By Paul Majendie

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - The Oscar-winning creators of Wallace and Gromit have created a gallery of quirky new plasticine characters to dramatise the plight of disabled people battling discrimination.

To highlight the difficulties the disabled face, Aardman Animations have produced for the Leonard Cheshire Disability charity a bull terrier in a wheelchair, a tortoise on crutches and a stick insect with a walking stick.

In the "Creature Discomfort" series of advertising spots being aired on television, in magazines and on the internet, each of the animals is being voiced over by real people -- wheelchair-bound Alex Mihaly is the voice behind Flash the Sausage Dog.

"I'd just like people to realise that we are real people. We are not brain-dead just because we are disabled," Mihaly said.

Multiple sclerosis sufferer Ian Wilding, the voice of Tim the Tortoise, said: "People need to think it's the wheelchair and not the disease that is causing the problem."

"Talk to me, not to my position. See the person, not the disability," he said.

Leonard Cheshire Disability, which supports over 21,000 disabled people in Britain and works in 52 countries around the world, wanted to challenge negative attitudes towards the disabled.

Nine out of ten disabled people in Britain questioned for a survey felt they suffer prejudice and discrimination. They are also twice as likely to be living in poverty.

"Disabled people experience unnecessary social barriers which are created largely through ignorance," said the charity's director general Bryan Dutton.

"In the 21st century it is unacceptable that such negative attitudes to disability still persist," he said.

The format being launched on www.CreatureDiscomforts.org is based on Aardman's "Creature Comforts" television shorts which used the voices of real people speaking through the mouths of assorted animal characters.

Aardman are famed for creating dim-witted Wallace and his faithful hound Gromit, the quirky plasticine stars of British cinema who have won three Oscars in the short-film category for their anarchic capers.