The Cartoon Museum are excited to announce a brand-new exhibition for September 2023 that celebrates the iconic animated duo Wallace & Gromit and the 30th birthday of the classic film The Wrong Trousers!
Released in 1993, The Wrong Trousers introduced British national treasures Wallace & Gromit to the villainous penguin Feathers McGraw. This dastardly foe harboured ambitions to put Wallace’s ingenious inventions to criminal use. The film won an Academy Award ® and became part of a long legacy for the company as the home of British animation. For the film's 30th anniversary, The Cartoon Museum and Aardman are collaborating to bring you a truly spectacular exhibition that celebrates that legacy.
Our exhibition invites you to discover a one-of-a-kind collection showing the full production process of Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers. We have never-before-seen original sketches by Nick Park and behind the screen shots showing the artists and studio as the film was made, plus once believed lost set pieces and models and every surviving piece of original artwork.
Taking you through the process of creating the film, the exhibition starts by delving into where Nick Park and Peter Lord, the film’s producers, got their inspiration - including a look into some of the wonderful artworks in The Cartoon Museum’s own collection. We look at original art showcasing early designs for characters, and even find out the method behind Gromit’s many hilarious faces!
But how do you make a stop-motion film? How long does it take? How do you prevent plasticine dogs melting under stage lights? And with such a delicate process, how much is planned out in advance? The story is told through a treasure-trove of models, scripts, behind-the-scenes photos, original storyboards, and other artworks from the Aardman vault that will inspire wonder and nostalgia alike.
Few actual artefacts from this piece of movie magic exist to this day, and now for the first time in cartooning history, we will have them here at your favourite museum! Alongside the story of the film-making process, we will also explore the legacy of the film, including Wallace & Gromit’s amazing comic history. Through special workshops running alongside the exhibition (booked separately), you will also be able to make your own piece of plasticine history to take home!
“The Wrong Trousers was a special film for all of us at Aardman. It’s wonderful that it continues to find new fans today, and that we can bring those fans more adventures – and more inventions, more mishaps, and more problems for Gromit to solve.” - Nick Park