When I was six years old, my family only had a handful of VHS tapes I was allowed to watch: The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, The Lion King, and three of Aardman’s iconic stop-motion Wallace & Gromit shorts: A Grand Day Out, The Wrong Trousers, and A Close Shave. I was wary of watching A Grand Day Out and A Close Shave, but I flat-out refused to watch The Wrong Trousers for one reason: Feathers McGraw, the beady-eyed penguin who silently schemed to steal a diamond using Wallace and a pair of robotic legs.
Clearly, I wasn’t the only one who was terrified of him, because more than 30 years later, Aardman brings him back for revenge in Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, now streaming on Netflix. But bringing back Feathers wasn’t where this story started. It all started with a simple concept: Wallace inventing a smart garden gnome to help Gromit out with his garden.
