Creature Comforts

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the latest movie from Aardman Studios in England, Shaun the Sheep: the Movie.  I noted what a big fan I was of Aardman, which has won at least three Oscars (oddly, it's a bit difficult to track down exactly, and the number of nominations even more so), beginning with the wonderful Creature Comforts.  Aardman makes stop-motion animation, a painstaking process, where models are built for everything and moved one frame at a time.  Among their work, they also did Chicken Run and Wallace & Grommit (and the many Wallace & Grommit shorts).  But so much more, almost all a hoot. Not to mention clever, inventive and smart.

And I realized I should post here the short which got them their first Oscar in 1990, for Best Animated Short, the delightfully offbeat and unique, Creature Comforts, directed by one of Aardman's co-founders and guiding lights, Nick Park.  How good is Aardman?  The same year it won for Creature Comforts, the company also had a second nomination in the same category, for A Grand Day Out.

I believe that the success and whimsy of Creature Comforts spun it off into a TV series in England, or at least a series of animated shorts done in the same style.  I shall say no more.  You'll see --