A Matter of Loaf and Death

Wallace and Gromit have turned their home into a working bakery, complete with ovens, mechanical dough mixers and a windmill on the roof. Business is good, but Gromit grows uneasy as local bakers keep disappearing. Wallace notices nothing, having fallen for Piella Bakewell, a former model for the Bake-O-Lite bread advertisements. With his owner distracted, Gromit is left to work out what is happening to the town's bakers on his own.

This half-hour animated mystery was directed by Nick Park and written by Mark Burton, with Steve Pegram producing for Aardman. It followed The Curse of the Were-Rabbit in Park's filmography and came before Early Man. Peter Sallis returns as the voice of Wallace, alongside Sally Lindsay as Piella, Melissa Collier as Fluffles and Sarah Laborde as the Bake-O-Lite singer.

The film is a short rather than a feature, and its ratings reflect a widely seen television favourite: on IMDb it holds 7.6/10 from around 22,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 7.4/10 from roughly 635 votes. The two are close, suggesting general audiences responded about as warmly as the larger IMDb sample. It blends comedy and family animation with mystery, romance and thriller elements.