Funny / Wallace & Gromit

"LUMMY DAY!"

A Grand Day Out:

• The fact that there's an entire magazine dedicated to people going on holiday looking for cheese. The locations which Wallace lists, while reading the magazine, include; Lancashire, Cheddar, Wensleydale, Philadelphia, and Tesco!^note A large supermarket chain in the UK.
• Gromit's attempt to use a power drill.
• If you look closely, you'll notice they have a sled named Rose Bud in their basement.
• "No crackers Gromit! We've forgotten the crackers!" (DUN-DUN! DUN! DUN!)
  • The fact that Wallace and Gromit have an entire cabinet worth of crackers!
• The rats in the basement watching the rocket launching, and then pulling out sunglasses.
• (creepy space noises... toast)
• The robot gluing a piece of a cheese stalagmite back that Wallace had earlier cut and eaten.
• Shortly after, the robot spots Wallace and Gromit's rocket and writes them a parking ticket, as they do on the moon.
• The cooker robot trying to take down Wallace from behind with a truncheon, only to run out of change inches from his head. Gromit's boggled expressions throughout only make it funnier.
  • And then Wallace hits his head on it anyway trying to get up.
• The fact that the moon robot literally has to tune in his own thought bubbles, like an old-timey radio.
• The fact that the rocket has a parking brake, which Gromit forgets to take off when the rocket is about to launch.
• Wallace making the "take off" sound while scribbling in flames under the rocket like an excited child.
  • Before that, Wallace is sitting deep in thought at the drawing board, flipping over several pages of rejects... only for the viewer to see that he's just been playing noughts and crosses^note "Tic tac toe" for Americans. against himself the entire time.
  • Wallace sawing up a door to use as part of the rocket. Not only is he sitting ON TOP of it while sawing, he accidentally saws through the pommel horse it's resting on by accident and makes Gromit act as a replacement.
• Shortly after the rocket is complete, there is an absolutely brilliant use of Wallace's "everything's under control" catchphrase - he puts on a pair of headphones that Gromit was wearing previously, makes an adjustment on the control panel, pats Gromit's head, and walks away with the headphones still on. What follows is a golden example of a Tempting Fate - Wallace is saying, "Everything seems to be under control", but when he gets to the second half of "control" there is a sudden loud offscreen crash, followed by Gromit looking casually towards where it happened and then showing a very startled look as the headphones go SPROING over his head and back into their place. Cut to the next scene, and Wallace is lying on his back and giving a few small groans in pain.
• The British and homey way Wallace decorates the interior of the rocket, complete with floral wallpaper, tiny little watercolor paintings and lounge chairs.
• Gromit building a house of cards to pass the time. Not exactly the kind of high precision work you want to engage in during a bumpy spaceflight.
  • Even better, after Wallace says "Gently does it" and pulls on the brake to land, Gromit's house of cards collapses and he's left with two cards that were holding the house in place, and him looking at the audience with a deadpan expression saying "Yes very gentle. Not."
• During the chase sequence, the duo wait for blast-off, only for Wallace to panic when he remembers and shrieks "THE FUSE! YOU FORGOT TO LIGHT THE FUSE!" while waving his fists even more erratically than usual. In a rare role reversal, Gromit just gives off an uncharacteristically dopey "Whoops" look.
• Having missed its chance to go skiing on Earth, the cooker robot is left heartbroken. It grabs a picnic blanket that was blown away by the rocket's blastoff and blows its nose... somehow.
• The Brick Joke of Wallace kicking a ball into the air after landing on the moon, only for it to go up and never come back down. If the viewer watches to the end of the credits, they'll see the ball float past the camera, still going, and going, and going...

