Ready, Woolen and Able (1960) User Reviews

One of the best cartoons in an unjustly overlooked series

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 12 September 2016]

The Ralph Wolf and Sam the Sheepdog series was very short-lived, but unjustly so. It was very much a very good series of cartoons, and of the series of cartoons short-lived it's one of the better ones.

'Ready, Woolen and Able' is up there with the best of the Ralph and Sam cartoons. Story-wise it may not be exactly original, and while the cartoon is never dull and very lively in pacing it is occasionally a tad rushed as a result of having so much material.

However, 'Ready, Woolen and Able' is animated beautifully, for a series of cartoons made late in Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies' prolific output the Ralph and Sam cartoons were generally some of the better-looking cartoons from this period, being colourful and inventively detailed with smooth and fluid character designs. The music is lushly and cleverly orchestrated, with lively and energetic rhythms and fits very well indeed.

Chuck Jones' trademark visual style and humour is all over the cartoon, and has lost none of its imagination or the clever and razor-sharp wit present throughout his career. The sight gags are unmistakably Jones and even if slightly familiar are still hilarious at their best with not a misfiring gag among a cartoon full of them. The ending especially is one of the best scenes in a Ralph and Sam cartoon.

Sam is a strong character and is very likable, but Ralph makes even more of an impression, being funnier and more interesting (agree with the Wile E. Coyote comparison). Mel Blanc is characteristically fantastic.

To summarise, in an unjustly overlooked series of cartoons 'Ready, Woolen and Able' is one of the best. 9/10 Bethany Cox

"Good morning, Sam."

[utgard14 · 7/10 · 29 August 2016]

Another fun Ralph & Sam short from Chuck Jones. The plot is basically the same in all of these shorts - a sheepdog named Sam guards the flock of sheep while a wolf named Ralph tries repeatedly to steal one. The joke is that they clock in and out of their jobs each day and when they aren't working they're friendly with one another. Basically all the humor comes from the various sight gags, just like Jones' Road Runner series. In this one, Ralph tries dynamite, a barrel of gunpowder, ACME springs, and a trapeze to get at the sheep. My favorite part of the cartoon is a version of the rake gag that Sideshow Bob would do so well on The Simpsons decades later. It's a fun cartoon in an underrated series. If you like the Road Runner and Coyote cartoons, you should enjoy this as well.

Poor Ralph!

[llltdesq · 9/10 · 25 May 2002]

This is another short featuring Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf, one of Chuck Jones's more interesting short series. I personally prefer these (slightly) to Marvin the Martian and the Tasmanian Devil. In this particular one, there's a beautiful running gag and the ending is marvelous! My heart goes out to poor, who really needs to take a vacation! Glad to see it's in print. Most recommended.

Wile E Coyote in another role

[DaniGirl1969 · 8/10 · 14 August 2011]

Creator Chuck Jones once described Ralph Wolf as "Wile E Coyote in another role" -- and this must have been the episode he was thinking of when he wrote that. Ralph is very Wile E-like in this episode, holding up a tiny umbrella as he's about to be flattened by a flying boulder, and his patented cliff dive, complete with shotgun sound-effect when he hits. There's also the stick of dynamite that he tries to catapult at Sam Sheepdog but it simply rolls down the plank to Ralph's feet before detonating. But the end sequence is the best part of this cartoon. Sam always seems to have the ability to magically appear wherever Ralph is -- and in "Ready Woolen and Able" we see how -- apparently Sam owns a cloning device that makes endless copies of him -- enough to make poor Ralph finally blow his stack and be carried away in a padded wagon. A very funny ending to a hilarious cartoon.

Something about this seems familiar...

