemblance to the Hooded Claw.

  3. Snoozy

    October 3, 2009 at 6:59 pm

    It’s worth mentioning that the voice of the Hooded Claw was provided by the great Paul Lynde, who was the American Kenneth Williams. Whenever I hear Roger the Alien on American Dad I want them to do a Hooded Claw gag.

    What amused me most about this cartoon as a child was that Yak-Yak laughed at everything. “Hee-he-he-hee-hee-hee! Penelope’s gonna die!” Must have taken a lot of determination to be that cheerful in the face of adversity. I imagine him working as a self-help guru now.

  4. legrandpierre

    October 3, 2009 at 8:35 pm

    Wasn’t it Sylvester Sneekley?

  5. Paul

    October 4, 2009 at 12:00 pm

    Yes, it was! Sylvester Sweetly sounds like a character from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!

  6. Matthew Rudd

    June 23, 2010 at 9:52 pm

    There was one episode where the Bully Brothers “turned” and saved Penelope from her fate when the claw’s becloaked back was turned.

  7. THX 1139

    July 27, 2014 at 11:32 pm

    How come the Anthill Mob all sat in the front seat of their car, piled up on top of one another? Chugaboom had plenty of room for them to spread out and it would have been a lot more comfortable to do so (not to mention safer – ever see the Mob wearing seatbelts?). Then there’s the way the least appropriate mobsters were the ones doing the driving – let Zippy have a go, he’d catch up with Penelope in no time.

  8. Joanne Gray

    February 22, 2017 at 1:23 am

    My grandma (rest her soul) used to think it was hilarious to call her “Penelope Pisspot”. Every damn time the cartoon was on – it stopped being funny after the 100th tine!

Leave a Reply

Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

To Top