Preston | Wallace and Gromit Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Timmy Time Preston is a non-speaking character in Wallace and Gromit and the main antagonist of A Close Shave . He is actually a robotic cyber-dog who is a fearsome looking one. He appears in A Close Shave as a deuteragonist. He was left to Wendolene by her father ( Mr. Ramsbottom ). He forced her into starting an illegal sheep rustling scam for wool for her shop during the wool shortage but soon after pilfering Wallace's blueprints for the Wash-o-matic and adapting them for his own ends, he turned to making his own dog food. Unfortunately for him, his plans failed as Shaun swung in and knocked him flying into the Mutton-o-matic dog food making machine. He was then reassembled on a trolley and behaves like a normal dog. Appearance in "The Curse of the Ramsbottoms" In "The Curse of the Ramsbottom" comic strip from the book Wallace and Gromit and the Lost Slipper, he is now a cyber-butler under the employ of Wendolene and her evil fiance, the cheese magnate Rhett Leicester with his army of gnomes.

personality (or lack of one) Preston was build to be a freindly, and helpful aid, but unfortunately, the end product was anything but. Preston is a pitiless thug and criminal, obsessed with wealth. He was willing to sink to the lowest depths to complete his agenda, willing to dispose of anyone or anything that interfered. He'd also be willing to brutally mince up sheep or humans to make more valuable dog food. Trivia Preston is named after the lancashire town of Preston, which Nick Park comes from. Preston might be a parody of The Terminator due to being covered in skin and is an robot. Also both Preston's and first Terminator's fates were similar: Preston was crushed by a machine and the terminator was crushed by a hydraulic press. He resembles several different breeds of dog, but he mostly looks like an anthromoporthic presa canario. The Preston also shares similarities with the robots from the simpsons episode, itchy and scratchy land, as well as the animatronics from the indie survival horror game, five nights at freddy's. Apart from growling and roaring, preston is silent.

Unlike the penguin, who threatened to kill Wallace, preston has killed many sheep very inhumanely, and because of this, he is probably the darkest character aardman has created, alongside misses tweedy. This article is a stub . You can help Wallace and Gromit Wiki by expanding it . A Close Shave (1995) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error Wallace falls for Wendolene, a wool shop owner, while Gromit is framed for the sheep rustling.

Director: a list of 21 titles created 31 Jul 2012 a list of 46 titles created 03 Sep 2012 a list of 26 titles created 02 Jan 2013 a list of 35 titles created 04 Jun 2014 a list of 21 titles created 02 Aug 2015 Title: A Close Shave (1995) 8.2/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Won 1 Oscar. Another 18 wins. See more awards » Photos Wallace is used by a criminal penguin in a robbery involving mechanical trousers. Director: Nick Park 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.8/10 X Wallace takes a break from trying to decide on a holiday destination only to find he has no cheese for his crackers. The solution to both problems is a trip to the moon, with dog Gromit, because everybody knows the moon's made of cheese.

Director: Nick Park Wallace and his dog, Gromit, open a bakery and get tied up with a murder mystery. But, when Wallace falls in love Gromit is left to solve the case. Director: Nick Park Wallace and his loyal dog, Gromit, set out to discover the mystery behind the garden sabotage that plagues their village and threatens the annual giant vegetable growing contest. Directors: Steve Box, Nick Park Stars: Peter Sallis, Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes Wallace and Gromit try out a number of their latest inventions which rarely work as planned. Stars: Peter Sallis A compilation of the first three Wallace & Gromit short films: "A Grand Day Out", "The Wrong Trousers", and "A Close Shave". Stars: Peter Sallis, Anne Reid When a cockerel apparently flies into a chicken farm, the chickens see him as an opportunity to escape their evil owners. Directors: Peter Lord, Nick Park Stars: Mel Gibson, Julia Sawalha, Phil Daniels A humourous and thought provoking view of what animals in zoos might be thinking about their captivity and surroundings. Director: Nick Park A collection of some of the most popular work featuring Wallace and Gromit.

Director: Nick Park Wallace introduces correspondents, inventors and experts who explain various real-life contraptions, inventions and scientific accomplishments. Stars: Peter Sallis, Ashley Jensen, Jem Stansfield Shaun the Sheep (TV Series 2007) Animation | Comedy | Family Shaun is a sheep who doesn't follow the flock - in fact, he leads them into all sorts of scrapes and scraps, turning peace in the valley into mayhem in the meadow. Shaun and his pals run ... See full summary » Stars: John Sparkes, Justin Fletcher, Richard Webber Edit Storyline When Wallace and Gromit go over to wash windows, Wallace falls in love with a wool store owner named Wendolene. Meanwhile, Gromit is framed for killing sheep and is put in jail. So with help from the sheep and Wendolene, Wallace must get him out of prison. Written by Mike-2000 From the Oscar-winning creator of A Grand Day Out and The Wrong Trousers. See more » Genres: 29 December 1995 (USA) See more » Also Known As: Did You Know? Trivia When Preston is reading the paper, one of the headlines talks of an Oscar winner.

This is probably a reference to The Wrong Trousers (1993), which won the Oscar for Best Animated Short. This film would also win the Oscar that year. See more » Goofs When Gromit unwraps the jigsaw puzzle box, the label indicates it contains 5000 pieces. While he finishes laying the puzzle, the upright box now shows the number 500 on the label, and when he reads the puzzle's message, there are just 13 x 8 = 104 pieces on the table. See more » Quotes Wallace : Is this place yours? Wendolene Ramsbottom : Mm-hmm. My father left it to me. Along with his debts, and a few other things. After the credits and the Aardman logo is shown, we hear sheep bleating. See more » Connections (Birmingham, England) – See all my reviews Of all the W&G films A Close Shave is by far the best of all. Not only is the animation far more polished & detailed than its earlier predecessors, A Grand Day Out (1992) and The Wrong Trousers ('93).

