What is Wallace and Gromit?
Wallace and Gromit are clay-animated characters created by Nick Park of Aardman Animations in Bristol. Wallace is a cheerful, cheese-loving inventor, and Gromit is his clever, silent dog.
The characters first appeared in A Grand Day Out in 1989, in which Wallace and Gromit build a rocket to fly to the Moon to find cheese.
Their films are made using stop-motion animation, in which clay models are moved slightly and photographed one frame at a time.
Award-winning films
Nick Park won Academy Awards for The Wrong Trousers in 1993 and A Close Shave in 1995. The feature film The Curse of the Were-Rabbit won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2006.
Wallace's love of Wensleydale cheese boosted sales of the Yorkshire cheese.
Wallace was voiced by Peter Sallis for many years and later by Ben Whitehead. Gromit communicates through facial expressions.
A new film, Vengeance Most Fowl, was released at Christmas 2024. Wallace and Gromit are beloved symbols of British humor and creativity.
Aardman also created Shaun the Sheep and Chicken Run.