"because it's British, we like things being a bit shit", truer words have never been spoken

One of the things I love about Aardman is how unapologetically British they are, they're not afraid to use very northern slang because it develops their characters and almost makes them feel like real people, even if they are a bunch of chickens Oh and also them getting rid of Julia Sawahla was an absolute disgrace, they wouldn't even let her do a voice test they just dismissed her as being too old even though she was vital to the development of Ginger

Fun Fact: Wallace & Gromit: Curse of The Were-Rabbit is one of the two only Dreamworks films to win best animated picture, the first one being Shrek

Ah aardman. That studio everyone likes. No exceptions. You may think you don’t like them but you’re wrong, you do like them because everyone likes them.

what i love about aardman is their inclusion of not just english stories, ideas, customs, characters, and settings, but NORTHERN english ones! It's so rare, the accents of most of the cast in chicken run, the wallace & gromit cast, they're all distinctly northern, and unapologetically so, i realise Bristol is not northern so the inclusion for one, and inclusion WITHOUT ridiculing/taking the piss out of us is extremely refreshing to me as someone who is a northern english person

I wouldn't call myself a patriotic person, but Ardman is the kind of Britishness I'm proud to be associated with

Stop motion always looks so gorgeous and oozes with character in a way that I haven't seen achieved by mass-produced GCI animation. It's really special that these types of productions are around, considering the nature and competitiveness of the industry

The changing of marrow to melon is just a less awful version of changing onigiri to jelly filled donuts.

When I think of Aardman and Wallace and Gromit-I always think of the fact that when the show referenced Wensleydale Cheese-it single handedly saved the company from their upcoming bankruptcy.

The Dreamworks Era of Ardman was definitely a fascinating experience to witness when I was a kid, especially with the amounts of time I’ve watched Flushed Away.

Even though Aardman hasn't made a movie in years that's on the same level of success as Chicken Run, as long as they're financially healthy, I think they'll be okay. In the end Aardman kind of came out on top from the breakup; they're still independent whereas Dreamworks is not.

“Because it’s British. We like things being a bit shit.” That sentence alone explains every cultural difference between the UK and the US. We acknowledge through our media that life is shit, whereas the US has to tie everything up neatly with happy endings and fuzzy sunsets. At least, for the most part. There are notable exceptions either way.

wait, I always heard that the reason Flushed Away went full CGI was because Aardman studios suffered a fire that destroyed their main work studio and they didn't have the time to wait for it to get rebuilt so they went full in on the CGI to save time and money

I'm gonna have to disagree about Flushed Away, it's one of the most quotable films ever for me and my favourite out of the three DreamWorks films. Some of the crass jokes can be removed but the villain rats and frogs are endlessly funny. All three are excellent tho.

Wallace and Gromit is brilliant in my opinion. The stop-motion gives it so much more charm than anything else. It also had great stories and a classic of my childhood

When you said "were British, we like things a bit shit" I felt both seen and offended, and choked on my tea whilst laughing

Aardman is British, and very much so. They're not just a studio from Britain, they're a *British* studio. The imperfections, the British slang and words, the way to just.. be! That's what makes Aardman.. Aardman. And it's perfect.

I legit spat out my drink in shock when I heard that they were planning to recast Peter Sallis as Wallace in Curse of the Were-Rabbit

I can't get the thought of DreamWorks recasting Wallace out of my head. That's such an uncanny thought...

“We’re British! We like things a bit shit!” Hey, that’s... yeah, kinda true, but it’s also nice to see a movie where characters aren’t whining about being poor in one scene and living in a couple million dollar apartment overlooking Central Park NY in the next. Makes you feel like less of a failure

"Because it's British. We like things being a bit shit." - SO TRUE THANK YOU FOR SAYING IT I was literally having a conversation with someone the other day why I sometimes don't like American TV over British, and that just concisely explains why

My god am I glad they didn't recast Peter Sallis/Wallace. That would have been an absolute travesty. I think their desire to do that is the most appalling part of this whole story and shows clearly that the Americans didn't truly get what they'd bought into.

You actually gave the reason why Flushed Away had to be fully CGI and yet six years later Pirates was able to mix Claymation and CGI - six years! In that time four generations of computer hardware came and went, with modeling and render farms able to handle around 64 times the increase in mathematical complexity in the same time. As such Flushed Away probably could have been done as a mix of stop-motion and CGI, but probably would have cost around half a billion dollars to make to an equivalent quality to Pirates.

