It was a while ago in which
Peter Sallis, the voice of Wallace from Wallace and Gromit died. In at least
two of the three things I’m going to cover, his was the only voice heard as no
one else even spoke. I know that there was a 2008 special, A Matter of Loaf and
Death, but I don’t know how to watch it at the moment so I’ll be skipping it
for now, despite it also featuring Peter Sallis as the voice of Wallace. I also
won’t be covering these three specials in order, but you are more than free to
read them that way if you want to. Now let’s get to Wallace and his involvement
in the specials at hand.
The Wrong Trousers
Wallace starts out asleep
until he hits a button in his bed for breakfast, being taken to the main floor
there at hand. The landing is a bit painful. He needs money since he’s short on
cash. He gives a present to his dog since it is his dog’s birthday. He gives
his dog a collar and a leash, something Gromit does not like. Then comes a
scary gift: techno-trousers. This leads to him being taken on a walk, but a
decoy is used at one point in time.
Wallace lets in a penguin
about a room to rent. This penguin wants Gromit’s room instead. Wallace helps
put up wallpaper and decoration in another room, the spare one that he’s in
now. Wallace seems to like this guest too much, which Gromit doesn’t like as
Gromit runs away from home.
The morning after, Wallace
finds himself in the wrong trousers, the techno-trousers. The controls are gone
which leads to him being taken from place to place. He tells Gromit that they
have gone wrong. It is revealed that the penguin is controlling them. Wallace
is somehow about to put pajamas over these trousers as after his exhausting
day, he goes to bed.
Gromit is later seen under
Wallace’s bed as Wallace sleeps. Wallace continues to sleep as the penguin, now
revealed to be a wanted chicken, takes him away. He is taken to where a diamond
is on display. The penguin takes him to the roof where he goes through a vent
and walks on a ceiling to be used to steal the diamond that’s there. A device
on his head is used to steal the diamond.
After hitting an alarm by
mistake due to a loose ceiling tile, Wallace is woken up and thinks that he’s
dreaming. The penguin reveals himself. But he traps Wallace in a wardrobe. Gromit
gets trapped there as well and fiddles with the controls on the trousers,
breaking them out there.
Wallace gets stuck on a train
and is able to help by taking the gun. He is later seen trying to catch the
penguin with a next, but winds up catching part of the furniture. He then gets
on the track behind Gromit who is able to build a way forward and they manage
to catch the penguin and get the reward money to pay off all their debts. Wallace
gets cheese and crackers for himself as this ends.
A Close Shave
Wallace is seen sleeping at
one point. He and Gromit have a washing business. He is seen pushing a button
wanting portage today since it is Tuesday. The machine malfunctions since the
wires were bitten into. Wallace wants to make his own, but the box was bitten
into as well. He notices a hole in the newspaper he is reading while saying
that something fishing is going on.
He gets a call for a cleaning
service so he takes himself and Gromit there to do it. It is a wool place where
he sees a woman there. He meets her dog Preston. Her name is Wendolene. He stumbles
over some words and talks about the sheep rustling and her wool that she has
plenty of.
He and Gromit return home and
he finally sees the sheep he was oblivious to before, not even realizing that
it was a footrest for him as he read the plot convenience newspaper. He wants
to get this sheep cleaned up. Wallace takes this sheep downstairs to the
knit-o-matic. He watches as the machine winds up malfunctioning and accepts a
small sweater from it. He names the sheep Shaun.
Wallace reminds Gromit that
they are cleaning a clock which apparently isn’t hurt by this. He talks to Wendolene
a lot about different things in the meantime. He continues to be oblivious to
things as a herd of sheep go past him.
Later, he reads the paper
about his dog’s arrest, being mistaken for a killer dog. Later, Wendolene comes
and tells him to stay away from her and that she’s sorry about Gromit. The
sheep are with him still as he passes time reading more newspapers about
Gromit’s trial and imprisonment.
Unable to stand this, Wallace
sends Gromit a mystery puzzle and busts him out of jail. They are fugitives. He
notices that Wendolene and her dog are doing the sheep rustling and chases
after her when her dog turns on her. The motorcycle winds up getting chased in
return, but Gromit turns things around. Wallace gets separated from Gromit when
the sidecar comes undone.
He is able to free the sheep
briefly, but winds up captured with the sheep and Wendolene where they go to
where Preston, the dog, makes his dog food. Shaun and also Gromit are able to
assist in making sure that Wallace doesn’t get sucked into Wallace’s invention
that Preston stole. Preston is a cyber dog. He does not do well prevent being
sucked into this, although Shaun saves the day and Wallace’s life among the
lives of everyone else.
Later, Wallace learns that
Wendolene was able to reprogram her dog back to good. He offers her some
cheese, but she is allegoric, ending any potential relationship between them.
Wallace wants to eat the cheese that he has with a now exonerated Gromit, but
Shaun is there eating the cheese instead. Gromit does nothing about this
despite Wallace’s pleas.
A Grand Day Out
We begin with Wallace looking
through various travel magazines, wondering where to go. Upon noticing that there
is no cheese and eating a cracker on its own, he decides to go to the moon as
the moon is made of cheese. But then, won’t there be less of the moon?
He designs a way of building a
rocket to the moon. He kneels on top of an old yellow door as he saws it and
once it predictably comes off the place where it is standing, he uses his dog
Gromit to hold it up. The rocket gets built with everything under control as
Wallace falls into it. He lights the fuse of it.
He has to quickly get the
crackers and he does get it and back into the rocket before it blasts off. He
reads the paper as they make their way to the moon. I’m unsure how they can do
this without any space suits on, but this is Claymation, so I don’t really care
as it isn’t realistic anyways. He takes a picture for the album. They do land
on the moon which is, in fact, made of cheese.
They have a picnic on the
surface of the moon. Again, no space suits and this is okay for both of them. Wallace
can’t identify the type of cheese that is on the moon as it is like no cheese
he has ever tasted. He messes with something that looks like a machine of
sorts, but it doesn’t work until it comes to life. He had taken part of this
machine off, a knob at the very right.
This machine notices Wallace
eating part of the moon and as a protector, I guess, tries to strike Wallace
with a bat, stopping right short of it having lost its powers. Wallace gets
confused by it and goes back to the rocket when the robot chases after it. He
starts an emergency countdown. The robot accidentally lights the fuse that
Gromit had forgetting to. They do ultimately make it home and notice the robot
skiing on part of the railing it took out of the rocket.
Well, I’m currently unsure how
or if I can see A Matter of Loaf and Death here in America legally. I might see
a bootlegged version online, but I feel that I got the classic three covered
and that’s all that I need to do. I hope that you enjoyed this tribute to the
late Peter Sallis.
