On November 17th, 2000 Cartoon Network premiered a new show that was starring a simple farm animal, some call this animal a sheep, those people are correct. Sheep in the Big City is about a sheep named Sheep who moves to the big city. It was created by Mo Willems, who had previously worked on Nickelodeon's "The Off Beats" which aired on "Kablam" but didn't become a series. He also some other accomplishments like working on Sesame street and "Code Name Kids Next Door".
"Sheep in the Big City" is one of those Cartoon Network series that seems to have been forgotten about in the life of Cartoon Network. To be honest, they had lot of shows that were popular and some shows just kind of slipped under the radar. This is a good series that didn't seem to last long.
The premise of the series is Sheep, the sheep, is a happy sheep with a farmer named Farmer John (he's a farmer). His favorite sheep seems to be Sheep. There's a secret government organization (don't lose us now) run by General Specific (get it?) and has a new giant ray gun. Also there's an angry scientist because this show is doing a reference to the difference between mad and angry. The ray is powered by using a sheep. Guess what Sheep is, that's right (a horse?) a sheep. Only one sheep can fit it and well guess who? The general threatens Farmer if he doesn't give up Sheep, he'll destroy the farm. Sheep decides to leave the farm to make sure he's safe and the farm isn't destroyed. After he escapes , General Specific's right hand man, Private Public.
Farmer goes out to look for Sheep and the military is looking for Sheep as well. Sheep has to figure out life in the big city. The series will mostly about Sheep living in the Big City and running from General Specific.
Most episodes start with a fake show that ends up being something Sheep is watching then he changes the channel and theme plays. The show divides it's 22 minute stories into 3 segments, that's right it doesn't do two 11 eleven minute stories, each episode is the full length. The titles of the different segments of episodes are sheep based puns because of course they , ewe wouldn't want it to not have sheep based puns, you'd lamb-bast the show. Most of the show's comedy is in word play. There is some slip stick , especially with Sheep being hit , and characters hitting , punching, falling and other things. Other parts of the show has it's own style with commercials they do in the show, mostly from a company called Oxy-Moron. (Get it ) Like how one ad makes a viewer think they are doing a roach killing ad, instead doing a product that makes the angry roaches, happy. It also incorporates other segments of different sketches.
Going back to the words of the show, they use a high vocabulary set of words, as part of the show's nature. This isn't really a talk down to an audience show. They have the narrator be part of the show, where he interacts with characters and events to the show and also does things for other the skits as well.
One of the episodes. I really enjoyed was "To Sheep, Perchance to Dream!" ,which takes the idea of a dream episode makes fun of it then accelerates into the most outrageous and funniest thing ever. It's a good example of the show's humor.
Funny enough, the other characters around Sheep are the interesting ones, since Sheep is a sheep who mostly functions as a sheep and does mostly normal sheep things. So General Specific, Lady Richington for example are interesting characters. Lady Richington has a dog named Swanky , who Sheep is in love with ,but she doesn't like him so she hits him with her metal wig. (That's a sentence) She finds new inventive ways to get Sheep away from her. The angry scientist doesn't like being called mad, that makes him angry.
The show's look is very retro in design. The homages to old style advertising in the episodes fit the show well. I like it, it's something we don't see much even in this day and age. The show has distinct design that makes it stand out.
more after the jump
Another interesting episode is "Agony of De-Bleat" since one of the main plots of the show is for the general to get Sheep for his sheep-powered ray, this episode decides to go and just have sheep be taken by the military. General Specific wants to fire everyone because he doesn't need them, also the Angry Scientist's ray wasn't finished because they weren't expecting this to actually work. So, they actually get Sheep and try the ray when the ray was finished and it ends up blowing up everything. (I hate when that happens)
The joke political ads in the episode , also have their own story that one joke from the first one, wraps up in the second in the obvious but surprising way. Back to the main episode, idea of the episode wanting do the thing of what would happen if Sheep was captured, then he gets helped out because the main objective of the show is them having to keep trying to catch Sheep.
In the pilot they do it, but they do the Hanna and Barbera classic background being the same in a loop but actually make it so obvious. The humor of this show is tightly confident.
The series didn't last long on Cartoon Network,where it ran 2 seasons with a total of 26 episodes and ended in 2002. It probably didn't get enough impact on CN's schedule. With a packed line up of original and acquired cartoons, it possibly didn't get to capture viewers. It has become more an obscure show that doesn't get much mention compared to it's contemporaries of "Ed Edd N Eddy", "Powerpuff Girls" , and "Courage, the Cowderly Dog". This show is a little more, I hate to say, that it might have been a little too high level for it's target audience or CN's preferred audience.
The show kind of wants you to know what certian things and words are for a joke to work. If you don't know what a bureaucrat is , then you kind of get lost when a girl singing she wants to be one for almost 2 minutes.
I think if someone older watches the show, they'll get a lot of the word play, and the word based jokes. The literal based humor might be hit or miss depending on a person, on the other hand. There are things in the series that almost anyone could enjoy. The slap stick is fun, and the characters are also pretty interesting and fun , where there's a variety of different personalities. Sheep is pretty interesting, even though he's not really able to talk in any human speech and functionally is just a sheep with some abilities to understand beyond what normal sheep would understand , but really his interactions are fun.
I really like how the show looks, I mentioned the coloring earlier, but how it looks. The characters have very distinct shapes and designs. Even sheep is very distinct, though if he's with other sheep it's a little not. The atmosphere feels bright and cheerful with a city that seems clean or something.
It's not like a show that's for every one (no show is) but I do think there is some greatness to this show. I can maybe understand why the show didn't catch fire on Cartoon Network versus the other shows on the network at the time.
That does it for now, tune in next time, when we somehow reboot the show and put episodes on the blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment