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Not to be confused with Big Day Out.

A Grand Day Out
Directed byNick Park
Written byNick Park
Steve Rushton
Produced byRob Copeland
StarringPeter Sallis
CinematographyNick Park
Edited byRob Copeland
Music byJulian Nott
Production
companies
Distributed byNational Film and Television School[1]
Release date
  • 4 November 1989 (1989-11-04)
Running time
23 minutes[2]
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£11,000[3]

A Grand Day Out is a 1989[4] British stop-motion animated short film starring Wallace & Gromit. It was directed, animated and co-written by Nick Park and features the voice of Peter Sallis as Wallace.

Park began making the film in 1982 during his final year at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield. It was completed with 

Aardman Animations in Bristol

A Grand Day Out debuted on 4 November 1989 at an animation festival at the Arnolfini, Bristol.[5][6][7][8] Its first television broadcast was on Christmas Eve 1990 on Channel 4.[9][10] A Grand Day Out was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1991.



Plot

[edit]

Wallace (Peter Sallis) and his dog Gromit run out of cheese. Believing the moon is made of cheese, they build a rocket and fly to the Moon. There, they encounter a coin-operated robot resembling a gas cooker or oven. Wallace inserts a coin, but nothing happens. After he and Gromit leave, the robot comes to life and gathers the dirty plates left at the picnic spot.

The robot discovers a skiing magazine and yearns to travel to Earth to ski there. After repairing a broken piece of landscape and issuing a parking ticket for the rocket, the robot sneaks up on Wallace and prepares to strike him with a truncheon but the money Wallace inserted runs out, freezing it. Wallace takes the robot's truncheon, inserts another coin, and prepares to leave with Gromit.

Returning to life, the robot follows Wallace and Gromit. Wallace panics, and he and Gromit retreat into the rocket. Unable to climb the ladder, the robot cuts into the fuselage with a can opener and accidentally ignites some fuel. The explosion throws it off the rocket and Wallace and Gromit lift off. Dejected, the robot fashions discarded fragments of rocket fuselage into skis, and skis across the lunar landscape. It waves goodbye to Wallace and Gromit as they return home.

Production

[edit]

Nick Park started creating A Grand Day Out in 1982 as a graduation project for the National Film and Television School. In 1985, Aardman Animations took him on before he finished the piece, allowing him to work on it part-time while still being funded by the school.[citation needed]

Park was influenced by the slapstick comedy of Laurel and Hardy.[11]

Though Park completed the film around the same time as Creature Comforts, he considered it an earlier work.[12]

The story was partially dictated by Park's love of "old-fashioned science fiction, with archaic rockets rather than hi-tech".[11]

To make the film, Park wrote to William Harbutt's company, requesting 1 long ton (1,000 kg) of Plasticine. The block he received had ten colours, one of which was called "stone"; this was used for Gromit. Park wanted to voice Gromit, but he realised the voice he had in mind – that of Peter Hawkins – would have been difficult to animate.[13] Park offered Peter Sallis £50 to voice Wallace, and was surprised when he accepted.[14]

Park wanted Wallace to have a Lancashire accent like his own, but Sallis could only do a Yorkshire voice. Inspired by how Sallis drew out the word "cheese", Park chose to give Wallace large cheeks. When Park called the actor six years later to explain he had completed his film, Sallis swore in surprise.[13]

Gromit was named after grommets, because Park's brother, an electrician, often mentioned them, and Park liked the sound of the word. Wallace was originally a postman named Jerry, but Park felt the name did not match Gromit. Park saw an overweight Labrador Retriever named Wallace belonging to an old woman boarding a bus in Preston. Park commented it was a "funny name, a very northern name to give a dog".[15]

According to the book The World of Wallace and Gromit, Park originally planned the film to be forty minutes long and to spoof Star Wars with numerous characters and a fast food restaurant on the Moon. Park shrank the story when he realised it would take him several more years to complete.[16]

Home media

[edit]

The short film was released on VHS in the 1990s by BBC Video. It was also reissued as a DreamWorks Pictures release along with The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave on the Wallace and Gromit in 3 Amazing Adventures DVD by DreamWorks Home Entertainment on 20 September 2005. In the United States, it was released on DVD on 10 February 2009 by Lionsgate Home Entertainment and HIT Entertainment. In the United Kingdom, it was again released on DVD in the 2000s.[citation needed]

Lionsgate Home Entertainment later released it on Blu-ray for the first time, under the release's name Wallace and Gromit: The Complete Collection, on 22 September 2009 in time for the 20th anniversary of the franchise.[17]

Release

[edit]

The short was first screened on 4 November 1989 at the Arnolfini in Bristol, UK, as part of the Bristol International Animation Festival.[18][19][nb 1]

It debuted in the United States on 18 May 1990.

