"It's the wrong trousers, Gromit! And they've gone wrong!"
— Wallace
The One With… the train chase.
The Wrong Trousers is the second Wallace & Gromit short film, made by Nick Park and Aardman Animations and released in 1993.
The story begins on Gromit's birthday, and Wallace has a special present for him: "Techno-Trousers," robotic pants with the ability to move by themselves ("Ex-NASA! Fantastic for walkies!"). At the same time, Wallace decides to rent out a room in the house to deal with his growing debt. Their lodger is Feathers McGraw, a shady penguin who immediately takes a liking to the trousers and a disliking to Gromit. As Feathers becomes favoured by Wallace, Gromit starts to feel like he's being replaced and makes plans to leave. But the morning after his departure, Wallace gets stuck in the Techno-Trousers, the controls of which have mysteriously disappeared, along with Feathers...
The short won the 1993 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. It established many of the story and character elements now commonly associated with the series, mainly Wallace's Rube Goldberg-esque inventions and Gromit's role as the Silent Snarker, not to mention that the animation got a lot better.
Provides examples of:
- Achilles' Heel: The Techno-Trousers's ability to walk on walls and ceilings is really impressive, but Feathers finds out the hard way that suspending the heavy equipment on an unstable surface made from old flexible ceiling tiles simply held in with fixative will cause problems.
- Air-Vent Passageway: Feathers McGraw gets Wallace into the museum through a rooftop ventilation duct that's large enough for Wallace to stand upright inside. It is shown to be cacophonously loud, (not that a slumbering Wallace is bothered).
- Animation Bump: The first short, A Grand Day Out, was mostly made by Nick Park himself, with Aardman Animations only coming in when the film was half complete. When compared to The Wrong Trousers (the first one with a lot of Aardman work), there is a world of difference in animation between the two.
- Aside Glance: Gromit. All the time.
- Ass in a Lion Skin: Feathers McGraw the penguin passes himself off as a chicken just by slipping a red rubber glove over his head.
- Bait the Dog: Feathers sweetens up to Wallace by in addition to paying rent takes up all of Gromit's duties such as fetching Wallace's slippers and newspaper. Because of this, Wallace gives Feathers more attention and praise than Gromit, causing the latter to leave the house in dejection. As soon as Gromit leaves, it's revealed Feathers schemed on getting Gromit out of the picture so that the dog won't interfere in his plan to force Wallace in the Techno-Trousers to steal a diamond.
- Beware the Quiet Ones: Feathers McGraw. He may be silent and seem pleasant (to Wallace at least), but he's a real jerk to Gromit and also a wanted thief who won't hesitate to use you as a prop in his crimes or to pull a gun on you.
- Bigger on the Inside: Wallace and Gromit's house is big enough for them to have an entire (miniature, but still) Traintop Battle inside. Somehow.
- Big Ol' Unibrow: Gromit never speaks, so this is the only way you know what he's feeling. It's really incredible, the emotion you can wring out of an artfully-squashed bit of plasticine...
- Bindle Stick: Gromit carries one when he leaves home.
- Bland-Name Product: Gromit takes shelter in a cardboard box labeled "Meatabix
Dog Food." - Bottomless Magazines:
- At the end of the short, Gromit chases McGraw on a model train - by rapid-fire laying of track from an inexhaustible box.
- In the same scene, McGraw's revolver never seems to run out of bullets, although it's debatable because he fires a total of 8 roundsnote before his gun is taken, which is possible if he had a fully-loaded 8-shooter instead of a 6-shooter.
- Brick Joke: The system that gets Wallace out of bed and serves him toast at the beginning comes back later when Feathers gets a sleeping Wallace out of bed, with Gromit hiding in it. Gromit ends up getting dressed in Wallace's clothes and a spoonful of jam gets launched at him, but because this time there's no bread in the toaster to intercept the jam, it hits him in the face.
- Bungling Inventor: Wallace, natch.
- Butt-Monkey: Gromit falls into this hard. His birthday presents are things that benefit Wallace more than him, he gets evicted from his own bedroom by Feathers, then Feathers forces him out of the house and causes him to leave home out of resentment. He doesn't even manage to stop Feathers's plan from going ahead, as by the time he finds out about it, Feathers is already putting it into operation. Things only go his way at the end when he traps Feathers in a bottle and Wallace decides lodgers are more trouble than they're worth.
