If you have somehow avoided pop culture all together over the past two months, you may have missed that Feathers McGraw, aka the villainous penguin from the Wallace and Gromit universe has had a hell of a comeback.

From the moment he burst back onto our screens on Christmas Day in the latest Wallace and Gromit film, Vengeance Most Fowl, his antics have taken social media by storm.

Fans are so excited to have him back, in fact, that there has been a boom in people getting tattoos of the plasticine penguin, as reported by the BBC. 

However... how did this even come to be? Penguins are so silly, so goofy. How did we end up with the best villain of all time (in my opinion...) being a penguin?

Creators explained the inspiration in a recent interview

Speaking with film and TV site Who Let Us Out, film director Merlin Crossingham and animator Nick Park revealed the inspiration behind everybody’s favourite silent villain.

Crossingham says: “How unlikely is it that a penguin would be a villain? I’ve never seen that before apart from Batman, but that’s a different penguin, really. This is an actual penguin.”

He added that for all characters, it always starts with doodles on a page. 

Then, he says, “it started with a whole load of penguins coming to stay at Wallace and Gromit’s house in the early days. Then, for economy, this was paired down to one”

The creators then asked themselves what if a penguin was... villainous?

″[Feathers McGraw was] very influenced by Hitchcock films, Ealing comedies, you know where there’s a stranger in the spare room.

“I’ve honestly never looked at a penguin the same since.”

We haven’t, either.

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is available to stream on BBC iPlayer now.