Sunday, 15 April 2018

Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers

Channel: BBC/ Amazon Prime

Running Time: 30 minutes

Date: 1993


Britain's only hope.

Premise: Wallace is a man, and Gromit is a beagle. But you knew that already. Apart from the beagle bit, perhaps, because I always just classified Gromit as 'dog'. This is the Oscar-winning instalment two of the Wallace and Gromit series, following the Oscar-nominated A Grand Day Out (1989). There is no prior knowledge needed to enjoy this one, however, with only the spaceship models on the wall serving as a visual reminder of continuity. They live in Wigan, but essentially it's generic Lancashire, or, for those of you from south of say, Lancashire, it's 'The North'.  Running up large debts, Wallace is forced to take in a lodger, at the same time Gromit gets some Techno-Trousers for his birthday, allowing automated walkies and vacuum-feet for walking up walls. The lodger is a sinister penguin, who drives a wedge between Gromit and Wallace - commandeering Gromit's cosy bedroom, sycophantically fetching Wallace's slippers and newspaper, and leaving his music on till the late hours, disturbing Gromit's sleep. Gromit leaves home, tearfully.


Trousers - not yet the wrong ones. 
The second act sees the melodrama turn to crime-thriller, as you probably already know, but if you don't, I'll just say 'diamond heist', 'modified helmet' (lol) and 'train chase', and you know enough. Of course, the most wonderful aspect of this film is that it was shot using stop-motion animation, which involves 24 separate frames being shot for each second of animation. An interesting comparison is that of Paw Patrol, where this ratio is reversed, and it takes one second of cerebral activity to create 24 episodes.

Before the franchise really took off, this is a reminder of the more humble origins of the duo - the convoluted inventions of Wallace extend no further than the bed-tipping machine, utilised in a perfect rule-of-three across the course of the story, whilst the final line is a perfect come-down from the chaos of the train chase: "Ooh, I do like a bit of Gorgonzola" - a resolution as perfect as "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" or HYPERLINK "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_WkyalPOEI" "Tomorrow is another day!"


The eponymous trousers: reprise.

Background: The story of The Wrong Trousers is really the story of Nick Park, the creator of the duo and director of this film. He spent seven years bringing Wallace and Gromit to the small screen in their first adventure; A Grand Day Out was only beaten by Creature Comforts to the Best Animated Short Academy Award, which was another Nick Park creation, and from the same studios: Aardman Animations. The difference between the first and second offerings are stark: A Grand Day Out is noticeably rougher around the edges - fingerprints on clay, jumpier animation - but no worse off for it. But The Wrong Trousers has the mark of a big studio, higher production values, and a bigger staff.

The original, and clearly wrong, Wallace and Gromit.

If you are familiar with the stories that Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston were originally going to play each others' roles in Friends, as were John Le Mesurier and Arthur Lowe in Dad's Army, then you'll not be shocked to hear that Wallace and Gromit similarly evolved from a rather different conception. Wallace might have been called Jerry, and had a moustache; Gromit might have been a cat, and even when he became a dog, he might have been voiced. Even the smallest factors altered integral parts of the W&G aesthetic, as Park describes: "When Peter Sallis, who voices Wallace, said "No cheeeese, Gromit" for the first time, I realised how wide and toothy I was going to have to make Wallace's mouth."

For the iconic train chase, Park explains the methodology, in a quotation worth repeating in full:

"The train chase is something I'd never seen done before in stopframe animation. None of us knew how to do it – or even if it could work. In Tom and Jerry chases, you used to get the background whizzing by and repeating itself, so we tried the same. We built a 20ft long living room wall, 2ft high, and fixed the camera to the train, and filmed on a long shutter speed so the background looked blurry. It was quite a feat."


Something to do with shutter speeds makes this frame very clever.

Quite a feat indeed, Mr Park. There is an interview with Aardman's co-founder David Sproxton where he explains this in a bit more detail - I don't understand a lot of it, but, as with everything W&G related, it is wonderful to hear passionate people talk passionately about how they make wonderful things.

It is held in such high esteem that it is one of only three films made in 1993 to get a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and came 18th in the BFI list of the best British TV programmes ever. Ever. Above The World At War, for heaven's sake.