- Chase Scene: Played with as the movie gets a lot of mileage of a small-scale chase involving the model train as the chase vehicle being split up across the space of a house interior.
- Chekhov's Gun: The model train set... in a sense.
- We see a "walk" for Gromit concluding with him sitting on a cart and being pulled by the Techno-Trousers via a leash attached to the collar he received earlier. Guess how Feathers McGraw is brought to the police after he's caught.
- Civilized Animal:
- Gromit is usually depicted as walking upright, and is capable of creating and operating complex machinery. Generally he's shown to be significantly more shrewd and sensible than his master. However, despite all of this, everyone treats him the same as you treat any dog. He has both a room in the house and a kennel in the yard, and walks on two or four legs as the plot requires.
- Feathers McGraw is apparently capable of showing up and renting rooms from humans, but the film still ends with him at the zoo. Likewise, it is not seen as unusual for the police to be looking for a felonious chicken.
- Combat Pragmatist: Feathers is confronted with a very pissed off Gromit (who, remember, is much larger and presumably stronger than Feathers) wielding a rolling pin. Feathers whips out a revolver.
- Concealment Equals Cover: A variation, in that "cover equals protection", when Gromit uses a fallen lampshade as a helmet, which manages to block three headshots from Feather's revolver at a distance of barely six feet away.
- Continuity Nod: At the beginning, Gromit reads a newspaper which bears a headline, Moon Cheese Shares Soar, referring to their moon-cheese-related adventuring in "A Grand Day Out". Which raises the question of why they were cash-strapped enough to need to let the room out in the first place, but then the series has never been that big on continuity anyway, so who knows.
- Wallace does mention early on that "those presents weren't cheap". It's possible that Wallace is still paying off the trousers.
- Creator In-Joke: One of the lions from Creature Comforts can be seen in a display case at the museum, if you're quick and perceptive.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Ditzy and clueless as Wallace might be, he snatches the revolver away from Feathers without any hesitation during the chase scene, and even drops a pretty smooth one-liner in the process.
- Darker and Edgier:
- Not to the same degree as the later shorts, but the stakes are still noticeably upped from A Grand Day Out: The suspense in this film rival the work of Alfred Hitchcock and a few scenes, such as Gromit walking away from the house after getting kicked out, are played relatively dramatically. On top of that, there's more action set-pieces, and the antagonist is genuinely evil as opposed to misunderstood, to the extent of outright trying to shoot the protagonists dead.
- The atmosphere of the short is significantly gloomier in spite of the humour and cosy surroundings. The lighting and colours are duller and even the score ups the ante on the melancholy creepiness, especially when Feathers arrives on the scene.
- Death Glare: Gromit gives a few of these to Feathers. The first is when he growls at him after taking Wallace the paper. The second is when he sees Feathers controlling the Techno-Trousers with Wallace stuck in them. The third is when he braces a rolling pin to try and hit Feathers with it after trapping Wallace in the wardrobe, only to make an about face when Feathers pull out a revolver.
- Despair Event Horizon: Driven out of his room, then the house, and practically replaced by McGraw, Gromit opts to run away from home, first with stoic determination, but when he looks at a picture of him and his master, he leaves, visibly crying.
- Did Not Think This Through: During the heist, one security laser is in a position that barely blocks Wallace from simply walking above it. Feathers is only able to navigate Wallace through because he's asleep and randomly yawns, which moves his head in such a way that it lets him pass by.
- The Dog Bites Back: Subverted. After Feathers locks Wallace in the wardrobe, he bumps into Gromit, who has a Death Glare on his face and is wielding a rolling pin, about to whack Feathers with it. Feathers simply pulls a gun on Gromit and locks him in the wardrobe too.
- Dress-O-Matic: Part of Wallace's morning routine involves a machine of his own invention that puts his clothes on him. Feathers McGraw subverts it to trap Wallace in the Techno-Trousers.
- Empathic Environment: It’s raining (along with thunder and lightning) when Gromit leaves home, along with the Wham Shot of Feathers afterwards.
