Product Description

This award winning Wallace & Gromit compilation video includes three irresistible films- A Close Shave, A Grand Day Out and The Wrong Trousers. Climb aboard for a wacky voyage with The Incredible Adventures of Wallace & Gromit!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21874 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-09-04
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Animated, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 81 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
The first three Wallace & Gromit shorts are grouped together in a single volume.

A Grand Day Out
Nominated for an Academy Award in 1990, this was the first short-film adventure starring Wallace & Gromit. This 24-minute comedy was created by clay animator Nick Park over a six-year period at the National Film and Television School in London and at the Aardman Animation studios, which Park boosted to international acclaim. In their debut adventure, Wallace and his furry pal Gromit are planning a vacation, but first they've got a crisis to solve: they've got plenty of crackers but no cheese! Undeterred, Wallace comes up with an extreme solution to the cheese shortage: since the moon is made of cheese (we all know that's true, right?), he decides to build a rocket and blast off for a cheesy lunar picnic! Gromit's only too happy to help, and before long the inventive duo is on the moon, where they encounter a clever appliance that's part oven, part robot, part lunar skiing enthusiast... Well, you just have to see the movie to understand how any of this whimsical lunar-cy can make any sense! It's a grand tale of wonderful discoveries, fantastic inventions--and really great cheese!

The Wrong Trousers
Clay-animation master Nick Park deservedly won the 1993 Academy Award for Best Animated Short for this 30-minute masterpiece, in which the good-natured inventor Wallace and his trusty dog, Gromit, return for another grand adventure. It all begins on the morning of Gromit's birthday, when Wallace gives his beloved pooch a rather selfish gift that (to Gromit's chagrin) is more useful to Wallace--a pair of mechanical "techno-trousers" ("ex-NASA," says Wallace, duly impressed) that can be programmed to take Gromit out for "walkies" while Wallace sits comfortably at home. Gromit's not exactly thrilled with the new gadget, and things go from bad to worse when Wallace rents a room to a new boarder--a rather suspicious-looking penguin--to offset his rising expenses. As it turns out, the penguin's a notorious thief, and the amazing techno-trousers provide a foolproof method of pulling off a diamond heist! It's Gromit's big opportunity for canine heroics, and The Wrong Trousers turns into one of the funniest, most inventive caper-comedies ever made, with an action-packed climax on a speeding miniature train. Will the notorious "Feathers" wind up in jail, where he belongs? Will Gromit finally get his due recognition? Watch this amazing marvel of clay animation to see why Wallace & Gromit have become global celebrities--this is comedic ingenuity at its finest.

A Close Shave
Hot from the international triumph of The Wrong Trousers, clay animator Nick Park knew that his third Wallace & Gromit film was going to have to be the biggest and best adventure yet for the mild-mannered inventor Wallace and his perceptive pooch, Gromit. With the ambitiously zany plot of A Close Shave, Park and his fellow animators rose to the occasion, and their film won the 1995 Academy Award (Park's second Oscar) for Best Animated Short. This time out, Wallace & Gromit have teamed up to provide a window-washing service, and that's how Wallace meets the lovely Wendolene Ramsbottom, a wool-shop owner whose malevolent dog, Preston, turns out to be the mastermind of a sheep-napping scheme! Of course, no Wallace & Gromit adventure can be without a grandiose gadget, so Wallace's latest invention is the Knit-O-Matic, a yarn-making machine capable of shearing a whole flock of sheep just a bit too efficiently! When the villainous Preston gains control of the mechanical knitting marvel, Gromit must race to the rescue, and A Close Shave reaches new heights of clay-animation mastery. Every shot is a testament to Nick Park's patience, his clever ingenuity, and his filmmaking flair. The movie's so technically impressive, in fact, that the whole world wondered where Park could go next. It was clear that Wallace & Gromit would eventually star in an animated feature-length movie, since this marvelous 30-minute film represents its own kind of short-form perfection. --Jeff Shannon

