Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park reveals he named his famous character after a Labrador he encountered on a bus in Preston
- Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park said he named a character after a dog
- Mr Park was in Preston when he met a Labrador which he named Wallace after
- The Oscar winner said he modelled the animated inventor’s look on a post man
The Oscar winning animator behind Wallace and Gromit has revealed he was inspired by an unlikely encounter on a bus.
Nick Park has delighted the nation with films about the antics of cheese guzzling Wallace and his dog Gromit.
Park, 59, was raised in Preston, Lancashire, where he has now revealed he first came up with the name for one of the world famous characters.
Wallace and Gromit has won Oscars for animator Nick Park who was inspired in his home town of Preston in Lancashite
Nick Park revealed Wallace was inspired by the looks of a postman and the name of a Labrador
The five-time BAFTA winner said he named Wallace after a dog he met on a bus in the city.
He told the Daily Mirror: ‘I’d come up with all sorts of names but they didn’t fit the character.
‘One day, though, I caught the Walmer Bridge to Preston bus and an old lady got on.
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‘She had a big, black Labrador who was wagging his tail, looking at the passengers.
‘The lady said ‘Go on, Wallace be a good boy. We’re going on a little journey to town’. It tickled me.’
However, it was a postman named Jerry who Wallace’s looks was based on, Mr Park said.
He added: ‘Wallace was incredibly like my dad He’s naïve – not that my dad was naïve, but he had ideas and got on with them.’
It was not until 1989 that the first Wallace and Gromit film, A Grand Day Out, finally reached the screen.
Director Nick Park, winner of the Alexander Korda Award for the Outstanding British Film of the Year for ‘Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit’ at the Orange British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) in 2006
Wallace and Gromit after the clay couple were unveiled among the performers at this year’s BBC Proms
Wallace and Gromit were the creation of Nick Park. A Close Shave (pictured) won an Oscar for the director
The short film was nominated for an Oscar.
Its follow-ups The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (1995) were Oscar winners.
Each of the films won a Bafta.
Wallace and Gromit’s first feature-length movie, The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit, was released in 2005 and became a box office hit on both sides of the Atlantic.
Mr Park’s other success include A Matter of Loaf and Death which was also the most watched television programme in the UK in 2008 and Chicken Run, the highest grossing stop motion animated film of 2000.
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