- The End... Or Is It?: After the two foil Feathers's diamond robbery and use the Techno Trousers one last time to anonymously drop him off at the Police Station, the Trousers are seen lying upside-down in the bin outside. Then, as Wallace and Gromit enjoy some cheese together, they start moving on their own and are last seen walking off down the street and into the sunset over the credits: still with the bin on top of them, humorously enough.
- Establishing Character Moment: All Feathers McGraw has to do is walk past Gromit in the hallway, pause, and then abruptly turn and stare straight at him with those beady black eyes, and you immediately know without a single word of dialogue that this penguin is, at best, not to be trusted, and at worst possibly evil incarnate.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Before seeing Feathers walking down the street, Gromit is reading a newspaper that has an article titled "Dog Reads Paper".
- Family-Friendly Firearms: Averted. Feathers pulls a fairly realistic, non-cartoonish revolver on the duo and doesn't hesitate to fire it at them.
- Feathered Fiend: Feathers McGraw.
- Feather Fingers: Curiously averted with Feathers, and yet he still manages to reprogram and operate complex technology. When needing to pull the trigger on his gun, his wingtip magically splits to form an "index finger".
- Feet-First Introduction: The introduction to the Techno-Trousers, as they perform an Ominous Walk towards Gromit.
- Flintstone Theming: Gromit's canine-themed library includes, in this film, a book by the famous philosopher Pluto.
- Foreshadowing:
- Literally, at the beginning, as the shadow of the Techno Trousers is seen on the wall as the title appears.
- In the first breakfast scene, one of the ads on the newspaper Gromit is reading reads, “What A Gem!”, subtly setting up the later appearance of the diamond Feathers wants to steal.
- In an effort to get Gromit out of the house, the penguin plays very loud music. One tune is "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" which indicates that he's just been released from prison.
- When Gromit is upside-down in the Techno-Trousers painting the ceiling of the spare room, Feathers comes in and looks rather intently at him. Wallace is later upside-down in the Techno-Trousers when Feathers uses him to steal the diamond from the museum.
- As Feathers is guiding Wallace along the museum ceiling, one of the ceiling tiles the Trousers steps on is almost pulled loose. After Feathers gets the diamond, another tile comes loose, putting Wallace off-balance and setting off the alarm.
- Genius Book Club: While eating breakfast, Gromit reads The Republic (by, according to the cover, Pluto).
- Gift-Giving Gaffe: The Techno-Trousers fall into the category of "this present is really for myself" — everything Wallace says about how they'll make Gromit's life easier is really about how they'll make Wallace's life easier.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: Feathers's misuse of the Techno-Trousers. Lampshaded by Wallace when he is stuck inside them (see quote at top).
- Groin Attack: When Wallace lands crotch-first on the rear end of the train he's visibly squirming and vocalising in discomfort.
- Hammerspace: A grappling hook and chain (and, presumably, all its control mechanism) crammed into the helmet Wallace wears during the heist.
- Handy Remote Control: The titular trousers have the controls mounted on them at first; but Feathers pulls the panel out and converts it to a remote. He first sends Wallace on an exhausting run all over town, then uses him and the trousers to carry out the diamond theft.
- Hat Damage: When Gromit is being shot at by Feathers, the bullets bounce off the hat-like lampshade on Gromit's head.
- Heavy Sleeper: Invoked and exploited by Feathers McGraw. When he traps Wallace in the techno-trousers, the first thing he does is force Wallace to run and jump through the city all day, leaving Wallace completely exhausted afterwards. So exhausted, in fact, that he sleeps like a baby while Feathers pulls off the actual jewel heist. It takes the museum's alarm system to finally wake Wallace up.
- High-Speed Train Reroute: Three instances, all during the Chase Scene while the villain attempts to escape aboard Wallace's model railroad:
- Feathers shoots away the doggie door, which will allow the model locomotive to carry him outside. Gromit is riding atop the trailing cars, and alertly smacks the Big Red Button that shunts the locomotive onto a spur line, keeping Feathers indoors.
- Feathers fires his eighth shot from a revolver at another track switch that shunts the last car, which Wallace is riding, onto another line.
