Wallace and Gromit Retrospective: A Matter of Loaf and Death: The Wrong Wallace (Comission by WeirdKev27)
Hello all you happy people and welcome back to my Wallace and Gromit retrospective. We’re almost at the close, after this there’s only one film left after this, the theatrical opus “Curse of the Were-Rabbit”. You may be thinking “Wait didn’t this come out after the movie”. And your right.. but the movie simply felt like a stronger finale going out on their one and only feature film, than on that fourth short most people would rather forget.
This one coming long after the original shorts days of playing on cartoon network on loop, I naturally caught this one a few years after it came out. Keep in mind the planet wasn’t as plugged in back then so there weren’t any talks of streaming or any alerts to tell me “oh there’s a new wallace and gromit short” and none of the networks I watched aire dit. I only found out when it ended up on TV at one point.
And I... was underwhelmed.
Yeah it was a feeling I couldn’t quite grapple with: It wasn’t BAD but something felt not as good as the others. Was it because I hadn’t seen it as much? It coudln’t be nostalgia, curse was only a few years older than this. What was it.
Turns out the answer.. was it was just okay. It wasn’t me and I wasn’t the only one to feel this. I’d just put the franchise on a pedestal and it was hard not to see whY: i’d seen the original three loads of times, loved the move and loved everything else Aardman had put out. I just wasn’t as used to something disapointing me. Whereas now I have a lifetimes worth of disapointmetns bulit up.. come on let me share some with you just off the top off my head
DISAPOINTMENTS JUST OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD
Wonder Woman 1984
IT Chapter 2
The Loud House Movie
My Dad’s Politics
The President not helping civilians out of afganatsthan
The Coronovirus getting a second wind thanks to people’s stupidity
Final Space Season 3
Final Space not getting another season and probably not a movie
Ducktales getting canceled
No Clear news on a darkwing duck spinoff
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Jason Aaron’s Avengers
Dan Slott’s Fantastic Four
Dan Slott’s Fantastic Four Making Franklin Richards Not a Mutant
American Crime Story: Impeachment not coming to FX on Hulu
Jeff Bezos coming back from space alive
Myself
All the Movie Delays from Last Year
The Spider-Man Games not being on switch
Psychonauts 2 not being on switch
Let’s just save time and say a lot of things not being on switch
Not getting to play it takes two with kev
The 87 Turtles being used in Allstarbrawl instead of the rise ones
The Rise Movie being delayed to next year
Regular Show Season 7
Star Vs Final Arc
Teen TItans Academy
Finding out Guardians of the Galaxy was stream only on switch
Sonic Origins Collection not being released till next year
No Mega Man Battle Network Anniversary Collection
Look a lot of those are petty, some not so much, and I probably coudl go on but i’m not getting paid to list all of my petty and not so petty frustrations. I’m getting paid to talk about wallace and gromit. My point is I wasn’t used to things letting me down as much as I am now. So this was kind of a shock. And compared to most of these, it’s not honestly that bad, but it was still one of my major disapoitnments. And if you want to know why... then join me under the cut for a full review and analysis of “a matter of loaf and death” won’t you?
Not a lot of production stuff this time, in part because production ran very smoothly with Lord preferring this to curse of the were rabbit, which had tons of studio interfernce from dreamworks.. but more on that next time. In contrast BBC actually knew what luck they had in comissioning this and thus didn’t rock the boat.
So we open with a baker going about buisness, being stalked by someone in POV till he warmly greets said someone.. who then kills him and causes him to drop dead in his own dough
Yeah as you can probably guess by the overt murder, if slightly goofily done because this is still wallace and gromit, this is a bit darker than the other shorts.. emphasis on a bit. The first one had Gromit feel he needed to leave and was edged out of his home and the second had him arrested for a crime he didn’t commit and the rest of our heroes nearly fed into a grinder. The series has always been goofily light with a tinge of darkness, this one just added an extra tinge is all. It’s a bit darker, including some animal abuse and attempted murder.. but it just dosen’t strike me as THAT much worse than the other films. Only one bit to me is truly out of step with the tone of this franchise, and that’s really it. Everything else fits the series penchant for mildly dark but still wonderfully cartoony stories it’s had since the “Wrong Trousers”, just escalated slightly.
