The Wearing of the Grin (1951)

"The Wearing of the Grin", directed by Chuck Jones, is a wonderful Porky Pig cartoon. Porky seeks a room for the night and ends up inside a large castle occupied by two leprechauns who are not helpful in providing the hapless pig some rest.Here are my favorite sequences from this cartoon (if you haven't yet seen it, don't read any further). The green shoes Porky is forced to wear cause him to dance a jig; when he removes the shoes, they chase him through a magnificent fantasy landscape (reminiscent of 1938's "Porky in Wackyland"). Watch how Porky reacts when he discovers that one of the leprechauns seems to have lost his lower half! The two leprechauns also hide a couple of surprises underneath their hats."The Wearing of the Grin" can be found on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 1 Disc 2, with an optional audio commentary by a very knowledgeable cartoon historian named Michael Barrier.

In The Wearing of the Grin, Porky is stuck in a haunted house in Ireland inhabited by a couple of leprechauns. They attempt to banish the pig to wearing green shoes because they think he's going to steal their pot-o-gold. Another very amusing short directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese. The music here is not by Carl Stalling but Eugene Poddany who would eventually do the scores of Jones' cartoons for MGM. Loved the way Porky dances whenever he's wearing the shoes. Highly whimsical dream sequences also abound near the end. This is on disc 2 of Vol. 1 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection on DVD. If you're a big animation fan, I highly recommend you check that out.

It's pouring out and traveler Porky is looking for some refuge in the storm. He wonders if the people in "that quaint old castle" on top of the nearby hill will put him up for the night. En route, he sees a sign that says, "Beware of the Leprechauns." What nonsense, Porky thinks. Upon entering the castle, he meets "Seamus O'Toole," caretaker of the "Clarey Castle.""Seamus" is really two leprechauns standing on top of the other. They are "O'Pat" and "O'Mike" and they think Porky has come to steal their pot of gold. What happens after that, with the magical green shoes, is bizarre with dream-like sequences. There are some very cool visuals. The artwork in here is just beautiful, start-to-finish. Most of these cartoons in the "Looney Tunes Golden Collection" are restored to bold, bright colors and give the excellent artists who drew these animated short subjects their due.

Porky Pig looking to get out of the rain while in Ireland, stops in an old castle inhabited by the wee' people, don't ya know? They think he's after their pot o' gold, and so sentence him to were the Green shoes, it's at this point that the film takes a surreal tone. Does this film stereotype the Irish? Yup, but who cares, I'm Irish and it didn't bother me (when I first signed onto IMDb, I typoed my last name, but trust me I'm Irish with a capital O'). It was funny and when it comes down to it, that's all that matters. This cartoon is on Disk 2 of the "Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 1" It also has an optional commentary as well as a small featurette.My Grade: B+