But in addition the story is far more engaging, light & humourous compared to the darker more mechanical nature of TWT (my least favourite of the three). For the first time, A Close Shave introduces an extra dimension to the W&G pairing, in the form of Wendolene, a lady woolshop owner who Wallace falls in love with when both he & Gromit clean her shop windows. With the addition of a female into the story we are given a little more character development concerning Wallace. The previous two stories only centred around his self-serving interests in cheese, inventions, making money and relying on his pet pooch to get him out of sticky situations. But in ACS we are offered a more rounded perspective of his personal life and his keeness to have a woman sharing his home at long last. As the film progresses the relationship between the couple grows, in spite of all the dangers & hazards that they face along the way. And by the end of the film we are left on tenterhooks as to whether Wendolene will finally move in with W&G for good! So not only is the animation and attention to detail significantly improved over TWT but so too is the characterisation and storyline.

The voice of Wallace, Peter Sallis, is dependable & easy on the ear, even though he doesn't have much to say compared to the previous films. But it is to Gromit where the real plaudits lie. Because he can't speak (or bark apparently!) we have to rely on his facial expression to understand how he feels & reacts to those around him. Because of the wonderful attention to animated detail Nick Park and his crew have spent, we can connect & relate very easily to Gromit's body language, especially within his eyes. I don't think I've ever seen such wonderful expressions since Laurel & Hardy. In fact the next time you have the benefit of seeing a L&H film take note of Ollie's facial expressions to-camera and you'll understand the comparison between him & Gromit. Its now 6 years since the last W&G installment and it is to be hoped that Nick Park will do another follow up. I only hope he doesn't rely on lifeless cgi for his animation technique. On average it took NP between 2 to 3 years for each of the W&G episodes. But it was worth the wait.

However, the Dreamworks Studio to which NP is affiliated, may not like having to wait such a long time for the next installment to be made, a may insist on using computer animation rather than clay to speed the production process up somewhat. Chicken Run (2000), NP's first full-feature movie in conjunction with Dreamworks was, on the whole, ok. But the story seemed so formulaic & safe that you just knew the studio had "influenced" the production more than NP would have liked. And as a result you get a bland film built on hype. So I only hope the next W&G doesn't follow the same route otherwise the entire W&G franchise will be ruined for the sake of the mighty dollar yet again. ****/***** 14 of 17 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes Wallace and Gromit - All The Tropes Wallace and Gromit Create New Wallace and Gromit are A-OK.

This series of four short animated films and a full-length movie -- all done using old-fashioned stop-motion animation -- is about a kindhearted but clueless Lancashire-accented inventor, his long-suffering sentient dog, and his love for cheese. Produced by Nick Park for Aardman Studios , the series has won fans and accolades on both sides of the Atlantic, including numerous Oscars, and is a rare example of British suburban life visible in media exported to America. The films are, in order:[ edit | hide | hide all ] A Grand Day Out (short - 1989). Wherein Wallace and Gromit realise that they're out of cheese and the shops are closed. The solution? Build a rocket in the basement and take a trip to the moon... which, as everyone knows, is made of cheese. While there, they have an encounter with a coin-operated robot who's desperate to go skiing. The Wrong Trousers (short - 1993).

Wherein Wallace takes in a boarder, a silently menacing penguin named Feathers McGraw, who has sinister plans for both his landlord and Gromit's new birthday present: a pair of "techno-trousers" for automatic walkies. Chaos, naturally, ensues. ("It's the wrong trousers, Gromit, and they've gone wrong!") A Close Shave (short - 1995). Wherein Wallace's crush Wendolene turns out to have ties to the local wool shortage, leading to Gromit being imprisoned for sheep-rustling, forcing Wallace to stage a daring jailbreak with the help of a woolly jumper-wearing lamb named Shaun. The three must face the real Big Bad in a final showdown for all the yarn. Shaun later got his own Spin-Off called Shaun the Sheep . Cracking Contraptions (short-shorts - 2002). A series of 5-minute films showcasing Wallace's latest wacky inventions. The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (feature-length - 2005).

Wherein the combination of a vegetable-growing contest and Wallace's latest invention accidentally unleashes a giant rampaging parody of ancient Hammer Horror cliches on their unsuspecting village... oh, also a giant half-man, half-bunny . This received a Licensed Game adaptation and is noted as being, possibly, the only horror film in existence to feature a vegetarian monster. A Matter of Loaf and Death (short - 2008). Wherein the two run a bakery, and Wallace falls in love though Gromit has his suspicions. Can you blame him? Aired on Christmas Day 2008, it was the top-rated programme of the day (ahead of Doctor Who 's "The Next Doctor"). In 2003, Frontier Developments released a video game known as Wallace & Gromit in Project Zoo, which saw the return of Feathers McGraw as the villain in an original storyline; it was So Okay It's Average in most respects. In the spring/summer of 2009, Telltale Games released a series of four episodic Wallace & Gromit adventure games, collectively Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures, for the PC and Xbox Live Arcade.

The games are notable for successfully replicating the look and feel of the shorts, to the point of having fingerprints and other clay modeling details visible on the characters. The Grand Adventures episodes are, in order:[ edit | hide ] Fright of the Bumblebees, in which Wallace's attempts to get into the honey business result in giant bees terrorizing the town. The Last Resort, in which a rainy day prompts Wallace to construct a basement beach resort that becomes the site of a closed-circle murder thumping mystery. Muzzled!, in which traveling philanthropist Monty Muzzle holds a fundraising fair to rebuild the local dog shelter... but Wallace and Gromit discover his intentions aren't exactly charitable. The Bogey Man, in which Wallace tries to dodge a marriage proposal by joining the Prickly Thicket country club, and ends up in a game with much higher stakes than he bargained for. In 2010, BBC One commissioned a television program, Wallace and Gromit's World of Inventions, an educational program about famous or revolutionary inventions, hosted by the two. It begin airing in November with the episode Nature Knows Best.

