Wallace & Gromit is a British claymation 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 numerous spin-offs and TV adaptations. The first short film, A Grand Day Out, was finished and released in 1989. Wallace has been voiced by Peter Sallis and Ben Whitehead. While Wallace speaks very often, Gromit is largely silent and has no dialogue, communicating through facial expressions and body language.
Because of their popularity, the characters have been described as positive international cultural icons of both modern British culture and British people in general. BBC News called them "some of the best-known and best-loved stars to come out of the UK". Icons has said they have done "more to improve the image of the English world-wide than any officially appointed ambassadors".
Park has stated that he was inspired by his childhood through the 1950s and 1960s in Lancashire in Northern England. The setting is deliberately ambiguous: the overall style resembles the 1960s, but numerous anachronisms abound, such as the use of 21st-century technology. Although Wigan is seen at the end of Wallace's alliterative home address on his letters, his accent comes from the Holme Valley of West Yorkshire and he is especially fond of Wensleydale cheese (from North Yorkshire).
Their films have been widely praised, with the first three short films, A Grand Day Out (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (1995) earning 100% on Rotten Tomatoes; the feature film Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) has also received acclaim. The film is the second-highest-grossing stop-motion animated film, outgrossed only by Chicken Run (2000), another creation of Park's. A fourth short film, A Matter of Loaf and Death, was released in 2008. A second full-length feature film, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl — marking the return of the penguin Feathers McGraw, the villain from The Wrong Trousers — was released in 2024. The franchise has received numerous accolades, including five BAFTAs, three Academy Awards and a Peabody Award.
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