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Creature Comforts
In this short animated film by Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park, various zoo animals are interviewed about their living conditions. A Brazilian wildcat misses the freedom of his homeland, a monkey is bored, and a family of polar bears feels everything is fine.
The audio is drawn from actual interviews with both nursing home residents and zoo visitors, creating an intriguing double meaning. The film points to issues regarding the living conditions of wild animals, but succeeds in doing so with a lot of humour.
Bio Nick Park
Nick Park created the stop-motion classics Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep. The English animator was nominated for six Academy Awards and won four of them, for Creature Comforts (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993), A Close Shave (1995), and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).
I have always been interested in direct, immediate techniques that do not need a lot of planning, because it seemed like the best thing to have everything ‘happen’ in front of the camera. I was not too inclined to clay, partly because it was very hard to animate with it. There are so many practical difficulties, for instance, the material very quickly heats up under the lights…. However, while I was at the National Film and Television School, I returned to clay and loved it unconditionally.
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- This film was #78 in the “Greatest” Short Films of All Time 2025