And frankly they needed to escalate things slightly since the last short invovled a robot dog and the movie involved our hero turning into a giant rabbit monster.
If they were going to do a plot like this they had to go all in as much as they could while still keeping the needed pg rating.
Anyway it’s a new short so that mean’s it’s a new job for our heroes who have set up a bakery in their house which has now been upgraded into a windmill.
Now simple logic says they simply moved into a windmill to make baking easier.. but Wallace and Gromit logic says there’s a whole short we didn’t get to see where Wallace destroys the entire top level of their house to make it into a bakery/windmill. Probably involved some sort of time traveling goose who likes to steal people’s shoes.
Naturally Wallace, like myself, is a sleepy bitch and has to be woken up. Gromit isn’t even phased by it he just lines up a water balloon to fall on his best friend/owner/dead weight. The breakfast machine gag is gone, replaced with a neat tube slide that gets him in gear. I got to admit I do love the bakery setup here, including the boys inflating their chef’s hats with a little sunroof for them to stick through. It’s incredibly charming.
So our heroes pull of deliveries, with loaves of fun to be had until they encounter a woman on a runaway bicycle with her dog... said woman being familiar to Wallace as “The Bake-O-Lite” girl and naturally gives chase to help her. Said chase is fun as you’d expect iwth Wallace actually proving useful for once, not only JUMPING ON THE BIKE himself to stop it iwth his body, but suggesting gromit throw some baked goods to serve as cusions
Eventaully our heroes stop it.. just before an alligator pit....
Wallace properly introduces himself to the Bake-O-Lite girl, Piella Bakewell, former spokesmodel for said company who strikes up a flirtation with wallace. Gromit notices two things: how shaky the woman’s dog, Fluffles, is.. and that when fixing the bike the breaks were fine. He naturally suspects something’s up but Wallace is too smitten and too dumb to notice.
Later that day as their working, Wallace is mooning over Piella, and look if I happened to save Karen Gillian from a runaway bicycle i’d be moony too.. and also look over any shady circumstances, so I get it .I get it.
And what a concidence Piella shows up to thank him/ask him out.. and uses Fluffles as a tool to help it along, leaving Gromit with all the work. Cue your standard falling in love montage: while Gromit is left doing both their jobs, Wallace has fun with his new sweetie: doing flamnico, having a picnic and..... reinacting... the pottery scene.. from ghost.. with a... certain look on his face...
...........
excuse...me.... for...a...moment...
Okay now i’m legally blind, i’m up for a parody of the pottery scene from ghost as much ast he next guy whose never seen Ghost, but I think I can speak for all of mankind when I say we NEVER needed to see Wallace’s O-Face and that it will haunt me as long as I live. And all of you because if I suffer you suffer.
Tis the true face of madnes, the face we’ll all see in the end times, the face of your childhood getting really horny and not in a way anyone can enjoy. It’s like imagining your elderly uncle getting horny.. no one wants that and no one asked for this.. and if you did please don’t tell me. I know i’ve been attracted to weirder but I still please ask not to know for my sanity’s sake.
So naturally Wallace’s good fortune becomes Gromit’s bad fortune as Piella basically moves in, throws all of Gromit’s stuff away, and in general invades their house. And this is where the film’s biggest issue really kicks in: Wallace is insufferable in this film. Just like Wrong Trousers, he lacks any empathy for his pooch/roomate, letting his girlfriend throw al lhis stuff out, shove him out of his house and not carring as long as he gets his dick hard and OH GOD WHY DID I SAY THAT
This review is like living in a living nightmare. The point is he puts a new partner over his best friends feelings. And yes Gromit is his dog.. but for starters I woudln’t stands my partner mistreating my dog or throwing out his things.. my dog dosen’t have things other than a bowl granted because he won’t play with toys but still, if he had a record collection I wouldn’t let them fuck with it.
For finishers... it just isn’t consistent with the last short and the movie. Sure gromit was treated more lik ea dog in wrong trousers... but both Close Shave and Were Rabbit had wallace treating him more like a sorta equal who just happened to be his dog/live in butler. He went to regular jail instead of the pound, didn’t walk on all fours nearly as much, and was more humanoid.
You just can’t suddenly go back to the way things were after you changed it.
You can’t return to a previous state of play without it being an outright reboot.
