The Cooker, or Moon Machine, is a robot character who first appears in A Grand Day Out. It is an extraterrestrial robot resembling a gas cooker or oven on casters, complete with a coin slot and wonky antenna, who patrols the Moon's surface. It is shocked to find Wallace and Gromit 'eating' the landscape, but upon discovering a holiday brochure, becomes captivated by the idea of skiing.
Appearance[]
Its body is a large, white rectangle that is seemingly made out of a gas cooker or oven. It has two silver arms, with hands resembling white gloves worn by cartoon characters in the 1950s. In place of legs, it has a set of wheels.
Personality[]
Cooker is very protective of the Moon and does not want anyone to trespass or steal the cheese.
History[]
A Grand Day Out[]
The Cooker was a coin-activated robot that lived on the Moon. When Wallace and Gromit came to the Moon to get some cheese, Wallace activated it using 10p coins. It looked at a ski magazine and wished it could ski itself.
After being unwittingly activated by Wallace with a 10p coin, the Cooker was surprised to find others on the moon. When it noticed Wallace was dropping litter, placing his rocket on a forbidden parking spot, breaking the moon and stealing all the cheese, it tried to physically reprimand Wallace by hitting him with a police truncheon.
But before it could do so, the coin meter was used up and it stopped in the middle of the action. Upon seeing the motionless Cooker behind him, Wallace took the truncheon/billy club and inserted another 10p coin. The Cooker reactivated and noticed Wallace and Gromit leaving the moon after stealing the cheese spikes before they return home to Earth and, linking them as a potential means of taking it to Earth so it could ski, the Cooker followed them. Upon seeing The Cooker rushing towards them, Wallace panicked, thinking that it was angry at them for stealing the cheese they had collected. It stowed inside the base of the rocket but accidentally lit the high fuse, which blew it off and launched the rocket.
After landing, the Cooker was depressed at having failed to get into the rocket. Then it realised the metal strips that came off the rocket with it could be bent, so it decided to fashion the metal strips into skis and use the hills on the Moon as ski slopes. It worked, and having fulfilled its ambition at last, it was last seen waving good-bye to the space travellers as they set off back to Earth.
Wallace & Gromit: The Big Fix Up[]
Cooker reappears as a contraption the player can use. They are given one when they start, but they can make more with its blueprint, 1 bottle of glue, 2 rubber tubes, 1 pair of wire cutters and 300 pieces of scrap metal. Its skill is Electrical Repair.
Trivia[]
- It's unknown who created Cooker and left it on the moon to begin with.
- However, the original script and storyboard of the film was to go deeper into the aliens living on the moon and why the Cooker was there, but was cut due to timing and budget issues.
- It is uncertain how the Cooker got all kinds of tools and weapons in its storage cabinet.
- It operated on British coinage and Wallace & Gromit: The Complete Cracking Contraptions Manual indicates that it was originally a functioning gas cooker that had been heavily modified.
- The Cooker is the first antagonist to appear in the franchise.
- It is also the only antagonist in the franchise to reform of its own volition.
- It is also the only antagonist to not strictly be a villain, simply being overprotective of the Moon Cheese and having been mistaken by Wallace for a vengeful figure.
- An audio adaptation of A Grand Day Out called the Cooker the "Moon Machine".
- The Cooker's original model is now owned by the Science Museum in London.
- The Cooker makes a reappearance alongside Wallace's ball in the Star Wars: Visions episode "I Am Your Mother", which was animated by Aardman.
Gallery[]