Amazon.com
The perfect gift set for the Wallace and Gromit fan. All three of animator Nick Park's first adventures featuring the dotty inventor and his loyal but laconic dog--The Wrong Trousers, A Close Shave, and A Grand Day Out--come wrapped together and ready for multiple viewings. This is truly one of the rare gift sets that will entertain the entire family. --Doug Thomas

Additional Features
This DVD collection has a few extras included on the previous DVD release. The key ingredient is Nick Park and his associates' commentary over the three tales. The commentaries are quite enjoyable with the team noting the origins of the action and several hidden gags. There is also 30 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage, some fun bumpers (short commercials) that Wallace and Gromit appeared in for British Channel 2, a few early works of Parks, and a gallery of blueprints and photos to complete the collection. --Doug Thomas

Customer Reviews

A DVD disappointment for three great movies...
First off, I'm a crazy Wallace & Gromit fan. I love all the films that Nick Park and Aardman have made for these characters. This DVD, however, does not do justice to the movies.

This is the third DVD release of the Wallace & Gromit films, and I can only assume that they did this now to tie into the approaching release of the new feature film. It doesn't seem like much effort has been put into the creation of this disc. The menus are very bland, the movie selection displays the films out of order (with A Close Shave in the middle) and there isn't a chapter selection option.

In terms of the films themselves, The Wrong Trousers has been altered, and that's what really bugs me. I think it has something to do with copyright laws, but several music tracks have been replaced with terrible-sounding substitutes. Gromit's birthday card plays a very non-birthday-card-sounding version of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" instead of "Happy Birthday To You". When the Penguin is listening to the radio, the songs "Happy Talk" and "How Much Is That Doggy In The Window" have been replaced with terrible, generic organ music that completely takes away the mood of the scenes. Consequently, the sound of Wallace humming "How Much Is That Doggy In The Window" the next morning has also been removed.

This bit may not bother most people, but for some reason all the soundtracks for the shorts are a semitone flat. I can only assume this is because the film was transferred at a slower rate.

The only really redeeming quality about this disc is the inclusion of all ten Cracking Contraption shorts, which have never been available on region 1 DVD before.

The bottom line: Get this DVD if you want the Cracking Contraption shorts. Otherwise, stick to your old VHS copies.

Should be on any animation fan's top 10 list.
First, the basics. Nick Park: British clay animator and all-around brilliant chap. Wallace: Kindhearted but hapless inventor known for gently hairbrained ideas. Gromit: Long-suffering but intrepid dog whose facial expressions say it all.

A Grand Day Out: Despite some immensely funny sight gags, this is ultimately kind of a lightweight. Pleasant, but weird and not as focused as the other two.

The Wrong Trousers: If Hitchcock made a claymation movie, it would be this. A perfect blend of suspense and comedy involving a mysterious penguin, a model train set, a daring jewel heist, and a pair of mechanical pants. Arguably one of the greatest short films in animation history.

A Close Shave: Not quite as brilliant as its predecessor, but still well-done and tons of fun. An action-adventure romp in which Wallace and Gromit discover a dastardly sheepnapping scheme. Includes an ingenious parody of a well-known American action film (to say any more would be telling.)

All in all: Well worth its high price. Pure entertainment you'll want to watch over and over.

Great program - bad DVD
First of all, let me just say that the above rating in no way indicates how I feel about the "Wallace & Gromit" shorts, all of which are superb pieces of animation.

My rating applies only to this slipshod DVD release, obviously intended to capitalize on the upcoming W&G "Curse of the Were-Rabbit" feature, and lacking all of the wonderful extras of the previous BBC version.

Gone are the Nick Park commentaries, the behind-the-scenes featurettes or the cute scrapbooks or photo galleries. In fact the only "behind-the-scenes" material collected on this disc applies to programs OTHER than the main W&G films. A true disappointment.

So, my advice is ignore this release and do your best to track down the old version. It will be well-worth the money.