Sheep in the Big City

Ewe with us?

note

In case you didn’t know, it’s a pun on the old Cartoon Network slogan.

Created by illustrator Mo Willems, Sheep in the Big City (2000-2002) was one of the last shows aired as part of Cartoon Network’s Cartoon Cartoons note The last Cartoon Cartoon would be Codename: Kids Next Door, which debuted months after Sheep ended and was created by Tom Warburton, who was a crew member during Sheep’s second season.

The titular Sheep fled to the titular Big City in order to escape the sinister Secret Military Organization, who were seeking him to use in their sheep-powered ray gun. The various episodes revolved around Sheep adjusting to life in the Big City while trying to win over his love interest, Swanky the Poodle, and dodging such foes as General Specific (leader of the secret Military Organization still trying to track Sheep down) and Lady Richington (Swanky’s ill-tempered, sheep-hating owner with a stainless steel wig).

The show was structured as a sort of Rocky and Bullwinkle for the new millennium, featuring humorous fake advertisements and variety sections before and after real commercial breaks, often being strange non-sequiturs and generally weird.

The pilot, “In the Baa-ginning”, first aired on the “Cartoon Cartoon Summer” block on August 18, 2000. The series officially premiered on November 17, 2000, and ended on April 7, 2002 after two seasons.

After quietly fizzling out and being forgotten for many years, in 2022, the series became available for streaming on HBO Max Latin America (though a few episodes are missing). Both the English and Spanish dubs of the episodes can be found on there, and they are the original NTSC masters that haven’t been seen since the show was taken off the air. These HBO Max LA Rips have since been made available for American viewers through Google Drive ports, both the original English versions and the Spanish dubs.