Their very first appearance was in A Grand Day Out, a simple story of the two characters travelling to the moon to find cheese. After 6 years of production, a combination of Nick Park's solo efforts and then receiving help from the team at Aardman, it was finally finished in 1989.
At the time, the only dominant animation techniques were 2D and Stop Motion, so Park decided to go with the later. This allowed him to keep the characters looking homemade by keeping some of the fingerprints on the plasticine and using various materials to create different textures; in a way, stop motion seems to be the most relatable animation there is, because pretty much anybody can mould their own plasticine figures (including children), so the audience can see how something so simple can be given life and emotions. A Grand Day Out is a good example of this, with such an imaginative storyline it's almost like a child came up with the idea.
Despite this, the comedy is very subtle and cleverly sprinkled throughout the film, most of which a child wouldn't really understand, which makes it suitable for a family audience. What I think people like about Wallace and Gromit is the relationship the characters have; Wallace is the only one who can talk, despite him being clever enough to invent things he's oblivious to what's going on around him, where Gromit the dog is very loyal and looking out for Wallace, as well as being handy himself. Gromit expresses his emotions through his eyebrows and body language, which requires the artist to have a certain skill set to express that emotion effectively through stop motion.
In the sequence where they are building the rocket ship, I can tell Nick Park worked hard to show the potentials stop motion has, by using real materials (as oppose to artificially made in the computer) to create the illusion that the characters are alive.
It wouldn't be nearly as good if it wasn't for the music accompanying the film; Julian Nott is the talent behind this aspect of it. It's the changes in tempo which describe what's happening in the story without having to narrate it, as well as the characters emotions and the iconic Wallace and Gromit theme tune.
Overall I love this film, but if it was made in the current day and age I don't think it would be as successful as it has been, because most films now (even short films) have such a big, movie-like plot that A Grand Day Out would be lost among the CGI. If this film hadn't been made however, it wouldn't have influenced the stop motion animation technique as it has or made Aardman quite as successful as it is.
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