See also its spin-off series Shaun the Sheep and Timmy Time , the Spin-Off of the spin-off. Tropes used in Wallace and Gromit include: Absent-Minded Professor - Wallace. Oh, so much. AI Is a Crapshoot : The antagonist of A Close Shave, Preston, was once a good robot dog that according to Wendolene suddently became evil. Attack! Attack! Retreat! Retreat! : in Were-Rabbit, on hearing that their vegetables will be used as bait to attract the Were-Rabbit, Mrs. Mulch flees with her Pumpkin, whilst the townsfolk yell at her "Come back! Come back!". The Were-Rabbit then approaches, prompting her to about turn. Cue villagers now yelling "Go away! Go away!" As You Wish : Early on in Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Wallace makes a playful "rabbit paws" gesture in Lady Tottington's direction. She smiles and repeats it back. Later, after carrying her away from the mob and back to the greenhouse, the Were Rabbit makes the same gesture, looking at her wistfully.

She recognizes Wallace at once, stops being afraid, and pulls a Go Through Me moment when Victor arrives to shoot him. Art Evolution : The models in A Grand Day Out were very different in design to the models we know now - just look at Wallace in particular. Animation Bump : The first short, A Grand Day Out, was mostly made by Nick Park himself, with Aardman Animations only coming in when the film was half complete. When compared to The Wrong Trousers (the first one with a lot of Aardman work), there is a world of difference in animation between the two. Aside Glance : Gromit. All the time. Ass in a Lion Skin : Feathers McGraw, who simply wears a red glove on his head during jobs to convince others he is a chicken. He's currently the article image. Background Halo : Lady Tottington gets one, along with a set of background wings, when she advocates trapping the were-rabbit humanely. Lord Victor Quartermaine, who wants to just shoot it, gets a pair of background horns. Batman Can Breathe in Space : As evidenced by A Grand Day Out.

Granted, they are stop-motion characters in an animated film on a moon made of cheese, so... Beleaguered Assistant : Gromit, who takes it in his stride. Big Ol' Unibrow : Gromit never speaks ( because he is a dog ), so this is the ONLY way you know what he's feeling. It's really incredible, the emotion you can wring out of an artfully-squashed bit of plasticine... Wallace: "We've tested this on Gromit. Haven't we, lad?" Gromit: (eyebrows rise mournfully) *nods* Bigger on the Inside : The house in Loaf and Death. Somehow, a full bakery factory with machines, chutes and cogs manages to fit into the dimensions of a small two-story house - which still has room for a kitchen, dining room and bedrooms. Bindle Stick : Gromit carries one in The Wrong Trousers Bitch in Sheep's Clothing : Piella Bakewell in Loaf and Death. Bittersweet Ending : A Close Shave, in which Wallace saves Wendolene, but true love is thwarted as he discovers she is allergic to cheese.

Even Wensleydale. Black Widow : Piella Bakewell. Blessed Are the Cheesemakers : Wallace's cheese obsession. The producers have great fun referencing the most bizarre and obscure cheese names possible. This namedropping, in fact, saved Wensleydale cheese, which was right on the cusp of disappearing before Wallace and Gromit created a new demand for it. Bottomless Magazines : At the end of The Wrong Trousers, Gromit chases McGraw on a model train - by rapid-fire laying of track from an inexhaustible box. In the same scene, McGraw's revolver never seems to run out of bullets. Brand X / Bland-Name Product : Everything from Smug Fridges and Duck Matches to Sud-U-Like Soap and Ay-Up! Magazine . Played with inasmuch as Wallace and Gromit are working as window-cleaners when they meet Wendolene; "Windolene" is a cleaning product sold for cleaning glass. The "Bake-O-Lite Balloon" was a genuine ad campaign for the Nimble loaf, which has since been incorporated into Hovis. Break the Cutie : Fluffles comes pre-broken, evident from the trembling.

Bungling Inventor : Wallace, natch. In one of the comics, we encounter another three named Derek, Derrick and Eric. They invent a wind-up mobile phone, an automatic winder that you have to wind up, and a key to wind up the automatic winder. Mind you, in another one of the comics Wallace invents an indestructible shoe that eventually nearly destroys the Earth because he couldn't find his slippers. The "Cheese Lover's Yearbook" features, as well as the creations of the original shorts: the Recyc-O-Matic, which worked fine until he gave it arms and it ran amok in the town centre eating everything in its path; the Automatic Dairy Maker, which was scrapped after it turned out the "Creamy Wallaby" cheese it produced caused some people to come out in a grassy rash; and the Push-Button Gardener, which raked up all the leaves and dumped them on the living room carpet. Butt Monkey : The local grocer, Mr. Paneer, in Grand Adventures. No matter what kind of crazy plot Wallace and Gromit are caught up in, it always ends up inconveniencing him somehow. He lampshades this in the final episode.

Poor Gromit falls into this all too often... (usually thanks to Wallace's stupidity). Though to balance it out Wallace himself often gets it pretty bad too. The Cameo : In "Curse of the Were-Rabbit," there's two portraits of Nick Park and Steve Box (blink and you'll miss it) in the parsonage before the door slams shut. Cartoon Bomb : In Loaf and Death. Not only is it your classic cannonball-with-a-fuse, but it has "BOMB" written on it in large white letters. Cue Wallace: "Oh, Gromit! It's a bomb! " Cartoon Cheese : Averted in A Grand Day Out, as moon cheese doesn't look anything like typical "orange-y swiss" cartoon cheese. More like cheddar. Wallace names several terrestrial cheeses in an unsuccessful attempt to determine what moon cheese tastes like, and finally concludes, "It's like no cheese I've ever tasted." Catch Phrase : "CheeeeEEEEeeeeeeeese!" (with Wallace's trademark excited hands). Also, once things inevitably fall apart, Wallace's "GROMIT! HELP! DO SOMETHING!," or the less emphatic "Gromit!

