A Matter of Loaf and Death

A Matter of Loaf and Death
Directed by	Nick Park
Written by	Nick Park Bob Baker
Produced by	Peter Lord David Sproxton
Starring	Peter Sallis Sally Lindsay Geraldine McEwan
Music by	Julian Nott
Distributed by	BBC Aardman Animations HIT Entertainment
Release dates	AU3 December 2008 UK25 December 2008
Running time	29 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

A Matter of Loaf and Death (formerly Trouble at' Mill) is an animated television short created by Nick Park, and the fourth of his shorts to star his characters Wallace and Gromit. It is the first "Wallace and Gromit" project since the feature film Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit in 2005, and the first short since A Close Shave in 1995.

A Matter of Loaf and Death is a mock murder mystery, with Wallace and Gromit starting a new bakery business. Gromit learns that bakers have been mysteriously disappearing, and tries to solve the case before Wallace ends up a victim himself. This short introduces a new love interest for Wallace, Piella Bakewell, a bread enthusiast voiced by Sally Lindsay.

Plot

When a local baker is murdered, it comes to the attention of the local media that there is a serial killer (shown on a newspaper headline as "cereal killer") on the loose, as twelve bakers have been murdered in total. Meanwhile, Wallace and Gromit have opened a bakery, "Top Bun", and have begun a "Dough to Door" delivery service, delivering bread to residences each morning. On one morning delivery they nearly run over a fat lady and her dog on a bicycle. Realising that she is the "Bake-O-Lite" girl Piella Bakewell, a former pin-up girl for the bread company, Wallace is instantly smitten with her. Suddenly as she passes their car her brakes fail, and Wallace and Gromit decide to help her.

The van does a U-turn and chases after Piella. Wallace proceeds to scale the front of the moving van, (which is now moving at the same speed as the bicycle) in the manner of Spider-Man; and straddles the bicycle's front forks. The duo then use fruit buns as brakes between Wallace's knees to slow the bike. However, the bike stops inside the local zoo next to the crocodile pit. Wallace, Gromit, Piella and her dog Fluffles are catapulted into the air, almost landing inside a crocodile's mouth, but are saved by a quick-thinking Gromit who jams the mouth of the croc open with a bread stick and saves Fluffles. Gromit then checks the bike's brakes and becomes suspicious when he learns they do not have a problem.

Wallace and Piella enter into a whirlwind romance , with Piella practically taking over the house and throwing away Gromit's things, which are retrieved by Fluffles (who is visibly terrified of her mistress). Fluffles and Gromit also seem headed for romance, for when Fluffles returns Gromit's belongs which Piella had thrown out, Gromit blushes as he touches Fluffles' paw. When Piella leaves her purse at the house, Wallace makes Gromit return it, which allows Gromit to uncover Piella's identity as the serial killer. Having killed twelve bakers already, she plans to make Wallace her thirteenth victim, making a "baker's dozen".

Wallace, however, is too starry-eyed to pay attention to Gromit's concerns, announcing that he and Piella are engaged to be married. Gromit tries all kinds of tactics to thwart Piella going so far as to install an airport-style metal detector in their home. After tricking Wallace into thinking that Gromit bit her, resulting in Gromit's being chained up and forced to do dishes, Piella almost succeeds at pushing Wallace to his death into the mechanisms of the mill machinery. At the last moment she is hit by a bag of flour (which can only have been launched by Fluffles), covered in flour from head to foot, and knocked down the stairs. This prompts an angry outburst against bakers and results in her leaving, grabbing Fluffles with some malice. Wallace laments the end of his romance with Piella. A short time later, however, Piella appears at the door, apologising for her outburst and carrying a large box, which contains a cake. She instructs Wallace to light the candle at four o'clock for a surprise, then makes an excuse and leaves, after telling Gromit that the conspicuously absent Fluffles is "not well".

Gromit follows Piella home to see what has happened to Fluffles, but is caught and imprisoned with Fluffles in the storeroom. The two dogs manage to escape in Piella's old Bake-O-Lite hot air balloon, and arrive at Wallace's house as he is lighting the candle on the cake. Gromit attempts to extinguish the wick, only to discover it is a relighting candle. In the resulting struggle between Wallace and Gromit the cake falls to the floor, revealing a bomb inside it, to which Wallace has lit the fuse. Gromit then attempts to dispose of the bomb, but is thwarted when the places he seeks to dispose of it are occupied by a group of ducklings and a pair of nuns carrying kittens which is a homage to the 1966 Batman Film .

