ROCKS 8: Wallace & Gromit A Grand Day Out-The Wrong Trousers-A Close Shave-A Matter Of Loaf & Death

WELCOME EVERYBODY TO THE EIGHTH [B]STRAND OF THE NEW CLUB "R.O.C.K.S." - REWATCHING OLD CLASSIC KIDS SHOWS![/B]
A big thanks to everyone that are joining us through all of this.

This week, in honour of Peter Sallis who passed away a few days ago, we're doing another ROCKS-Movie Club tie-in, and watching the complete Wallace & Gromit. There were four animated shorts of about half an hour each, and one feature length adventure. The four standard length adventures are up for discussion here.

For the record, the duo's adventures were made in the following order:

A Grand Day Out
The Wrong Trousers
A Close Shave
THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT (feature length)
A Matter Of Loaf & Death

That said, there's not really any continuity points between the various different ones. You could probably watch them in any order and it wouldn't matter.

Remember any ideas for films to discuss are most welcome, and should be made on the Movie Club Introduction thread (the sticky one).

Just a friendly reminder to everyone that, whilst fans are obviously welcome to passionately discuss and give their views on these episodes, please remember to keep things on a friendly footing and respect your fellow posters.
Also, please do not post where or how to find the full movie online. And do not post asking others to PM it to you. You are however allowed to watch the movie in whatever manner you want.

These are wonderful animated shorts and they are all really fun and interesting. I wish they had made a few more shorts.

A Grand Day Out is a little dated compared to the others but it's still great.

The Wrong Trousers was a huge success. W&G's popularity at that time was huge. I remember collecting the figurines of they gave as free gifts in cereal. I believe it was in Kellogg's cereals. This is maybe my favourite of the bunch. The chance scene was an amazing accomplishment for stop motion animation.

I also really enjoyed a close shave. It's cool that this spawned it's own spinoff show of Shaun The Sheep.

For story and animation I think A Matter of Load and Death is probably the best of the series.
I was baking a Japanese Cheesecake the other day and realized just how popular W&G is. I was using our W&G mixing bowl with Gromit on it wearing a Chef's hat. We have had it since 2008 or 2009. It must have been made as part of the merchandise for AMOLAD. :)

I watched them one a day during the week, including the movie. And they're still great.

A Grand Day Out is really a completely different animal to the others. It doesn't really have a story, it's just a fun adventure. They weren't fully fleshed out characters as such here. You couldn't imagine them going to the moon without breathing equipment nowadays. Interesting thing about this is that the original plan was for Gromit to speak, and be voiced by Peter Hawkins (Jimbo & The Jet Set, The Family Ness, and I also know him from Dave Allen sketches), but then they decided/realised that his expressions said everything for him. And that was truly a masterstroke. You just can't imagine Gromit speaking nowadays, it would just be wrong!

The Wrong Trousers is probably still the most famous of these adventures (with the possible exception of the movie, although that may simply be because it was feature length). It's also still my favourite (although my favourite moment from the whole series is in the movie). Instead of just being a bit of fun, this one has a proper story. We get to see everything established - setup and payoff with all details in the right place. The characters are much more fleshed out now, and have real feelings. That's what sets this apart from your average run-of-the-mill clay animation, and what A Grand Day Out failed to do. We see the characters' minds at work, the penguin (or "chicken" on the wanted poster) knows what he's about, and first sets about alienating Gromit, and once he's out of the picture, makes Wallace and the techno-trousers instrumental in his plans. The "wake up and get dressed" sequence owes a lot to the launch sequences in Thunderbirds - as indeed do the equivalent sequences in the later adventures, which get more elaborate as time goes by. The chase sequence with the model railway - even that was established right at the beginning! - is indeed well done. There is a lot of action in it, and my favourite bit is when Gromit starts putting down the spare track at high speed to save them from crashing.

A Close Shave takes the franchise a little further - most notably by adding an extra name to the cast, Anne Reid as Wendolene, who also has a dog, albeit a robot one. This is a clever adventure because you know there's something bad going on, but you're not quite sure how good or bad Wendolene is, you keep changing your mind as the story unfolds. This adventure is also notable, as Mark said, for introducing Shaun The Sheep, who got his own spinoff show on CBBC, albeit over a decade later. There's plenty of action in this one, and it was inevitable that Nick Park would then go on to make a feature length adventure . . . but that's on the Movie Club thread!

A Matter Of Loaf And Death is unquestionably the darkest of these shorts, we have a very specific, very deliberate murder plot, courtesy of Piella Bakewell, who bears a grudge against bakers. Actually, when I watched it last week, it struck me that one story I wrote a few years later was probably influenced by this, and also A Close Shave, albeit subconsciously. And this show features two actual characters meeting their end through very unnatural causes, one at the start, one at the climax. Once again, the villain recognises Gromit as a threat, and seeks to alienate him from his owner.

There will almost certainly be no new adventures featuring the duo, since Peter Sallis, the actor who voiced Wallace in all of these stories, passed away earlier this month. But in spite of that - and the fact that there have been so few features with these characters, Wallace & Gromit have, over the last quarter of a century, become a national institution. And rightly so.

[USER=25438]@LiamABC[/USER] I read that Shaun the Sheep also got his own feature length movie.