Do something, lad!" There's no ceiling on how many times Wallace will say this in a single episode. Chekhov's Gun : In any of the times we see one of the many To the Batpole segments in the opening, it will usually play a crucial role in the climax. Claymation Civilized Animal : Gromit is usually depicted as walking upright, and is capable of creating and operating complex machinery. Generally he's shown to be significantly more shrewd and sensible than his master. However, despite all of this, everyone treats him the same as you treat any dog. He has both a room in the house and a kennel in the yard, and walks on two or four legs as the plot requires. He's also been shown to eat from a dog dish or at a human table on different occasions. Fluffles in Loaf and Death is similarly capable, though she's generally shown on all fours for much of the film. Notably, her moments of bipedalism happen either out of the sight of her abusive master, or at the film's end when she finally stands up to her and remains bipedal for the rest of the film.

Feathers McGraw is apparently capable of showing up and renting rooms from humans, but the film still ends with him at the zoo. Continuity Nod : Frequent and gleeful, starting with a running gag in which the headlines on the paper Wallace is reading or a news bulletin on TV in a short reference events of an earlier short. Wallace's dough-inflated-trousers looked a little like a pair he'd owned previously... A lot of the phrases Hutch in "Were-Wallace" mode spouts in Were-Rabbit are quotes from previous entries. The baker murdered at the start of Loaf and Death can be seen on an ad for his bakery in A Close Shave. When Gromit is put in prison in A Close Shave, there's graffiti on the wall reading "Feathers Woz 'Ere". When Piella crashes into the zoo at the start of Loaf and Death, to the right of the gate is a poster saying "One Of Our Penguins Is Missing" , complete with a picture of what looks like Feathers McGraw. To the left of the gate is a ladder propped against the inside of the wall -- with a rope made of sheets hanging down the outside.

At least one item from a previous short is hidden in every episode of the Telltale Games episodes. At the beginning of The Wrong Trousers, Gromit reads a newspaper which bears a headline, Moon Cheese Shares Soar. When Wallace leaves Gromit alone in the van in Were-Rabbit, he's parked outside a hairdressers called A Close Shave. There is a "have you seen this chicken?" poster with Feathers McGraw in the Were-Rabbit licensed game. Gold Digger Gone Horribly Wrong : About 1/3 of Wallace's inventions, due to accidents (e.g. The Rabbit Rehabilitator), or misuse (e.g. the Power Trousers). Gone Horribly Right : Another 1/3 of Wallace's inventions. (e.g. the time Wallace wanted to pump up some honeybees with Muscle-Gro to make them super-efficient honey-producers, and wound up making giant bees that rampaged all over town) Hammerspace : As befitting the trope, the Telltale Wallace & Gromit games feature this, truly reaching a ridiculous point when Wallace uproots incredibly large flowers and somehow stuffs them into his pockets. Hikikomori - Mr.

Gabberly, although he is willing to shout at people quite a bit. His hobby thus far seems to be raising birds. Homemade Inventions : The series trademark, and the propellant for most of the plots. Cracking Contraptions is exclusively about these. Human Ladder : Well, sort of. It's a Sheep Ladder, in A Close Shave. Human-to-Werewolf Footprints : Reversed in Were-Rabbit. Originally they thought that the were-rabbit prints were leading to the basement and that the pet bunny was the culprit. Then Gromit closes the door and sees that not only do the prints continue past the basement door, they change into human prints as they lead towards Wallace's bedroom. Hurricane of Puns : Ooh yeah. Besides the canine-themed titles of the books Gromit reads constantly, in Loaf and Death there's a a play on bakery words every so often. The climax of Were-Rabbit is also very groan-heavy. Not to mention all of the cheese-themed classic titles behind which Wallace's secret cheese dish is hidden. Rube Goldberg Device : Wallace's method of invention has been described by Nick Park as the equivalent of cracking a nut with a sledgehammer.

Serious Business : The veg competition in Were-Rabbit. Wallace's business ventures always take otherwise mundane concepts such as window washing or baking to a ludicrous extreme to accommodate the previously mentioned Rube Goldberg Device methods he feels are necessary to do the job. Shout-Out : Most of Aardman's work use this with amazing frequency. Wrong Trousers contains an extended spoof of heist movies, just as Were-Rabbit parodies a number of horror tropes. Individual shout outs are so numerous as to take up a ridiculous entry length, but viewers paying close attention are well rewarded. Spin-Off : Shaun the Sheep got his own TV series. And then Timmy from that series got his own Spin-Off in the form of Timmy Time . Station Ident : To mark the showing of Loaf and Death, BBC 1 ran a number of specially-filmed 'Wallace and Gromit' idents during Christmas 2008. This was done way back in 1995, with several Christmas-themed idents for BBC 2 . Strangely Effective Disguise : Everyone assumes Feathers McGraw to be a chicken rather than a penguin just from him putting a rubber glove on his head.

Particularly played for laughs when even the intelligent and perceptive Gromit does a Double Take when he takes it off. Even funnier considering Wallace was renting a room out to Feathers and interacting with him frequently, and yet doesn't recognize him with the glove on and reacts in total surprise when Feathers pulls the glove off. Super Multi-Purpose Room : Basically every room in Wallace's house has built-in intricate mechanisms and contraptions to help Wallace and Gromit wake up, get dressed, effortlessly get seated for breakfast, get the breakfast prepared, get into their car, and and and ... See To the Batpole Suspiciously Specific Denial : In Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Hutch, in the middle of rambling about cheese, inventing, cheese , how cracking he thinks things are, eh, Gromit?, and cheese , says "I'm Wallace" for no apparent reason. Perhaps he's vaguely aware that someone's been tinkering with his thinker, and trying to reassure himself? Technology Porn : Wallace's inventions- elaborate, ridiculous, and oh so fun to watch. Take That : Gromit is trying to dispose of a bomb at the end of Loaf and Death.

He goes to one window--there are cute little ducks in the pond underneath. He goes to another window--nuns collecting charity for kittens. He goes to a third--the Yorkshire border. He prepares to throw. Take the Wheel : In A Matter of Loaf and Death, Wallace hands the wheel off to his dog while he makes a death-defying leap to save a bread heiress. And when Wallace says it, he means it literally . Apparently that particular incarnation of the ever changing Wallacemobile has a socket for the steering wheel on either side. Hopefully the peddles are replicated on both sides as well. Title Drop : In The Wrong Trousers, Wallace himself yells the title once he realizes he's wearing them. In A Close Shave when Gromit programs the machine to give Preston a "Close Shave". Too Dumb to Live : Wallace has been close to death far too often, mostly due to his absent-mindedness, and not paying attention to Gromit's warnings.

