Directed by Nick Park
Voices: Peter Sallis
Daddy Says:
Wallace & Gromit in Three Amazing Adventures is the DVD release featuring three of the short films by claymation animator Nick Park. The set includes A Grand Day Out, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, as well as A Close Shave and The Wrong Trousers, both of which took home the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film.
For anyone unfamiliar with the animated duo, Wallace is the human and Gromit is the dog, although since Gromit is the more mature, intelligent and less scatter-brained of the pair, their roles aren't really that rigid. They're English, meaning they enjoy a nice cup of tea in the afternoons, along with some cheese and crackers. Their first short, A Grand Day Out, revolves around what to do when they're out of cheese. Now everyone knows that the moon is made of cheese, so the logical thing to do is to build a rocket ship and fly to the moon to get some cheese, right?
Park's second short, The Wrong Trousers, takes place on Gromit's birthday. For a present, Wallace invents a pair of mechanical pants that will be happy to take Gromit out for "walkies". Soon, a new lodger in the form of a penguin shows up, and it looks like Gromit may be being replaced as the favorite pet. But the penguin may have ulterior motives, and it's up to Gromit to come to the rescue.
A Close Shave tells the story of a lost sheep named Shawn, some sheep rustlers, a forced shortage of wool, and a possible love interest for Wallace. Then there's the Knit-o-Matic, which will wash the sheep, give him a "close shave", process the raw wool, knit a sweater and even put it on for you. Anyone who's seen Park's Chicken Run will recognize this device as an early prototype for the Pie Making Machine in that film.
All three of these shorts are at least worth watching. The latter two, especially, show a marked improvement in the animation of the first one. Their stories as well become more complex, yet not hard to follow in the slightest. Even the jokes get more elaborate as they progress, sometimes building off of things that happened either earlier in the same film or sometimes in the prior ones.
Ten years after these shorts were made, Nick Park made a full-length feature featuring this lovable duo. It's possible that you'll be able to find the feature easier than these short films, but if you've never seen a Wallace & Gromit film I'd recommend you start with these three classic short films.
Rating for Wallace & Gromit in Three Amazing Adventures: *****.
My Son Says:
Wallace & Gromit is probably the best claymation I've ever seen. My favorite part of A Close Shave was when there were a bunch of sheep in his house and at the very end of the scenes where he was crying about Gromit being put in jail, the sheep started crying as well. In The Wrong Trousers, when Wallace was trapped in the mechanical trousers and the pants were walking up a wall with him inside them, there is a very funny part when he gets inside the building and nearly trips a burglar alarm. Also, when Gromit is spying on the penguin from the inside of a cardboard box through cut-out eye holes, you think the penguin sees him looking out, but then he thinks otherwise and leaves. It's then that we see that the eye holes that Gromit cut out exactly match the eye holes of the picture on the outside of the box. It's very funny.
Rating for Wallace & Gromit: *****.
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