Wallace

"I'm sorry Gromit, I know you're doing this for my own good. But the fact is, I'm just crackers about cheese."

- Wallace on a diet

Wallace is the titular main protagonist of the Wallace and Gromit franchise. He is an inveterate inventor and Gromit's owner and best friend.

He is voiced by the late Peter Sallis (1989-2010) and Ben Whitehead (2010-present).

It is mentioned that Wallace was born on 7th August 1959, so Wallace is approximately 55 years old. This was mentioned by Nick Park in 2009.

Personality
Wallace is a kind-hearted, friendly, and eccentric man and an avid lover of cheese (particularly with crackers). Aside from his near-genius intellect and an expert intricate inventor which are normally quite complex for the situation he created the machine to deal with in the first place, the two more well-known of Wallace's contraptions are his rocket and the robotic walking pants he created for his best friends Gromit's birthday. But despite this, Wallace can be quite gullible at times this was most obvious when he went to the moon thinking that it was made out of cheese and actually ate a loose rock.

He was also completely oblivious that his girlfriend, Piella Bakewell was a serial killer despite her more than obvious mental illness. Wallace is a man of many jobs which include exterminator, baker, landlord, window-washer and (although not technically a real job) inventor. Wallace also possesses a more romantic side to him and has had previous relationships with people such as Piella Bakewell, Lady Tottington and Wendolene. However the strongest relationship that Wallace had was with his pet dog, Gromit whom he adopted and treated like his brother since he was a puppy. However there are times when their friendship was strained, which was shown when he invited the penguin Feathers McGraw to stay and was unaware of how it was upsetting his friend and when he was left completely smitten by Piella he instantly believed that it was Gromit who bit her when in reality, she did it herself. However Wallace valued his relationship more than anything and the two have always proved their loyalty to another.

Despite being eccentric, Wallace was very brave and heroic when he saved Lady Tottington from Victor Quartermaine (in Were-Rabbit form) and he was very dedicated to her when he protects her from the angry mob (who all thought that he was trying to hurt Totty) and from Victor again (while he was climbing up the pipe to get after Wallace).

While Wallace is mostly good-natured, when transformed into the Were-Rabbit the worst aspects of his personality appear, becoming destructive, violent and aggressive, in which his only diet was vegetables and would do anything to get his paws on them. However when he regained control of his Were-Rabbit form, he still retained his feelings of loyalty and love to the people he cared about, and in the end, it broke his curse.

Skills
He delights in creating elaborate contraptions that often do not work as intended. He is a self-proclaimed genius, evident from his exclamation when he discovers Hutch's borrowed skill, a talent for all things mechanical. Most of Wallace's inventions look not unlike the designs of Heath Robinson and Rube Goldberg; creator Nick Park has said of Wallace that all his inventions are designed around the principle of "using a sledgehammer to crack a nut."

Appearance
Wallace can usually be found wearing a white shirt, brown wool trousers, green knitted pullover and a red tie. He is slender and has fair skin. When he was younger, he had brown hair and a moustache but when he got older, he had a tuft of hair when he was in a picture with Gromit (on his graduation from Dogwarts University) by now, Wallace is bald. He is usually seen wearing black shoes and slippers on his feet. Due to eating too much cheese, Wallace gained a bulk build, but after eating loads of vegetables (in Were-Rabbit form) he had gone a little thinner (and possibly slowing down his cheese appetite).
 * Wallace is also seen wearing a red bow tie with white polka dots on special occasions. He was wearing a purple pullover with baby blue, white and purple zigzag lines (knitted by Gromit) until it got shrunk by water thanks to Gromit for turning the taps on in Lady Tottington's secret garden.
 * In The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Wallace sometimes wears an Anti-Pesto uniform and cap.
 * In The Last Resort, after Wallace get all the things he need for the Seaside in the cellar, Wallace is wearing an orange tie, a red shirt with white stripes, and red trousers.
 * In The Bogey Man, after Gromit makes Wallace join Prickly Thicket, Wallace is wearing a Prickly Thicket official tanktop instead of his pullover for the rest of the episode.

Trivia

 * Some of Wallace's contraptions actually are based on a real-life invention. For example, Wallace's method of getting up in the morning incorporates a bed that tips over to wake up its owner, an invention that was exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851 by Theophilus Carter, and is similar to a device sold in Japan that is used to ensure a certain wake-up time.
 * He and Gromit both live together at the ficticious address of 62 West Wallaby Street, Wigan, Lancashire. However, his accent, as voiced by Peter Sallis, is from Sallis' native Holme Valley in Yorkshire.
 * Wallace made a cameo appearance in the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends episode "Ticket to Rod" and was seen in Nana's 2nd photo panting alongside Gromit and Ginger with a case of an astronaut suit in A Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper.
 * Nick Park says of Wallace: "He's a very self-contained figure. A very homely sort who doesn't mind the odd adventure." Wallace is loosely based on Park's father, whom he described in a radio interview as "an incurable tinkerer." He described one of his father's constructions, a combination beach hut and trailer, as having curtains in the windows, bookshelves on the walls, and full-sized furniture bolted to the floor.
 * Wallace's original voice actor, Peter Sallis, died on June 2, 2017, at the age of 96. Since then, Ben Whitehead now voices him.