Wallace & Gromit: Una fantastica gita

In this Wallace and Gromit short, the clay twosome voyage to the moon in order to replenish their cheese supplies. They also learn that traffic wardens have dreams too. This is stylish and funny and will leave you wanting to see more.

To my mind, this is the best W&G outing. Let me explain. I agree that the characters are not as developed as they were in 'The Wrong Trousers' or 'A Close Shave' and also the plot is weaker. Some of the models are not as refined as they came to be (this is after all the first W&G film).

What it has that the other W&G offerings lack is that feeling of sadness and mood that the 'The Wrong Trousers' and 'A Close Shave' replace with story telling. This is closer to Tom and Jerry than it is to Chicken Run. It has laughs sure, but the feeling I have when the credits role is of one of wistfulness and a slight melancholy. Not bad for 20 minutes of plasticine animation!

See this Wallace and Gromit, then move onto the others asap.

Nick Park has delighted many with his unique creations. Wallace and Gromit is the best of the lot, though Chicken Run is great too. Although this is the weakest offering from them(some of the clay was a bit runny), it is still hilarious. Wallace is superlatively voiced by Peter Sallis, and it is pretty much a one-man show. I loved Gromit, and although he never speaks, his facial expressions are priceless. I loved the idea of Wallace thinking the moon was made of cheese, and the plot never ran out of steam. The scenes on the moon, with the yellow box on wheels, were well done too. in conclusion, although this is the weakest short in terms of quality, the one that started it all is well worth watching. 9/10 Bethany Cox.

There is a lot of be admired about the Wallace and Gromit short films. The intricate craftsmanship is always excellent, and you can only imagine how long it must have taken to film even a second of the stop-motion animation. The humour is gentle and family-friendly, and also very British… if that can serve as an adequate description. In this, the first film out of three directed by Nick Park – not including the Oscar-winning feature length film of 2005 – 'A Grand Day Out' is a genuinely entertaining 23 minutes of imagination and creativity, completed over six years by Park, who produced the film as part of his graduation project from the National Film and Television School.

I have heard some remark that the animation in this film is poor, and yet I find myself wondering how they came to this conclusion. Of course, the work may not be as refined as the later additions to the series, given that Park was less experienced and was undoubtedly working on a smaller budget, but the quality is still never anything less than excellent. The story begins on a rather dull banking holiday, and the good-natured Wallace (voiced by Peter Sallis) is unsuccessfully trying to decide where he and his canine companion Gromit are to spend their day off. Suddenly, Wallace makes a horrifying discovery: their house is completely devoid of dairy products! And so – as anybody might do in such a situation – the pair endeavour to travel to the Moon, which everybody knows is comprised of cheese.

Wallace, being an enthusiastic inventor, casually tosses together a space rocket, and pretty soon they are ready for their big journey. In probably the film's most memorable sequence, Wallace realises, just as the launch countdown is beginning, that they forgot to bring the crackers. Imagine going to the Moon without crackers! However, some quick-thinking and agility from Wallace eventually saves the day, and the pair pass their otherwise uneventful Moon-ward journey by reading the newspaper and building delicate playing card pyramids. Their picnic on the lunar surface offers a hint of imaginative absurdity, with the main storyline concerning a coin-operated gas oven who lives on the Moon, writes out parking tickets and dreams of skiing.

All this makes for a quirky, clever and humorous short film that literally anybody can enjoy. Interestingly, 'A Grand Day Out with Wallace and Gromit' was nominated for Best Animated Short at the 1991 Academy Awards, but failed to take the statue. I don't imagine, however, that Nick Park would have despaired; he lost out to a film called 'Creature Comforts'... directed by Nick Park!

Wallace and Gromit are a phenomenon. How many stop motion animation films win Oscars, top the US and UK box office charts etc. But all that came later.

A Grand Day Out was the first Wallace and Gromit film. Low budget. More or less a graduation piece. Of course the animation is less sophisticated than in the later films. Of course the plot is a little shallow. The entire story is designed to minimise the need for sophisticated animation and to maximise the excuse for shortcomings (perhaps dogs and people would move a bit like that on a cheese moon).

Yet it is extraordinary to see how much of the Aardman genius is already there in this short film. Hilarious and clever references to other films. Mice in shades for take off. The rocket handbrake gag. Coin-operated machine gags (brilliantly recycled in Were-Rabbit BTW). And a machine (is it an Aga?) that daydreams about skiing when it sees Wallace's holiday magazines.

Of course TWT, ACS and Were-Rabbit are better movies, but this film is so worth seeing as a sign of early genius and indeed in its own right as a crude but wonderful animated film.

Together with 'Wallace & Gromit: A Close Shave' and 'Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers' this is one of the funniest things I have seen. The clay animation looks great, the stories are very ingenious and the jokes are great. If you get a chance to see this, please do it. You will have a great time.

I have to say that both 'A Close Shave' and 'The Wrong Trousers' are better than this one, but you will still have a great time watching this one.