The Wrong Trousers:

• The premise alone! Just try saying it out loud without cracking up at its sheer lunacy.
  • Especially the way it was delivered in TV ads: "Wallace and Gromit in The Wrong Trousers!"
  • In particular, the very idea of a criminal penguin (complete with chicken disguise!) as the villain.
• "Cracking toast, Gromit!"
• Wallace removes a painting of a piggy bank to reveal a safe... with a piggy bank in it.
• "There's no use prevaricating about the bush."
• Wallace originally gave Gromit the Techno-Trousers to take him for walkies. Problem is, they move so stiffly that they just end up jerking him along, and Gromit escapes halfway through the walk to go play on a playground, having replaced himself on the leash with a stuffed dog toy on wheels.
• Having returned from the walkies, Gromit just sits knitting crossly. Wallace asks him how it went, completely oblivious to his "I don't want to talk about it expression".
• Wallace's wild race around the town in the techno-trousers, controlled by Feathers McGraw. Particularly the shot of Gromit looking at a poster in the foreground, when Wallace suddenly whizzes past in the background, trying and failing to hang onto a lamppost, yelling for Gromit, who then looks around as if to say, "Somebody call my name?"
  • The shot immediately afterwards as Wallace continues to hyper power-walk down the street, arms flailing, is a masterpiece of deliberately awkward animation.
    • And right after that, a crash is heard, and Wallace is seen flying through the air yelling "Sorry!" right before he lands with another crash and an alarm bell goes off. Gromit notices this, looks at the audience and shrugs before heading to investigate.
  • Also, as Wallace starts walking around town, he is seen jumping high into the air yelling, "Lummy day!"^note Typically misheard (and captioned) as, "Lovely day!" The expression is repeated in Were-Rabbit, but more slowly—and with the speaker directly in front of the camera—so that audiences (and caption writers) hear it correctly.
  • The jaunty orchestral piece that accompanies the scene really adds to the hilarity.
• "It's the wrong trousers, Gromit! And they've gone wrong!"
• The montage of Feathers McGraw keeping Gromit awake at night with having the radio on too loud. It's easy to feel sorry for poor Gromit, as the penguin is basically trying to force him out of the house by doing that as well as depriving him of any sleep he might have easily gotten, but the funny aspect of it is the music itself. It gets more humorous every time the scene changes and seems to roll perfectly with the opening shots.
• Six words: "WANTED: Have you seen this chicken?" The "chicken" is a penguin with a red rubber glove on its head. Calling the disguise "paper-thin" is a little too generous.
  • Wallace takes a while to cotton on, despite being kidnapped by him: 'Good grief! It's you!?' Even Gromit looks genuinely surprised when he sees Feathers wearing the "disguise".
• "Dog Reads Paper". And below it: "Sheep Found Guilty".
• Feathers McGraw's innovative use for a tape-measure. Extend it up towards a window, hang it over the ledge, and then press the button that winds it up again.
• When Feathers sets out to commit his heist, he accidentally sets off Wallace's device for getting out of bed...with Gromit in the bed. Cue Gromit getting forced into Wallace's clothing while backwards, then splattered in the face with a spoonful of jam. When the toaster pops up empty with nothing to stop the incoming jam, a jam-covered Gromit simply gives a resigned look to the camera.
• Gromit threatens Feathers McGraw with a rolling pin. Feathers pulls out a revolver. Gromit instantly throws his arms up.
• When Feathers reverses Wallace, in the trousers into a wardrobe, Wallace is protesting for some moments (pointing out that the wardrobe is nearly new) until Feathers opens the door (in order to also lock Gromit inside):
  Wallace: "I should think so too—" (Door slams shut again) "Hey!"
• Gromit opens up the front panel on the Techno-Trousers to hotwire them as part of an escape plan. The panel happens to be roughly belt-buckle level, and Wallace indignantly tells him to "watch where you're puttin' them paws!"
  • As the Techno-Trousers start stomping when Gromit hot-wires them, Wallace's main concern is ruining the woodwork of the wardrobe.
  Wallace: (dismayed) "There goes me knotty pine!"
• Wallace balancing on the train. In the Techno-Trousers. And later in just his vest and underpants.
  • The entire train chase (on a toy train, no less) is three minutes of pure hilarity. The best part has to be Gromit laying down track rapid-fire as they go.