I Know this series isn’t exactly stable in continuity, I get that, but it is stable in how it treats thign sna dhow it evolved and going back to an old way of treating Gromit just to make a plot work is way lazier than I expected.
Speaking of Lazy, said snapback also calls to mind another problem with the short: it’s plot is too similar to wrong trousers. It’s not a direct copy, to it’s benefit and the villian at the heart is a good one and we’ll get to that, so it’s not the biggest or most tedious retread i’ve seen.. but it’s still a story where a new intruder in wallace and gromit’s life makes Gromit’s life that much harder, and Wallace does nothing to stop it as he’s oblvious ot his pain. It wasn’t the part of that plot I liked the FIRST time around and it was done better then, as at least wallace felt bad about the room a bit. Here he just cares fuck all nad it makes it that much worse. While the villian’s motive, personality and scheme with wallace are all diffrent, the fact it’s basically the same thing again in a franchise this small just makes it all the more glaring their repeating themselves. And for a fracnchise where each work felt unique and stood out that’s utterly disapointing.
Gromit has a fit in his room over the situation, only to find a pleasant suprise: Fluffles. Fluffles is a great addition to things and while the obligatory new animal sidekick, is a diffren tbreed: a very sad soul. And while we did “sad soul love intrest forced to work with the villian last time” cuddles is unique enough and well animated enough, via her constant and endearingly heartbreaking shakes, for me to let that bit of repettition slide. Her reasons are diffrent from wendolyne: wendolyne mistrusted her fathe’rs creation until it was too late and let him lead her into stuff. Fluffles is simply an abused dog who dosen’t get a choice and like most abuse victims is likely too scared to make one. The two have a moment before she leaves.
Piella ends up leaving her changepurse behind so Gromit decides to take it back... and also snoop, heading to her spooky mansion, likely repurposed slightly from the mansion scene intended for the “Wrong Trousers”. It’s a nice, eerie scene as we don’t know what Gromit will find and if Piella will show up, and he soon finds himself face to face with a rather eerie site: 13 Manequeins with bakers hats.. and an album containin gpicutres of EVERY dead baker.. and one with wallace at the end. While obvious for the audeince given the opening, and frankly given the fact that the instestive woman who threw a dog’s stuff out in the bin is probably the bigger suspect than the shaky traumatized poodle. Wallace is the last of a “baker’s dozen”.
Gromit ends up having to hide and sees more of Fluffle’s sad life, having to sleep in a cardboard vitabix box with Piella planning on finishing wallace tommorow.
Gromit unforunately choose to hide in a chandeleer so he ends up trapped there all night, thankfuly only falling once piella was gone. It’s then we get something a bit dumb as Gromit decides to rush home to tell wallace.. instead of thinking “Gee PIella’s gone and clearly playing him maybe I should stash this in case she’s here. “
Instead he runs home, likely to save Wallace but still he could’ve thrown it in a bush or something, and finds the “happy couple”: are now engaged and free to ghost anytime they want and OH GOD
Just... a bit further jake you can do this. Piella end sup fake hugging Gromit and throwing the album in the fire. Congrats on being astoundingly stupid Gromit, you now know how your pal feels every day of his life.
So Gromit studies up on survllaince and preps the house to be death proof to save his owner. An evil version of Kurt Russel asked about using it to murder some women but he just gave him a brow furrow and called the police.
This leads.. tot he worst scene in the thing and honestly the five shorts: After some pretty funny shenanigans.. Piella fakes being bit. And Wallace.. FULLY FUCKING BUYS IT. Yes, no trust in the dog whose saved his life FOUR TIMES AT THIS POINT and will again for reasons that will forever escape me, no love, no regret just getting mad at his dog, putting him in a mask and chaning him up. No asking if he did it no, sorry later just being a big dick to his pet. And again were this an actual dog i’d get beliving the human and the dog would likely being agressive. But gromit has NEVER bit in all four shorts and dosen’t seem like he would. It’d work better of Piella played up the sympathy card iwth Wallace being regretfully but submitting to it and reluctantly doing it. But him just up and doing so so quickly, just bleiving his dog is the oppisite of the good boy we know he is with no real poof other than a way too thin bite mark.... it’s just utterly infurating.
Naturally this nearly gets Wallace killed with Piella tries to shove him off a high ledge.