It was also shown on Channel 4 on 24 December 1990 in the UK. It later aired on BBC Two on 25 December 1993, trailering the channel's premiere of The Wrong Trousers the next day.[21]


Awards

[edit]

The film won the prize for best animated film over 15 minutes at the British Animation Awards 1990.[22]



Reception

[edit]

On Rotten Tomatoes, A Grand Day Out has a No Wikidata item connected to current page. Need qid or title argument. approval rating based on No Wikidata item connected to current page. Need qid or title argument. reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10.[23] It won the inaugural Best Short Animation award at the 43rd BAFTAs in 1990[24] and was nominated for Best Animated Short Film at the 63rd Academy Awards in 1991.[25] Creature Comforts, another Park short, was also nominated for both awards and beat A Grand Day Out for the Academy Award.[24][25]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Annual Report 1990" (PDF). Channel 4. p. 20. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 15 August 2015.
  2. ^ "A Grand Day Out". BBFC.
  3. ^ Jeffries, Stuart (16 September 2005). "Lock up your vegetables!". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 August 2015.
  4. ^ "A Grand Day Out (1989)". British Film Forever. Archived from the original on 21 September 2015. Retrieved 15 August 2015.
  5. ^ Martins, Holly (September 2000). "13th BBC British Short Film Festival". Netribution. Archived from the original on 29 July 2001. Retrieved 15 August 2015.
  6. ^ Media Monkey (4 November 2009). "Wallace and Gromit's 20th birthday present from Google Doodle". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 4 March 2014. Retrieved 15 August 2015. Park unveiled Wallace and Gromit to an unsuspecting public on this day in 1989 at an animation festival at the Arnolfini gallery in Bristol.
  7. ^ "2012 Annual Review" (PDF). Encounters Film Festival. 2013. p. 4. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 September 2015. Retrieved 15 August 2015. Nick Park on A Grand Day Out when shown at Bristol Animation Festival in 1989
  8. ^ "Gromit! It has been 25 years". The Daily Telegraph. 4 November 2014. Archived from the original on 7 November 2014. Retrieved 15 August 2015.
  9. ^ Midgley, Neil (26 November 2010). "Christmas telly is a reassuring British tradition". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
  10. ^ "A Grand Day Out". Wallace & Gromit. Archived from the original on 7 February 2008. Retrieved 22 August 2015. A Grand Day Out was finally finished and transmitted on Channel 4 on Christmas Eve, 1990 – 6 years after production began!
  11. ^ a b Adolphson, Sue (31 March 1991). "Oscar comforts 'creature' creator". The San Francisco Examiner: 34. Retrieved 5 November 2024.
  12. ^ Stein, Pat (29 March 1991). "Oscar-winning 'Creature Comforts' showing in La Jolla". North County Blade-Citizen. 11. Retrieved 6 November 2024.
  13. ^ a b Farndale, Nigel (18 December 2008). "Wallace and Gromit: one man and his dog". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 18 December 2008.
  14. ^ Manger, Warren (5 June 2017). "Peter Sallis dead aged 96 after decades as Clegg in Last of the Summer Wine and unlikely Hollywood success with Wallace & Gromit". Daily Mirror. Archived from the original on 8 November 2017. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
  15. ^ Kendall, Nigel (20 December 2008). "Nick Park on Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death". The Times. London. Archived from the original on 16 June 2011. Retrieved 26 December 2008.
  16. ^ Lane, Andy (2004). The World of Wallace and Gromit. BoxTree. p. 53. ISBN 978-0-75221-558-7.
  17. ^ Debruge, Peter (25 October 2009). "Wallace & Gromit: The Complete Collection Blu-ray Review". Collider. Retrieved 2 October 2022.
  18. ^ "A Grand Day Out". BBC. Retrieved 5 November 2024.
  19. ^ "Animation festival". Bristol Evening Post: 88. 3 November 1989. Retrieved 5 November 2024.
  20. ^ Belsey, James (3 November 1989). "Exhibitions". Bristol Evening Post: 79. Retrieved 5 November 2024.
  21. ^ "A Grand Day Out". BBC Programme Index. BBC. 25 December 1993. Retrieved 9 June 2024.
  22. ^ "Animal-mation experts scoop best film prize". Western Daily Press: 16. 30 November 1990. Retrieved 5 November 2024.
  23. ^ "A Grand Day Out With Wallace and Gromit". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Archived from the original on 30 October 2014. Retrieved No Wikidata item connected to current page. Need qid or title argument.. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |access-date= (help)No Wikidata item connected to current page. Need qid or title argument.
  24. ^ a b "Film | Short Animation in 1990". BAFTA Awards. BAFTA. Retrieved 18 March 2024.
  25. ^ a b "Search Results - Academy Awards Search". Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 18 March 2024.