Gromit tries to throw the bomb out of the house (towards the Yorkshire border) but is hit by Piella with a baker's Peel, and falls into a vat of dough. The bomb falls out the window, and Piella comes after Wallace with a spanner, exclaiming her pure disdain for baking and her motives behind the serial killings - namely the fact that eating too many baked treats made her overweight, which got her fired from the Bake-O-Lite adverts. She lifts the steel grates Wallace hides under in much the same manner as the Alien Queen from Aliens. She is stopped in her tracks by a yellow forklift truck contraption with robot hands covered by oven-mittens, with Fluffles at the wheel. Piella picks up two rolling pins and swings them around her head like nunchucks, then tries to attack the machine. Wallace and the bomb are caught on the revolving windmill sails then fall back into the house, and Gromit manages to get himself out of the dough.

As the fight continues Piella is pushed closer to the edge of the house until Wallace arrives asking if anyone has seen the bomb. This distraction allows Piella to leap onto the balloon. It is revealed that the bomb is inside Wallace's trousers, and the two dogs fill Wallace's pants with dough in order to cushion the explosion, though the seat of Wallace's trousers is blasted open, exposing his buttocks. Due to her weight, the balloon can't support Piella, and she crashes into the crocodile pit, where she is eaten. The balloon (liberated from the overweight Piella) rises into the clouds where Piella's ghost is briefly visible as her once-thin self; she says goodbye to Wallace with a wave while holding a loaf of Bake-O-Lite bread.

In sorrow at the death of her owner, Fluffles leaves Gromit, leaving both Wallace and Gromit depressed over losing the ones they love. They later decide to deliver bread to take their minds off the gloomy turn of events, and almost run over Fluffles who is waiting in the driveway. She has decided that she still wants to be with Gromit so they let her hop in the van to join them on their deliveries. All three drive off into the sunset as the song "Puppy Love" plays on the van's stereo.

Continuity with other Wallace and Gromit Adventures

• When Gromit wakes up from a sleepless night, the rocketship from A Grand Day Out can be seen on the shelf in the background.
• The delivery van that Wallace and Gromit use is the same style of van used in their film, Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
• While Gromit is loading the bread into the van using the forklift, the motorbike with sidecar from A Close Shave is seen in the background.
• While Wallace and Gromit are traveling in their van, the music in the scene is very similar to the music used in the motorbike and sidecar scene in "A Close Shave".
• When Wallace and Gromit are trying to save Piella from her runaway bicycle, all three are seen entering the confines of the local zoo. As they do so on the wall can be seen a poster with the word 'Missing' and a picture of Feathers McGraw from The Wrong Trousers. The poster lists a £2000 reward for his capture.
• Piella's dog Fluffles sleeps in a Meatabix box. Gromit hid in a similar box during the events of The Wrong Trousers where he was spying on Feathers McGraw.
• The end scene of this adventure with Wallace, Gromit and Fluffles driving off into the sunset is similar to the end of The Wrong Trousers where the wrong trousers are seen walking off into the sunset.
• The title card for this episode is similar to the one used in The Wrong Trousers.
• An image of young Wallace and Gromit first witnessed in Curse of the Were-Rabbit, can be seen in the dining room.