- Feathers uncouples the engine and tender from the rest of the train, then whacks a third switch to shunt the trailing cars with Gromit atop them onto another spur, which is incomplete. Fortunately, Gromit seizes a box of track sections and builds more track as he goes to continue the pursuit.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: After using the Techno-Trousers to commit his heist, Feathers McGraw gets his train escape ruined by the Trousers walking in front of the tracks and sending him flying into a milk bottle.
- To a lesser degree, Feathers shooting the switch to separate Wallace from the train allows Wallace to swipe Feathers's gun.
- Homage: Nick Park cited Rebecca as an influence on the film, particularly some of the shots of Feathers.
- Humiliation Conga: After catching him, Wallace and Gromit have Feathers paraded into the police station, tied up and towed by the same Techno-Trousers he used in the robbery. He then gets imprisoned in a zoo, on display to everyone passing through the entrance.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Averted, all of Feathers's shots are reasonably close to the target considering that he's 1) Firing One-Handed, 2) on a moving train, and 3) a penguin. At least three of his shots would have been lethal if Gromit wasn't protected by the lampshade on his head.
- Jerkass: Feathers McGraw. His Establishing Character Moment features a big Kick the Dog moment to Gromit by forcing him out of his own bedroom and then out of the house, reducing Gromit to tears and resentment and after only two nights in Feathers's presence, Gromit is so depressed, he leaves home. The worst part? Wallace doesn't even notice any of this. He only realises Feathers' true colours when he sees Feathers is the thief who stole the diamond from the museum.
- Just Eat Gilligan: After discovering Feathers controlling an unwilling Wallace in the trouser, Gromit, for whatever reason, ignores Wallace's pleas to pull him out of them in favour of spying on Feathers until the heist is pulled off. Perhaps justified as when he finally takes action, Feathers instantly disarms him with his pistol.
- Kick the Dog: A close-to-literal example. When Feathers arrives, he does this to Gromit repeatedly, first by taking over Gromit's room within the first minute of arriving (forcing him into the spare room - which has to be done up to accommodate him), playing loud music to keep him awake and drive him out of the house (even if Feathers isn't in the house at the moment), then taking over Gromit taking Wallace his slippers and newspaper, which essentially replaces Gromit and causes him to get so fed up and upset he leaves home. This is actually part of Feather's overall plan to steal the diamond, as he needs Gromit out of the way in order to trap Wallace in the Techno-Trousers and prepare for the actual heist.
- Knight of Cerebus: Despite being, well, a penguin, Feathers McGraw is arguably the most overtly (and realistically) evil villain in the whole franchise, being not a cartoonish supervillain who tries to kill the heroes with some elaborate death trap, but a sociopathic thief motivated only by personal gain. He remains the only Wallace and Gromit antagonist who simply tries to shoot the duo dead with an ordinary handgun when they get in his way.
- Laser Hallway: In the City Museum.
- Last Note Nightmare: The short begins with a noticeably sombre rendition of the theme song and descends into a frightening tone.
- Living with the Villain: Feathers becomes Wallace and Gromit’s lodger.
- MacGuffin: The diamond.
- Manly Tears: Gromit sheds these during his first night in Feathers's presence. Feathers forces him out of the house by playing loud organ music to keep him awake and displace him. After presumably hours of being kept awake (which somehow doesn't affect Wallace - probably because Wallace is a Heavy Sleeper), Gromit is in his kennel with earmuffs on, thinking Feathers is upstairs in his (Gromit's) bedroom, but then he sees Feathers enter the back yard and go into the house, and moments later, the music stops. Gromit promptly breaks down in tears. One almost can't help but wonder if he cried himself to sleep...
- Gromit's eyes are also wet with tears as he prepares to leave home, after seeing the photo of himself with Wallace.
- Medium Awareness: At one point, Gromit is seen reading a newspaper whose headline is Dog Reads Paper!
- Metaphorgotten: "Oh, it's no use prevaricating about the bush."
- Minimalist Cast: A cast of only three, of which only one (Wallace) has a speaking part.
