Did You Know?

To prepare the Aardman animators for animating the Wallace and Gromit characters and world, ten short films were made by the various animating teams. They were released online under the title Wallace & Gromit's Cracking Contraptions; the first, "Soccamatic", was a free download, but the other nine were only available by subscribing or by ordering the DVD.

DreamWorks wanted Aardman to replace Peter Sallis, the voice of Wallace since the first animated short, with a well-known actor that American audiences would recognize. According to Entertainment Weekly, they politely but firmly refused; instead, they got Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter to play roles.

The greenhouse in Lady Campanula Tottington's house is made of real glass. Her gardens feature 100 types of trees and plants and 700 varieties of vegetable.

Each character needed several versions to cover a range of emotions and poses. There were 43 versions of Gromit, 35 Wallaces, 16 Victor Quartermaines and 15 Lady Tottingtons, as well as 20 differently shaped mouths. A single line of dialog of only a few words could take a whole day to animate.

There were 30 miniature sets.

When the film was released in Portland, Dorset, UK, the posters had to be altered to remove the word "rabbit". There is a local superstition that prohibits the use of this word (they use terms such as "underground mutton" or "furry things" instead) because burrowing can cause dangerous landslips in the local stone quarrying industry. The film posters in Portland use the alternative slogan "Something bunny is going on."

The Victor Quartermaine character was once known as Tristrum, and was originally written into the script as Lady Tottington's son.

The Latin motto of the Tottington family inscribed on the manor house translates roughly as "Manure Liberates Us All". (It was originally meant to be "Free Manure for Everyone").

Special software had to be created in order to photo-realistically recreate the texture of genuine Aardman plasticine in the computer. The software had to create the possibility for slight imperfections, e.g., fingerprints to appear on the fake plasticine bunnies and ripple effects of the characters moving their plasticine arms and legs.

The crew used 44 pounds of glue every month to assist in sticking down the sets.

In Wallace"s bookcase there are several titles which refer to cheese. They are "The Hunt For Red Leicester", "Brighton Roquefort", "How Green Was My Cheese", "Brie Encounter", "Swiss Cheese Family Robinson", "East of Edam", "Grated Expectations", "Fromage to Eternity", and "Waiting for Gouda".

The license plate of the Anti-Pesto van is "HOP 21T", which can be read "Hop to it".

During filming, Aardman managed an average of 3 seconds of usable footage per day.

Even before the release of the film, the only producer of Stinking Bishop cheese in the world had their orders increase over 500%. The producer only makes 22 tons of the cheese annually and has no intention to grow in size.

At one point, Wallace is reading a magazine called "Ay-Up!", a spoof of celebrity-spotting magazine Hello! Ay-up is regional greeting, mainly in the north of England.

The pet name "Totty" is also English slang for a desirable woman.

Entries in the Vicar's Monster Book are jokes: 1) "touristis trappus" for the Loch Ness Monster (joke about it being a major tourist attraction) ; 2) "enormious flippis-floppus" for the Bigfoot; 3) "numerous pendulus udderis" for the Were-Cow ; 4) "carrotus appetitus giganticus" for the Were-Rabbit.

Torch bulbs and other small lamps were used as "practical" lights on the sets and over 15,000 were used on the fairground.

The grass is made from fun fur imported from the USA.

Voted number 25 in channel 4's (UK) "Greatest Family Films"

When Lady Tottington wants the Were-Rabbit to escape, she says "Run, rabbit, run!" Which is the title (and lyric) of a ditty written by Noel Gay and Ralph Butler for Noel's show, "The Little Dog Laughed". WWII era comedy duo Bud Flanagan and Chesney Allen made the song popular by adding lyrics referring to Adolf Hitler. PC Mac whistled this song during the original version of the opening sequence (see "Deleted Scenes" on the DVD).

