FurteanTimes.com

British claymation characters Wallace and Gromit have been nominated for this year's Academy Awards - the sixth time in their history.

Their 2008 short A Matter of Loaf and Death has been nominated for the award for "Short Film (Animated)". The film was first broadcast on Christmas Day, and was watched by over half of the British viewing public at the time with 14.25 million people seeing it on BBC One.

However, because it was broadcast so late in the year it missed the deadline to be entered in the 2009 Oscars. Despite this, creator, director and co-writer Nick Park said to the BBC at the time: "We have never made films for awards, though. We do them for the fun of it."

Wallace and Gromit are among the most successful animated characters in terms of Oscars. Every single film featuring them has been nominated for an award, with only their first appearance in A Grand Day Out failing to win, losing out to Creature Comforts, also created by Nick Park.

The other nominees are French Roast, Granny O’Grimm's Sleeping Beauty, The Lady and the Reaper and Logorama.