Wallace & Gromit is a British stop-motion animated comedy franchise created by Nick Park and produced by Aardman Animations. The series centres on Wallace, a good-natured, eccentric, cheese-loving inventor, and Gromit, his loyal and intelligent anthropomorphic beagle. It consists of four short films, two feature-length films and has spawned numerous spin-offs and TV adaptations. The first short film, A Grand Day Out, was finished and released in 1989. Wallace was voiced by actor Peter Sallis until 2010 when he was succeeded by Ben Whitehead. While Wallace speaks very often, Gromit is largely silent and has no dialogue, communicating through facial expressions and body language.
Aardman Animations Limited, stylised as AARDMAN since 2022, is a British animation studio based in Bristol. It is known for films and television series made using stop motion and clay animation techniques, particularly those featuring its plasticine characters from Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep, and Morph. After some experimental computer-animated short films during the late 1990s, beginning with Owzat (1997), Aardman entered the computer animation market with Flushed Away (2006). As of February 2020, it had earned $1.1 billion worldwide, with an average $135.6 million per film. Between 2000 and 2006, Aardman partnered with DreamWorks Animation.
Nicholas Wulstan Park is an English filmmaker and animator who created Wallace & Gromit, Creature Comforts, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep, and Early Man. Park has been nominated for an Academy Award a total of six times and won four with Creature Comforts (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993), A Close Shave (1995) and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).
Rex the Runt is a stop-motion adult animated claymation pixilation comedy series, primarily consisting of a television show and two short films produced by Aardman Animations and Egmont Imagination for BBC Bristol, with EVA Entertainment co-producing the first series. Its main characters are four plasticine dogs: Rex, Wendy, Bad Bob and Vince.
Norman Antony Hart was an English artist best known for his work in educating children in art through his role as a children's television presenter.
Claymation, sometimes called clay animation or plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop-motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine clay.
Wallace & Gromit's Cracking Contraptions is a British series of ten Wallace & Gromit stop motion animations varying in length from 1 to 3 minutes. Each episode features one of Wallace's new inventions and Gromit's skeptical reaction to it. The series was produced and released in 2002 by Aardman Animations. All ten shorts were aired on BBC One after the television premiere of Chicken Run (2000).
David Alan Sproxton is a British entrepreneur, best known as one of the co-founders, with Peter Lord, of the Aardman Animations studio. Sproxton was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) on 17 June 2006.
Peter Duncan Fraser Lord CBE is a British animator, director, producer and co-founder of the Academy Award-winning Aardman Animations studio, an animation firm best known for its clay-animated films and shorts, particularly those featuring plasticine duo Wallace & Gromit. He also directed Chicken Run along with Nick Park from DreamWorks Animation, and The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! from Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation which was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 85th Academy Awards.
Shaun the Sheep is a British stop-motion animated silent children's television series which is developed by Aardman Animations. A spin-off in the Wallace & Gromit franchise, the series focuses on the adventures of Shaun, the eponymous sheep previously starring in A Close Shave, as the leader of his flock on an English farm. The series premiered on 5 March 2007 on CBBC in the UK, also airing on BBC Two. Since 2020, the series is streamed globally on Netflix. In March 2024, it was announced that the seventh series is in development and will premiere in 2025. With 170 episodes over 6 series, Shaun the Sheep is one of the longest-running animated series in British television.
Richard Starzak, previously known as Richard "Golly" Goleszowski, is an English animator, screenwriter, and film director.
United Kingdom Animation began at the very origins of the art form in the late 19th century. British animation has been strengthened by an influx of émigrés to the UK; renowned animators such as Lotte Reiniger (Germany), John Halas (Hungary), George Dunning and Richard Williams (Canada), Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton have all worked in the UK at various stages of their careers. Notable full-length animated features to be produced in the UK include Animal Farm (1954), Yellow Submarine (1968), Watership Down (1978), and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).
Timmy Time is a British stop motion animated television programme for preschoolers created and produced by Bob the Builder producer Jackie Cockle for the BBC's CBeebies and produced by Aardman Animations. It started broadcasting in the United Kingdom on 6 April 2009. It is a spin-off of Shaun the Sheep, itself a spin-off of the Wallace & Gromit film A Close Shave (1995).
Christopher Sadler is a British animator, director and writer. He is primarily known for his work on Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, Rex the Runt, Cracking Contraptions, Creature Comforts and Shaun the Sheep.
Shaun the Sheep Movie is a 2015 animated adventure comedy film written and directed by Richard Starzak and Mark Burton. It is based on the British television series Shaun the Sheep, in turn a spin-off of the Wallace & Gromit film A Close Shave (1995). Starring the voices of Justin Fletcher, John Sparkes, and Omid Djalili, the film follows Shaun and his flock navigating the big city to save their amnesiac farmer, while an overzealous animal control worker pursues the group. It was produced by Aardman Animations, and financed by StudioCanal in association with Anton Capital Entertainment.
The Amazing Adventures of Morph is a British stop-motion clay animation television show created by Aardman Animations which ran from 1980 to 1981. It featured the character Morph and his cream-coloured best friend Chas.
Shaun in the City was a public charity arts trail organised by Wallace & Gromit's Children's Foundation and Aardman Animations, in which 120 giant, artist and celebrity-decorated fibreglass sculptures of Shaun the Sheep were displayed in famous locations and green spaces around London and Bristol. The first 50 Shaun sculptures appeared in London from 28 March to 31 May 2015, with a further 70 Shaun sculptures appearing in Bristol from 6 July to 31 August 2015.
Counterfeit Cat is a British-Canadian animated television series developed by Aardman Animations, Cristina Fiumara, and Ben Marsaud. The series is produced by Wildseed Kids, Tricon Kids & Family, and Aardman Animations in association with Teletoon, with the participation of Disney XD, and with animation provided by Atomic Cartoons. The series follows the lives of a Manx cat named Max and an alien named Gark as they live in an apartment alongside her animal friends, aliens, humans and many more zany adventures together.
Aardman Animations is an animation studio in Bristol, England that produces stop motion and computer-animated features, shorts, TV series and adverts.
A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon is a 2019 animated science fiction comedy film produced by Aardman Animations. The film is directed by Richard Phelan and Will Becher and written by Mark Burton and Jon Brown, based on an idea by Richard Starzak. It is a stand-alone sequel to Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015) and is based on the claymation television series Shaun the Sheep, a spin-off from the Wallace & Gromit short film A Close Shave. The film stars Justin Fletcher, John Sparkes, Kate Harbour, and Rich Webber reprising their voice roles from the series and the previous film, whilst new cast members include Amalia Vitale, David Holt and Chris Morrell. In the film, Shaun and the flock encounter an alien with extraordinary powers who crash-lands near Mossy Bottom Farm. They have to find a way to return her home in order to prevent her falling into the hands of the Ministry for Alien Detection.