Entertainment:  It is tempting (and accurate) to class The Wrong Trousers as the zenith of the Wallace and Gromit series; although the train chase is the headline-grabber, other aspects of the story fly under the radar: Gromit's stalking of Feathers McGraw is pitched perfectly with terrific shadow work, and music by Julian Nott (more of which anon).

The comedy is also spectacular, and largely comes about not through Peter Sallis's tour de force as the only speaking actor, but in Gromit's eyebrow work, and his occasional forlorn looks to the camera. The dismissive look he gives Wallace after he asks, innocently enough, 'how were the Techno-Trousers?', is worth an acting Oscar in itself, and working with teenagers for a living, I know all about dismissive eyebrows. The fourth wall breaking, which could jar, is nice and subtle, and makes the audience see everything through his eyes to an extent.


Eyebrows: Underrated. Unless you're a teenaged girl, in which case they are overrated.


It is, perhaps, a little bit unfair to make comparisons with mass-market, mass-production television, but I'm going to anyway. The appeal of television such as W&G is the fact that you can see the fingerprints on the plasticine, literally and metaphorically. A number of people put their heart and soul into this work, a lot of the time not even knowing how or whether it would work. A classic example of a group of people working for the love of their craft rather than for money or prestige, but ending up with a stonking great pile of both anyway.

Nick Park with animator Steve Box: tiny men with normal-sized bow ties.

Ratings:

Sex: The first two episodes of W&G are short on romance, which is possibly why they work a little better than the subsequent two. Although it's nice to see that Gromit isn't entirely disinterested in the charming Fluffles in A Matter of Loaf and Death, it's a bit weird, and I don't think anyone's favourite part of A Close Shave was Wendoline. So, aside from Wallace's spotty boxer shorts, nothing to see here. (1/10)

Music: A massive triumph. The theme is one of the most uplifting sounds in existence, and the fact that my two-year old sings it is a massive bonus. You can access the full suite here, and the main theme is familiar to everyone, but the train chase is a masterpiece from start to finish.  Julian Nott returns to add to his work from A Grand Day Out, and it seems a bit of a shame that he is not more of a household name. He shouldn't be short of a few bob, though, having penned the massively successful Peppa Pig theme, too. (10/10)

Plausibility: Part of the reason W&G resonate so much with viewers is their ordinariness, rather than their extraordinariness. Cheese, tea, knitting, tinkering: these are some of the most 'British' signifiers you can mention before you start sounding like a Nigel Farage stream-of-consciousness (this blog is assuming Wallace voted for Brexit, Gromit to Remain). Although the plot itself is quite dramatic, there is a pleasingly nostalgic feel to the exterior shots - red-brick terraces, old metal dustbins and such - and the familiarity of Peter Sallis's voice from decades of The Last of the Summer Wine adds a comforting reassurance. Pleasingly high levels of verisimilitude for a show with an anthropomorphic dog and penguin. (6/10)

Education: Tricky. Objectively, there is actually the worrying lesson that you are right to be suspicious of shadowy strangers entering your neighbourhood, and you half expect Wallace and Gromit to turn to the camera at the end and say "No more 'lodgers'! They're more trouble than they're worth! Vote UKIP."


'Lodgers': more trouble than they're worth.

As for the Rube-Goldberg machine - Wallace's alarm clock bed is taken to extreme and unnecessary elaboration in A Close Shave and A Matter of Loaf and Death - but you only need to look at this guy to see that there are always people in this world who are going to be inspired to be as silly as possible for the minimum pay-off. (6/10)


A prototype from the Cameron government to try and prise benefits claimants from their beds.


Overall: Literally no-one dislikes Wallace and Gromit, and in these uncertain and volatile times, they are as dependable and comforting as a mug of tea, shards of Cadbury's Easter Egg chocolate, a hot water bottle, and a duvet, rolled into one (not literally of course; you'll make a big mess). Quite simply, one of the cultural triumphs of the whole of the 20th century, and that century included the Naked Gun trilogy. Seriously though, it's perfect. (10/10)

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