Shaun the Sheep at all, even from the human characters; simple grunts, bleats, pointing, sighs, mutterings, words, and similar wordless inflections are all used to indicate each character's moods and motives. There are also no readable words in any episode, although "Bitzer" can be seen on a dog bowl, and—in series four--"Mossy Bottom Farm" on a gate, in the original English-language title sequence. All other signage, such as on a pizza box or a bus stop, is replaced by an illegible scrawl and a picture. Shaun the Sheep's first appearance was in "Wallace & Gromit"s third short feature, the Academy Award-winning "A Close
Watches of the Night phrase 'watches of the night' has been used since at least the Book of Common Prayer (1662), and dates back further: "the watches of the night: the night-time; watch originally each of the three or four periods of time, during which a watch or guard was kept, into which the night was divided by the Jews and Romans". The phrase occurs in the King James Bible ("Psalms"), and has also been used in several works of literature as a cliché for what is also called 'the wee small hours', or 'the early morning', often with connotations of blackness (both of