Russell Harty
Born
Frederic Russell Harty[1]

(1934-09-05)5 September 1934
Blackburn, Lancashire, England
Died8 June 1988(1988-06-08) (aged 53)
Leeds, West Yorkshire, England
Resting placeSt Alkelda Church, Giggleswick, North Yorkshire, England
OccupationTalk show host
Years active1967–1988

Frederic Russell Harty (5 September 1934 – 8 June 1988)[1][2] was an English television presenter of arts programmes and chat show host.

Early life

[edit]

Harty was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, the son of fruit and vegetable merchants Fred Harty and Myrtle Rishton.[3][4] He attended Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School on West Park Road in Blackburn.[4] In 1954, he began studying at Exeter College, Oxford, where he obtained a third-class degree in English literature.[5][4][6]

Teaching career

[edit]

On leaving university, Harty taught briefly at Blakey Moor Secondary Modern School in Blackburn before moving in 1958 to Giggleswick School in North Yorkshire.[4] There, he taught English and drama and served as a housemaster.[4] Among Harty's pupils were the journalist and television presenter Richard Whiteley and the actors Graham Hamilton and Anthony Daniels.[7] In 1964-65, Harty lectured in English literature at the City University of New York.[2][6]

Broadcasting career

[edit]

Harty joined the BBC in October 1967, replacing John Laird as producer of BBC Radio 4's The World of Books.[8][4] Ronald Eyre, who'd taught Harty at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, assumed chairmanship of the series in December 1967.[4] Over 1968 and 1969, Harty produced a variety of programmes for BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4 including The Arts This Week and The Critics.[8][8]

He got his first break in 1970 presenting the arts programme Aquarius,[1] that was intended to be London Weekend Television's response to the BBC's Omnibus. One programme involving a "meeting of cultures" saw Harty travelling to Italy in 1974 to engineer an encounter between the entertainer Gracie Fields and the composer William Walton, two fellow Lancastrians now living on the neighbouring islands of Capri and Ischia.[9] A documentary on Salvador Dalí ("Hello Dalí") directed by Bruce Gowers, won an Emmy. Another award-winning documentary was Finnan Games about a Scottish community, Glenfinnan, where "Bonnie Prince Charlie" raised his standard to begin the Jacobite rising of 1745, and its Highland Games.

In 1972 he interviewed Marc Bolan, who at that time was at the height of his fame as a teen idol and king of glam rock. During the interview Harty asked Bolan what he thought he would be doing when he was forty or sixty years old, Bolan replying that he didn't think he would live that long.[10] (Bolan subsequently was killed in a car crash at age 29 on 16 September 1977.)

In 1972 he was given his own series, Russell Harty Plus (later simply titled Russell Harty), conducting lengthy celebrity interviews, on ITV, which placed him against the BBC's Parkinson.[1] Parts of Russell Harty's interview with the Who in 1973 were included in Jeff Stein's 1979 film The Kids Are Alright, providing notable moments, such as Pete Townshend and Keith Moon ripping off each other's shirt sleeves. In 1975, he interviewed Alice Cooper and French singer Claude François, and was one of the first to acknowledge the fact that the Paul Anka song "My Way" was based on a French song of Claude's called "Comme d'habitude". He would also interview François again in 1977. The show lasted until 1981 and some of his interviews included show business legends Tony Curtis, Danny Kaye, Rita Hayworth, Veronica Lake, David Carradine, John Gielgud, Diana Dors and Ralph Richardson. In 1973 Harty won a Pye Television Award for the Most Outstanding New Personality of the Year.[citation needed]