Shortly after this film was released, the Aardman warehouse in Bristol, England burned to the ground, destroying hundreds of plasticine characters and sets, virtually the entire history of the company. Nick Park was quoted as saying, "Even though it is a precious and nostalgic collection and valuable to the company, in light of other tragedies, today isn't a big deal."

The name of Wallace & Gromit's pest control company is a triple pun. "Anti-pesto", aside from the obvious pest control pun, also refers to "antipasto," which is an assortment of Italian appetizers (including vegetables) and to "pesto," a sauce-base made up mainly of basil, garlic, oil and, of course, cheese.

During one shot, where the camera pulls out of the vicar's room where he keeps his occult objects, there are two portraits briefly visible on the wall. The people in the pictures are the two directors, Nick Park and Steve Box.

Features more human characters than the previous short films did.

The vegetable shop that the were-rabbit attacks is named "Harvey's." Its name is taken from Harvey, the play and movie (starring James Stewart) about a man who befriends a six-foot-tall invisible rabbit named Harvey.

Lord Victor Quartermaine is named after Allan Quatermain, the fictional big game hunter created by H. Rider Haggard in the novel 'King Solomon's Mines'.

Movie posters on the walls of the town include "Spartichoke" (a take-off on Spartacus), "Carrot on a Hot Tin Roof," and "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner Bean."

At the end of the movie when Wallace has turned back into himself, Gromit uses a box to cover up the fact that Wallace doesn't have any clothes on. If you look closely at the box, a sticker on it says "May contain nuts".

When Gromit is making Wallace's breakfast, there are jars of Mummies (Daddies) Sauce and Middle-Aged Spread on the table.

When Lady Tottingham brings Wallace to her "inner sanctum" she refers to it as "a place no man has ever seen" that is her "secret garden" - a likely reference to the book "My Secret Garden" by Nancy Friday.

The four waveband buttons on the radio in the Anti Pesto car, which normally bear the letters L (long wave), M (medium wave), S (short wave) and F (FM), are respectively M, U, T, T - a reference to the main driver of the car being Gromit, a mutt (dog).

Despite being a DreamWorks production, the film was made at Aardman's studio in Bristol, like all of the other Wallace & Gromit films.

Peter Sallis' voice was sped-up for the voice of Hutch the Rabbit.

Nick Park wanted the DreamWorks logo to play an epic theme, like something akin to Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. He wanted audiences to think that Aardman had sold out to Hollywood, before the film reverts to the classic Wallace & Gromit theme over the opening credits. The intro was also one of the last scenes filmed.

The church scene with all the villagers was meant to homage the meeting scene in Jaws, where the people of Amity Bay are discussing how to deal with the shark.

Gromit rolls his eyes 13 times in the movie, usually because of Wallace.

The Were-Rabbit model broke three times at the climax.

Mrs Mulch resembles Liz Smith, the actress providing the voice for her.

The first Wallace & Gromit film with a supernatural theme. All of the others are science-fictional, or are about crime.

The Were-Rabbit required several models. The animators were glad not to have to work with clay because it meant less work when designing it, but working with fur proved just as time-consuming.

Near the end, after the Were-Rabbit has fallen from the roof onto the table of cream crackers, it turns back into Wallace. Originally Nick Park had intended that Wallace would retain his rabbit ears, and only lose them after another session with the Mind Manipulation-omatic. Consequently he filmed this scene with the rabbit ears attached to Wallace's head. When the ending was changed, he decided that he would use CGI to remove the rabbit ears from the film and replace them with Wallace's own ears, rather than re-filming that whole scene. Similarly, in earlier shots of Hutch sliding down the chute from his bed to the basement after Gromit has raised the alarm, Park used CGI to remove Gromit from the adjacent chute after the story was changed at this point.

When Gromit operates the female "were-rabbit," he is accidentally thrown into the top of the van. If you look at the impression he leaves in the van's roof, there is also a spring (broken) in a very funny position, making the indent look like a male rabbit.