Looney Tunes’ Pungent Purveyor of L’amore to Reek Havoc on Unsuspecting Felines Starting at 6 a.m. on Feb. 14

Smurfette Also to Prove Blondes Have More Fun as February Character of the Month, Every Saturday 2-4 p.m.

Proving the old adage “Love stinks!” can be both a literal and figurative term, Boomerang, Cartoon Network’s commercial-free classic animation network, will present a first-time Valentine’s Day mock-celebration—“Love Stinks!”—to the most celebrated cartoon lover with a French accent, Pepe Le Pew, in a 24-hour marathon beginning at 6 a.m. (ET). Looney Tunes’ ardently amorous skunk will appear in his first-ever solo tribute on Boomerang, fittingly (or sadly, as the case may be) upon the most romantic day of the year. Although his earnest efforts to win the tender affections of unwitting females never quite succeed, he remains love’s greatest champion through his enduring optimism and never-say-die commitment to the pursuit of l’amore. Boomerang will present all 17 Pepe Le Pew animated shorts (including cameo appearances) in chronological order, which will then repeat throughout the day.

“The world of classic cartoons is filled with famously romantic couples: Popeye and Olive Oil, Fred and Wilma, George and Jane as well as Lois and Clark, to name several,” said Marc Buhaj, vice president of programming and scheduling for Boomerang and Cartoon Network. “But those celebrated pairings needn’t hog the entire Valentine spotlight. I think viewers of all ages at one time or another have experienced the more common heartache of unrequited love, when fragile affections have been spurned and trampled or, at best, ignored. That’s why we decided to give Pepe Le Pew center stage this Valentine’s Day—to serve as a beacon of hope to all who’ve loved and lost, that they too might never give up in their pursuit of romance.”

After a small test-run as “Stinky” in the 1945 animated short The Odor-Able Kitty, Pepe Le Pew burst onto movie screens around the world in 1947 (Scent-Imental Over You) when Warner Bros. story-man Michael Maltese created and refined the French skunk into a Looney Tunes superstar. Pepe’s unctuous accent (provided by Looney Tunes’ master-voice Mel Blanc) and irresistible personality were based on famed French actors of the period—Charles Boyer, Maurice Chevalier and others. In just two short years, he won an Academy AwardÒ for his starring role in For Scent-Imental Reasons, directed by the legendary animator Chuck Jones.

“Pepe was everything I wanted to be romantically. Not only was he quite sure of himself, but it never occurred to him that anything was wrong with him,” Jones once said in an interview explaining why he could so easily identify with the character. “I always felt there must be great areas of me that were repugnant to girls, and Pepe was quite the opposite of that.”

Pepe remained a popular Warner Bros. entry through 1962, when his final cartoon, Louvre Come Back to Me, was released to theatres. Pepe returned to the screen briefly in the 1990s, first in the Bugs Bunny 1995 animated parody of the 1942 classic Casablanca entitled Carrotblanca, then in the 1996 live-action/animation hit feature, Space Jam, starring Michael Jordan.

Boomerang will also pay tribute every Saturday afternoon in February from 2-4 p.m. (ET) to Smurfette, the only female character (until a little sister Sassette was introduced to keep her company) among tiny blue creatures known as The Smurfs, which were originally created by French artist Pierre “Peyo” Clifford as a Belgian comic strip in 1957. The story depicts a miniature village of happy people who make their homes in mushrooms and overcome unfriendly encounters with an inept wizard Gargamel and his henchcat Azrael who want to rid the world of these happy blue busybodies.

More than 20 years later in 1981, Hanna-Barbera introduced the Emmy Award-winning animated series to delighted audiences around the world. Throughout the series production which continued in 1986, the show often focused on the love-lorn trials of Smurfette, the flaxen-haired beauty of the bunch who often used her uniquely feminine charms to help save the day when family and friends such as Papa Smurf, Brainy Smurf, Clumsy Smurf and Grouchy Smurf ran into trouble they could not overcome on their own. Voice-actress Lucille Bliss provided the blend of sweetness, spunk and coquette-like attitude that made Smurfette one of the most enjoyable and memorable personalities among The Smurfs.