It’s Easter, lad, and our outings make cracking family viewing
he Easter break is upon us and with it comes the time to indulge in whatever takes your fancy – from bingewatching James Bond on ITVX or hoping the BBC sticks to its usual seasonal schedule with screenings of and
TITVX has done a deal to show 25 007 movies – from Connery to Craig and though it is tempting my eye is firmly on BBC iPlayer and its collection of Wallace and Gromit – stories of the good-natured, eccentric, cheese-loving inventor and his loyal and intelligent beagle.
Wallace and Gromit is a British stop-motion animated comedy franchise created by Nick Park. The main film series consists of four short films and one feature-length film.
They are has a superior mind and uses facial expressions to convey every emotion and reaction from dismay to delight, confusion to exasperation.
They live in Wigan and Wallace, voiced by
Peter Sallis, has the flat vowels of a northerner.
It’s amazing what you can do with a piece of plasticine and a camera … each of the episodes are non-stop, breathless, miniepics.
The musical scores – influenced by film soundtracks created by the likes of John Williams – are genius and help elevate the episodes. Their composer Julian Nott writes: “Cracking’ music, Gromit.” My favourites are and
The former introduced Shaun the Sheep – as in the poor escapee is shorn by one of Wallace’s inventions.
pays homage to film noir with all the tropes of the genre. Shaun and his pals seek refuge with Wallace and Gromit who are drawn into a rustling caper masterminded by cyber-dog Preston, the pet of the owner of a wool shop – voiced by Anne Reid – who catches Wallace’s eye, and as the traits of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator.
There is a prison escape, night-time car chases through narrow streets and a James Bondesque denouement before the final comic aside of Shaun the Sheep eating all the cheese.
One of the delights for older watchers is spotting the cultural references but you have to be quick as Nick Park wears his cleverness lightly. For instance, when Gromit is in jail, there is a glimpse of him in his cell reading by Fido Dogstoyevsky – a pun on
Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
is also murder-mystery set in the world of bakers and bakeries.
It has puns and cultural references a-plenty. The BakeO-Lite girl, voiced by Sally Lindsey, is a serial killer who wants to bag a ‘baker’s dozen’ of victims and set her sights on Wallace as her 13th ‘body’. It also features Pup Fiction The Dogfather
and Where –
–
Beagles Dare –
Gromit gains a love interest in the form of poodle Fluffles and at the end of the film, the trio drives off listening to performed, according to the record cover, by Doggy Osmond.
The whole 30 minutes references the advertisement for reduced-calorie Nimble Bread in which a young, slim woman took off in a hot air balloon to the tune of
by the Honeybus – which included the line: “She flies like a bird in the sky.” It ran for 10 years until 1977.
I got it – my great nephews and niece did not but all four of us devoured
Cracking viewing,
Gromit.