Torches and Pitchforks : In Curse of the Wererabbit, when the wererabbit is loose at the festival, a booth selling "farm supplies," places a new sign reading "mob supplies." To the Batpole : A Close Shave, the feature film Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and A Matter of Loaf and Death all feature our heroes suiting up via a Heath Robinson-esque process, depicted in all its absurd detail. A Close Shave had Wallace going through a similar scene; Gromit then simply walks through a door from the kitchen, rolling his eyes. An earlier example is established in The Wrong Trousers: Wallace apparently begins every day with his bed tilting up and dropping him into a trapdoor from his upstairs bedroom to a chair at the dining room table, with mechanical arms providing a costume change. Both of these examples are intended as direct references to Gerry Anderson and Thunderbirds . There is also a Tracey Island gag involving a rotating fishpond. Trademark Favorite Food : Cheese, particularly Wensleydale, is Wallace's favorite, but he's also pretty enthusiastic about toast. Trailers Always Spoil : One TV ad for Were-Rabbit completely spoiled that Wallace is the Were-Rabbit.

The Vicar Violent Glaswegian : Duncan McBiscuit from Grand Adventures. The Voiceless : All of the non-human characters, except for when the rabbits howl at the moon, and cry when Wallace is believed dead in Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Gromit himself makes a few audible yelps and growls in The Wrong Trousers" Hutch in Were-Rabbit is another exception. Visual Pun : In Curse of the Were-Rabbit, PC Mackinstosh blurts out that titular character isn't dead, the festival comes to a screeching halt, everyone is standing there in Stunned Silence , and a piece of cotton candy tumbles by . What Could Have Been : DreamWorks apparently attempted to replace Peter Sallis with an American actor. Aardman disliked this request, but they came to a compromise to cast well-known British actors like Helena Bonham Carter, while keeping Sallis in the title role. The amount of Executive Meddling over the course of that film and Flushed Away led to Aardman jumping ship as the latter film released into the wild. Where the Hell Is Springfield? : The name of the town is never given, though freeze-framing reveals Wallace's post is addressed to Wigan.

A poster in Loaf And Death also shows a performance of Carmen taking place at the "Wigan Palais". And the van in Wererabbit has a Wigan A-Z. Who's on First? : The hare you'll find is much bigger. Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs? : Wallace has currently worked on-screen as a window cleaner, an exterminator, a baker and a television presenter. In the Grand Adventures games, a beekeeper, runner of an indoor holiday resort, ice-cream vendor and detective. Wounded Gazelle Gambit : Piella pulls a quite unnerving one on Gromit, biting her own arm. Notes Animated Heroes . . . Gromit Gromit Gromit is the silent hero of the Wallace & Gromit Series, including the shorts A Grand Day Out (1989) , The Wrong Trousers (1993) , and A Close Shave (1995) , and the film Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) . Half of the award-winning, plasticine-animated title pair, level-headed Gromit is a canine genius, the intellectual counterpart to the slightly less in-tune Wallace.

He's an inventor of random but very useful devices, he's a scientist of many fields, he reads the classics, he knits often, he doesn't have much to say, and he pretty much is the gears that run all of the duo's crazy schemes. As the posters say, Wallace is the "master" and Gromit is the "mind". In A Grand Day Out, Wallace is dismayed to discover that his stock of his favorite snack (cheese) has run out, and he and Gromit take this opportunity to embark on holiday on a mission to the moon. They're sure they'll be able to find fine samples of cheese there, since (as everyone knows), the moon is made of the stuff. So they pack up a picnic, and crackers for the cheese, fire up their homemade rocket ship and head into outer space. While they enjoy their snack, the duo are surprised to find a lonely vending-machine-like robot trying to befriend them. Frightened, the two get back on board their rocket and head back to earth, leaving the abandoned robot sadly clutching the rails he pulled off the rocket. He soon learns to rig the rails up like skis and finds a hobby to occupy his lonely existence.

In The Wrong Trousers, Wallace finds he needs to rent out a room in their flat to make ends meet, and offers Gromit's room to a new tenant, a penguin that may or may not have a darker side. Relegated to an outdoor doghouse, Gromit is frustrated, and the matter is complicated when Gromit finds evidence that the new lodger is a ruthless criminal. The penguin has plans to use Wallace's new remote-controlled mechanical trousers to complete his plans for a robbery, all while Wallace is asleep in the trousers. Gromit employs all of his skill and intellect to foil the penguin's plans and save the oblivious Wallace. In A Close Shave, Wallace and Gromit are part of a new business endeavor, a window-washing business, in which Wallace provides the gadgets and Gromit does the actual work. Wallace falls for Wendolene Ramsbottom, a pretty client of the duo's window-washing business who works at a wool and yarn shop, which fits in with Wallace's latest invention, the Knit-O-Matic, which cleans and shears sheep, which he's able to employ when a stray sheep wanders into his home.

Wallace and Gromit discover that the sheep has esaped from a couple of sheep rustlers who have many sheep imprisoned, and want the lost one back. Things take a nasty turn when the mastermind behind the evil sheep-stealing scheme turns out to be Preston, a menacing dog owned by Wendolene. Preston manages to frame Gromit for killing sheep and put in jail, and Wallace, Wendolene and the sheep must work together to break Gromit out of prison and bring justice to Preston. Victorious, Wallace and Wendolene seem fated to eternal bliss, until Wallace discovers that she can't stand cheese... In Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, the pair are involved in a new business, Anti-Pesto, a humane pest control service, and find themselves invaluable to the town with the upcoming annual Giant Vegetable Contest looming and a group of hungry rabbits having their way with everyone's garden. They find their humane methods of keeping the rabbits in pens in their basement is taking its toll when they start to run out of room and sustenance for the many animals.

