A Matter of Loaf and Death

A Matter of Loaf and Death
Directed by	Nick Park
Written by	Nick Park Bob Baker
Produced by	Steve Pegram Peter Lord (Executive Producer) David Sproxton (Executive Producer) Nick Park (Executive Producer)
Starring	Peter Sallis Sally Lindsay
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 as well as for Gromit, with Fluffles, Piella's dog.

Plot

Bob the baker is murdered by an unseen assailant, the latest of twelve bakers to be killed. Meanwhile, Wallace and Gromit are running a "Dough to Door" delivery service from their bakery "Top Bun". On one such delivery, the duo save Piella Bakewell, a former pin-up girl for the "Bake-O-Lite" bread company, and her dog Fluffles, when the brakes on her bike appear to fail. After narrowly avoiding been eaten by a crocodile after they careen into the local zoo, Gromit becomes suspicious on learning that the bike brakes were working fine, whereas Wallace becomes smitten with Piella. After a whirlwind romance, Piella gives Wallace's house the "woman's touch". However, when she leaves her purse at the house, Wallace insists that Gromit return it. Thus, Gromit uncovers Piella's identity as the "Cereal killer" and her plans to make Wallace her thirteenth victim, and completing a "baker's dozen".

Despite Wallace being oblivious, Gromit attempts to thwart Piella by installing an airport-style metal detector in their home. After tricking Wallace into thinking that Gromit bit her, Piella almost succeeds at pushing Wallace to his death whilst a chained up Gromit can only watch but Piella is hit by a bag of flour. After an angry outburst against bakers, she leaves but returns a short time later to apologise with a large cake. Wallace says that it will do nicely for four o'clock tea. When Piella is leaving to attend to the absent Fluffles (who is "not well"), she tells him he will be getting a surprise. A worried Gromit follows her home only to be caught and imprisoned with Fluffles in a storeroom. Escaping in Piella's old Bake-O-Lite hot air balloon, they arrive at Wallace's house as he is lighting the candle. After a struggle, the cake falls to the floor and the bomb inside is revealed. While attempting to dispose of the bomb, Gromit is attacked by Piella, who rails against bakers, and their baked products for ruining her figure and her career as the Bake-O-Lite girl. While attempting to finish off Wallace, a battle ensues between Piella and Fluffles in a yellow forklift truck covered by giant oven mittens. In the chaos, the bomb ends up in the back of Wallace's trousers. Gromit and Fluffles neutralise the explosion using a large amount of dough while Piella uses the distraction to leap onto her balloon and escape. However, owing to her weight, the balloon crashes into the crocodile pit at the zoo where she is apparently eaten. As the balloon rises into the clouds, Piella's ghost (as her once-thin self) waves goodbye to Wallace.

In sorrow at the death of her owner, Fluffles leaves, with both Wallace and Gromit depressed over their losses. Deciding to take their minds off things, they head out to deliver bread and find Fluffles in the driveway, attempting to deliberately get hit. She joins them in the van and the three drive off into the sunset.

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, played by Bob Baker. 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 headline in the Daily Grind newspaper reads "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 low calorie 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 - a reference to a Tommy Cooper and Eric Sykes sketch.
• Wallace tells Piella that he is 'In Bread', a play on the word inbred.
• Piella and Wallace 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" which is a play on words of the airline Easyjet.
• 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 "POOCHI" 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".
• Piella lives at 12a Pastry Rise. Many addresses avoid the use of 13 by the use of 12a. 13 is of course a "Bakers Dozen"
• 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.
• 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.
• After veering away from windows with nuns and ducklings underneath, Gromit comes to a third window featuring a large fence and a a sign saying 'Yorkshire Border, keep out!!' a reference to the long-standing rivalry between Yorkshire and Lancashire. Gromit then attempts to throw the bomb at the border, but is stopped.
• The sequence where the bomb gets stuck in Wallace's trousers is a reference to the famous "don't tell him Pike" Dad's Army episode The Deadly Attachment (1973) where German prisoners put grenades down corporal Jones' trousers.
• Albums in the van include "Poochini", "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.
• The Forklift scene where Fluffles is pushing Piella to the edge of the house also resembles part of the Doctor Who Christmas Special (Voyage of the Damned). Where the Doctor is a love interest of Astrid Peth, Gromit is similarly the love interest of Fluffles.
• When Wallace attempts to light the "Cake's candle", he briefly utters D'oh, the most used catchphrase of Homer Simpson. The BBC subtitles spell it as, "doh".

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 Austin 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 travelling 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 a penguin looking exactly like Feathers McGraw from The Wrong Trousers. On the other side of the gate is a ladder inside the wall, and dangling from it outside the wall is a rope made from sheets knotted together.
• 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 technotrousers are seen walking off into the sunset.
• The title text for this episode is similar to the one used in Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
• An image of young Wallace and Gromit first witnessed in Curse of the Were-Rabbit, can be seen in the dining room.
• 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 fuse of the rocket ship.
• The headline on the back page of the Daily Grind reads "Wigan to meet Preston in Cup tie". Despite the two football clubs being only 20 miles apart, Wigan is the hometown of the duo, while Preston is the name of the dog in A Close Shave.

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. Also at the end, Fluffles, depressed, attempts to commit suicide by stepping infront of Wallace's van.
• This Wallace And Gromit film marks the first time that a non-robot character 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 première 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 the United Kingdom. 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 UK programme in 2008, 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