UK: Wallace and Gromit open "A World of Cracking Ideas" at London's Science Museum

Record ID: 386122

  • Title: UK: Wallace and Gromit open "A World of Cracking Ideas" at London's Science Museum
  • Date: 27th March 2009
  • Summary: GIRL GOING DOWN SLIDE AND RUNNING OFF CHILDREN PLAYING AT GIANT COMPUTER GAME STATION CLOSE OF COMPUTER SCREEN WIDE OF LARGE SCREEN ON WALL
  • Embargoed: 11th April 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Science / Technology
  • Reuters ID: LVA8BCLSXAYRU6ZWBJ011TB807JZ
  • Story Text: The Oscar-winning animation characters Wallace and Gromit will open their home to the public on Saturday (March 28), hoping to inspire a new generation of inventors with some ingenious and not-so-ingenious contraptions.
    The beloved Englishman Wallace is renowned for his over-elaborate inventions, used for anything from making Christmas cards to deterring burglars, and now children are being encouraged to follow in his footsteps.
    Members of the media were invited to Wallace and Gromit's a "World of Cracking Ideas" at London's Science Museum on Thursday (March 26), a full-size recreation of their quaint home at 62 West Wallaby Street where visitors can play video games and study contraptions and miniatures used in the films.
    As well as the good ideas -- among the favorites at a press preview were a karaoke disco machine in the shower and a barometer that chooses the right hat for the weather -- are bad ones that appear in the "Those that didn't make it" section.
    They include a chocolate teapot, glass hammer and a dog food bowl made of dog biscuits.
    Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park said the idea of the exhibition, which opens on March 28 and runs until November 1, was to encourage children to try out new ideas.
    "I used to come here when I was a student," he said at the exhibition. "I used to do anything that was free.
    "(I wanted) to inspire kids, to show what Wallace has done as a fictional inventor," Park told Reuters.
    "And because of the wackiness of Wallace, to inspire children to not think there are any rules, just start thinking up new ideas and be as wild as you can."
    Children are encouraged to pull levers, press buttons, color in their own wallpaper and come up with inventions which then move around the rooms suspended from a conveyor belt on the ceiling.
    Fictional inventions by Wallace and his silent dog Gromit appear alongside real exhibits from the Science Museum.
    There is an environmentally themed section, teaching children about green living, and Wallace's Collection of Curiosities, a homage to the original Patent Museum which was once on the site now inhabited by the Science Museum.
    The show, a partnership between the Science Museum, Aardman Animation which makes Wallace and Gromit and the Intellectual Property Office, cost two million pounds (three million USD) to stage. Adults will be charged nine pounds and children seven pounds.
    Park has won four Academy Awards, three for short animated films and one for animated feature film "Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit."
    He confessed to being "gobsmacked" by his success.
    "What's nice is Wallace and Gromit isn't computer animation, ...
    it is Plasticine and built by hand, you can see the fingerprints. I think that in some way inspires kids because you can see how it's done.
    "I remember I'd watch a Disney film and have no idea how it was done because it's an illusion. I love clay animation because it's like seeing the brush strokes on an oil painting."
    Park said he was working on a few projects with the BBC and an upcoming Wallace and Gromit film but didn't have a release date.
    "Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death" is available on DVD in the United Kingdom now.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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