Nick Park is a pioneer for animation. He has created some of the most popular children’s animated series in the UK. Inspired by other legendary children’s animators like Oliver Postgate (creator of Bagpuss, Noggin the Nog, Pogles’ Wood and The Clangers), Ivor Wood (director of The Wombles, The Magic Roundabout, Charlie Chalk, Postman Pat and Paddington), John Cunliffe (creator of Postman Pat and Rosie and Jim) and Gerry Anderson (creator of Thunderbirds), Nick Park has gone on to inspire many other famous animators and writers himself, including Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons) and Richard Curtis (creator of Robbie the Reindeer etc.). 

His most famous plasticine creations, Wallace & Gromit made Park a household name following the release of their first animated short film, A Grand Day Out in 1989. This was a stop-motion animation epic that took years for Park to single-handedly make and required plenty of patience! Over the decades since, Park and his talented team at the Aardman Animations studios in Bristol have produced some of the finest plasticine, stop-motion animations for children in history, earning them numerous Academy Awards and BAFTAs. I lived in Bristol years ago when I was a postgraduate student at Bristol University. I graduated from Bristol University in 2017, aged 23. However, I now hate Bristol and I don’t like going back there.

Morph

Wallace and Gromit

Cheese-loving inventor Wallace and his silent dog Gromit are two of the most iconic animated characters of all time and are a significant part of popular culture in the UK. Some of my fondest childhood memories were of watching Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run on VHS round at my late grandmother’s flat in Beckenham, whilst eating cheese & crackers with my younger brother. Nannie (1924-2015) even had a Gromit soft toy in her kitchen. And hearing the voice of the late, great Last of the Summer Wine and Doctor Who: The Ice Warriors star Peter Sallis (1921-2017) who played Wallace still has a nostalgic effect on me. Sadly, I never had the pleasure of meeting the late, great Peter Sallis. My dad is also an inventor and he patented a fan coil hybrid office cooling system called Artus. My dad studied mechanical engineering at Durham University.

Writer Bob Baker (who also co-created the Doctor Who companion K-9 with Dave Martin) co-wrote some exciting scripts with Park. These became Wallace & Gromit‘s finest adventures: The Wrong Trousers, A Close Shave (which also features a robot dog) and A Matter of Loaf and Death. Baker was also one of four credited writers on the feature film Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. He received a BAFTA for The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and another for A Matter of Loaf and Death. Like the rest of Aardman’s animations, Wallace & Gromit has a lot of charm and warmth to it, thanks to its plasticine nature (something that CGI animation can’t really capture).

Creature Comforts

Chicken Run

Shaun the Sheep

Flushed Away

The Pirates! In An Adventure with Scientists!

Early Man

The future?