THE CLAY'S THE THING HOW ENGLAND'S 'WALLACE & GROMIT' BECAME A GLOBAL COTTAGE INDUSTRY.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Writer

Twenty years ago, Nick Park was a student trying to find his niche at Britain's National Film and Television School. He came up with an idea for an animated short film about a dog that, like many dogs, is a peg or two smarter than its owner.

``Originally, I was planning for the dog to be a happy, bouncy creature that would talk,'' Park recalls. ``Then, when I started to animate him, I came to a scene where the owner was using the dog as a trestle while he saws through a piece of wood.

``Rather appropriately, I think, I gave the dog a put-upon look. He's being used as a trestle, after all. And with that, I found that the dog didn't need to say anything. It was better for him to be mute. You could see the world through his eyes. And that's when Gromit was born.''

It was also the birth of one of the most unlikely cartoon empires in history. Pairing a silent dog with a childlike, cheese-loving inventor of Rube Goldberg-style contraptions and adding heaping doses of dry, British humor doesn't seem like the most direct route to success, particularly when the characters and their world are created from nothing more than lumps of modeling clay.

But that's how ``Wallace & Gromit'' conquered England and, eventually, the (western) world.

The long-suffering dog and his cheese-loving owner have won a huge following, based largely on three unassuming short films - ``A Grand Day Out'' (1989), ``The Wrong Trousers'' (1993) and ``A Close Shave'' - the latter two Oscar winners and all of them utterly charming examples of old-fashioned, stop-motion Claymation. (Park also made 10 2 1/2-minute ``Wallace & Gromit'' shorts, available first on the Internet and now in a newly released DVD. See accompanying story.)

A decade after the last ``Wallace & Gromit'' short and five years after Park co-directed the popular and acclaimed ``Chicken Run,'' Park has resurrected his favorite formative characters for a feature-length film, ``Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,'' which opened Wednesday.

Like the short films, the movie is pure Park. His love for movie history still shines through. (``I am a geek that way,'' he admits.) Previous efforts were rooted in Hitchcock and Ealing comedies; this time, he's spoofing the Universal horror classics. And his decidedly English sensibility remains intact, even though ``Were-Rabbit'' is a big-budget movie financed by DreamWorks.

(Park co-directed the feature with Steve Box; the screenplay is credited to Park, Box and two other writers.)

While some of the animation for ``Were-Rabbit'' was done on computer, in large part Park and his production crew of 250 people made the film just like its beloved predecessors, meticulously manipulating clay models one pose at a time, typically taking a day to complete a few seconds of film. It's a medium where you can literally see the creators' fingerprints all over the finished product.

``That's part of the nature of clay,'' Park says. ``You don't deliberately plant those fingerprints on the models, but we were adamant about keeping the production values of the short films. It's part of the charm. When you're working on a big movie like this with so many people, it could get slick. And the charm of 'Wallace & Gromit' has always been that it's real. It's small. So the guiding philosophy was: `Don't clean it up too much.' ``

The other guiding principle: Don't lose its cultural identity. DreamWorks exec Jeffrey Katzenberg loves ``Wallace & Gromit,'' having pursued Park since Katzenberg ran Disney Animation in the early 1990s. But that doesn't mean Katzenberg didn't have some concerns that the movie's plot, language and gently bawdy brand of humor might not cross the Atlantic.

Case in point: The plot of ``Were-Rabbit'' has the titular duo battling a mutant bunny who is devouring townspeople's prize vegetables. One of these veggies is Gromit's own marrow. What's a marrow, you might ask. Exactly the problem, Katzenberg would answer. (It's a type of squash, by the way.)

Fidelity to tea and toast and Wensleydale cheese remain: Wallace (still voiced by octogenarian Peter Sallis) tells Gromit, ``You'll buckle me trunions,'' a line Katzenberg wanted changed.

But the Americans won one point - the marrow is now a melon.

``His comments were always quite good,'' Park says of Katzenberg's involvement. ``We both compromised on different things. But really, how many people would let me make what amounts to a vegetarian horror movie?''

Katzenberg believes the 46-year-old Park ``needed the confidence'' that the success of ``Chicken Run'' brought him before he could think about making a ``Wallace & Gromit'' movie. Indeed, the low-key, gentlemanly Park is a man given more to whimsy than braggadocio.

When told that Helena Bonham Carter, who voices the eccentric aristocrat hosting the movie's big vegetable competition, calls Gromit the ``best screen actor ever'' because of the quality of his wordless expressions, Park practically blushes. Park remains amazed that Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes even agreed to lend their voices to the movie. In Park's mind, ``Wallace & Gromit'' retains something of its origins as a school project.

``It's quite a challenge when most animated movies have fast-paced, wall-to-wall dialogue and ours features a silent, plasticine dog,'' Park says, chuckling. ``But I think people see Wallace and Gromit as something akin to an elderly couple. These two know each other so well. Nothing can split them apart.''

Park says he has dozens of ideas for other movies buzzing around in his head, but he's going to take a year off and let them continue to rattle around his brain before deciding which one to do. (``I'm exhausted,'' he says, noting the five years it took to make ``Were-Rabbit.'') He says he won't be working on the possible ``Chicken Run'' sequel, though he'd be happy to revisit ``Wallace & Gromit'' `` till the cows come home.''

``Maybe I love Gromit because he's the dog I've never had,'' Park says. ``What dog could match him? He's the ideal. He doesn't bark, and he has your tea and dinner ready for you when you arrive home.''

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

FROM PARK'S PEN

Nick Park is one of these Brits like Ricky Gervais and John Cleese who believes in quality over quantity. So while Park isn't prolific, he does have a perfect track record. Here's park's output, which is available on DVD:

``Wallace & Gromit: Three Amazing Adventures'': Collects the three ``Wallace & Gromit'' shorts - they go to the moon, battle penguins and sheep rustlers - as well as the series of ``Crackling Contraption'' features that were first broadcast over the Internet. Perfect mixture of the foolish and the fanciful with an underlying melancholy that gives the cartoons a surprising heft.

``Creature Comforts'': All three ``Wallace & Gromit'' shorts were Oscar-nominated. ``The Wrong Trousers'' and ``A Close Shave'' won. ``A Grand Day Out'' lost to this 1989 Park short, which charmingly explores what zoo animals think about while they while the hours away. Available on DVD with the subsequent TV series.

``Chicken Run'': Park and Aardman Animations colleague Peter Lord give us ``The Great Escape'' - with chickens. The results are loony and lovely.

- G.W.

CAPTION(S):

4 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) CLAY FEAT

But `Wallace & Gromit' filmmakers are never stuck for fun ideas

(2 -- 4) no caption (`Wallace & Gromit')

Box:

FROM PARK'S PEN (see text)