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Don't Give Up the Sheep

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Don't Give Up the Sheep
Title card
Directed byCharles M. Jones
Story byMichael Maltese
Produced byEdward Selzer (uncredited)
StarringMel Blanc
Music byCarl Stalling
Animation byKen Harris
Ben Washam
Lloyd Vaughan
Layouts byRobert Gribbroek
Backgrounds byCarlos Manriquez
Color processTechnicolor
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros. Pictures
Release date
  • January 3, 1953 (1953-01-03)[1]
Running time
7 minutes
LanguageEnglish

Don't Give Up the Sheep is a 1953 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Chuck Jones.[2] The short was released on January 3, 1953, and stars Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog.[3]

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

This is the first short featuring Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog and is the prototype for the following six shorts (here, Sam is referred to as Ralph, while Ralph Wolf is unnamed, although he is later given the name "George" in Sheep Ahoy, before both of their names became consistent as Sam and Ralph in Double or Mutton). The title is a play on the expression "Don't give up the ship". Like all Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog shorts, this one revolves around Ralph Wolf trying to steal the sheep which Sam Sheepdog is guarding, though Ralph does not work with Sam in this one, unlike later shorts.

Plot

The story begins with Sam Sheepdog walking to work, where he greets Fred Sheepdog by the punch clock. After punching in, Sam puts away his lunch box and proceeds to go the cliff to watch the sheep on the field. Later on, Ralph appears from behind the bush and looks at the sheep, imagining lamb dishes. Ralph decides to get a sheep by distracting Sam.

  1. Ralph's first attempt is to trick Sam into going home early, by turning the time on the punch clock forward and setting the whistle off. Sam is initially tricked into thinking that the whistle has indicated lunch and then quitting time, punches out, and heads home. However, he quickly notices on the clock of a church steeple with its bells chiming that it is 9:00, and hurries back, only to see Ralph carrying a comically large pile of sheep. As Ralph walks offscreen, he is suddenly ambushed by an enraged Sam, who breaks a tree branch over his head. Sam proceeds to carry the sheep back. Ralph is then seen buried up to the shoulder, dazed.
  2. Ralph's second attempt involves disguising himself as a bush. After stealing a sheep and starting to run away, he runs past Sam, who himself is disguised as a tree and starts to follow Ralph. Sam hits Ralph on the head with a branch, leaving Ralph very confused and with a large lump on his head. After attempting to run further, this occurs once more, and Ralph is left with two lumps on his head. Ralph then gives up and carries the sheep back to the field before leaving as Sam impatiently taps his foot (disguised as a tree root).
  3. For his third attempt, Ralph reads a book of Greek myths which explains that Pan would "lull shepherds to sleep with the music of his pipes and then steal the sheep." Disguising himself as Pan, Ralph attempts to lull Sam to sleep with a flute, but Sam merely punches Ralph in the face and Ralph stumbles away and continues to play his song, out of tune.
  4. Ralph's fourth attempt involves tunneling under the field and pulling each sheep down through very small holes. This is mostly successful, until Ralph unwittingly pulls Sam underground and gets punched in the face. Ralph politely returns all the sheep and refills his tunnel.
  5. In his fifth attempt, Ralph places an Acme product behind Sam, labelled "One Acme Wild-Cat - Handle with Care". Ralph carefully opens the box with a rope from a distance behind another hill, only to have the wildcat simply run in circles towards him. The wildcat can be seen maiming and scratching Ralph, leaving him dazed with part of his fur torn away.
  6. Ralph's sixth attempt is to swing on a rope over the field and snatch a sheep. Unfortunately, he unwittingly snatches Sam out of the flock. After realizing this, he leaves Sam at the bottom of the rope and climbs to the branch where the rope is tied, and proceeds to saw the end of the branch off. After seemingly sending Sam crashing to the ground, Sam appears further down the branch and saws it off at that point, sending Ralph off the tree. After Ralph seemingly hits the ground, he appears at the start of the branch and saws it off, causing Sam to fall. Sam reappears at the bottom of the tree and chops it down with an axe, causing it to fall down the cliff. Ralph reappears nearby and uses a pick axe to detach the edge of the cliff in an attempt to send Sam falling. The cartoon then disobeys the law of gravity and leaves Sam's piece of the Earth floating in the air, as the rest of the cliff Ralph is standing on falls down. Sam shrugs over the events.
  7. Ralph's seventh, and seemingly final attempt, has him snatch a sheep which is drinking from edge of a lake. He uses a hollow rush to swim through the lake unnoticed. Sam notices the rush sticking out of the water and drops a stick of dynamite into it. Blasted by a small underwater explosion like a "tsunami", Ralph surfaces and then sinks like a shipwreck.

At the end of the short, Sam walks toward the punch clock as Fred Sheepdog punches in and greets him. Suddenly, Sam hits Fred over the head with a club, revealing him to be really Ralph in a flawless disguise (complete with latex mask). As Sam begins spanking Ralph with the club, the real Fred Sheepdog shows up and takes over for him, proceeding to spank Ralph.

Music

The music in the title card is "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep", just like in Steal Wool. Additional featured music includes Gioachino Rossini's William Tell Overture and Felix Mendelssohn's Spring Song (the latter is played on flute by Ralph Wolf while he is disguised as Pan).[4][5]

Home media

This cartoon is featured on disc 3 of Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1 (2003).

See also

References

  1. ^ Despite having been released in 1953, the cartoon uses 1951-1952 opening and closing sequences.
  2. ^ Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Co. p. 243. ISBN 0-8050-0894-2.
  3. ^ Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. p. 128. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  4. ^ "Steal Wool (1957) - Soundtracks". IMDb.com, Inc. Retrieved 1 March 2019.
  5. ^ "Don't Give Up the Sheep (1953) - Soundtracks". IMDb.com, Inc. Retrieved 1 March 2019.
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