Wallace and Gromit’s biggest mystery solved 35 years after BBC show’s debut
WALLACE and Gromit’s biggest mystery has been solved 35 years after the show’s debut on BBC.
The iconic pair are back on Christmas Day with the much anticipated Vengeance Most Fowl and fans finally have their biggest question answered.
Wallace & Gromit is a British stop-motion animated comedy series created by Nick Park and produced by Aardman Animations.
The much loved show centres on Wallace, a funny, eccentric, cheese-loving inventor, and Gromit, his loyal, clever and human like beagle.
But where did Wallace’s cheese obsession come from?
It’s always been Wallace’s favourite food and he’s seen reading Cheese Holidays and Cheese Monthly magazines in A Grand Day Out.
It even helps make his decision to go somewhere cheese-related in the film and after considering Lancashire, Cheddar, Wensleydale, Philadelphia and Tesco‘s he chooses the moon.
It gives him dietary problems in Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, whilst also bringing him back to life when he uses Stinking Bishop like smelling salts.
And when he ate too much cheese, he had problems sleeping in the Cracking Contraptions The Snoozatron short film.
Fans have been wondering for years why he’s such a fan of the stuff and finally we have an answer after 35 years of puzzlement.
In an interview with Metro, Nick said: ‘I went about it all the wrong way around.
“As a student, I wanted him to go to the moon with Gromit, but I couldn’t think of a reason.
“It was more in retrospect, because I did the first scene last and I just – “Of course, the moon’s made of cheese!
“And then it became an obsession in all of the films.”
Nick also revealed he wrote begging letters to Peter Kay to tempt him out of retirement for the new festive film Vengeance Most Fowl.
He said: “I actually wrote to him, I wrote a letter to him.
Wallace and Gromit: Films and TV Series
Beloved animated characters Wallace and Gromit made their first appearance in 1989. Over the following decades, they have become ingrained in popular culture and have won prestigious awards. Let's take a look at their extensive filmography.
Films
- A Grand Day Out (1989): The pair’s very first adventure, a short film which premiered at an animation festival in Bristol. It was broadcast on Channel 4 on Christmas Day 1990. It was also the first time that Last of the Summer Wine actor Peter Sallis voiced Wallace.
- The Wrong Trousers (1993): This second short film premiered in 1993 and introduced the villain Feathers McGraw. It won the Academy Award for Best Short Film.
- A Close Shave (1995): The duo’s third short film which also featured the debut of Shaun, the future title character of Shaun the Sheep.
- Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005): The first feature-length Wallace and Gromit film, which featured the voices of Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter and Peter Kay alongside that of Peter Sallis as Wallace. This film’s critical acclaim included winning a number of awards, namely the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
- A Matter of Loaf and Death (2008): The fourth Wallace and Gromit short film. This was a murder mystery which starred Peter Sallis, Ben Whitehead, Sally Lindsay and Geraldine McEwan.
- Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024): The second feature length Wallace and Gromit film. It features the return of Feathers McGraw and is also the first full film performance for Ben Whitehead as Wallace. He previously shared the role with Peter Sallis in A Matter of Loaf and Death.
TV series
- Wallace and Gromit’s Cracking Contraptions (2002): A series of ten stop-motion animation shorts of approximately one to three minutes each. All ten shorts were aired on BBC One.
- Wallace and Gromit’s World of Invention (2010): A science-themed miniseries and Peter Sallis’ last acting project before his retirement. Sallis died in 2017, at the age of 96.
“It was just to try and talk him into doing this again, you know, because of how wonderful he was in Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
“We told him that we’d expanded his character more in this one, he’s got a bigger role in this one.”
“He was just about to begin his giant tour as well, which we didn’t know at the time.
“So we did it while doing that, in between gigs.”
Peter’s return as Inspector Mackintosh in the upcoming Christmas film marks his official return to TV after four years absent from our screens.
He joins Ben Whitehead who voices eccentric inventor Wallace, along with Reece Shearsmith who plays Norbot, a smart gnome Wallace designed to do jobs around the house.
Lauren Patel also appears as PC Mukherjee, Chief Inspector Albert Mackintosh’s plucky young protégé.
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl airs on Christmas Day at 6.10pm on BBC1.