A Matter of Loaf and Death

A serial killer has murdered twelve bakers. Wallace reads about the death of the twelfth baker, not worrying much about the killer and instead focusing on his new bakery business. While on a delivery, Wallace and Gromit save Piella Bakewell, a former pin-up girl for the Bake-O-Lite bread company when the brakes on her bicycle fail.

Gromit finds there is no problem with the brakes, but Wallace is too smitten to notice, as he always had a crush on the model. He and Piella begin a whirlwind romance, and Gromit is angered when she redecorates their house, insisting they need a "woman's touch" around the house. Gromit shares a sensitive moment with Piella’s mysterious poodle, Fluffles when she returns Gromit's possessions, discarded by Piella.

Wallace sends Gromit to return Piella's forgotten purse. At Piella's mansion, Gromit discovers numbered mannequins representing each of the murdered bakers, and a book of photos – each one of Piella with the murdered bakers some time before their deaths; Wallace is her planned thirteenth victim, completing a baker's dozen. When he shows Wallace the evidence, Wallace is too distracted with his engagement to Piella to listen and Piella, having learnt that Gromit is onto her, manages to throw it into the house's fireplace.

The next day, Piella tricks Wallace into thinking that Gromit bit her by biting herself and crying in pain. Wallace muzzles Gromit, chains him up, and has him clean dishes as a punishment. Gromit watches helplessly as Piella prepares to kill Wallace, but he is saved when Piella is struck by a bag of flour. After an angry outburst about bakers, she leaves, but eventually drops by to apologize with a cake. Gromit, suspicious, follows her home, where Piella throws him into a storeroom with Fluffles.

Escaping in Piella's old Bake-O-Lite hot air balloon, Gromit and Fluffles arrive at Wallace's house as he lights the candle. After a struggle, the cake falls, revealing a bomb. Wallace and Gromit are attacked by Piella, who reveals she detests bakers after she gorged on the Bake-O-Lite products, causing her weight gain that ended her career as the Bake-O-Lite girl.

She is about to kill Wallace, but is attacked by Fluffles in a forklift. In the chaos, the bomb ends up in Wallace's trousers; Gromit and Fluffles neutralize the explosion with dough while Piella leaps onto her balloon to escape. However, her weight eventually drags the balloon into the crocodile enclosure in the zoo, ironically which Wallace and Gromit saved her from earlier.

Piella is eaten alive by the crocodiles and Wallace briefly mourns her. Dejected, Wallace and Gromit decide to take their minds off things with a delivery. Outside, they find Fluffles. Gromit comforts her and she joins the pair on their delivery, clearly becoming a member of the team.

• Peter Sallis as Wallace
• Sally Lindsay as Piella Bakewell
• Melissa Collier as Fluffles
• Sarah Laborde as Bake-O-Lite singer
• Ben Whitehead (uncredited) as Baker Bob
• Geraldine McEwan (uncredited) as Miss Thripp

In October 2007, it was announced that Wallace and Gromit were to return to television after an absence of ten years.[6] Filming began in January 2008; creator Nick Park commented that the production period for the short was significantly quicker than that of the feature length films Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which each took five years to complete.[4][7]

A Matter of Loaf and Death was the first Aardman film to be made using the software Stop Motion Pro. Five models were created for Gromit alone, with scenes being shot simultaneously on thirteen sets.[8]

Commenting on the fact that the short would 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."[4] 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 Batman, Aliens and Ghost.[9]

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.[8]

Park cast Sally Lindsay after hearing her on the Radcliffe and Maconie Show on BBC Radio 2 whilst driving from Preston.[10] 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".[10]

The short had its world premiere in Australia, on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's ABC1 on 3 December 2008, and was repeated again the following day on ABC2.[1]

In the United Kingdom, it aired on Christmas Day at 20:30 on BBC One, although it had been readily available on The Pirate Bay since 3 December 2008.[9][11] On 19 December 2008, Aardman Animations revealed they had "no idea" of how clips were leaked onto YouTube, ahead of its screening in the United Kingdom.[12]

In the United States, it was released on DVD on 22 September 2009 by Lionsgate Home Entertainment and HiT Entertainment.

In France, A Matter of Loaf and Death (Sacré pétrin in French) was shown – dubbed into French – on Christmas Eve 2008, on M6. In Germany, one version, entitled Auf Leben und Brot was broadcast on the Super RTL network, the title is a play on Auf Leben und Tod meaning a matter of life and death.

In a similar style to A Close Shave on BBC Two, Wallace and Gromit became the theme for BBC One's presentation of Christmas for 2008, to promote the showing of A Matter of Loaf and Death.

The programme was watched by the most viewers of any programme on Christmas Day, 2008, in the United Kingdom, and secured the largest Christmas Day audience in five years. It was also the most watched programme in the United Kingdom in 2008,[13] with a peak average audience of 14.4 million.[14] The programme had a share of 53.3%, peaking with 58.1% and 15.88 million at the end of the programme.[15]

The repeat showing on New Year's Day even managed 7.2 million, beating ITV's Emmerdale in the ratings. The short was shown on British Television for the third time on Good Friday, pulling in 3.4 million viewers.

In BARB's official ratings published on 8 January 2009, it showed that A Matter of Loaf and Death had 16.15 million, making it the highest rated programme of 2008, and the highest rated non sporting event in the United Kingdom since 2004, when an episode of Coronation Street garnered 16.3 million.

A positive review came from USA Today, which gave the film four stars.[16]

In May 2014, Peter Lord stated that there were no plans at the moment for a new short film, and Nick Park announced in the following year that the declining health of Wallace's voice actor, Peter Sallis, had the possibility of preventing any future films, despite the availability of Ben Whitehead.[19]

On 4 May 2017, Peter Lord stated that more projects with the characters are likely while speaking at an animation event in Stuttgart, Germany. He said, "When Nick [Park]'s not drawing cavemen, he's drawing Wallace & Gromit ... I absolutely assume he will do another, but not a feature. I think he found it was too much. I think he liked the half hour format."[20]

The original voice of Wallace, Peter Sallis, died on 2 June 2017 at the age of 96.[21] In January 2018, Park said to Radio Times: "[Sallis] was such a special one off person with such unique qualities, it would be hard to fill his shoes but I think he’d want us to carry on and I’ve got more Wallace and Gromit ideas.”[22] In May 2019, Park announced that a new Wallace and Gromit project is in development. "I can't give too much away because it would spoil it really, but it's Wallace & Gromit up to their old antics.”[23]

Whitehead took over the role of Wallace following the death of Peter Sallis in June 2017 after having served as an understudy for Sallis since 2009.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: A Matter of Loaf and Death

• Official website
• A Matter of Loaf and Death on IMDb
• A Matter of Loaf and Death at British Comedy Guide
• Film Production Blog at the official Wallace and Gromit website