He remained with ITV until 1980,[2] at which point his show moved to the BBC. In November 1980 he interviewed the model Grace Jones. Jones was nervous and distracted during the interview before a live studio audience and Harty found the interview an uneasy one to conduct, and appeared to be intimidated by Jones, commenting nervously to the audience regarding her demeanour on stage as "It's coming to life, it's coming to life!" Joined later on stage by other guests including a bemused Douglas Byng, Harty was compelled by the seating arrangement on stage to turn his back on Jones, who was left sitting there in silence for an extended period. After several protests she repeatedly slapped him on the shoulder, causing a memorable event in 1980s British television.[11] Initially shown on BBC2 in a mid-evening slot, Harty's chatshow ran until 1982 before being moved to an early evening BBC1 slot in 1983 where it was now simply titled Harty. The show ended in late 1984, though Harty would continue to present factual programmes for the BBC for some time afterwards. In 1985, Harty was invited to the Prince's Palace of Monaco, by Prince Rainier, to conduct his first interview since the death of his wife, the actress Grace Kelly in 1982.[12]

He was the subject of This Is Your Life in December 1980, when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the London department store Selfridges.[citation needed]

In 1986 he interviewed Dirk Bogarde at his house in France, for Yorkshire Television, at Bogarde's invitation. He began working on a new series Russell Harty's Grand Tour for the BBC in 1987.

Personal life

[edit]

For the last six years of Harty's life his partner was the Irish novelist Jamie O'Neill. Latterly they resided in Harty's cottage in Giggleswick, North Yorkshire.[13]

Harty was a friend of the playwright Alan Bennett.[14] Bennett spoke of Harty and his family, in relation to Bennett's own family, in the essay "Written on the Body" taken from his semi-biography Untold Stories.

Death

[edit]

In mid-1988 Harty became ill with hepatitis B and was admitted to St James's University Hospital, Leeds. Around this time The Sun tabloid newspaper began publishing stories about his health and private life, claiming that the disease was "related to an HIV/AIDS" infection and that Harty was in the habit of using teenage male prostitutes.[15]

He died in St James' University Hospital on 8 June 1988 at the age of 53 from liver failure caused by hepatitis. At his funeral Alan Bennett commented in his eulogy that "the gutter press had finished Harty off."[15] His body was buried in the graveyard of St Alkelda Church at Giggleswick.[16][17]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d Stevens, Christopher (2010). Born Brilliant: The Life of Kenneth Williams. John Murray. p. 403. ISBN 978-1-84854-195-5.
  2. ^ a b c "Russell Harty | British writer and television personality". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
  3. ^ "The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/40158. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. ^ a b c d e f g "Producer's Radio 4 debut tonight". Lancashire Telegraph: 5. 7 November 1967. Retrieved 24 October 2024.
  5. ^ "The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/40158. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  6. ^ a b Brief Lives. Oxford University Press. 1999. p. 271. ISBN 9780192800893. Retrieved 24 October 2024.
  7. ^ "Harty appreciation". The Independent. 6 June 1998. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
  8. ^ a b c "The World of Books". BBC Genome. Retrieved 24 October 2024. Cite error: The named reference "genome" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  9. ^ Walton, Susana (May 1988). William Walton: Behind the Façade. Oxford University Press. p. 218. ISBN 978-0-19-315156-7.
  10. ^ Interview of Marc Bolan by Russell Harty, BBC (08:55)
  11. ^ Grace Jones – The Russell Harty Show interview, published on Youtube, 25 October 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLLtS50UCBQ
  12. ^ "BBC Programme Index".
  13. ^ Moss, Stephen (23 November 2000). "Out of the shadows". Guardian. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
  14. ^ "BFI Screenonline: Harty, Russell (1934–88) Biography". screenonline.org.uk. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
  15. ^ a b Clews, Colin. Gay in the 80s: From Fighting our Rights to Fighting for our Lives, Troubador Publishing, 2017, ISBN 978-1788036740
  16. ^ "Heading into the Dales and exploring a timeless village". Bury Times. 14 April 2019.
  17. ^ "Giggleswick Church". Lancashire County Council: Red Rose Collections. Retrieved 1 December 2022.


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