Facts and Figures

In-jokes and Cultural references

• The film's title is a pun of A Matter of Life and Death.
• The baker murdered in the opening is Baker Bob. The short is co-written by Bob Baker. This character first appeared in A Close Shave on a sign accompanied by the text "Try Bob's Buns".
• Gromit's washing up liquid is called "Furry Liquid".
• The Daily Grind states "Cereal Killer Strikes Again".
• Wartime-like poster in Bakery - "I'm Baking Bread for Britain".
• Bakery door marked "Keep Clear" is very cluttered.
• Combination car radio/toaster/LP player control buttons spell "MUTT".
• Cake shop shows poster "Hot Cakes" with a "Sold Out" sticker — a play on the expression "selling like hot cakes".
• Van registration is "DOH NUTS".
• The rear door of the van features a sticker marked "Flour to the people".
• Piella's character is a tribute to a 1970s TV advert for Nimble bread (featuring a girl suspended from a balloon).
• Wallace passes Gromit the steering wheel with the classic phrase "Take the Wheel!" - fortunately there is a spindle for it on the passenger side.
• Feathers McGraw (the penguin from The Wrong Trousers) makes an appearance on a poster outside the Zoo.
• Wallace tells Piella that he is 'In Bread', a play on the word inbred.
• Piella makes bread on what appears to be a Potter's Wheel in a parody of the film Ghost.
• Following the shot of Wallace touching Piella's hand is a shot of the bread rapidly rising in a heart shape.
• There are references to cheese: A photo of a piece of cheese, a poster with "Fly to Venice with Cheesy Jet".
• Gromit has a poster entitled Citizen Canine.
• When Gromit sees his stuff in the bin, we can see a Beagle comic, a book called "Pup Fiction", and a "Bagpuss" plush toy.
• Piella's shoes have a "POUCHI" label in them.
• When Fluffles sneaks Gromit's possessions back to him, we can see that one album is called "Puppy Love" by "Doggy Osmond", and a second is by "McFlea".
• Gromit's reference book is entitled "Electronic Surveillance for Dogs" by "B. A. Lert".
• The shed in which Gromit hides all of the knives and other small possible weapons has a WMD sign on the door.
• Wallace lights the "candle" with "Duck Matches", in a box resembling Swan Vesta matches. Swan matches were also used in A Grand Day Out to light the rocketship fuse.
• Gromit attempts to dispose of a bomb by throwing it out a window but is stopped by baby ducks and then nuns with kittens outside the opposite window, referencing the 1966 film Batman: The Movie.
• Albums in the van include "Pouchini", "The Beagles", "The Hound of Music".
• The ending sequence where Piella attempts to seize Wallace by lifting up the floor grating, followed by Fluffles tackling Piella with a forklift is a reference to the ending of Aliens where Ellen Ripley attacks the Alien Queen with a cargo loader.
• The shovel blade after Gromit is hit is a reference to Han Solo frozen in carbonite.
• Piella advancing on Wallace with a spanner is a reference to Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Other

• This is the darkest of the Wallace and Gromit films so far. Piella has murdered twelve bakers, her pet dog Fluffles shows signs of being abused, and Piella herself dies at the end of the film.

• This Wallace And Gromit film marks the first time that a charater has been murdered (Baker Bob) and killed (Piella Bakewell).

Production and release

Filming for A Matter of Loaf and Death began in January 2008, and had the fastest production period for a Wallace and Gromit short. Five models were created for Gromit alone, with scenes being shot simultaneously on thirteen sets. Commenting on the fact that the short will be made directly for a British audience, Nick Park said: "I don't feel like I'm making a film for a kid in some suburb of America — and being told they're not going to understand a joke, or a northern saying." Regardless, Park changed the title from Trouble at' Mill as he thought it was too obscure a Northern England colloquialism. As well as a final title that references A Matter of Life and Death, the film also references Aliens, Psycho, and Ghost.

Nick Park said in an interview with the Radio Times, "The BBC hardly gave a single note or instruction on the whole thing", and Park goes on to remark how it was better than his previous work with Dreamworks, Curse of the Were-Rabbit, where they kept on receiving calls to change critical things.

Park cast Sally Lindsay after hearing her on the Radcliffe and Maconie show on BBC Radio 2 whilst driving from Preston. Although unfamiliar with her role as Shelly Unwin in Coronation Street, Park said "Sally has a lot of fun in her voice, flamboyant almost, and I was also looking for someone who could be quite charming too, but with a slightly posh northern accent. Piella needed to at times sound well-to-do, and then at others sound quite gritty".

The short had its world premiere in Australia on ABC1 on 3 December 2008 and was repeated again the following day on ABC2. In the UK it aired on Christmas Day at 20:30 on BBC One, although it has been readily available on The Pirate Bay since 3 December 2008. In late December 2008, Aardman Animations revealed they had "no idea" of how clips were leaked onto YouTube ahead of its screening in Great Britain. In France, A Matter of Loaf and Death was shown - dubbed into French - on Christmas Eve 2008 on M6.

The late broadcast puts the film out of the running for an Academy Award for Animated Short Film nomination until 2010, but it has been nominated for an Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject.

Reception

The programme was watched by the most viewers of any programme on Christmas Day, 2008 in the UK and secured the largest Christmas day audience in five years. It was also the most watched programme in the UK in 2008 to date, with a peak average audience of 14.4 million. The programme had a share of 53.3 percent, peaking with 58.1 percent and 15.88 million at the end of the programme.

External links

• A Matter of Loaf and Death at IMDb
• British Comedy Guide
• A Matter of Loaf and Death at the Official Wallace & Gromit website
• Film Production Blog at the official Wallace and Gromit website