Sad fact, all of the original Wallace and Gromit sets were destroyed in a fire in 2005. [1]

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/bristol/somerset/...

I used to work in the building with the turrets you see in the foreground which had a shared wall with that blaze (largest post-war fire in Bristol). Amazingly the building survived because of the astonishing quality of the Victorian stonework. It was an old engineering works where parts of the SS Great Britain were designed. The doorways were > 7 ft high for a cute reason... so the Victorian gents could walk about with their stove-pipe hats on.

Other history: Nick Park almost lost Wallace and Gromit in a NYC cab in 1996.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/07/nyregion/07lost.html

Especially sad as the highly elaborate museum set had several more visual gags than we actually get to see in the movie.

When I was a kid I persuaded the parents to take me to an exhibition of the sets. I think we ended up going a couple of times as it was so good. The amount of detail which had been put in, especially to the museum, was amazing.

What's impressive is that Nick Park started the first film by himself as a student graduation project, taking six years to complete.

"It's you!"

I always love how surprised Wallace is when Feathers removes his "disguise".

Some earlier work. Morph that was part of a weekly children's art show [1]. Creature comforts [2]. Heat electric ads [3].

[1] http://youtu.be/kCbPZhWGZhA [2] http://youtu.be/PCOWE0EiCyo [3] http://youtu.be/B9svHH6SCZ4

The attention to detail in this sequence is astonishing, and the timing is superb.

But my gosh, they appear to have a really big house ...

Emphasis appear. Someone else mentioned the same thing on Reddit when this video was posted there yesterday. I'll copy my reply to it:

> If you pay close attention to the background you see that it's looping. Near the end when they're about to enter the kitchen you see that the distance from the doorway to the wall is one, two meters at most (er... about 6 to 9 feet?), but then when they enter it you see a cupboard pass by 6 times before Gromit crashes, which basically means that the space has been stretched out six times.

> I think that just shows how much movie magic the scene has: space and time are stretched and squashed to meet the needs of the narrative, reality be damned! And unless you specifically look for, it you'll hardly notice because you're too caught up in the excitement.

Just like how you don't care that there's infinitely many train tracks in that box. It's basically The Rule Of Cool:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool

... and a TARDIS of a train track box.

So that's how they fit curved track into it.

I'm guessing this submission was prompted by yesterdays reddit thread "The greatest chase sequence in history", which linked to the same video [1].

In the thread you'll find lots of links to more modern chase scenes that are apparently inspired by or modelled on Wallace and Gromit.

Other highlights from that thread includes a link to a video where Adam Savage (of Myth Busters fame) interviews some of the people who makes puppets and props for Aardman and they discuss the geeky details [2]

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/50aupi/the_greatest...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3pPfq6hjLA

No, it wasn't. I submitted it because it appeared on my social stream as part of Aardman's 40th Anniversary celebrations.

I wasn't aware of that Reddit thread as I seldom visit Reddit.

It's amazing to see this and how Nick Park's work evolved into present-day Shaun the Sheep.

One of very few movies that had me fall off my chair from laughing when I first saw it back then.

Cracking stuff...!

Cheese!!

So, did the penguin represent Linux?

Oldies but goldies.