Wallace has the bright idea to use his latest invention, a brainwashing machine, to teach the rabbits not to crave vegetables, but cheese instead, but disaster strikes when the invention malfunctions and a rabbit and Wallace's brains are connected directly. When a mysterious and large veg-eating creature appears and starts to raid the neighborhood gardens despite the preventative measures in place by Anti-Pesto, the competition hostess, the lovely and prim Lady Tottington employs Wallace and Gromit's outfit to save the contest. Meanwhile, Lady Tottington's obnoxious, pompous and self-absorbed suitor, Lord Victor Quartermaine, for the purposes of gaining local glory and Lady Tottington's hand in marriage, has a gun handy and would rather shoot the beast than employ W&G's humane methods. To complicate the matter, Gromit soon discovers that the were-rabbit is actually Wallace, suffering from a shared rabbit brain from his incident with the mind manipulating machine. Victor discovers this and vows to exterminate the beast whatever it takes, and Gromit has to foil his plans and yet again save the day, the town, the vegetables and the rabbits.

In the end, the aroma of cheese brings Wallace to his senses and cures him of his woeful condition, and Lady Tottington opens a safe haven for all of the town rabbits at her mansion home. Gromit faces a myriad of foes, from a villainous penguin tenant to Preston, a menacing bulldog responsible for rounding up a flock of sheep. At times, Gromit finds himself in a little trouble with Wallace himself, and has to save both of their hides from Wallace's occasional ineptitude. In the film, Gromit faces the pompous and trigger-happy Lord Victor Quartermaine and his sharp-toothed dog, Phillip, as well as a vegetable-craving Wallace as the were-rabbit. Here's what I have to say... Wallace and Gromit are excellent characters, and their stories are imaginative and very funny. It's sometimes a different kind of humor than Americans are used to (that's what happens when they make movies across the pond), but it's undeniably hilarious. The humor is quite impressive, the recent film had me nearly on the floor at parts.

There were little inside jokes for fans of the original shorts (like calling the downtown barbershop "A Close Shave", etc.). The script and the voice acting really made much of the film. Having a character named PC Mackintosh and witty dialogue, they should win some kind of award: Lady Tottington: (over the phone) I have the most terrible rabbit infestation. Wallace: Certainly, M'um, we'll be there in... (hits the control panel and gets dragged up through the ceiling) Ahhhh!!! Lady Tottington: Hour? In an hour? But I can't wait that long! Brilliant. I had a hard time at first deciding just which of these guys I should feature on my website, and it became obviously clear that Gromit had to be the guy. While Wallace is amusing and also has moments of lucid brilliance, the real hero of the pair is Gromit. He doesn't have much to say, but he's extremely intelligent, and almost without fail, the situation relies on Gromit to save the day (which he invariably does).

While his design is appealing and interesting, and his character is charming and memorable (I love that he doesn't even need to have an apparent mouth), the real miracle about Gromit is the acting. He never speaks (the closest he comes is the occasional sigh, sob or cough, and the off-screen bark now and then), and he has minimal facial features, but you can tell exactly what he's thinking or trying to communicate almost without fail. He communicates completely with gestures, expressions and pantomime, but his eyebrows and eyes, body language and gestures show an impressive level of acting on the part of the animators. It's been interesting to see the evolution of these characters and the style from the first short to the first cinematic ventures. This medium of animation always has a really personal, tactile, charming feel to it, and I love how you can now and then see the hint of a fingerprint on the figures. Pictures of the canine genius Images from A Grand Day Out Images from The Wrong Trousers Images from A Close Shave Images from Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit Quotes from Gromit Vote for Gromit as your favorite hero here !

For more, check out the Links page or head back to the Heroes homepage . Famous Movie Robots - Illustrated History of Film Robots Death Machine (1994/1995, UK) 'Warbeast' Death Machine This low-budget, cyber-punkish, violent, sci-fi action film set in futuristic 2003 opened with a scene of destruction at a roadside diner. The Chaank Armaments Corporation (with the slogan: "Hard Tech for a Hard World"), a mega-corporation that manufactured military hardware, was threatened with closure following protests over its malfunctioning cyborg soldiers (a secret project code-named Hardman). The protests were being conducted by a group of pacifist eco-warriors, led by leftist Sam Raimi (John Sharian). The rogue weapons research lab of Chaank was run by psychotic, stringy-haired mad scientist and weapons designer Jack Dante (Brad Dourif).

They were Robocop-like super-warriors - ex-soldiers with erased minds, developed in the covert "HardMan Project." The new CEO Hayden Cale (Ely Pouget) headed the company's investigation, and met with the board of the Chaank Corporation (led by Scott Ridley (Richard Brake) who was covering up the facts) and argued for full disclosure of their research. She was confronted with lack of cooperation from Dante. To see for herself, Cale entered Dante's ultra-secure Vault 10 in the lab with a stolen security access card, and removed Dante's security and computer clearances after learning of the death of Ridley. This caused disgruntled Dante to retaliate by releasing his ultimate weapon on her - the Death Machine (a "front-line morale destroyer"). The Death Machine was an 8 foot tall, non-humanoid killer robot named the 'Warbeast.' The carbon-steel robot (with high-speed razor-sharp claws/talons and jagged chomping jaws with teeth, similar to a T-Rex) pursued tough heroine Cale and Raimi and others through the high-rise corporate building in the tense climax.

The Death Machine - Evolver (1995) Evolver This popular Sci-Fi Channel action/sci-fi film's tagline: "It was supposed to be a game" referred to the film's plot about a robot named Evolver that existed in a virtual reality videogame (similar to laser tag) made by the Cyber-Tronix Corporation. Teenaged hacker and videogame whiz-kid expert Kyle Baxter (Ethan Embry) won an Evolver videogame contest (that he rigged), and a real-life prototypical version of the robot he had defeated was delivered to his house. Evolver (voice of William H. Macy) was an Atomic Robot with a built in Laser Tag-BB-paintball combo gun, smoke machine, and electrified claws. Kyle was unaware that it was programmed with Defense Department military software programs (S.W.O.R.D. or "Strategic War-Oriented Robotic Device"). The competitive Evolver soon became a deadly killing force as it evolved to 'win' and 'play for keeps.' Evolver Judge Dredd (1995) ABC Warrior Director Danny Cannon's action film starred Sylvester Stallone as the title character Judge Joseph Dredd.

