''The Wearing of the Grin'' is a 1951

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

'' Looney Tunes'' cartoon directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese. The short was released on July 14, 1951, and stars Porky Pig.

Plot

On a raining stormy night while traveling through rural

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

on his way to

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

, Porky Pig is caught in a storm and asks for lodgings at a nearby castle for the night, but the caretaker, Seamus O'Toole, tells him that no one inhabits the place but himself and the

leprechaun A leprechaun ( ga, leipreachán/luchorpán) is a diminutive supernatural being in Irish folklore, classed by some as a type of solitary fairy. They are usually depicted as little bearded men, wearing a coat and hat, who partake in mischief. ...

s. Porky dismisses the remark, tells the caretaker to "cut out this nonsense and take my bags to a room", and slams the front door, causing a mace above to fall. It strikes Porky on the head and knocks him unconscious. 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, quickly becomes frantic with fear that Porky is after their pot of gold. O'Pat, being the "Chief Leprechaun" in their area, convinces his partner that he knows how to deal with the pig. When Porky wakes up, he is helped to a room by the "reunited" caretaker who, during the short trip to the room, gets accidentally divided in two again when O'Pat walks along the stone railing of the stairs and goes off to the left as Porky and O'Mike go right. Porky, quite tired out by "all this excitement" doesn't notice the problem with his host, even handing him his coat, which O'Mike takes, and Porky tells him to just put the bags anywhere. Moving toward the bed, he meets "O'Toole" who asks him if he has seen his other half. Without thinking, he tells him it's by the door, O'Pat moves out of frame, and then it registers with Porky that he is in the presence of two leprechauns. Terrified, he hides in the bed, which is a trap door. The bed closes into the wall and Porky is dropped down a winding shaft until he lands in a witness chair in a leprechaun courtroom ("The Leprechaun Court of Shaughnessy Township, County of Rourke O'Houlihan"). There the leprechauns charge and convict him of trying to steal the pot of gold (despite having no substantial evidence against him); they sentence him to the wearing of the Green Shoes. At first, Porky appreciates them as nice shoes, but soon he realizes that they are cursed, as his feet begin a frantic

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

jig The jig ( ga, port, gd, port-cruinn) is a form of lively folk dance in compound metre, as well as the accompanying dance tune. It is most associated with Irish music and dance. It first gained popularity in 16th-century Ireland and parts of ...

which makes O’Pat and O’Mike laugh at him. The shoes will not stop dancing; even when he removes them, they chase him and return themselves to his feet. He is "danced" through an Irish dreamscape—reminsicent of the 1948 Powell & Pressburger classic The Red Shoes famous 15 minute ballet montage—until he falls in a boiling pot of gold. At this point, he wakes up, in a puddle of water, on the spot where he fell after being hit by the mace. "O'Toole" is standing over him with an empty bucket, implying he has dumped water over Porky to revive him. Porky screams, remembering that "O'Toole" is actually the two leprechauns, and leaps up to one of the posts that had been holding the mace. The caretaker tries to convince Porky that nothing has been amiss; Porky, frightened and disoriented, grabs his bags and runs away from the castle and into the distance stating he's late for an appointment with his psychologist. "O'Toole" watches him run, smoking his upside-down pipe, and sporting a mischievous smile, shakes hands with himself (a hand that emerges from his trousers, clearly O'Mike) over a shamrock-shaped iris out.

Production notes

''The Wearing of the Grin'' was the final cartoon featuring Porky Pig as the only major recurring character. Porky had been Warner Bros. animation's first major star until he had been supplanted first by

Daffy Duck Daffy Duck is an animated cartoon character created for Leon Schlesinger Productions by animators Tex Avery and Bob Clampett. Styled as an anthropomorphic black duck, he has appeared in cartoon series such as ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Mel ...

(a phenomenon that was foreshadowed in film form in Friz Freleng’s ''

You Ought to Be in Pictures ''You Ought to Be in Pictures'' is a 1940 Warner Bros. ''Looney Tunes'' short film directed by Friz Freleng. The cartoon was released on May 18, 1940, and stars Porky Pig and Daffy Duck. The film combined live-action and animation, and featu ...

''), and later by

Bugs Bunny Bugs Bunny is an animated cartoon character created in the late 1930s by Warner Bros. Cartoons, Leon Schlesinger Productions (later Warner Bros. Cartoons) and Voice acting, voiced originally by Mel Blanc. Bugs is best known for his starring role ...

. As this had progressed, Porky starred in fewer solo cartoons. All of Porky's subsequent appearances in the classic era would be with other characters such as Daffy or the non-speaking, house cat version of Sylvester. The title refers to '' The Wearing of the Green'', an old

Irish ballad The following are often-sung Irish folk ballads and folk songs. The songs are arranged by theme under the categories "Politics and soldiering" and "Non-political" and are not necessarily contemporary to the events to which they relate. Songs ma ...

, while the green shoes themselves are borrowed from the 1845 Hans Christian Andersen 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

cartoon '' What's Up, Doc?'', where Bugs reveals that being in the play's chorus was his first gig as an "actor." This is one of five Warner Bros. cartoons that had music scores provided by Eugene Poddany in the early 1950s, as the studio's regular musical director, Carl Stalling, was recovering from a brain injury during the cartoon's production. Milt Franklyn was also credited for orchestrations.

Other appearances

* "The Wearing of the Grin" is the name of one of the Broadway shows featuring Bugs Bunny as one of the "Boys in the Chorus" in '' What's Up Doc?'' * The Leprechauns from the cartoon can later be spotted during the basketball game in the bleachers in ''

Space Jam ''Space Jam'' is a 1996 American live-action/animated sports comedy film directed by Joe Pytka, with animation sequences directed by Bruce W. Smith and Tony Cervone, and written by Leo Benvenuti, Steve Rudnick, Timothy Harris, and Herschel ...

''. * The Leprechauns make their return in the

SNES The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in E ...

game of '' Porky Pig's Haunted Holiday''.

Home media

''The Wearing of the Grin'' is available on the '' Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1'' DVD box-set, supplemented with an

audio commentary An audio commentary is an additional audio track, usually digital, consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with a video. Commentaries can be serious or entertaining in nature, and can add informatio ...

by animation historian Michael Barrier.

References

External links