‘Wallace & Gromit’ offer a ‘real kind of love’

updated 6:13 p.m. ET Oct. 3, 2005

BRISTOL, England - You have to love those classic comedy duos, often at odds, playfully disagreeing, but always indivisible, always there for each other in a pinch.

Burns and Allen. Laurel and Hardy. Abbott and Costello. Hope and Crosby.

Wallace and Gromit.

British twit Wallace and his ever-put-upon dog Gromit have come a long way from their humble beginnings as a film-school project in the early 1980s for stop-motion animation enthusiast Nick Park.

Back then, Park toiled by himself to manipulate and photograph his little characters. Twenty-some years later, Park oversaw dozens of animation teams working with 400 clay puppets at a warehouse-sized set in this southwest English city to produce the duo’s big-screen debut, “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.”

What’s the secret behind the worldwide appeal of this geeky, not-so-bright cheese addict who never stops talking and the unassumingly brilliant dog who not only cannot speak, but also doesn’t even have a mouth?

‘Like a family of two’
Park figures Wallace and Gromit’s odd domestic bond simply reminds viewers of their own family households.

FREE VIDEO "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" Wallace and Gromit start a humane pest-control agency called Anti-Pesto and meet up with the mysterious Were-Rabbit. DreamWorks

“In many ways, I thought of them as an elderly couple,” Park said. “They’re inseparable, they live in each other’s pockets. There’s a kind of love-hate relationship, but they’ll always look out for each other at the end of the day.

“It’s a real kind of love without being all sloppy and sentimental, which I think people can kind of relate to as the more truer family thing. There’s a long-suffering-ness about it.”

“They’re like a family of two,” added Peter Sallis, the 84-year-old British actor who has been supplying Wallace’s voice since Park’s student days. “They could be not quite brothers but could be father and son in a sort of way. And there’s the charming fact that Gromit doesn’t speak, and Gromit, of course, is the brains of the family.”

Joining Sallis in the film’s voice cast is Helena Bonham Carter as a giddy society dame overseeing a giant vegetable competition and Ralph Fiennes as her villainous suitor.

“Curse of the Were-Rabbit” has Wallace and Gromit using their fabulous contraptions and inventions to help humanely rid the town’s gardens of pesky rabbits chowing down on the veggies — and a ravenous mutant bunny that threatens to ruin the annual contest.

An Oscar-winning team
Wallace and Gromit grew into an unlikely cultural sensation after their 1989 debut in the animated short “A Grand Day Out” and two Academy Award-winning cartoon adventures that followed, 1993’s “The Wrong Trousers” and 1995’s “A Close Shave,” all directed by Park.

“The combination is so classic, the man-dog combination. There’s obviously a great love between them,” said Steve Box, Park’s co-director on “Curse of the Were-Rabbit.” “I think Gromit is the biggest key, in spite of the fact he’s mute. Through economy and simplicity of design, he lost his mouth, but this character obviously is very clever. He speaks with his eyes and can completely cross any language barrier in the world.”

Today’s cartoon heroes tend to be wry, glib hepcats oozing sarcasm and irreverence. Wallace, with his corny knitted vests and cheese compulsion, and Gromit, with his stout heart and servile ways, seem like old fogies by comparison.

The innocence and naivete of the characters could be what sets Wallace and Gromit apart from a parade of cartoon wisenheimers that stretches from Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck up to Shrek and Donkey.

“They’re not derived from anything you’ve seen before. What else is like Wallace and Gromit? It’s very hard to say,” said Peter Lord, co-founder of Aardman Animations, which produces the “Wallace & Gromit” films. “It doesn’t take shortcuts. It doesn’t do the obvious.

“For example, Wallace is a deeply flawed character,” said Lord, who co-directed Aardman’s animated hit “Chicken Run” with Park. “He’s so unaware of Gromit’s feelings and needs, and he’s obsessive. He’s pretty stupid. Your studio development executive would never come up with this character, but the audience can believe in him. They can trust Wallace and Gromit, and know they’re getting something genuine. They’re not going to be duped and tricked.”

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