Nick Park has revealed that the Muppets, of sorts, were the inspiration for his most famous creations Wallace & Gromit!
The plastercine guru was working for Muppets creator Jim Henson on the set of his '80s feature movie The Dark Crystal when he came up with the idea for the cheese-loving inventor and his mute dog.
"After three days standing around I was getting bored and I started to come up with this idea of a man who built a rocket in his basement," Park tells Total Film. "That was the joke: how would he get out of there? He started off as a typical stereotype of a Northerner: flat cap, moustache, a bit eckie-thump."
So what what about Gromit? "He was a cat."
Wallace And Gromit And the Curse of the Were-Rabbit opens across the UK this weekend.