George Pennacchio

A five-time Emmy Award-winning entertainment reporter based in Los Angeles, Pennacchio has been a fixture at ABC7 Eyewitness News since 1996. A magna cum laude graduate of Albion College with roots in San Diego broadcasting, he built his name covering Hollywood's biggest nights. Best known for voicing George Purrrnachleo in Zootopia 2, his recurring role on General Hospital, and his decades-long run as ABC7's on-air entertainment reporter.

George Pennacchio’s Unexpected Turn in the Recording Booth

Most journalists spend their careers watching others step into the spotlight. George Pennacchio has spent more than three decades doing exactly that as the entertainment reporter for ABC7 Eyewitness News in Los Angeles – and then, in 2025, the tables turned. The directors of Zootopia 2, Jared Bush and Byron Howard, reached out to invite Pennacchio into a recording booth at Disney Animation. The result was George Purrrnachleo, a lion news anchor whose name is a playful nod to the man behind the voice.

Pennacchio joined ABC7 in 1996, arriving from previous stints at KFMB-TV in San Diego and KMST-TV in Monterey, California. His broadcasting roots stretch back to an internship at WMAQ-TV in Chicago during his college years at Albion College, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1983 with a degree in broadcast journalism, anthropology, and sociology.

Zootopia 2 and the George Purrrnachleo Moment

The invitation came through a contact at Disney Animation and led to a Zoom meeting with the film’s directors. Bush and Howard told Pennacchio he had been covering Hollywood press junkets for over 30 years with a consistency and warmth the creative team admired. They wanted that energy on screen – or more precisely, on the soundtrack. His character, a lion reporter humorously named George Purrrnachleo, fit the animated world of Zootopia 2 so naturally that the joke practically wrote itself. The film went on to become the highest-grossing movie of 2025.

Accolades Built on Decades of Entertainment Reporting

Five Emmy Awards mark Pennacchio’s broadcasting career, alongside The Press Award from the Publicists Guild of America and the Critics’ Critic Award from the Critics Choice Association – one of only a handful of journalists to receive that distinction from North America’s largest critics organization. The Los Angeles Press Club awarded him the Luminary Award, a lifetime achievement recognition, and he has since served on the club’s board. His coverage has taken him across continents, from South Africa in 2007 – where he reported on the stage debut of The Lion King in its homeland – to London, Tokyo, Nashville, and New York.