Really wish Pirates and Early Man did better at the box office - Pirates especially is a favorite of mine and incredibly underrated I feel. It's just so much fun! But I'm glad that Aardman isn't at risk of bankruptcy and is still able to do its own thing without worry. Here's hoping the second Chicken Run movie is as good as the first

I feel like "Americans not understanding British slang and not seeing British films because of it" is a self-fulfilling prophecy; Americans feel like they don't understand British media, so they don't engage with it, so they don't learn Britishisms, so they feel like they don't understand British media... and so on. Movies such as "Hot Fuzz" found the perfect middle ground, by being unapologetically British (including having unintelligible British slang) but having a clean-cut, fish-out-of-water protagonist who didn't understand the local culture either, despite being from the same country. That also feeds into the British love of "making fun of each other", so it's a formula which works well at home, too. There is nothing the average Brit loves more than viciously ripping the piss out of his fellow countrymen. It's a time-honoured tradition here. I also think that another reason why Wallace and Gromit has a fairly niche audience in the US is because it's very... unglamorous. It's set in the north of England in the 1950s. Things are pokey and the people aren't rich. Things are mostly practical, with decorative items typically being modest affairs with sentimental value. Everything looks slightly dusty. Everyone is middle-aged and world-weary. People are well-meaning and honest, but irritable and pessimistic. It feels like it's been that way for generations. Although Wallace is shown to sometimes struggle for money, his house is actually quite nice. It's a detached Victorian house, with a nice garden, an adjoining garage, and at least 3 bedrooms. It's comfortably furnished and well-maintained. In mid-50s Wigan, Wallace's home is positively middle-class... but to the average 21st-century American, his house is somewhat cramped and extremely dated. Equally, Wallace's van - an Austin A35 - was a new model around the time that Wallace and Gromit is set. However, it's scuffed and well-used, and its vintage stylings look positively medieval to an American audience, who are used to "cars from the 50s" being chrome-winged Cadillac convertibles, not dull vans. In short, 1950s Britain was not the same place as 1950s America. Where America had space rockets and Disneyland, Britain had urban smog and war debt. The difference in culture is stark enough even before one factors in dialects. This is a far cry from the American expectations of British life, which assumes that everyone lives in a manor house in central London, speaks perfect RP English, drinks Darjeeling tea from a china teacup, and drives a Rolls Royce. Wallace living in a suburb, speaking "Northern twaddle", drinking tea from a mug, and driving a van just feels alien to a lot of foreign audiences. Some people really dig the aesthetic (apparently the Japanese really like Wallace and Gromit), but not all, and certainly not the sort of people likely to buy a lot of film tickets... sadly. The only seriously successful film i can think of which portrayed British life as dishevelled and earnest is Disney's "101 Dalmatians"... but this was the juggernaut of classic Disney, and it still gives low-end British life a homely glow which Wallace and Gromit tends not to. It was also set in (and around) London, which US audiences are more familiar with... and featured a lot of cute dogs, whereas Gromit is a single, more cynical pooch. Happily, though, a lot of other Anglosphere countries (such as Canada and Australia) also adore Wallace and Gromit. It appears that having closer ties to the motherland give them the ability to love British culture and history... even if they don't understand a word people are saying.

I was going to go into this by saying "I actually liked Pirates", but then I remembered that the only thing I remember from that movie was a Dodo, a bearded woman and a dummy Thicc Queen Victoria.

I remember hating Flushed Away as a kid cuz I thought the rats looked creepy and uncanny, It seems like I was being silly cuz Aardman made BOTH Flushed Away and Wallace and Gromit that I liked. I also remember hating Robots (unrelated to this video) as a kid too, Obviously liking them now crazy enough.

If only Dreamworks was willing to give Aardman more creative freedom. That way, not only could they have their own Pixar, but they could also see the joys of British entertainment. They could have had the best of both worlds.

Michael Eisner promoting himself is a certified Michael Eisner classic. That Eisner guy is a legend for opening Disney's California Adventure, it's a masterpiece of a park

Personally, I really like all three of the Aardman/Dreamworks films, but then again I’m also American. I definitely see how the latter two were Americanized, but I felt like Curse of the Were-Rabbit kept most of the classic British charm-even if there were some American elements that could have been left out. (The Great Vegetable Plot is such a fantastic title btw)

I will always wonder what DreamWorks could have become had Shrek not been the massive hit it was... Not gonna lie, after starting out with such an unbelievable movie like Prince of Egypt, it is kind of embarrassing how they've slowly deteriorated over time into... Boss Baby of all things.