Gromit can’t save him.. but a mysterious flower sack does, Causing Piella to spil lher real guts, throw the ring at wallace and call him a fruitcake, storming out. And given the way she picks up fluflles and is angery at the poor pupper.. it’s clear who saved him.
Gromit comforts wallace who wondered how this happened, and asks if he’s a fruitcake.. and Gromit can only respond with a very strained look of the eyes. It’s gloriouss as it is accurate to the question.
Piella ends up showing up with a cake for wallace who intends to have it with tea. Gromit is both curious about what the hell her plan is this time and knowing he can’t stop Wallace from submitting to natural selection goes to Piellas mansion again to investigate and to hopefully find Fluffles, who didn’t come with her this time.
Turns out though Piella is a clever psycho and knew he’d do this. and is thus ready to grab him literally and metaphorically by the throat.
She does make the mistake too many villians make.. she throws gromit, and fluffles, in her closet.. the same one where her old bake-o-lite balloon is.
So Gromit escapes with his new lady to go save wallace, and both arrive just in time. And after wallace stupidly lights the candle/fuse a bunch the bomb, which hilariously is a cartoon bomb with BOMB in white letters on it. Wallace’s reactoin?
“Gromit.. it’s a bomb!”
Piella stops it with her foot, holding Fluffles hostage only for th dog to you know, bite her, her first bit of karma.. and another sign everyone in this movie, even gromit is some form of brain dead.
Our climax ensues. First Gromit has to get rid of the bomb but finds some nuns and some ducks in his path
And get sblocked by piella, but ends up getting rid of it when Wallace intervenes. We then find out Piella’s motives in a gloriously hammy rant: turns out she blames bakers for her gaining weight and thus loosing her sponsorship.
While I have issues with this short... I do like Piella as a villian. She has a sympathetic motive, being dropped for doing the very thing she was supposed to (eat a lot of baked goods), taking it out on the wrong person. It make sher no less of a monster mind you, but it’s still more motive than the other villians which are “Steal a diamond to make more crime money”, “got his switch flipped to evil” and “shoot a rabbit man to seduce a woman who probably won’t be impressed by this” It’s what makes it work
And while this wasn’t the best short as always the climax is spectacular as Fluffles get sher revenge, arriving in a baking version of the power loader from alien and smacking that bitch up like the boss bitch that she is, getting her revenge and knocking her abusvie owner out a window. It’s oh so cathartic.
Piella ends up doing herslef in riding away on the balloon.. which collapses in front of the alligators. This is that bit I mentiond earlier that’s a bit too dark: while we don’t SEE her eaten to death and she certainlyd eserved it.. it isn’t any less horrific. I mean yes Preston was ground into parts but he was also a robot and got brought back right after as his old self. I mean the evil version of hi mwas dead but he tried to kill sheeps man fuck him.
So Fluffles leaves, leaving Gromit heartbroken and Wallace to console his best buddy, finally having regained his brain. We do get a really sweet ending though: The two head out for work, only to find fluffles waiting.. and not only does Gromit, after 4 shorts and a movie worth of bullshit, get the girl.. btu Wallace gladly welcomes her “Always room for a small one”. it’s just a sweet gesture that reminds me that while Wallace can annoy me.. at his best he is a sweetheart. So the two play each other off to puppy love as the three head into the sunset. Awwwwww. And I managed to make it through the rest of the reivfew without thinking of wallace getting horny in some capacity again DAMMIT.
Final Thoughts:
So as you could tell this short is a step down from the others and has some serious issues with Wallace’s characterization and repeating itslef. It also has some pacing issues, with scene sometimes having a drawn out feel.
But... it’s still okay. It’s still got fluid animation, some great jokes, some clever puns, and a wonderful climax. That’s the weird thign: while it isn’t AS good as everything else.. it’s still not BAD. It’s just okay. I think it just had the misforutne of following three masterclases in short film and a loved theatrical film is all, and Park likely reveled in getting to do what he wanted without being told to make it more american or fucking replace the lead actor, yes that really happened, that he probably got a bit too compfrable and fell back on old patterns. IT’s not BAD it just feels like the other stuff was fresher and more vibrrant is all. Still worth a watch if your rewatching or watching all the shorts but not really worth seeking out if you haven’t seen the others yet.
Next Time: The Retrospective closes as Wallace and Gromit go theatrical! It’s rabbit season baby!
