Just perfect...

Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

. . . (without being part of an attacking Yankee military unit) is totally nuts, Warner Bros. warns us with THE WEARING OF THE GRIN, just one in a continuing series of world travel alerts Warner produced in the form of animated shorts. GRIN does for Ireland what MY BUNNY LIES OVER THE SEA did for Scotland. Porky Pig has thrown caution to the wind, and has reached suburban Dublin as GRIN opens. Expecting to enjoy the hospitality of a nearby castle as the Emerald Isle's notoriously rugged weather sets in, the trusting porker is struck down in a booby-trapped fortress entry way. Stunted bearded bozos then try to drown this stunned American tourist. Failing at that, the loony locals terrorize poor Porky out of his wits. (Water boarding may sound a tad harsh, but it pales in comparison to the Horrors of Involuntary Tap Dancing!) If director Eli Roth's GREEN INFERNO and HOSTEL flicks haven't been enough to make your impressionable youngsters swear off "study abroad" programs and other forms of foreign travel forever, show them Warner's THE WEARING OF THE GRIN and the many related Looney Tunes. (And if they're STILL hankering for dangerous adventures, you can suggest that they try to jog through the streets of North Charleston, SC, to find out if they'll be stoned, as I recently was there.)

This was the final solo cartoon starring Porky Pig, and fittingly, it is also one of his most surreal. The whole thing is a dream (or is it?) where Porky goes into the Daliesque world he inhabited in Bob Clampett's 1938 classic PORKY IN WACKYLAND, only with an Irish bent to it this time around. The short is also satirizing the Hans Christian Andersen story, THE RED SHOES, which had recently been adapted for the screen, in 1948, by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger when this cartoon went into production. The Leprechauns popped up later in the audience watching the basketball game in SPACE JAM. Porky would go on to be teamed with Daffy or Sylvester throughout the golden age, but never again as a solo performer.

Chuck Jones's 'The Wearing of the Grin' is a genuine oddity. While he would ultimately utilise Porky Pig brilliantly as Daffy Duck's sidekick in several genre spoofs, Jones seems here to be struggling to find a use for a character whose personality doesn't extend far beyond his stutter. 'The Wearing of the Grin' largely eschews gags in favour of a creepy atmosphere and a sense of the surreal. Caught in a storm, Porky seeks refuge in an old castle where he encounters a pair of Irish leprechauns. While the strange sense of otherness is well evoked, 'The Wearing of the Grin' fails to generate that much interest. This is due largely to the boring characters of the leprechaun antagonists. The short build to a brief surreal set piece in which Porky is pursued by a pair of shoes. This is undoubtedly the high point of the cartoon yet it falls short on inventiveness and is ultimately quite dry. This sense of disappointment is compounded by a predictable and unfunny climax. All in all, 'The Wearing of the Grin' is notable for its unusualness but has little else to recommend it.

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+