"Now they have the taste of the big money, Disney level of money" which is fitting for a movie that was supposed to be one big "FU" to Disney and Michael Eisner. Many Disney animators followed Katzenberg and joined DreamWorks because of Eisner. Let's just say once Disneyland Paris (or Euro Disney at the time) opened in 1992, things started to take a nosedive because of all the losses from Paris. It began a domino effect that would eventually lead to his downfall And when Eisner's partner in crime Frank Wells died in a helicopter crash in 1994, Eisner lost even more of his former momentum. In fact this is where that Eisner promoting himself thing comes from. Eisner said he didn't want to hurt Frank and give the position to Katzenberg. According to Katzenberg though, Eisner assured him if Frank wasn't there, he'd be number two. However, Roy E Disney (Walt's nephew), told Eisner that if he gave Katzenberg the position, Roy would start a proxy fight. And thus when Frank died, he promoted himself. Roy went on to lead a "Save Disney" campaign in 2003 anyway (things got THAT bad at that point), which led to 43 percent of shareholders in March 2004 not re-electing Eisner to the board. Eisner left in 2005, handing his duties to Bob Iger.

It’s scary when you dig into what franchises dreamworks actually owns and/or has a hand in. I mean they own the entire filmation library and produced the recent she-ra

I remember watching Early Man in theaters and there was literally nobody else in the theater other than my father and brother who were with me. I enjoyed the film though.

The other reason why Flushed Away was 100% CGI was that their entire studio burned down during it's production. Just giving another little fact on that.

The video that Eddy keeps referring to ‘A Grand Night in: The story of Aardman’ is a beautiful piece that looks into the studio in depth. It’s really worth a watch if you’re a fan of animation.

Imagine paying for eddache to say your name at the end of his video but he puts it through text to speech instead

For me, the fingerprints on Aardman characters are a big part of why I love the animation so much, it's like Into the Spider-Verse with the varying framerates to represent different characters, I like art styles with imperfections that remind you there's a human behind it. Extremely smooth looking animation is incredibly skillful to pull off but it also looks boring more times than not.

I was afraid of claymation growing up, (and am still a little creeped out by it) but now whenever I watch something like Wallace & Gromit I really do admire the amount of effort that was put into the most time consuming form of animation

Yeah, trying to make a studio like Aardman to ponder to an American audience is a terrible idea. The selling point should really be that it isn't, I think most Americans find these types of movies charming. There are already tons of movies with farthing and pop culture references and micro managing studios that know what they are doing is not very bright. Dreamworks real problem is that when Shrek was so successful they decided they should make a lot of movies like that but a large part of why Shrek did so well is because it was so different from anything else when it released. You can certainly still make Shrek sequels but trying to recreate it to new IPs is just missing the point. How to train your dragon was a far better idea since once again, it was different (even if they butchered the book). There is logic in the idea that you can't beat Disney in just copying them but copying yourself over and over doesn't work either, except with sequels for some reason. I don't think Aardman using CGI for a movie instead of stop motion is a problem, as long as the movie is good people will see it no matter if it is CGI, stop motion or hand drawn.

"WE LIKE THINGS BEING A BIT SHIT!" is the most relatable thing I've heard as a Brit.

Aardman has always had a great legacy making many great films and entertaining millions. While they rant a part of dreamworks at the moment and more so on their own it is still nice to see them making great films.

Words cannot describe how much I love Aardman Studios. Their company is the reason I adore the art of Stop-motion, and would love to join a studio like theirs one day.

A thing I wanted to add about Eisner v Katzenburg is that Katzenburg's record at Disney wasn't as squeaky clean as he made it seem. Katzenburg was the one who pushed the infamous Black Friday Reel of Toy Story, which almost got the whole movie tanked. He was the one who approved the Genie's voice in use in commercial's, which nearly caused Robin Williams to stop working with Disney altogether. Lastly, and most seriously, Katzenburg's repeated comments toward Jim Henson about owning Sesame Street delayed the Muppets deal until Jim died, screwing disney out of the Muppets for over 20 years.

You know that's one of the things that really annoy me about a lot of American movies - The moral lesson/become better at the end bit. It ruined The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie for me. Just let the sh*t characters be sh*t characters.

I wrote my Master's degree thesis on exactly this topic; how British production companies fail in partnership with Hollywood. Aardman is a perfect example of how British cinema needs to work alongside Hollywood to be successful internationally, but fundamentally loses its creative identity by being moulded by the Hollywood machine. Great video!

9:37 To clarify, in the original ending Wallace would've had to go through the machine one more time to remove his rabbit ears, but they decided it would be simpler to just have him change entirely back to normal. Just something to streamline the plot.

Amazing to think of El Dorado, and Spirit as the box office failures they were. Both movies are great, and very important to me as a small child

I’m an American and I adore the British humor in the Wallace and Gromit films and Aardman in general.

