Wallace And Gromit creator Nick Park has revealed how the British sense of humour failed to tickle US movie bosses after his company joined forces with Hollywood studio DreamWorks.

Bristol-based company Aardman, whose creations include Shaun The Sheep, Creature Comforts and Wallace And Gromit, teamed up with DreamWorks in 1999 in a five-movie deal.

But they parted company in 2007 after making just three of the five films – Chicken Run (2000), Wallace And Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit (2005) and Flushed Away (2006).

While denying there was a schism with DreamWorks, whose computer-animated films include Shrek and Madagascar, Mr Park told the Radio Times that there were cultural disparities.

The Oscar-winning film-maker said: “There is a language barrier that often happens with humour. Wallace And Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit was going to be called The Great Vegetable Plot, but market research didn’t like it. The verdict was that ‘vegetables are a negative with kids’, but of course that’s why it’s good, and works. It’s elevating vegetables. That’s how Wallace And Gromit works. It was elevating the uncool and mundane to something big in Hollywood. That’s the irony.”

Aardman’s creative director Merlin Crossingham added: “Then there was the line ‘Slow down... you’ll buckle my trunnions’.

Recently, Aardman has been making Wallace And Gromit’s World Of Invention, a six-part series for BBC1 featuring the animated claymation characters, in which Wallace turns his hand to TV presenting.

Mr Park, 51, revealed the stressful experience of bringing seemingly light-hearted characters to the screen. “As a control freak you just can’t lose control, and therefore the stress levels are high,” he said.

Aardman Animations, which is owned by Peter Lord and David Sproxton, was set up in 1972. Filmmaker Park joined in 1985.