Penelope Pitstop

Penelope-hose — Penelope in *The Perils of Penelope Pitstop*

Penelope Pitstop is a character created by Hanna-Barbera who debuted in Wacky Races and later was spun off into her own series, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop.

About Penelope[]

In Wacky Races, Penelope has long blond hair in a full fringe. She wears a purple racer helmet with goggles. She also wears a dark pink rider jacket with a purple turtleneck and purple gloves, pink skirt with red pants underneath and white high-heel boots.

In The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, Penelope's eyes resemble those of Daphne Blake, and despite having white sclerae, she wears red lipstick. Her helmet is replaced by a magenta pilot helmet with matching white goggles. She now wears a hot pink long-sleeved jacket with a matching belt and long magenta scarf, which is hanging loose on the right side. Even though she still wears her red pants and white boots from the Wacky Races, her gloves are now white.

In "Cross Country Double Cross", Penelope's blond hair is loose as she uses her helmet to block the hose which the Hooded Claw used to flood the train car.

Penelope Pitstop was the only female driver in Wacky Races. She drove car #5: the Compact Pussycat, which was essentially a beauty salon on wheels. Iwao Takamoto said in an interview that he and Jerry Eisenberg created her as an afterthought, as Joseph Barbera had suggested that a woman be included in the Wacky Races cast.

Aside from Dick Dastardly, the male racers are very chivalrous toward her, and rarely attack her car, sometimes even allowing her to pass them. The Turbo Terrific driver, Peter Perfect, is particularly fond of her, frequently calling her "Pretty Penny".

In her own series, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, she had become a jet-setting heiress in 1912. The Ant Hill Mob had become Penelope's bodyguards, protecting her from the Hooded Claw and his twin henchmen, the Bully Brothers.

In the 2017 series, she has a twin sister named Pandora Pitstop.

Janet Waldo performed Penelope's voice in both Saturday-morning series. Penelope later had guest roles in the Yogi's Treasure Hunt episodes "Snow White and the Seven Treasure Hunters" and "Goodbye, Mr. Chump". She was radically redesigned for Penelope Pitstop GT, a Cartoon Network Web Premiere Toon.

Penelope Pitstop is referenced in the 2020 CGI animated film Scoob! with a perfume called Pitstop from "Penelope" and a Penelope Pitstop arcade cabinet in the abandoned Funland amusement park in Romania. In the credits, an image of Penelope Pitstop riding on the Compact Pussycat appears in Dastardly's cell wall before Muttley busts him out of prison. Penelope was supposed to appear in the film, as revealed in a pink poster for the film, but she was scrapped from the film.

In Popular Culture[]

Penelope appeared with a few other Wacky Races characters in MetLife's television commercial during Super Bowl XLIII in 2012.
A range of Penelope Pitstop graphic shirts have been released in Singapore under Zara Kids.
Penelope is mentioned in the lyrics of a few popular songs, including "How Could She?" by Type O Negative and "The Influence" by Jurassic 5.
On page 2 of the webcomic story "Dasien Meets Pulsar Pureheart", the villain Goldie says, when stopped by Pulsar Pureheart, "Now, beat it, Penelope Pitstop! I don't have time for the a [sic] junior league superhero!"
Penelope Pitstop is frequently mentioned by British comedians Tim Key, Alex Horne and Mark Watson in their YouTube series No More Jockeys.