One of the main things I love about Aardman is how it’s not just how unapologetically British it is but specifically how Yorkshire it is with the slang, the food (especially Wensleydale cheese) plus the architecture, clothing and cars

I feel like using ian mckellens performance as a plus is a bit like saying "well, the water was wet atleast"

Both Arthur Christmas and Pirates were excellent. I will die on this hill.

They’ll always hold a special place in my heart as a Bristol local. Not only were they super involved in the community, David Sproxton, one of the cofounders, met my little brother when he game in as a guest speaker at his college for BTEC media studies. He then continued to mentor my brother when he went to uni in Bath to study Film Production, with the aim of becoming a director, and invited him to the studios whenever he wanted to. The reason this was so special is although my brother no longer is interested in animation, it was aardman that got him so interested in film in the first place, at a very young age he was making little stop motion movies in his bedroom by borrowing my laptop and using a shitty digital camera.

I saw that move "Wallace and Gromit and the curse of the were rabbit" on TV2 in new Zealand just before I played "Fall Guys" on PS4 this month

Great video, was amazing meeting you at mcm on Friday x

I would honestly love to see Aardman making a Discworld movie in the future

" Were British! We like things a little bit shit!" That tickled my stoned little heart thank you

Yessss, Wallace and Grommit! Literally one of my favorite series of all time. It's like, the first SERIES I remember watching as a child. (My mom taped all 3 movies for me!)

What I admire about this video is the fact that you not only told the story of DreamWorks and Aardman’s relationship, but you also told the story of Jeffrey Katzenberg as well.

7:38 Lessons in Wallace and Grommit of all things? It's supposed to be cute slapstick like Mickey Mouse.

Worth pointing out is that Aardman is a worker-owned company. So that's pretty cool.

I’m loving these studio and animation history videos. 😁

Hooray, Eddache for 200K Subscribers!

Dreamworks would probably planning on having Aardman grow, hire more people and produce movies at a rapid pace and i just dont think thats Aardman. It more struck me as a small, but dedicated group thats so british you could pay for their movies in fish and chips And i never understood the whole marrow thing. I dont know what a marror is, but the movie shows it and you get a idea of what it is. And if you dont get it you wont miss a thing! The marrow is not the important part, its the competition around it that matters

I love flushed away, that’s a forgotten gem

I have so much love for these movies, here's hoping we can see a return to form!

Such a good analysis video. I adore learning about the history of animation and a focus on the studio that is so distinctly British is pretty awesome. Insane to think Aardman was supposed to be Dreamworks' version of Pixar. Also Early Man is underrated, I can't wait for the day it becomes a cult classic.

Wondering what an Aardman animation Lord of the Rings would look like?

“Because it’s British! We like things being a bit shit!” That line made me fall off my chair laughing!

the british culture vs american culture thing is very interesting to me, because between the two extremes given here, being chicken run and flushed away, i as an american actually prefer *chicken run*. both are movies i enjoyed in my childhood, definately up there in the list of "top ten movies i'd watch at least once a week", but chicken run had a certain charm and engaging quality to it that, even as a child, i could tell flushed away lacked. flushed away still felt british to me, but it felt very cartoon british if you get what i mean. most of what you got were stereotypes, which while funny, don't really hold your attention the same way things like actual british slang in chicken run did one of the things that i think helped chicken run in regard to its british nature is that there was a character who acted as a lense for americans watching the movie; Rocky. the entire point of the character is that he's *exquisitely* american compared to the british hens he's surrounded by, which not only makes him appealing as a character by seeming strange and enticing, but also makes him *relatable* as a protagonist, just by being constantly a little confused as to what everyone around him is saying. it didn't matter that you might not understand words like "nellypodging", "pillock", or "chuffed" mean, because you're not the only one who's out of the language loop! and let's be honest, a lot of the folks behind shows n movies these days really don't give viewers enough credit when it comes to intuiting what things mean through their context. they assume that if people don't immediately understand what's being said or done, they won't enjoy it

The word "poppycock" originated in _American_ English in the 1860s.

one of the more major reasons they did flushed away in cg was because their studio where they made their claymation had recently burned down at the time, so while it was being rebuilt they decided to make good use with the recent cg assets they had obtained.

Prince of Egypt and Spirit Stallion of the Cimarron was peak Dreamworks

Aardman was my childhood. They were my biggest connection to my home in my childhood and being so unapologetically British is what makes me love them even more

I forgot how much I love this channel

I man I still gotta watch chicken run one day. It’s a dang shame they couldn’t keep creative control but I’m glad they ended the deal on a mutual agreement. I love Aardman’s and Dreamwork’s movies so me just finding out they worked together for more than just flushed away is wild. also DID YOU USED THAT TEXT TO SPEECH APP THAT CORRIDOR DIGITAL USED?!

