Wallace and Gromit

1976 - Aardman Animations is set up by Peter Lord and David Sproxton and named after a cartoon character they created for the BBC series Vision On. Its headquarters are in Bristol.

1977 - Lord and Sproxton create a claymation character named Morph who soon becomes a big hit on children's show Take Hart.

1982 - Channel 4 commission a short series of conversation pieces.

1985 - Fresh from the National Film and Television School, a certain Nick Park joins the animation team at Aardman. He works on completing A Grand Day Out, Wallace and Gromit's first adventure in which the duo build a rocket and blast off to the moon in search of cheese, which he had begun as a student.