A Close Shave



A Close Shave is a 1995 stop motion animated short film directed by Nick Park at Aardman Animations in Bristol, featuring his characters Wallace and Gromit. It was his third half-hour short featuring the eccentric inventor Wallace and his quiet but intelligent dog Gromit, following 1989's A Grand Day Out, and 1993's The Wrong Trousers.

To celebrate the film's premiere on Christmas Eve 1995, BBC Two's Christmas presentation that year (broadcast from 17 to 22 December) featured Wallace and Gromit. The main ident featured the two (Wallace wears a red crown and Gromit wears a green crown) eating Christmas dinner, with a large blue 2 (the channel's logo) situated in the middle of the table, covered with flashing Christmas lights.

Several Christmas themed stings also involving Wallace, Gromit, and the 2 were shown between programmes. The animation of these idents appeared slightly different from other Wallace and Gromit shorts. Following in the footsteps of its predecessor The Wrong Trousers, A Close Shave won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in March 1996.

Plot
In the middle of the night, a small sheep escapes from a mysterious lorry (truck) and enters the house of Wallace and Gromit, who are currently running a window-cleaning business. The next morning, Wallace and Gromit fail to notice the sheep chewing at their food and furniture, as well as their new Porridge Gun, before they leave for work. While they clean the windows of a wool shop, Wallace meets and falls in love with Wendolene Ramsbottom, the shopkeeper. Wendolene mentions that she inherited the shop from her father who was also an inventor and owns a sinister dog named Preston, who runs a sheep-rustling scheme to supply the shop. After returning from work, they finally discover the little lost sheep, who has wrecked their furniture and decorations.

Wallace puts the sheep into one of his inventions: the Knit-o-Matic, a machine for washing and shearing sheep and knitting the wool into jumpers. Gromit programs the machine to give a wash, but a fault causes the sheep to be sucked into the rest of the machine and sheared. When the sheep emerges, Wallace names him "Shaun" (a pun on the word "shorn") and dresses him in the jumper it knitted. Preston spies on the scene while hiding in a flood drain and after they leave, he sneaks in and steals the design blueprints for the Knit-o-Matic.

The next day, Wallace pays Wendolene another visit. Gromit attempts to investigate and find out what Preston is doing, but ends up getting captured by Preston and framed for the sheep rustling. Gromit is arrested and sentenced to life in prison while Wallace finds his house overrun with sheep. Wallace, Shaun and the other sheep rescue Gromit from prison and they hide out in the fields. Wendolene and Preston arrive in the lorry and round up the sheep. Wendolene turns against Preston and demands that he should put an end to the rustling, revealing that Preston intends to use the sheep to make “dog meat”. Preston locks Wendolene in the lorry with the captured sheep and drives away.

Wallace and Gromit, who have been spying on the scene, give chase on their motorcycle. The sidecar Gromit rides in separates, rushes down another road and off the edge of a 2000 foot cliff. Gromit saves himself by activating the sidecar's ability to turn into an aeroplane, and flies after Wallace's motorbike and the lorry. Their attempts to catch Preston fail, and Wallace instead gets himself trapped in the lorry. The captives are transported to Preston's factory, where Preston has used the stolen blueprints to build a giant replica of the Knit-o-Matic machine. The captives are loaded into the wash basin, with Shaun escaping, and Preston pulls out the nozzle to suck them into the shearing machine.

As they fight against the suction, Shaun activates some neon signs, revealing the factory's location to Gromit, who then flies in and attacks Preston with the porridge gun. Shaun then pulls the nozzle away to suck Preston into the Knit-o-Matic, which Gromit programs to give a "Close Shave". Wendolene reveals that Preston is a malfunctioning "cyber dog" built by her father, that has "turned out evil". Preston breaks out of the machine with his fake fur ripped off, revealing his robotic form. Unable to see after being dressed in a jumper knitted out of his fake fur, Preston accidentally loads himself and Gromit onto the conveyor belt of his "Mutton-o-Matic" mincing machine. Wallace attempts to turn the machine off but inadvertently loads everyone else on as well (except Shaun). As they all fight against the conveyor belt, Shaun swings over them on an anvil and knocks Preston into the machine.

Gromit is exonerated from all charges of the thefts, Wallace has rebuilt Preston back to the harmless pet he used to be, and Wendolene comes by to thank him. However, when Wallace invites her in to have cheese, he discovers that she is allergic to cheese, much to his dismay ("Not even Wensleydale?"). The film ends with Wallace finding Shaun eating his cheese.

Cast

 * Peter Sallis as Wallace
 * Anne Reid as Wendolene

Sequels
After A Close Shave, Wallace and Gromit's next major outing was in a set of 10 2$1/2$ minute shorts called Cracking Contraptions, each showing one of Wallace's inventions, usually with disastrous results. These appeared on the internet, and were also released as a limited edition Region 2 DVD, later on the Curse of the Were-Rabbit DVD. The sequel to A Close Shave is the feature film Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005). The next major short was A Matter of Loaf and Death, first broadcast in Britain on Christmas Day 2008.

Spin-offs
Shaun, the youngest of the flock of sheep in this feature, proved to be a very popular character, and in March 2007, was given his television series on the BBC, entitled Shaun the Sheep, which has been broadcast worldwide. The first two series (80 episodes, each approximately seven minutes long) are available on DVD. Each episode contains slapstick and situational humour ,with Shaun as the leader of the flock dealing with everyday farm issues, while exhibiting a high level of intelligence and human like behaviour to a level much like Gromit.

In April 2009, Shaun the Sheep itself spun off another series, aimed for toddlers, entitled Timmy Time. Timmy was a baby sheep in Shaun's flock, and the series was an educational one about his time at playgroup. In February 2015, Shaun the Sheep received his own feature film, entitled Shaun the Sheep Movie.