A Grand Day Out (1990)

Say cheese. 13 years after Will Vinton invented it, claymation is back. This short film was a milestone in animation history. The fact that Park lost the Best Animated Feature Oscar to himself that year does it no harm. He won with his three follow-up Wallace and Gromit films then, the last being a full feature.I quite like this short film, not as much as The Wrong Trousers, but more than A Close Shave. Park is on such a creative high that year that he brings us Wallace & Gromit, almost in their ultimate shape, with a great catchy tune and also already a prospect of things to come in the famous Aardman sheep on the picture at the wall of the rocket. What do you do when you realize that you've run out of cheese for your crackers. That's right. Go get some and combine with your annual holiday travel by picking the moon as the destination. After all, it's made all of cheese. Gromit's look to the camera says it all. But how did they get the cows up there? Anyway, watching this short film I had to think of French movie pioneer Georges Méliès' Trip to the Moon which shows quite a few parallels: the planning, the rocket building and finally the flight from the inhabitants. This can't be a coincidence.After they reach the moon and we get to see a short gravity joke, they run into a cleaning robot, who's quickly fed up with tidying up after the mess Wallace leaves behind after testing different moon cheese culinary meals from several corners of the moon. He is rewarded in the end for his efforts and his dream finally comes true. A must-see for animation lovers.

Although the Aardman animation (or 'claymation' if you prefer) has improved over the years, I still really love the look and feel of this short. The voice of Peter Sallis as Wallace is perfect… I couldn't imagine anyone else voicing the part. I find the comic timing works to a tea and the storyline is both wacky and brilliant. There are very few things that make me laugh out loud, but there are several jokes in this film that still crack me up even 22 years later! Long may the BBC keep showing it! For me… VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.My Score: 9.5/10IMDb Score: 7.8/10 (based on 12,962 votes at the time of going to press).Rotten Tomatoes 'Tomatometer' Score: 100/100 (based on 19 reviews counted at the time of going to press).Rotten Tomatoes 'Audience' Score: 36/100 'Want to See' (based on 12,098 user ratings counted at the time of going to press).You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.

STAR RATING: ***** The Works **** Just Misses the Mark *** That Little Bit In Between ** Lagging Behind * The Pits In this debut effort for Nick Park's beloved man and dog, they are forced to fly to the moon when good old Wallace runs out of cheese.As well as being the shortest feature at just 22 minutes, this W/G adventure is also the earliest and it kinda shows. The plasticine animation is a little creaky and funny here, sort of reminiscent of the Mork animation about the little man in the box.Admirable though the craftsmanship behind it is, I've never actually been hugely into Wallace & Gromit (maybe a bit too clean and traditional for someone of my generation.) The only one I've really enjoyed is The Wrong Trousers (and that was more from when I was younger and less aware of, shall we say, the seedier pleasures of life.) I was driven to actively seek out this early effort due to the resurgence in popularity as a result of the hugely successful recent film adaptation.As technically impressive as the first two (all things considered!) this one lacks the emotional angle it's successors were to possess. That being said, it's fairly good fun as a first try and certainly set the standard for greater things to come. Two stars, but a good two stars. **

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.