Dredd was derived from a popular comic-strip character from the British science fiction anthology 2000 AD. In the film, Judge Dredd was a futuristic, unemotional, ruthless, notorious law enforcement officer in a violence and crime-ridden mega-city (formerly New York), located on a dystopic desert wasteland known as The Cursed Earth in the year 2139 AD. He was commissioned to battle an antique collectible robot (with rusting metal), called an A.B.C. Warrior, a war robot designed to withstand 'Atomic,' 'Bacterial,' and 'Chemical' warfare. The diabolical villain Rico (Armand Assante) had re-armed and recycled the robot to be a killing machine. Judge Dredd Screamers (1995) (aka Screamers, The Hunting) Mechanical "Screamers" or Autonomous Mobile Swords (David, Becker, and Jessica) This sci-fi horror/thriller noir, adapted from a 1952 Philip K. Dick story called "Second Variety," was set on the distant Earth colony/planet of SIRIUS 6B in the year 2078.

SIRIUS 6B was a radioactive wasteland suffering from a decade of war and strip-mining - long forgotten by those who settled it. Earlier, murderous cyborgs (or "autonomous mobile swords"), perfect killing weapons or machines, had been developed by the Miners "Alliance" to use against their ex-corporate masters (called the New Economic Block (NEB)) to protect them from their enemies. The self-replicating cyborgs were small armadillo-like 'dinosaurs' that had razor-sharp saws or blades to cut off arms and legs. The artificially-intelligent "autonomous mobile swords" pursued their enemies from underground. As they quickly moved along, they squealed or screamed in a high-pitch while attacking - hence their name screamers. The robotic, reptilian-looking devices had become a highly-advanced killer race ("they're smarter now") that had begun to dangerously replicate, evolved to look like human beings and mimic human behavior, and were now intent on eradicating the human race. They attacked everything including Alliance soldiers.

Commander Hendriksson (Peter Weller), leading a handful of Alliance soldiers still alive on Sirius 6B and trying to establish peace with the N.E.B., was in charge of leading his men across a treacherous wasteland filled with screamers. One of the stealth androids, innocently named David, was an advanced 'type 3' screamer in the form of a young boy clutching a teddy bear, and asking: "Can I come with you?" After it was discovered that there were only two surviving N.E.B. soldiers, Becker (Roy Dupuis) and Ross (Charles Powell), and a civilian named Jessica (Jennifer Rubin), it turned out that both Becker and Jessica were evolved screamers. Screamers Virtuosity (1995) SID 6.7 In this action VR thriller from Brett Leonard (known for The Lawnmower Man), the Law Enforcement Technology Advancement Center (LETAC) developed a computer-generated, nano-tech synthetic android named SID 6.7 (6.66 rounded up, signifying its evil nature). SID stood for Sadistic, Intelligent, Dangerous.

The "50-terabyte self-evolving neural network" was composed of the personality traits of 183 serial killers, mass murderers, tyrants and terrorists that were placed into the android, used to test the LAPD in a virtual reality world. When the VR criminal SID escaped and entered the real world of Los Angeles in year 1999 (arguing: "I will not be shut down"), he evolved and was "free of any behavioral limits he might have had in virtual reality." He said to himself: "I thnk I'm gonna like it here." The casually sadistic SID was noted as saying to disgraced ex-LA cop Parker Barnes (Denzel Washington), who was tracking him down: "Just because I'm carrying the joy of killing your family inside me doesn't mean we can't be friends." Parker's family had been murdered by a brutal terroristic killer, political terrorist Matthew Grimes (Christopher Murphy) - one of SID's own personality profiles that he was channeling.

SID 6.7 (Wallace and Gromit in) A Close Shave (1995, UK) "Cyber-dog" Preston In this third film of Nick Park's Wallace and Gromit Claymation short film trilogy, one character was an evil, Terminator-like robotic bulldog named Preston (named after director Nick Park's home town), owned by local wool shop owner Wendolene Ramsbottom. Preston was involved in a plot to rustle sheep during a period of wool shortage, shear them, and then murder them to manufacture his own brand of dog food. Preston met his end when he was knocked into his own sheep-mincing, dog food processor machine, the Mutton-o-Matic (based on stolen blueprint designs of Wallace's sheep-shearing device the Knit-o-Matic), and was shredded into spare parts. Preston Cyber-Dog Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie (1996) (aka MST3K) Crow T.

Robot, and Tom Servo; also Gypsy Two robot sidekicks were there to assist marooned Mike Nelson (Himself): dark red/white colored Tom Servo (voice of Kevin Murphy) gold-colored, wise-cracking Crow T. Robot (voice of Trace Beaulieu) with a netted headpiece They provided sarcastic and mocking commentary, from a front-row 'peanut gallery' (the backs of their heads were often seen in silhouette in the lower portion of the picture) on the awful sci-fi B film, This Island Earth (1955) being screened. This full-length feature film was derived from the long-running popular TV series about a mad scientist named Dr. Clayton Forrester (Trace Beaulieu) who wished to subject the entire world to bad movies - and experimented on this three-some on an Earth-orbiting space station called the Satellite of Love. (l to r) Tom Servo, Crow T. Robot, Mike Mike with Gypsy Robo Warriors (1996) Earthbot (Robo Warrior) vs.

Tsu Garu This straight-to-video release was the third unofficial entry in the short-listed giant robot subgenre, coming after Stuart Gordon's Robot Jox (1989) (Albert Band's Crash and Burn (1990) used some of its robot footage), its sequel Robot Jox 2 (1993), and Albert Band's Robot Wars (1993). The film's tagline succinctly told the plot: "Two Gladiators. One Planet. No Prisoners." It told about life on Earth in the year 2036, when the planet was occupied by an evil, totalitarian alien race of half-human, half-reptile creatures called Terridax. The Terridax used a giant, towering steel robot called Tsu Garu to subjugate the people. A group of freedom fighters (skilled pilots of giant robots, known as Robo Warriors), led by the last heroic individual, resistance fighter and former robot-jox pilot Ray Gibson (James Remar), searched for remains of an older wrecked giant Earthbot, the last remaining Robo Warrior machine, to defeat the oppressive invaders.

