The Wearing of the Grin

Infobox Hollywood cartoon
cartoon_name = The Wearing of the Grin
series = Looney Tunes


caption = Title card of "The Wearing of the Grin".
director = Chuck Jones
story_artist = Michael Maltese
animator = Lloyd Vaughan
Ben Washam
Ken Harris
Phil Monroe
voice_actor = Mel Blanc
John T. Smith
musician = Eugene Poddany
producer = Edward Selzer
distributor = Warner Bros. Pictures
release_date = July 28, 1951 (USA premiere)
color_process = Technicolor
runtime = 7 min (one reel)
movie_language = English
imdb_id = 0044198

"The Wearing of the Grin" is a "Looney Tunes" cartoon directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese where Porky Pig spends a night in a castle inhabited by leprechauns. It was released theatrically on July 28, 1951.

It was the final cartoon featuring Porky as the only major recurring character. Porky was the very first Warner Bros. cartoon character to draw audiences based on star power, and starred in many solo cartoons in the 1930s and early 1940s. As Daffy Duck (and later Bugs Bunny) surpassed his popularity, Porky starred in fewer solo cartoons. All of Porky's subsequent appearances in the classic era would be alongside Daffy or Sylvester.

ynopsis

While traveling through rural Ireland, Porky Pig is caught in a storm and asks for lodgings at a nearby castle, but the caretaker tells him that no one inhabits the place but himself and the leprechauns. Porky dimisses the remark, but then accidentally hits his head and loses consciousness. At that point, "O'Toole" is revealed to be a pair of leprechauns disguised as a human being. O'Pat, the first one, is very calm while O'Mike, the second one, is frantic that Porky is after their pot of gold. O'Pat, being the "Chief Leprechaun", convinces his partner that he knows how to deal with the Pig.When Porky wakes up, he is helped to a room by a "reunited" O'Toole who, during the short trip to the room, gets accidentally divided in two again. As Porky notices, he mentions to the top half of O'Toole that he has lost his lower half, and realizing that "O'Toole" is actually two leprachauns, is terrified and runs and hides in his bed, which happens to be a trap door leading to a shaft where Porky drops until he falls into the witness chair in a courtroom. There the Leprechauns find him guilty of trying to steal the pot of gold and sentence him to the wearing of the Green Shoes. At first Porky appreciates them as some nice shoes, but soon he realizes that they are cursed, as his feet begin a frantic Irish jig. Porky realizes that the shoes will not stop dancing, and even when he removes them, they chase him and return themselves to his feet, and he is "danced" through a nightmarish landscape filled with Irish icons until he falls in a boiling pot of gold. At this point, he wakes up to find himself in a puddle of water still standing where he fell after being hit by the mace. Panicked and disoriented, he runs away from the castle. O'Toole watches him run, shaking hands with himself (actually O'Mike, the other leprechaun) with a mischievous smile.

The title refers to "The Wearing of the Green", an old Irish ballad, while the green shoes themselves are borrowed from the Hans Christian Anderson fable The Red Shoes (and the 1948 film based on it) about a pair of ballet shoes that never let their wearer stop dancing. The title was parodied, also as "The Wearing of the Grin", in the Bugs Bunny cartoon "What's Up Doc?", where Bugs reveals that being in the play's chorus was his first gig as an "actor."

Availability

"The Wearing of the Grin" is available on the "" DVD box-set , supplemented with an audio commentary by animation historian Michael Barrier.

References

* Beck, Jerry and Friedwald, Will (1989): "Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons". Henry Holt and Company.

ee also

*Looney Tunes
*Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies filmography (1950-1959)

External links

*imdb title|id=0044198|title=The Wearing of the Grin