The Grunt hunt is over.The half-ton porker,...

The Grunt hunt is over.

The half-ton porker, who attracted an outpouring of affection after it was revealed that he might be put to death because he was homeless, has been adopted by an unidentified Ojai rancher. The county Animal Control Shelter said Grunt will probably be hauled there this weekend--in a horse trailer.

The shelter reported that at least 200 people, including an Australian caller, offered to take Grunt in Wednesday, bringing the total to more than 500 since Monday.

A shelter spokeswoman said the Ojai adoption “was arranged through the Fund for Animals (and) sounds like a perfect location, with other animals there like donkeys and geese.”

Grunt’s crisis brought him his 15 minutes in the spotlight, thereby inducting him into a local pantheon of briefly famous critters, who include:

* Howard the Duck, who adopted a Tarzana home and fell in love with the family’s collie.

* Ragtime, the miniature horse whose owner won the right to keep him in her Thousand Oaks home.

* Beep, a Santa Ana goose who was fitted with an artificial beak after a coyote attack.

* Bubbles the Hippo, who stubbornly sat in a Laguna Hills pond for two weeks before she was accidentally killed in a recapture attempt.

* And, of course, the Freeway Chickens of Hollywood, survivors of a poultry truck crash and later immortalized in a video-game in which drivers score points by running over them.

A few days ago, The Times ran a story about DENY--Disgruntled Ex-New Yorkers--whose members like to sit around and complain about life in Los Angeles.

Just the kind of piece that upsets Louis Zigman of Beverly Hills, an ex-Big Appleite who’s the chairman of a rival group, New York Alumni.

Zigman, to paraphrase Sally Field’s Academy Awards speech, likes L.A.! He really likes L.A.!

He charged that DENY is a “narrow, unfortunate misconception of what some perceive as a stereotypical ex-New Yorker.” Indeed, there are “thousands” of other ex-Big Appleites who “enjoy California Dreamin’,” added the disgruntled Zigman.

Judson Morris, a Pasadena Municipal Court judge, has rendered decisions in a dozen murder trials this month--and he figures to knock off four more before May arrives. Talk about rushing to judgment.

Actually, Morris is portraying a judge in the Burbank Theater Guild’s production of “Sweet Victory,” a play about one of legendary attorney Clarence Darrow’s cases.

The judge landed the part because he happened to be watching a rehearsal when the actor who originally had the role stormed off the set.

“I read for the part, got it, and after one rehearsal, I was on the stage,” Morris said.

His legal experience helped him “stay in character” when he had to remind a fellow actor who nearly forgot to cross-examine a witness.

Morris plans to take some acting classes when the play closes.

“But,” he added, “I’m not going to give up my day job yet.”