The Wrong Trousers

Right.

The Wrong Trousers, A Close Shave, and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

And the Variety article we're sourcing today describes Gromit as this whip-smart plasticine hound whose facial expressions are everything.

Facial expressions are everything.

It's a fantastic chase sequence, isn't it? I'm sure we've all seen it plenty of times, but I think probably the best two minutes of action committed to film, arguably, involving a train or a railway anyway.

Obviously to tie in with the review of these wagons and obviously because it is the 50th anniversary of Aardman I thought it would be good to do a bit of a behind the scenes feature looking not just at this sequence and how that was filmed in the wrong trousers but also because there's a closing sequence in Vengeance Most Foul as well which was released a couple of years ago and that's got a railway sequence at the end as well.

Spoiler alert.

Spoiler alert.

And it's on YouTube, so it's worth having a look if you've not seen it.

It actually utilises a circle of O-gauge track with a clockwork O4O running around it.

and the track was actually it's pico track and it was laid into an extremely tight radius circle um by tony prescott who works for aardman and is also a railway modeler and is someone familiar to us with his uh the layout but he's um had featured in a railway modeler in the past alexden so um yeah and he gets a credit um at the end of the uh end of the episode as well with that morph so he's down his permanent way engineer i think so he was quite pleased with that but uh yeah no all good fun i mentioned in my article i sort of i i suggested a few sort of railway themed sequence uh chase sequences that sort of came to mind um and uh you know obviously because you got this famous one in the wrong trousers but you obviously got ones like the general with buster keaton you've obviously got the one that everyone knows in tit for thunderbolt with the bus and the train And then you've got other ones like French Connection and Skyfall and Paddington 2 with Tornado.

But there's loads, isn't there? There's loads of films which have been done.

Go ahead.

Tell them you like it, because if we get this, then we could get mini fig versions of Wallace and Gromit, and we can get the rocket and The Wrong Trousers.

Oh my God.

Oh, and then we can get Chicken Run sets and Shaun the Sheep.

I didn't realize that his glasses are magnifying glasses.

Are magnifying glass.

Um, and then he's got his crackers in the back, and then this is a nod, the gem is a nod to The Wrong Trousers with the evil penguin.

Oh, if they make an evil penguin...

And if you've never seen it, have you seen any of the Aardman? Yes.

You've seen the other one, like The Wrong Trousers and Wallace and Gromit, et cetera.

Yes, correct.

Okay, if anyone doesn't know them, they're animated, but it's traditional stop-motion animation.

Really? Yeah.

Well, so we watched Wallace and Gromit, The Wrong Trousers a lot in school when I was probably like...

Sure.

It was like 10 to 12 and we all loved it.

I'm Chris, you are?

I'm Paul, and the Oscar-nominated 1989 is called A Grand Day Out, featuring Wallace and Gromit, directed by Nick Park.

The debut of beloved characters, Wallace and Gromit.

I was so glad when I saw that this was made in 1989 and not 1990.

But yes, this is, even though that they are from Yorkshire, this is, it's almost like from Bristol with love.

This is pure, you know, this is a Bristolian outpouring to the world.

You know, what has Bristol done for the world, you know, apart from bacon sandwiches and Wallace and Gromit, you know, that's enough.

Well, yeah, you can end there.

Fox.

Master of the Windage Punch says, for shorts, Walton Gromit, The Wrong Trousers.

That one is really great.

Non-short, The Nightmare Before Christmas.