- Mundane Made Awesome: The climax features what was, up until Ant-Man, the only cinematic example of a model railway Traintop Battle.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: Or at least pressure him into leaving. Presumably, Feathers knew Gromit was too cunning to work his operation around.
- Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: Gromit confronts Feathers McGraw with a rolling pin. Feathers, being a professional criminal, simply pulls a gun on him.
- Newspaper-Thin Disguise: Gromit spies on Feathers as he cases out the museum by cutting eye holes into a cardboard box. As chance would have it, the suspicious villain notices something is off, but ignores it because Gromit's eyes are peeking through the eyes of the cartoon dog drawn on the box.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Gromit using the Techno-Trousers to paint the ceiling of the spare room presumably gave Feathers McGraw the idea to use them in his plan to steal the diamond from the museum.
- No Mouth: Gromit. Feathers McGraw counts as well - he has a beak, but it never opens.
- No Name Given: Averted in the final scene. Though never mentioned by any character, and Wallace simply refers to him as "penguin" in the scene where Gromit runs away from home, we learn Feathers McGraw's name from the headline of the newspaper Gromit is reading.
- Non-Standard Character Design: Used to great dramatic effect with Feathers McGraw: as discussed in this post, the style of the series is such that the characters in it are very expressive, so Feathers's design (a static face and eyes with no sclera that are constantly looking straight ahead) manages to make him deeply unsettling.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Feathers, despite his utter lack of expressions, manages to convey an intense display of panic through body gestures when the heist goes horribly wrong.
- Gromit goes from Death Glare to this once Feathers pulls a revolver on him.
- Overly-Nervous Flop Sweat: Feathers when the diamond heist enters a crucial phase.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: The disguise Feathers always uses? The one that has everyone convinced he's a chicken? Yeah, it's nothing but a red rubber glove on his head. Particularly played for laughs when even the intelligent and perceptive Gromit does a Double Take when he puts it on. (Wallace has even less excuse, considering he was renting a room out to Feathers and interacting with him frequently — but then again, it's Wallace.)
- Parody: Of heist movies.
- Peculiar Penguin: Feathers McGraw (along with his ancestors in the museum's display case).
- Piggy Bank: Wallace keeps one in a wall safe behind a portrait of a piggy bank. Unfortunately, he finds himself down to his last few coppers, which leaves him unable to pay the bills. Fortunately, when Wallace and Gromit receive the reward money for the capture of Feathers, it not only pays off their debts, but there's plenty left over to fill up Wallace's pig.
- Powered Armor: The Techno-Trousers are at the very least half of one. Wallace's offhand comment that they're "ex-NASA", along with the suction feet, subtly imply they were designed to be worn as some kind of EVA equipment.
- Price on Their Head: There's a £1,000 reward for Feathers McGraw. Wallace and Gromit turn him in and use the reward money to pay off their debts.
- Production Foreshadowing: In addition to "Dog Reads Paper", one of the news stories that Gromit reads in the paper is "Sheep Found Guilty".
- Re-Release Soundtrack:
- Most DVD releases, except for the original Fox DVD in 1999, replace "Happy Birthday to You" with "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" and the organ renditions of "Happy Talk" and "How Much is that Doggy In The Window" with generic muzak.
- In the original version, the Open University fanfarenote can be heard when Gromit watches TV. In the re-release, it's simply something generic.
- Riding into the Sunset: At the very end the trashed Techno Trousers come to life of their own accord and walk away into the sunset.
- Say My Name: Wallace yells for Gromit after he gets a scary awakening from setting off the burglar alarm.
- Shipped in Shackles: Feathers at the end.
- Shout-Out:
- A villain in the form of a Penguin.
- Gromit bottling Feathers evokes what Foghorn Leghorn and the Barnyard Dawg do to Daffy Duck when they find he's been playing them in "The High and the Flighty".
- After setting off the alarm, a slowly-descending security containment door.
- Silent Partner: Gromit doesn't speak at all.
- Silent Snarker: Gromit is amazingly expressive without even having a mouth, leaving his eyebrows to convey all of his emotions.
