- Source: A Grand Day Out
A Grand Day Out is a 1989 British stop-motion animated short film starring Wallace & Gromit. It was directed, animated and co-written by Nick Park at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield and Aardman Animations in Bristol.
A Grand Day Out debuted on 4 November 1989, at an animation festival at the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol. It was first broadcast on Christmas Eve 1990 on Channel 4. It was followed by 1993's The Wrong Trousers, 1995's A Close Shave, 2005's The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and 2008's A Matter of Loaf and Death. A Grand Day Out was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1991.
Plot
The cheese-loving inventor Wallace (Peter Sallis) and his dog Gromit run out of cheese. Believing the moon is made of cheese, they build a rocket and fly to the Moon. They encounter a coin-operated robot. Wallace inserts a coin, but nothing happens. After he and Gromit leave, the robot comes to life and gathers the dirty plates left at the picnic spot.
The robot discovers a skiing magazine, and yearns to travel to Earth to ski there. It repairs a broken piece of landscape, issues a parking ticket for the rocket, and is annoyed by an oil leak from the craft. The robot sneaks up on Wallace and prepares to strike him with a truncheon, but the money Wallace inserted runs out, and it freezes. Wallace takes the robot's truncheon, inserts another coin, and prepares to leave with Gromit.
Returning to life, the robot follows Wallace and Gromit. Wallace panics, and he and Gromit retreat into the rocket. Unable to climb the ladder, the robot cuts into the fuselage with a can opener and accidentally ignites some fuel. The explosion throws it off the rocket and Wallace and Gromit lift off. Dejected, the robot fashions discarded fragments of rocket fuselage into skis, and skis across the lunar landscape. It waves goodbye to Wallace and Gromit as they return home.
Production
Nick Park started creating A Grand Day Out in 1982 as a graduation project for the National Film and Television School. In 1985, Aardman Animations took him on before he finished the piece, allowing him to work on it part-time while still being funded by the school.
To make the film, Park wrote to William Harbutt's company, requesting 1 long ton (1,000 kg) of Plasticine. The block he received had ten colours, one of which was called "stone"; this was used for Gromit. Park wanted to voice Gromit, but he realised the voice he had in mind – that of Peter Hawkins – would have been difficult to animate. Park offered Peter Sallis £50 to voice Wallace, and was surprised when he accepted.
Park wanted Wallace to have a Lancashire accent like his own, but Sallis could only do a Yorkshire voice. Inspired by how Sallis drew out the word "cheese", Park chose to give Wallace large cheeks. When Park called the actor six years later to explain he had completed his film, Sallis swore in surprise.
Gromit was named after grommets, because Park's brother, an electrician, often mentioned them, and Park liked the sound of the word. Wallace was originally a postman named Jerry, but Park felt the name did not match Gromit. Park saw an overweight Labrador Retriever named Wallace belonging to an old woman boarding a bus in Preston. Park commented it was a "funny name, a very northern name to give a dog".
According to the book The World of Wallace and Gromit, Park originally planned the film to be forty minutes long and to spoof Star Wars with numerous characters and a fast food restaurant on the Moon. Park shrank the story when he realised it would take him several more years to complete.
Home media
The short film was released on VHS in the 1990s by BBC Video. It was also reissued as a DreamWorks Pictures release along with The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave on the Wallace and Gromit in 3 Amazing Adventures DVD by DreamWorks Home Entertainment on 20 September 2005. In the United States, it was released on DVD on 10 February 2009 by Lionsgate Home Entertainment and HIT Entertainment. In the United Kingdom, it was again released on DVD in the 2000s.
Lionsgate Home Entertainment later released it on Blu-ray for the first time, under the release's name Wallace and Gromit: The Complete Collection, on 22 September 2009 in time for the 20th anniversary of the franchise.
Release
The short debuted on 4 November 1989 at the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol, UK, and debuted in the United States on 18 May 1990. It was also shown on Channel 4 on 24 December 1990 in the UK. It later aired on BBC Two on 25 December 1993 to promote The Wrong Trousers.
Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, A Grand Day Out has a 100% approval rating based on 20 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. It won the inaugural Best Short Animation award at the 43rd BAFTAs in 1990 and was nominated for Best Animated Short Film at the 63rd Academy Awards in 1991. Creature Comforts, another Park short, was also nominated for both awards and beat A Grand Day Out for the Academy Award.
References
External links
A Grand Day Out at the Official Wallace & Gromit website
A Grand Day Out at IMDb
A Grand Day Out at Rotten Tomatoes
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