1969
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The Hooded Claw traps her in a giant tent that he and the Bully Brothers fill with hot air to make a balloon. The Ant Hill Mob see this and move in to help. After that rescue, Penelope is taken into a pyramid, where she will be mummified alive.
- Overview
- Biography
- Trivia
Sylvester Sneekly, also known as the Hooded Claw, is the main antagonist of the Hanna-Barbera animated television show The Perils of Penelope Pitstop. The show was a spin-off of a prior cartoon Wacky Races featuring the show's characters Penelope Pitstop and the Anthill Mob, but with the Hooded Claw replacing Dick Dastardly and Muttley as the primary villain (ironically, the two would've appeared as supporting antagonists in early plans). The more or less contemporary setting of Wacky Races was moved back to the 1910s or so, with the characters being redesigned to fit the older time period.
He was voiced by the late Paul Lynde, who also voiced Mildew Wolf.
The Hooded Claw was the disguise used by heiress Penelope's lawyer and supposed guardian, Sylvester Sneekly, in a continuing effort to do away with Penelope, in order to make her family fortune his own. Sneekly would use his dual role (cartoon logic ignoring a limited disguise for his face and none for his voice) to set Penelope up for his latest trap, always in a different part of the world and based on the sights and history of the region, as well as the old-time damsel-in-distress stories.
Aiding him in this were two dim hirelings, the identical twin Bully Brothers. It seems likely the Claw wanted partners whom he could easily cheat should his schemes succeed, but failed to reckon with their dull-wittedness. Another factor likely holding him back (but firmly in keeping with the genre) was the complicated and slow-working nature of his death-traps. Frequently, one trap led right into another, with little or no stop till the end of the episode.
The Anthill Mob acted as Penelope's protectors: as easily fooled and misled as Penelope herself, but smarter than the Bully Brothers; once, when their personalities were inverted, their schemes to do away with Penelope were nearly successful. Modeled after the Seven Dwarfs, the Mob's members each had a signature trait that alternately aided Penelope, or got her, and them, into even deeper trouble, moments the Claw never hesitated to exploit. They were a determined, resourceful lot, and once they caught on to the Claw's inevitable involvement, they moved hard to save their pretty charge, who soon rescued them in return.
As the supposedly kind and caring Sylvester Sneekly, her guardian called his charge "Penelope," while the Claw referred to her only as "Pitstop." One joke by the Claw mentioned Dick Dastardly by name, possibly an indication that this show shared a world with Wacky Races and Dick Dastardly And His Flying Machines. Hanna-Barbera shows were known for this sort of humor, with Yogi Bear appearing on The Flintstones, and a classmate of Elroy Jetson's watching reruns of The Flintstones on a wristwatch-TV.
•The Hooded Claw was mentioned in the song "The Power Of Love" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood.
•The Hooded Claw had a model in many serial feature villains, whose masked identity was not a mystery to the audience, and whose in-universe disguises were often comically flimsy, calling into question the intelligence of all involved.
•The Hooded Claw is particularly modeled on the villainous Raymond Owen (later renamed "Koerner" to capitalize on WWI anti-German sentiment) in the 1914 Pearl White serial, The Perils of Pauline, though strictly speaking, Owen was the secretary of Pauline's guardian rather than her guardian himself, and had an extra incentive to dispose of Pauline as early as possible, since her fortune would be settled on her entirely on the occasion of her impending marriage to her fiancé, Harry. There are no direct equivalents to the Bully Brothers, but Owen does hire occasional thugs to aid his plans.
•Ironically, Sneekly's alias is confusing, since he neither wears a hood nor has any claws, which is part of the gag.
•He is similar to Doctor Godber from Thunderbirds, because they are both interested in kidnapping a blonde heroine named Penelope.
•In DC Comics' Hanna Barbera Crossover series, Scooby-Doo Team-Up, Issue 41, the series was resolved and Sneekly was finally unmasked as the Claw by the Scoobies.
This is the third "Players in 'Perils'" featurette from the Penelope Pitstop DVD.
- 2 min
- 206.9K
- James Vipond
The Hooded Claw is a character in the Hanna-Barbera cartoon series The Perils of Penelope Pitstop. He is actually Penelope's guardian and lawyer, Sylvester Sneekly, who tries to kill her for her inheritance.
The Hooded Claw is the alias of Sylvester Sneekly, a lawyer who tries to kill Penelope Pitstop for her inheritance. He is voiced by Paul Lynde and often breaks the fourth wall to address the narrator.
- (2.1K)
- 1969-09-13
- Animation, Action, Crime
- 30
May 26, 2023 · The Hooded Claw hatched schemes that would do a Bond villain proud. Instead of simply doing away with Penelope, he would capture her, then attempt to carry out some cleverly convoluted plan that afforded her plenty of time to escape.
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Penelope Pitstop is a wealthy heiress who is kidnapped and trapped by the Hooded Claw, a disguised villain who wants her inheritance. She escapes with the help of the Ant Hill Mob, a gang of pint-sized gangsters who drive a talking car named Chug-a-Boom.