- Starts Stealthily, Ends Loudly: Feathers McGraw successfully sneaks Wallace and the Techno-Trousers into the museum, dodges the laser security system, and grabs the diamond (after two unsuccessful tries and a scare where he almost drops it). Then a loose ceiling panel triggers the security alarm anyway, so Feathers and Wallace have to book it out of the museum, with klaxons blaring.
- Stealth Pun: Gromit, a mute dog, has his Bach (i.e. a Brandenberg Concerto playing in his bedroom).
- Sticky Shoes: The techno-trousers with their suction feet (ex-NASA) seem to be a partial exoskeleton example. Though one's upper body still flops around when going up the wall.
- Stock Sound Effects: "Castle Thunder" can be heard accompanying the lightning bolts that strike during the night when Gromit decides to leave for good.
- Stop Motion: A necessity given the medium of the animation.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Although the Techno-Trousers's wall and ceiling walking functions are impressive, the heist Feathers McGraw conducts with them goes wrong since the museum's ceiling consists of old tiles only held in with fixative, which causes the heavy Techno-Trousers to nearly fall down after tearing one off and subsequently triggers the alarm.
- The Thing That Would Not Leave: Feathers intentionally invokes this to annoy Gromit and get him out of the picture.
- Through the Ceiling, Stealthily: Feathers McGraw operates the Techno-Trousers by remote control while Wallace is asleep and wearing them. The trousers take Wallace to the top of a museum, and walk him into a spacious Air-Vent Passageway that leads to the room where a huge diamond is on display. The ceiling grate swings open, and Wallace emerges. The suction-soled Techno-Trousers allow him to walk around on the ceiling, which avoids the waist-high light beams protecting the prize. All the while, Wallace is snoring away in perfect obliviousness.
- Title Drop: "It's the wrong trousers, Gromit! And they've gone wrong!"
- To the Batpole!: Wallace apparently begins every day with his bed tilting up and dropping him into a trapdoor from his upstairs bedroom to a chair at the dining room table, with mechanical arms providing a costume change.
- Traintop Battle: Granted. "Model Traintop Battle", but it counts.
- Trouser Space: The techno-trouser legs have machinery inside of them, and yet Wallace's legs somehow fit inside as well.
- Unwitting Pawn: Wallace is driven to exhaustion by Feathers while stuck in the Techno-Trousers so he can be used by Feathers to steal the diamond from the museum.
- Visual Innuendo: After Feathers McGraw locks Wallace and Gromit in the closet, Gromit opens the crotch area of the trousers Wallace is wearing in order to control the trousers with the electrical wires. Wallace comments, "Steady on! Watch where you're puttin' them paws."
- Waking Up Elsewhere: Wallace falls asleep in bed at home, and remains asleep until the diamond robbery goes wrong. The alarm wakes him up, and he finds himself still stuck in the Techno-Trousers, standing on the ceiling and unaware of where he is and what’s going on.
- Wall Crawl: The Techno-Trousers's suction feet are powerful enough to walk up walls and upside-down on ceilings.
- "Wanted!" Poster: Feathers McGraw has one - "Have you seen this chicken?"
- We Are Not Going Through That Again: After Wallace and Gromit get rid of Feathers and are out of debt thanks to the reward money, Wallace declares they're not having any more lodgers, citing them as more trouble than they're worth.
- Wham Shot:
- Feathers at first just comes off as an incredibly thoughtless lodger that gets on Gromit's nerves. When Gromit finally leaves however, it cuts to Feathers, watching and rubbing his fins in satisfaction, his villainous plan with the Techno-Trousers now revealed.
- Feathers pulling a gun on Gromit, showing how serious he is about making his escape.
- When It Rains, It Pours: It pours with rain when Gromit decides to leave for good, and he is appropriately wrapped up in a yellow raincoat.
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Turns out it's Wigan, as revealed by Wallace's address on his post.
- With Catlike Tread: The Techno-Trousers make a massive amount of noise getting into the building through the Air-Vent Passageway. One has to wonder whether or not the only reason Feathers wasn't caught was because there are so few people in Wensleydale. (And yet Wallace still doesn't wake up until the alarm goes off.)
- Wraparound Background: During the model train chase. Justified in that the train is actually going around in circles around the edges of the same room. The creators even lampshaded this in the DVD audio commentary.
