Wallace & Gromit
Their First Three Adventures

DVD Details: Full Frame Audio Tracks: English Subtitles: English, Spanish Early Animations Part of "Inside the Wrong Trousers" BBC Interstitials 85 minutes total

Wallace and Gromit are a claymation duo created by Nick Park. Somehow he came up with the idea to team up A British inventor named Wallace with his incredibly smart dog Gromit. It's hard to explain why it's so great, but it's just something you have to see. Claymation hasn't really ever taken off, the last thing I can remember was the California Raisins. Yuck. They look like trailer-trash compared to Wallace & Gromit.

So if you're still confused, which you probably are, there's not really much I can do to help. You need to find a friend with one, or rent one or all of these to really see what I mean. The situations are very funny, and it's hard to understand how people could have the patience to photograph every frame of these films. But their work really pays off when you see the final form. Oh well, enough rambling, onto the disc review!

The video quality is just excellent. The quality is a little worse on A Grand Day Out (the first of the films), but by A Close Shave you're looking at a really pristine transfer. The Audio isn't excellent, but the subwoofer gets a bit of a workout, with all the tuba playing going on. I don't know how you'd find much better quality versions of these films, so I tend to be happier with the quality, scratches and all, than I am disappointed.

The extras on the disc are nice, but of course a commentary track would have been great. Four of Nick Park's Early Animations are on the disc, mostly I think testing how fast he could move the characters without it looking too slow or too fast. There are a couple different creatures, as well as Wallace in his first form. About 8 minutes from "Inside The Wrong Trousers" is on the disc. This was a special made during the filming of The Wrong Trousers and is interesting to watch. It would've been kind of the BBC to include the whole featurette, and I think it must've been more work to cut it down than to just include the whole thing. I don't think they'll be able to sell it separately, so I'm not sure why they held it back. Maybe in a few years they'll do a Special Edition with a Commentary track and the whole Featurette. Curses, they'll probably get my money then too. Oh wait, I got this disc for free. (^8

Also on the disc are a few BBC Interstitials (the bits between shows) that are kinda cute, and probably were done during the final film. On a side note, I recall seeing some preview for a new movie starring Mel Gibson done in claymation, and it was most definitely the Wallace & Gromit style. I'm not sure who wrote it, but if the guys from Wallace & Gromit were involved, it's sure to be a great movie.

**UPDATE** Yes, Chicken Run starring Mel Gibson was done with Ray Park and his team. I was happy to see claymation make a bit of a come back, I can only hope there's a feature-length Wallace & Gromit movie in the works. Now back to our review...

This DVD is great for anyone that likes to laugh. Kids, grown-ups, it doesn't really matter. The animation is really the best, and much more "warm" than any computer animation has been up to this point. If you're a fan of good humor and nice animation, you'll be sure to enjoy this. And it's even better with Crackers and Cheese!