Wallace and gromit and pirates are some of my favorite stop motion films. With the latter being one of my favorite movies in general

I just saw Cas van de Pol in the patreon list, cool to see awesome creators support each other like that

Chicken run is one of my top favorite non Disney animated films and speaking of European animation studios, you should know about an interesting spanish studio called Lightbox animation studios featuring another prominent animator on par with Park called Enrique Gato who made two movies featuring an iconic character called Tadeo Jones (Tad Stones in other countries) and my personal favorite Capture the Flag. As for the mentioning Flushed away it actually became an underrated gem with its award winning animation, writing, and humor plus voice acting since it triumphed at the Annie awards

My old flatmate spent months making the beaks for Chicken Run, and once, under threats of death if i revealed anything, brought me home a script, which I found rather underwhelming.And I was a MASSIVE Aardman fan... ... Until he suggested I mentally read it in the voices of Mel Gibson and Jane Horrocks... That made it better, but it was still very different from the release version... On a related note, he wangled me an invite to Nick Parkes 40th(?) birthday party at their studios. I took a piss next to a VEEERY drunk Mr Parkes, which to this day is the highlight of my life. Also, Curse of the Were Rabbit was re-titled (on posters at least, there was no cinema!) ' Curse of the Were Bunnies' on my old home of Portland (UK) because the word 'rabbit' was historically 'unlucky'. That probably garnered them a couple of £million in advertising for a few hundred pounds of outlay, being reported worldwide. Very British.

Flushed away is incredible, one of my all time favourites

Didn't know that Sinbad was a DreamWorks movie I remember watching it in daycare and loving it

It was FLUSHED AWAY! It's Cost had gone over DreamWorks' Fortune.

What I love about aardman is all the hidden Easter eggs in their films I must of seen them hundreds of times and you pick up new things all the time be it references to other aardman films or just little British jokes

wallace and gromit are such a nostalgic series of movies for me! as a kid I never put together that it was made by the same people as chicken run... but I guess now I see why I like these movies so much

Even though The Pirates didn't do very well money-wise, it still shaped my childhood, it's my favourite Aardmann film, and they did that without Dreamworks

6:55 BRO I LOVED THAT MOVIE AS A KID AND EVEN THEN I WAS LIKE "Tf thats not a melon??"

A lovely little video for me, living in Bristol. ❤️

miss wllace and gromit so much!

To be fair about *some* terminology... I've never in my life heard "marrow" mean anything other than the stuff in bones and since gromit's a dog I would've assumed a bone-related thing and been confused. It is referring to a stripey gourd, so "mellon" isn't too bad whilst matching lip-flaps.

I do appreciate that their split was actually mutual and respectful. or at least that's what we know. both having different ideas on production. glad to see that aardman is still around. I haven't watched everything they've done, but yeah chicken run was fun and I'm not really sure what they would do in a sequel. Wallace and gromit was a lot of fun and I finally watched curse of the were rabbit for the first time with my wife a few weeks ago. fantastic film. ironically I first learned about Shaun the sheep thanks to an app that used to be functional on my 2DS called Nintendo video which basically all that app does is you go on that app and you'll be able to watch various short videos on there mostly from KZfaq but I think there were ones from other websites as well and I watched shorts of Shaun the sheep on there. pretty entertaining. I'm not sure why I haven't seen the movie. I knew about it when it came out but for some reason I just never watched it not sure why but I think I'd like to give it a shot sometime

"Heard you had a spot of rabbit bother and toodled straight on over to sort the little blighters out." Best quote in any movie.

Man, Shaun the Sheep is one of my all time favourites. I would watch it all the time

Britain should adopt the Wallace and Gromit theme as her anthem

There's going to be some more Wallace & Gromit movies in 2024!!!

Growing up with Wallace and Gromit and Shawn the Sheep kickstarted my love of stopmotion animation and I was fortunate enough to see a W&G exhibit showcasing the original sets and models

My dad used to work for Aardman in Bristol in early 2000 and I got to see behind the scenes which was cool

I'll always have a lot of fond memories of those Wallace & Gromit shorts, I can't tell you how many times I watched A Grand Day Out or The Wrong Trousers when I was a kid

"Because it's British, we like things being a bit sh!t" Exactly....that's why you voted for Brexit and Diet Trump Boris Johnson...and Beeching shutting down 8,000km of railways. Growing up in Switzerland, the best kind of cheese is Swiss cheese, and if it's true that the Moon is indeed made of Swiss cheese, then we'd love to claim it for our country!

This is an Eddache if I've ever had one