A Grand Day Out

A Grand Day Out with Wallace and Gromit, later marketed as Wallace and Gromit: A Grand Day Out, is a 1989 British stop-motion animated short film starring Wallace and 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 Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers, 1995's Wallace and Gromit: A Close Shave, 2005's Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and 2008's Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death. A Grand Day Out was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1991.

Plot

During a bank holiday, the cheese-loving inventor Wallace and his dog Gromit search for places to spend time together. But cannot find anywhere so Wallace makes tea and gets crackers but finds out they run out of cheese. Believing that the moon is made of the stuff, they build a rocket, and, with some initial difficulty, launch into space. When they land, as they look for a place to sample the lunar landscape, they encounter a coin-operated robot resembling an oven on wheels. Wallace inserts a coin, but nothing happens. Some time after two leave their initial picnic spot, the robot activates and assesses the belongings and dishes left behind, taking some of them as clean-up.

The robot also discovers one of Wallace's skiing magazines as well, and suddenly develops a yearning to travel to Earth to ski there. As it further assesses the evidence of its new visitors, it repairs a discarded piece of the cheese landscape, issues a parking ticket for the rocket, and is annoyed by an oil leak from the craft. Discovering Wallace as the culprit, the robot sneaks up and is about to strike him with a clubbing baton, but the money Wallace inserted runs out, and it turns off. Wallace, unaware of any trouble, hits his head on the baton anyways as he gets up, but takes it as a souvenir, inserts another coin, and prepares to leave with Gromit.

Reactivating a bit later, the robot sees the two in their preparations. It hurriedly follows, hoping to travel with them to Earth. Wallace notices, and panics, assuming that the robot is angrily pursuing them for taking the cheese, and he and Gromit retreat into the rocket. They attempt to start the engine, but they discover they've neglected to light the rocket's fuse in their panic. Unable to climb the ladder to get into the rocketship, the robot cuts into the fuselage with a can opener. As it fumbles around in the dark, it accidentally knocks a fuel line open and ignites the vapours. The resulting explosion throws the robot clear, but also starts the engine and the rocket safely lifts off anyways.

The robot sadly and angrily resigns to its inability to go to Earth, until it realises that the strips of fuselage it held onto could be fashioned into crude skis. As it now-happily carouses around the lunar landscape, the robot 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. For Wallace, Park offered Peter Sallis £50 to voice the character, and the actor's acceptance greatly surprised the young animator.

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 Nick Park liked the sound of the word. Wallace was originally a postman named Jerry, but Park felt the name did not match well with Gromit. Park saw an overweight Labrador Retriever named Wallace, who belonged 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, original plans were that the film would be forty minutes long, including a sequence where Wallace and Gromit would discover a fast food restaurant on the Moon. Regarding the original plot, Park said:

The original story was that Wallace and Gromit were going to go to the Moon and there were going to be a whole lot of characters there. One of them was a parking meter attendant, which was the only one that remained — the robot cooker character — but there were going to be aliens, and all sorts. There was going to be a McDonald's on the Moon, and it was going to be like a spoof of Star Wars. Wallace was going to get thrown into prison and Gromit was going to have to get him out. By the time I came to Aardman, I had just started doing the Moon scene and somebody told me, "It's going to take you another nine years if you do that scene!" so I had to have a check with reality and cut that whole bit out. Somehow, I had to tie up the story on the Moon and finish the film.

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

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 100% approval rating based on 20 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10.

Awards and nominations

The short 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