Sheep Ahoy

Sheep Ahoy is a 1954 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Chuck Jones.[1] The short was released on December 11, 1954, and stars Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog.[2]

Sheep Ahoy
Title card
Directed byCharles M. Jones
Produced byEdward Selzer (uncredited)
Story byMichael Maltese
StarringMel Blanc
Music byMilt Franklyn
Animation byRichard Thompson
Abe Levitow
Layouts byMaurice Noble
Backgrounds byPhilip DeGuard
Color processTechnicolor
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros. Pictures
The Vitaphone Corporation
Release date
December 11, 1954
Running time
6 minutes and 40 seconds
LanguageEnglish

Mel Blanc provided for the voices of all the characters in this cartoon, however, like all Sam Wolf and Ralph Sheepdog shorts, this short is mostly composed of visual gags.

This is the second short featuring Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog. The title is a play on the phrase "Ship ahoy!"

Plot

This story revolves around Ralph Wolf trying to steal the sheep guarded by Sam Sheepdog. Sam pushes a rock over the ledge, which falls on Ralph's head.

  1. .Ralph attempts to drop a large boulder on Sam, but a tree branch catches the boulder and propels it upwards again as it crushes Ralph.
  2. .Ralph then tries to pole vault over Sam, but Sam grabs the pole, lowers it over the edge until Ralph is eye level with Sam, and punches him in the face.
  3. .Ralph surrounds himself with a cloud of smoke from an Acme smoke bomb. Sam drops a stick of dynamite in his smoke cloud. Ralph stumbles off a cliff.
  4. .Ralph uses an Acme disguise, an artificial rock, but Sam hits the fake rock with a sledge hammer. Ralph breaks apart into a number of pebbles, which all move into Ralph's cave.
  5. .Ralph dives off a cliff while tied to a very large helium balloon and carrying a fishing rod to snag a sheep. He snags his balloon with his fish hook and rips the balloon, sending him flying into the horizon.
  6. .Ralph tunnels under the field. As he reaches up through the holes, he feels what appears to be four sheep legs strapped to a drum of TNT. Believing this to be a sheep, he pulls it into his tunnel. After the explosion, he places the drum back where it was sitting.
  7. .Ralph swims through a stream with a pedal-powered submarine to catch a sheep which is taking a drink of water. As he swims, Sam holds a sign in front of his periscope which reads "DETOUR". After following the arrow on the sign, Ralph falls off a waterfall.
  8. .Finally, Ralph tries to propel Sam off his perch by placing a teeter totter under Sam and dropping a rock on it from a large height. Sam is propelled straight upward toward Ralph's cliff, where he grabs Ralph by the neck and begins punching him in the face. The time clock whistle blows and Ralph and Sam change shifts with their replacements George Wolf and Fred Sheepdog. Their replacements stand in the same position that Sam and Ralph were standing in before the whistle blew and Fred begins punching George in the face.

Inconsistency in naming

Like Don't Give Up the Sheep, the names of the characters are inconsistent in this short compared to the rest of the shorts. At the beginning of the short, Sam the sheepdog is coming on duty to replace another sheepdog named Fred. As the two pass, Fred calls Sam "Fred" and Sam calls Fred "Ralph". At the end of the short they reverse the names.

This is also the only episode where Ralph's replacement is shown. Ralph's replacement (who rather resembles Wile E. Coyote) refers to Ralph as "George", and Ralph refers to him as "Sam".

Home media

This short is available on the Looney Tunes Collectors Edition: Canine Corps VHS from Columbia House.

See also

References
  1. Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Co. p. 267. ISBN 0-8050-0894-2.
  2. Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. p. 128. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
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