World, 10pm

The Amazing World Of Wallace & Gromit

Pearl, 11.15pm

Wallace & Gromit (W&G) fans will be in their element tonight as the popular clay model characters dominate both terrestrial channels. The W&G assault is largely to promote the newly released film Chicken Run, produced by Aardman Animations, the same people behind the mild-mannered Wallace and his wise dog, Gromit.

While animator Nick Park is the man behind W&G, it was David Sproxton and Peter Lord who formed Aardman as students in Bristol, England, in 1972. The pair, operating on a shoestring budget, had their initial success with a character named Morph which appeared on a couple of BBC television series in the mid-1970s. The broadcaster later commissioned a 26-part series of five-minute episodes, The Amazing Adventures Of Morph, screened in 1981.

Going on a hunch that there was a market for adult animated films, Sproxton and Lord immersed themselves in two animated films - which were rejected by the BBC. Their luck changed when the films were later seen by Jeremy Issac of the newly launched Channel 4, leading to the commissioning of five films.

International audiences got their first taste of Aardman animation in 1986 when it produced the video for Peter Gabriel's smash hit Sledgehammer. The award-winning video led to further work in commercials and the creation of Park's W&G characters, which so far have won three Academy Awards for the shorts Creature Comforts, The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave.

Chicken Run, Aardman's first feature film, provides the focal point for Wallace & Gromit Go To Hollywood (World, 10pm), showing the rise of Nick Park and behind-the-scenes footage. The film has been highly successful since its June release and set an opening-day record for DreamWorks studio when US$17.5 million (HK$136.2 million) was taken in at the box office.

Big Red Roos

Pearl, 8.30pm

While the Olympic Games has given viewers a good look at urban Australia for the past couple of weeks, the rural part of this vast continent is a very different landscape where only the strongest creatures thrive and survive.

In this BBC documentary, the cameras followed a female red kangaroo and her joey for over a year in the outback. With the arrival of man in the 19th century and the setting up of farms and water sources, kangaroos and common wallaroos have prospered and flourished. However, the animals still remain vulnerable to the unpredictable weather elements and their greatest threat: humans.

Riverdance: Live At New York

Star World, 8pm

Find out what all the hype is about in this award-winning stage production which has made a multimillionaire of its former star Michael Flatley and has also done irreparable damage in stereotyping Ireland as a nation of 'jiggers'.

Star World has shown impeccably good timing in screening this Riverdance special (above) as the production is coming to Hong Kong for an eight-show run at the Coliseum from October 13-18.

Using traditional Irish folk music and dance as its backdrop, the story chronicles the hardships and isolation the Irish culture has experienced as its people searched for their place in the world.

Since it began production in 1995, Riverdance has been a huge international success, performing to more than 10 million people worldwide. The production coming to Hong Kong is one of three performing around the world including a permanent fixture on Broadway.