[griffin84 · 23 November 2003]

When I first saw this cartoon years ago, I was convinced that Ralph had to be Wile E. Coyote with red paint on his nose. After all, Ralph follows Wile E.'s moves to a T, from ordering products from the ACME company (the bedsprings on the feet), to falling off the cliff (complete with the bird's eye view that we've all grown to love on the Wile E./Road Runner cartoons), and even holding up the little umbrella when he's almost flattened by a boulder. Even now that I'm older and know the difference between the two cartoon characters, I watch this cartoon and I still feel a strong Wile E. Coyote sense to it (watch any of the Road Runner cartoons directed by Chuck Jones and you'll understand what I mean). I don't know if it's because of that feeling or not, but this is one of my favorites, hands down. When Ralph starts seeing Sam all over the place is a classic running gag that I love watching, no matter how many times it gets copied. I recommend this cartoon to any avid fan, no doubt about it.

nice touch

[lee_eisenberg · 9/10 · 1 June 2007]

In one of several cartoons featuring Ralph Wolf (who looks exactly like Wile E. Coyote except for a red nose) and his co-worker Sam Sheepdog, the former devises all sorts of plans to steal sheep but the latter always foils him. Now that I'm old enough to think about this, I find it neat how they at first look like best friends - even greeting each other as they punch the time cards - but spend the rest of the cartoon as staunch rivals. Whatever you can think of that happens to Wile E. Coyote also happens to Ralph Wolf. And I sure couldn't have predicted that whole end gag! Anyway, you're sure to love "Ready, Woolen and Able"; you'll be ready, willing and able to watch it.

A rickety old car and a fancy sports car. What a way to trick people...

A great finish!

[JohnHowardReid · 7/10 · 10 March 2018]

STARS are "Sam Sheep-dog", "Ralph Wolf".

Director: CHARLES M. JONES. Story: Michael Maltese. Animation: Ken Harris, Richard Thompson, Ben Washam. Lay-outs: Maurice Noble. Backgrounds: Philip De Guard. Film editor: Treg Brown. Voice characterizations: Mel Blanc. Music director: Milt Franklyn. Color by Technicolor. 1 reel. 6 minutes. Copyright 1960. A Warner Bros "Merrie Melodies" cartoon. U.S. release: 30 July 1960.

COMMENT: This is the one with the extended climax featuring an ingenious multiplicity of sheep-dogs. Up to this point the jokes have been pretty routine, though those unfamiliar with the series will undoubtedly find these variations of previous run-ins fairly amusing.

On the other hand, those ubiquitous Sams are a grand jest indeed.

Starting in the 1930s, the always eponymous Warner Bros. . . .

[oscaralbert · 8/10 · 5 July 2018]

. . . released thousands of warnings to We Americans (of The Then Far Future), many from the crack team of cartoon clairvoyants forming their Animated Shorts Seers division (aka, The Looney Tuners), including READY, WOOLEN AND ABLE. This particular cautionary tale is in that Portents of Doom majority that provide more than enough gloomy prognostications to convince any Open-Minded American that the Red Commie KGB has dictated every deplorable move of it's affiliated Pachyderm Puppet Party since at least the early 1930s. Along these lines, READY, WOOLEN AND ABLE traces such early disasters as the slaughter of America's World War One heroes--along with their families--at Washington's Capitol Steps (when the boulder dynamited by Ralph Wolf, representing the sorry Pachyderms, crushes him, to denote the 20-year White House exile for the Goopers following their crushing of the War Vets) to the Phony Baloney "Witch Hunts" of the 1950s (symbolized when Mr. Wolf messes with the Acme Corp. bed springs). At 3:51, Sam Sheepdog punches the traitorous wolf off America's cliff, foretelling the defection of Russian KGB Chief Putin's current White House proxy to the Kremlin. Soon hundreds of Sam's are shown ushering Ralph Every Traitor into the sea, including a sojourn in a whale's belly, which forecasts the coming deportation of about 100 million Pachyderm enablers (who canceled out their membership cards with Uncle Sam through their brainless perfidy) to that Delaware-sized ice berg breaking off from Antarctica for a Seven-Generation cooling off period.