Wallace and Gromit were created by Nick Park at Aardman Animations, first appearing in the stop-motion short A Grand Day Out in 1989. Composer Julian Nott wrote the theme, giving the cheese-loving inventor and his silent dog a pompous yet playful signature that returned across films including The Wrong Trousers and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Online, the tune has outlived the opening credits as shorthand for British whimsy, DIY ingenuity and deadpan understatement, which is why creators reach for it whenever a small idea is presented with total confidence.