The Wearing of the Grin

The Wearing of the Grin is a Looney Tunes (reissued as Blue Ribbon Merrie Melodies in 1960) cartoon directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese. It was released theatrically on July 14, 1951. It was the final cartoon featuring Porky Pig as the only major recurring character. Porky had been Warner Bros. animation’s first major star until had been supplanted first by Daffy Duck (a phenomenon that was even satirized in toon form in Friz Freleng’s You Ought to Be in Pictures), and later by Bugs Bunny. 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, while the green shoes themselves are borrowed from the 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 Bugs Bunny cartoon What's Up, Doc?, where Bugs reveals that being in the play's chorus was his first gig as an "actor."