This week I was going to go back to my old schedule of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and I had everything written out but then I saw the sad news that Peter Salis had died. Peter Salis was an English actor most known for playing Cleggy in Last Of The Summer Wine and Wallace, from the stop-motion shorts Wallace & Gromit. So in respect of his passing, this week I'll be looking at all of his work as Wallace in chronological order, from A Grand Day Out to A Matter Of Loaf & Death.
Director: Nick Park
Writer: Nick Park
Runtime: 23 Minutes
Plot: It's bank holiday and Wallace and Gromit are looking to find somewhere to do based around cheese. Of course, they end up on the moon and have a strange encounter with a moon robot.
When I first saw this short, it scared the hell out of me as a kid. I don't know why particularly, it was probably that space oven robot thing, but watching it as an adult and after finding a bigger appreciation of stop-motion animation I've found that it's actually funnier than I thought it was as a kid. So let's have a grand...time reading this then going back to watching the short in your bedroom...I've really gotta work on being funny.
The best thing about this short is the weird comedy. There's a joke when they reach the moon where they get out of their rocket without any space suit or anything to help them breathe, gravity is all fine. It's basically like they're on Earth but...they're on the moon made of cheese. Wallace decides to bounce a ball and it flies away into space. As a kid, I didn't get the joke and even when I watched it last night I got it a bit more but laughed anyway because it was a stupid joke. The rest of the comedy comes from Wallace being an idiot and Gromit reacting to him, unable to actually say something because...he's a dog, something that would later become a formula for these characters.
There are two things I definitely want in real life from this short. The magazines Cheese Holidays and more money for that robot. I'll explain a little more. There is a robot on the moon that wants to go skiing but in order to be able to...have a consciousness I guess, it needs to have money in the meter. Towards the end of the short, this little robot goes crazy, trying to get into the rocket with Wallace and Gromit trying to be able to go to Earth to go and ski, however, Wallace thinks this thing is coming to attack him for taking home some moon cheese. It's a pretty funny bit. Unfortunately, the rocket blasts off and the robot gets blasted out of the rocket, but not after taking a couple of pieces of it with it. That's fine, it even makes little ski's out of the pieces of metal it pulled off. It goes skiing and the short ends happily ever after....but my question is, that thing needs money to stay alive...how is gonna continue when it's 20p runs out? This isn't a happy ending it's a damn tragedy.
To wrap this up, I'll talk about how Salis did in the role of Wallace and really the only voice in the short. In my opinion, Salis was a perfect fit for this character, genuinely perfect casting. Hearing his voice separate from this character messes with my head so much. He plays the character like a lovable fool, like the harmless elderly person at the bus stop who's just so nice but deep down you know they've had a crazy life. I always got the sense that Wallace was some crazy scientist in his younger years and Salis definitely brings that out in the character. I cannot imagine this character having any other voice.
Overall, I did love this short and watching it again after, admittedly, a fairly long time and after the passing of Peter Salis, I found it both sad and lovely. It's nothing spectacular by all means I mean, it's a fairly quiet short of a man and his dog going to the moon to eat cheese. I think what made it kick off was how both surreal and relatable it was. This was a nice start to the week, despite the sad circumstances it's come under.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this short. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this short then please go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.
No comments:
Post a Comment