A Close Shave:

• Throughout the entire short, the musical cues just up the ante and make every ludicrous action seem incredibly dramatic. Sweeping melodramatic soap opera music as Wallace gets swept away from Wendolene by a herd of sheep. Salutary flying ace music as Gromit bombards Preston's truck with a porridge cannon. Huge, overblown dramatic cues for mundane things. And of course, as mentioned below, the greatest scene in cinema history.
• Wallace getting pelted with machine-gun porridge as Gromit calmly walks over to the dispenser to shut it off, by which point Wallace is adhered to the wall and covered from head to toe in porridge. Before that, when the machine goes wrong, Gromit casually looks up from his paper and gently fiddles with the button as if to say "Hmmm, something's not quite right here."
• Wallace goes through an epic Thunderbirds style sequence to get into his window washing gear...and then Gromit just walks through the door into the garage and rolls his eyes.
• Wallace telling Wendolene "Windows are our speciality." [sic] before turning around and smacking into her front door because it's mostly glass.
• Wallace telling Shaun there's no need to be "sheepish".
• "We tested this (the Wash-O-Matic) on Gromit. Haven't we, lad?" Gromit nods despairingly.
• Wallace seeing the new sheep, recently lightly shorn, and deciding to name him Shaun.
• Gromit getting pelted with soap suds while cleaning the town clock, courtesy of a modified porridge gun.
  Wallace: Sorry, Gromit! That was a bit thick!
  (Gromit shoots a Death Glare at Wallace)
• Wallace and a bunch of sheep break Gromit out of prison by forming a tower. Then Wallace steps on a bar of soap, falls to the ground, and looks up at the sheep as they fall on top of him.
  • Later, during the great chase, Wallace, with the ladder propped on his motorcycle, manages to open the back of Preston's truck, only to wind up hanging on to it for dear life and putting the bike on the front wheel. The entire herd of sheep waddle out of the truck, over Wallace and the ladder, and all pile up on the bike! With the weight of everyone forcing the bike back down on both wheels, Wallace yells down at the herd below to "get yourselves organized down there!". A moment later, Preston does a double-take as he looks in the side-mirror and sees the sheep and Wallace in a perfect jet-ski style formation on the motorbike. (Shortly afterwards, they see Gromit flying overhead and salute him in unison).
  • Then Preston decides to try and scrape them off by going under a viaduct, only for (in a sort of inverted Impact Silhouette) the sheep to quickly rearrange themselves into a horseshoe-shaped formation so they all fit through the hole.
  • Look carefully while Wallace tries to organize the herd, and you'll see Shaun driving the motorcycle!
• Preston grabbing the propeller of Gromit's plane when it comes at him, causing everything (even the music) to stop for a full second, before the plane starts spinning violently, catapulting Gromit out.
  • Doubles as a Call-Back to the power drill scene in A Grand Day Out.
• During the climax, Shaun rides an anvil directly towards Wendolene, Wallace, Gromit and Preston while they—and a flock of sheep—are all on a Conveyor Belt of Doom. This gem happens:
  Wendolene: Duck!
  Wallace: Where? (sees Shaun incoming) Agh!
• Preston being made into literal mixed nuts and bolts.
• Wallace learning the dangers of Tempting Fate at the end: "All the more for us, and not a sheep to worry us!" He then pulls the lid off his cheese container to find Shaun eating all of it.
  Wallace: Get off me cheese! Gerroff!

