The Emergence of The Theme Will Be Apparent Very Soon

I was watching JEOPARDY! last week. Here's the final, under the category famous cartoon characters:
The 1935 cartoon "I Haven't Got a Hat" was the first of many cartoons that paired him with a cat named Beans. Answer below.
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The paper last Sunday had this headline Car plows through house, killing pig, which struck me as - this is terrible - funny. The subhead: "Driver charged with DWI in crash that destroyed family's home and beloved pet in Ballston Spa." It somehow reminded me of Arnold Ziffel, the pet pig of the neighbors of the Douglases on the TV show Green Acres with Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor.

Then, on Tuesday, this follow-up:
Hannahble's demise inspires wealth of giving, with the subhead: Death of pet Vietnamese potbellied pig in freak auto wreck sparks creation of fund to help other pigs"
Donations may be sent to the Hannahble Fund at Box 561, 5072 Sacandaga Road, Galway, NY 12074...
Unlike domestic pets such as dogs and cats, potbellied pigs are often hard to place, Grossmann Brown said, noting that people often get rid of their pigs because of changing circumstances -- including divorce and new landlords that won't accept such pets
"This was a very bad and scary event and I am glad to be alive. If some other pigs can live a more comfortable life or be saved from harm in Hanners' way, then I would be honored to be a part of it," Grossmann Brown said in a statement announcing the fund.
Grossmann Brown and her husband, Randy Brown, are staying in a hotel while they figure out how to recover from the accident that demolished part of their home at 48 Rowland St. at 4 a.m. Saturday morning and killed Hanners.
Grossmann Brown said, fortunately, her two dogs, cat and two parakeets were not injured when the car tore through the house.
Danielle Schrade, 21, of Ballston Spa, was charged by village police with driving while intoxicated, accused of driving her Mitsubishi Eclipse through the front porch at 52 Rowland St., then through 48 Rowland St., where Hanners was sleeping peacefully in his bed.

Do I feel like an insensitive lout. It's good to be humbled now and then.
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The Guilderland Chamber of Commerce has been plugging its Pigtacular, including Hogtoberfest. Jane, who I knew from her days at the Albany Y, has been hawking these events. Oy. I'll have to razz her the next time I see her.
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One Lydia's favorite book lately is If You Give a Pig a Party. She can hear it four times in a row, and it's not awful for me to re-read. My favorite page is the hide-and-seek page, where even Carol and I had difficulty finding all the animals initially, especially the dog. (The pig was wearing her party dress, so she was easy to spot.)
Lydia's also fond of Mrs. Potter's Pig (mom is neat freak, baby is so messy that mom thinks girl will actually turn into a pig, and she does, sort of), Olivia and the Missing Toy (off a Cheerios box - we're not proud), and Percival the Pig (trying to keep clean for his birthday tea). Some of her farm books also feature porcine creatures.
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Answer to the JEOPARDY! question, which you may have gotten with the additional clues, but which I had no ideas in the 30 seconds allotted:
Who was Porky Pig? They were known as Porky and Beans. Ah, that mid-1930s humor. BTW, none of the contestants got it right, and in fact all picked cartoon cats (Krazy Kat, Felix the Cat, Jerry) as their responses.
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The Mets lost last night, 4-2, and are down 3 games to 2. Sigh. At least I didn't see it. My bike injuries seem to have made me extremely achy and fatigued, and the grey skies that made it feel like dusk ALL DAY didn't help. I went to bed at 8 p.m. last night - highly unusual, let me tell you -and woke up at 3:45 a.m. - not so unusual.