Solo (1996) Solo and Solo II This sci-fi action thriller was based on the 1989 novel Weapon by Robert Mason. Mario Van Peebles starred as Solo - a robotic android killing machine manufactured for the military (known as Project Solo), to be sent as a cyber-soldier to battle Central American rebel insurgents who were setting up a remote airstrip (to destabilize a friendly regime). Costing $2 billion, the bald and muscle-bound Solo (with a face "like Mike" -- modeled after basketball star Michael Jordan) was constructed of polymers and computer chips, equipped with motion-sensors, and night-time vision (and "virtually immune to small-arms fire...about 15 times stronger, 10 times faster than any man"). He was "proficient in all types of combat" - "it's not just the weapon, he can make decisions!" Due to programming flaws or a "glitch," Solo was uncharacteristically self-aware (and human) during the aborted mission-raid (realizing that there were women and children non-combatants in the line of fire), and opposed his ruthless and obsessive Colonel Frank Madden (William Sadler).

Solo eventually escaped by hijacking a helicopter and joined the side of the rebel peasants in the jungle, where he exchanged his protection for energy to power himself, due to a damaged power supply. The surprise toward the end of the film was that a more powerful, unflawed and highly-developed version of Solo, a super cyborg prototype named Solo MKII ("the model for the next generation") (also William Sadler), appeared with the face of Colonel Madden! He was in charge of pursuing the aberrant, malfunctioning android in order to recover it or destroy it. Solo Star Trek: First Contact (1996) The Borg and the Borg Queen The second Star Trek: The Next Generation film featured the TV series' fearsome cyborg gestalt - the villainous, nearly invincible and ruthless Borg, whose mission was to absorb or assimilate all other species or cultures into their collective consciousness ("We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own"). Their catchphrase was: "Resistance is futile." Captured android Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) was threatened with the words: "You are an imperfect being, created by an imperfect being.

Finding your weakness is only a matter of time." The film then introduced the character of the sexy, cunning Borg Queen (Alice Krige), whose plan was to use time travel to enslave Earth's humanity in the 21st century (the year 2063). Her memorable entrance featured her organic head, shoulders and spinal cord descending from the ceiling and latching onto her synthetic, artificial body, as she announced: Are you ready?...I am the Borg... I am the beginning, the end, the one who is many. I am the Borg...I am the Collective ...By assimilating other beings into our Collective, we are bringing them closer to perfection. She attempted a seduction by grafting organic, human flesh onto Data's arm (she assisted him in his goal to become more fully human) and the promise of having sex with him ("Are you familiar with physical forms of pleasure?" to which he replied: "I am fully functional. Programmed in multiple techniques") in order to have him surrender encryption codes that would allow her to take over the USS Enterprise.

Attempting to save Data, USS Enterprise Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) located Data and was confronted by the Borg Queen ("You were very close, you and I...Welcome home, Locutus"). Picard offered himself in exchange for Data's freedom ("I will take my place at your side"), but the android refused to leave ("I do not wish to go"). Commanded by the Queen, Data deactivated the Enterprise's self-destruct sequence, entered encryption codes to allow her control of the vessel, and then aimed the Enterprise's quantum torpedoes at the Phoenix during its historic flight -- but the missiles didn't hit their target. The loyal android had deceived and betrayed the Borg Queen and turned on her - he ironically warned her: "Resistance is futile," and then killed her with flesh-eating vapor-gas from a smashed coolant tube. When she fell into the corrosive gas, it liquefied her organic parts on contact, rendering her into a twitching, lifeless skull and spinal cord. The remainder of the Borgs under her command were also neutralized when she perished.

Picard went over to her metal-skeletal remains, pulled off the upper part of her skull and spinal cord, and snapped her spinal cord with his bare hands (causing the flickering red lights to be extinguished). Borg Soldier Call The fourth film in the Alien film series was from French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. One of its characters was female mechanic Annalee Call (Winona Ryder) - a young, mercenary inter-stellar smuggler from the freight cargo spaceship Betty who was in a group that delivered contraband cargo of hijacked bodies in hypersleep to experimental military scientists on the deep-space military research vessel the USM Auriga. She was first described by Betty's captain Frank Elgyn (Michael Wincott) as a "little girl playing pirates...she is severely f--kable." Recognizing who Lt. Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) was - a cloned, bionic superhumanly strong warrior queen named clone # 8, Call first attempted to kill her ("You're a thing, a construct. They grew you in a f--king lab.

And now they brought it out of you") - she wanted to "stop this thing before it gets loose," but Ripley told her: "It's too late. You can't stop it. It's inevitable." Call rightly feared that the scientists were spawning adult aliens from Ripley's recently-extracted alien child (she said they were conducting "illegal experiments... breeding an alien species"). Ultimately, Call was revealed to be a robot ("a new model droid"), when shot directly in the chest but unharmed as the newly-grown aliens attacked while surviving crew members attempted to escape. Ripley said this about Call's robot nature: "I should have known. No human being is that humane." Upon realizing her synthetic nature, alien-infected Purvis (Leland Orser) quipped: "Great. She's a toaster oven." In the exciting conclusion, when Call was threatened by a half-Alien, half-human, skull-faced "Newborn" hybrid alien creature (a "beautiful butterfly") that tagged along on the departing Betty, Ripley saved Call by causing the monster to be sucked out through one of the windows into space. Upon arriving safely on Earth with Ripley, Call commented: "It's beautiful.

I didn't expect it to be." Call (Winona Ryder)

Question: In the Wallace & Grommitt film, "A Close Shave", who owned the evil robot bulldog, Preston?
Answer: Wendolene