A Matter of Loaf and Death

• "Oh, Gromit! It's a bomb!"
  • "Gromit! I've got a bomb in my pants!"
  • "Well done, Wallace! Sharp as a brick!"
• Wallace and Gromit's conversation after another unsucessful romance:
  Wallace: I'm not a fruitcake, am I, lad?
  Gromit:[Long beat as he considers how to answer, followed by a pat on the shoulder]
• Piella explains how she used to star in an advert for bread. Cue Wallace: "I'm in bread myself."
• "Are you still ballooning?"
• Wallace (in the driver's seat) tells Gromit to 'take the wheel' - then hands over an apparently completely detachable steering wheel, to Gromit's evident shock.
• Wallace's slow-motion dive when Gromit takes the "cake" that is actually a bomb left by Piella, along with the line he says when he dives.
  Wallace: Oi! Where are you going with that (dives at Gromit in slow motion) caaaaaake?

Grand Adventures

• "Fright of the Bumblebees":
  • Mr. Gabberly, grouching about something, claims that if anyone asked him, he'd say it's a horrible idea. His wife snaps that no one did.
  • Wallace shows Constable Dibbins the snail Major Crum cited as evidence of impending disaster, asking him if he sees anything unusual about it. The constable answers that the only weird thing is the person holding it.
  • Wallace tries to tell Constable Dibbins that the Cheese-Sniffer 3000 isn't wired to understand his interrogation.
    Wallace: It's only a —
    Constable Dibbins: An impudent scoundrel of a whaddyamacallit!
  • One moment towards the end where Wallace calmly notes that the car's autopilot is broken... Only to quickly realize that it's the autopilot to the moving car he's in.
    Wallace: We've made it through this little episode in one piece! More than I can say for the autopilot I'm afraid... AGH! The autopilot!
• In "The Last Resort", one of the potential answers from the Deduct-O-Matic is "Do I look like I care?"

Cracking Contraptions

• The Autochef malfunctioning, babbling and then saying a single word before exploding.
  "Knickers!"
  • The Autochef itself is funny enough. One of its first lines is literally just “YUMYUMYUMYUM.”
• The Turbo Diner is a heavy electricity draining mechanism that creates an exquisite meal. Unfortunately it straps the duo into their chairs as a safety precaution and then runs out of power just before releasing them.
• "Shopper 13" revolves around Wallace sending a robotic shopping cart with arms to do his cheese shopping. The entire thing is treated like an Apollo mission, down to the "launch". And as expected, Shopper 13 encounters a problem much like Apollo 13, in this case losing one of its wheels. Yet it manages to almost make it home using a baguette as a crutch, falling short when it tips over in the yard. And Wallace, being a Lazy Bum, deploys a "rescue probe" to retrieve the cheese, which fell out of the Shopper 13. The "probe" is Shaun the Sheep. Take a guess at how this ends...
  Wallace: The Edam is stranded!
• The Snoozatron is an elaborate machine dedicated to helping someone get to sleep. Its only problem is that it requires a second person — in this case, Gromit — to play the role of a sheep, thereby depriving him of sleep. And worse, Wallace nods off only six sheep in; the machine continues operating its cycle, leaving Gromit to resignedly read a newspaper as he bounces in the air.
• In "Tellyscope", Wallace has installed a telescoping shaft on the TV so that he can reach the buttons without leaving his chair, and it is triggered by launching a tennis ball into a hole and onto the mechanism. When there are no more balls left to change the channel, Gromit simply hands Wallace the TV remote... that Wallace launches into the hole instead of using it normally, causing a string of malfunctions that ends with the TV shooting and pinning Wallace against the wall.

Others

• A LOT of Gromit's facial expressions.
• In one advert they did, Wallace's idea of light holiday reading is Fifty Shades of Greyhound.
  • In the same advert, among the snapshots of Wallace and Gromit traveling, Gromit is seen refusing to go into a theater that was featuring Cats.
• Gromit's snarky typewritten commentary throughout the Cheese Lover's Yearbook.
  Wallace: Just relieved to have gotten out of it in one piece.
  Gromit: Instead of several hundred, like Preston.
• The comics even managed to have some fun with the cast pages.
  Cleethorpes and Clitheroe: Napoleon and Queenie's polite, erudite twins, whose hobbies include translating the works of Thomas à Kempis back into Latin. OR: Two complete and utter nutters. (Delete as applicable.)

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