Hamton is a young male pig, who wears blue overalls. He attends Acme Looniversity
and lives in Acme Acres. Hamton's mentor and favorite teacher is Porky Pig. Hamton differed from his mentor in that Porky is usually seen wearing a shirt with no trousers, whereas Hamton is usually seen in his signature blue overalls and no shirt. In some scenarios, Hamton loses his overalls and is regarded as "naked." Also, Hamton does not have a stutter.
Hamton's home at the Acme Farm is a perfectly maintained little house, clean and pretty, with a few stepping stones leading from the edge of his tiny front lawn and garden across the larger, disgusting mud wallow.
Hamton is one of the only animals that Elmyra Duff doesn't show interest in, believing him to be a dirty pig in need of a bath, which is ironic considering Hamton's obsession with cleanliness. However, in a few episodes, she treats him like any of the other animals that she sees.
Personality[]
Hamton is good-natured, gullible and naïvely optimistic. He is like a good little scout who tries to obey all the rules. Hamton is a highly intelligent pig with a huge appetite. He's a worrier who's scared of the world. Shy to a fault, he has low self-esteem. Every situation that requires a decision fills Hamton with dread. He's riddled with doubt and waffles forever over even the smallest choices.
Hamton loves to eat. He is usually found in the cafeteria, pigging out, with an enormous tray of food in front of him. He is a neatness freak; his favorite pastime is dusting. Hamton enjoys school, homework, the library, fitting in and making a good impression. Turn-offs include sloppiness and people who believe the old stereotype of pigs as slovenly mudwallowers.
Hamton is a polite pig with a heart of gold. He really likes everybody and can't believe that anyone would take advantage of him or wish him ill will. This makes him easy fodder for Plucky or Montana Max.
He is constantly being taken advantage of by his best friend, Plucky, who can talk him into just about anything. In the Plucky "movie parodies," Hamton can invariably be found as the duck's sidekick in his various scatterbrained schemes. While Plucky fights big battles against enormous odds, Hamton takes on the annoying little battles of everyday life. For example, in his kitchen, the pig battles three singing roaches.
Other friends of Hamton included Babs and Buster Bunny, who usually defend him from Plucky's schemes, and Fifi La Fume, who has shown a romantic interest in him.
Hamton is intensely loyal. When a horrible monster has the toons trapped, Hamton will step forward and try to reason with the beast. He always comes to the fore when his friends are in danger; though he is likely to faint after the fighting is over. Hamton is square. He isn't up on the latest dances or music. He doesn't know the hip jargon. More likely to quote Shakespeare than Springsteen; he is a classicist. This, too, makes him the butt of Plucky's ruthless ribbing.
Hamton's role in the series is as a straight man (much like Porky in some of his pairings with Daffy Duck). Hamton is usually cheerful and friendly, and has an obsession with cleaning (sometimes seen with a duster or a vacuum cleaner such as in the show's opening theme). However, when Hamton's patience is pushed too far, he is known for angry fits that surprises the source of his frustration. Some of his madness-inducing moments involve such incidents as being unable to open a new school-issued locker or failing in an attempt to cook a lobster.
Although Hamton's non-aggressive personality bears similarities to Porky's, Hamton also bears similarities to Piggy Hamhock, a Friz Freleng-created character featured in the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies shorts, Pigs Is Pigs (1937) and At Your Service Madame (1936).
Family[]
Hamton is one of the few characters whose family appears onscreen during the Tiny Toon Adventures series' run; his family consisted of his parents, Winnie and Wade Pig, and his uncle, Stinky (a heavy-set pig with poor personal hygiene who only speaks with typical pig sounds). Hamton's family figured prominently in the Tiny Toon Adventures direct-to-video movie, How I Spent My Vacation; in this film, they take Hamton and Plucky on an ill-fated vacation to a theme park called Happy World Land (during which Hamton barfed on a valuable comic book of Plucky's). Hamton's parents are also just as obsessed with cleanliness as Hamton (at one point, the family dresses in full-bodied rubber suits, gas masks and backpacks with hoses attached to sterilize a restroom that they stopped at on the way to Happy World Land - Ironically, Stinky does this as well, although this is clearly meant to be a joke as he is normally a dirty, unwashed pig and does not care for cleanliness like the rest of the family). Wade, Winnie and Uncle Stinky appear in the Toons from the Crypt episode segment, Wait Till Your Father Gets Even, where Hamton gambles away his father's bottle cap collection and is scared to face him. Hamton's parents also appear in Hog-Wild Hamton, where Plucky goads Hamton into throwing a party at his house while his parents are out of town. Jonathan Winters voices Wade (he had previously voiced Sappy Stanley in an earlier episode), while Edie McClurg voices Winnie. Uncle Stinky is voiced by Frank Welker in all of his appearances.
A menorah-like candelabra is seen in the Pig family window during the series' Christmas special, implying that the family is Jewish. However, they do not keep kosher, as Hamton once tried to cook a lobster, and indeed, aren't even kosher themselves, being pork (most likely this is meant to be a joke).
Hamton's grandparents, Pappy and Bubbie, appear in Tiny Toon Adventures: Spring Break Special and live in a condo in Ft. Lauderdale. They enjoy the hot weather and the game, Mahjong. Hamton's parents appear as well near the beginning (talking Hamton into going to Ft. Lauderdale with the rest of his classmates on spring break, because he would have rather stayed home and cleaned), but Jonathan Winters does not voice Wade. He is voiced by Joe Alaskey in this appearance. However, Edie McClurg does voice Winnie.
Romance[]
Hamton is shown in a few episodes to have a romantic interest in Fifi La Fume. It is also shown that Hamton is more than willing to ignore her stink for her attention, which he often succeeds in doing. In Prom-ise Her Anything, he asks Fifi to be his date and she accepts in a heartbeat.
In Buster And Babs Go Hawaiian, Hamton is seen in the cartoon, Fleche de Lard, rescuing Lady May from Lord Sebastian. Just as he is about to kiss her, Buster and Babs interrupt the ending, complaining about another mediocre script that they're not a part of. They decide to talk to the writers, but Hamton protests, as he was finally the star and even got the girl. As he finishes talking, Plucky snatches Lady May from him and kisses her.
In Tiny Toon Adventures: Spring Break Special, Plucky meets his "dream girl" (a curvy, green female duck with blond hair) on spring break in Ft. Lauderdale while trying to sell his "Tan Meister 6000" (a tanning invention of his that he demonstrates in front of a crowd on the beach by having someone he "never met before" - Hamton - get into the chair, which ends up baking him instantly into a large strip of bacon). He spends most of the special trying to find her (in several cases she crosses his path, but something always prevents him from getting to her). Near the end, Plucky finds her and runs towards her, but inadvertently runs into Buster and Babs who are being chased by Elmyra (who believes Buster is the Easter Bunny). Buster slips fake rabbit ears on Plucky as he runs right into Elmyra for a big kiss. Elmyra drags Plucky away, as she now believes he is the Easter Bunny. Plucky's "dream girl" ends up liking Hamton, whom she considers "beyond cute" (whereas earlier when she meets Plucky, she just considers him "cute"). The school bus departs back to Acme Acres and as the Tiny Toons gang sing their final song, Hamton is seen with his face covered in her lipstick, with his note in the song being "I'm crazy about my honey."
Quotes[]
- "When do we eat?"
- "Cleanliness is next to hoggliness."
- "When's lunch?"
- "I'll eat anything, except pork."