Before Shaun the Sheep had his own movies and television series, he was a little lamb lost in the 1995 movie short A Close Shave. Escaping from a dastardly mechanical sheepdog, Shaun (best pronounced in Wallace’s English accent) makes himself at home in the inventor’s Rube Goldberg house. A trip through Wallace’s latest invention, the Knit-O-Matic, leaves him with a signature knitted “jumper” (sweater, in American lingo). Hijinks ensue and the beasts (as always) save the day.
Released as the third in a series of stop-motion animated shorts, A Close Shave won an Academy Award for Best Animation. Shaun followed his debut with an 80-episode television series and his own major motion picture.
Wallace and Gromit and Shaun demonstrate why spinners and knitters prefer to make yarn the old-fashioned way.
A Close Shave. By Nick Park. United Kingdom: Aardman Animations, 1995. Watch a trailer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36GfaI0_B8E&feature=youtu.be