I saw A Close Shave not too long after it was released and I never looked at it again until tonight. See, there’s this one bit that’s really, really funny. You know how nothing’s funny anymore when you watch it to death? I didn’t want that to happen here. I’d be fine forgetting absolutely everything about this story, which I did, just to preserve that laugh.
I’m not exaggerating. There’s not one thing about this movie that I remembered at all, beyond that there is a parody of the various Thunderbirds launch sequences and that there are some sheep in it.
When I first saw Wallace getting loaded into his motorcycle as the music swelled in a beautiful pastiche of Barry Gray’s orchestra, I almost passed out from laughing. So for almost two decades, I could say with honesty that was the funniest thing I’d ever seen. Sadly, it was finally eclipsed in late 2015, when – and I’m not kidding – I genuinely did black out watching Patton Oswalt do a bit about Lean Cuisine frozen dinners. Brain shut down from lack of oxygen I guess and I just went flumpf. Scared the heck out of my wife, that did.
Anyway, our son certainly enjoyed the launch sequence as well. He thought the whole film was terrific and was on his feet hooting and guffawing during the climax. He did not, however, connect the launch sequence as a Thunderbirds parody! I don’t quite understand how the six year-old mind works. He has seen Scott and Virgil Tracy launch Thunderbirds 1 and 2, across two series, conservatively, 200 times apiece over the last three years. He rewatched the most recent six episodes of Thunderbirds are Go just three days ago. He didn’t see the connection. He just thought it was the funniest motorcycle launch sequence ever.
I haven’t shown him Superthunderstingcar yet. (Note: That came eighteen months later.)
I guess A Close Shave is a pretty good movie to stand on its own like that. He says it’s his favorite of the three. I’m still a Wrong Trousers man myself. I’ll check back in 2038 and see what I think.
Fire Breathing Dimetrodon Time 
True story: I showed both The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave to a family on Easter Sunday 1997. The mother found Gromit running away in The Wrong Trousers to be so sad that I had to warn her that something bad happens to Gromit in A Close Shave. She did laugh during both shorts once she realized Gromit was going to be just fine.