A Close Shave

Wallace and Gromit have started a window-cleaning business, and one job takes Wallace to a local wool shop, where he falls for the owner, Wendolene. At the same time, sheep are vanishing across the area, causing a wool shortage. A stray sheep that has taken refuge in their home disappears too, and when Gromit goes looking for it, he is accused of sheep rustling and locked up. Wallace must clear his friend's name and uncover who is really behind the abductions.

The film is a 30-minute animated short directed by Nick Park, who wrote it with Bob Baker, and produced by Carla Shelley and Michael Rose. It is the third of Park's Wallace and Gromit shorts, following A Grand Day Out and The Wrong Trousers, and comes before his move into feature films with Chicken Run. Peter Sallis returns as the voice of Wallace, with Anne Reid as Wendolene and Justin Fletcher as Shaun.

A Close Shave was released in 1996 and was made in the United Kingdom by Aardman with BBC Bristol Productions and BBC Children's Productions. Its reputation rests on strong word of mouth rather than scale: on IMDb it holds 8.1/10 from around 48,000 votes, while on TMDB it has 7.6/10 from a much smaller base of 969 votes. A critics' rating of 8.7/10 from 21 reviews places it somewhat above those audience scores.