History WesternAnimation / ChickenRun

* MeanBoss: Mrs. Tweedy constantly mistreats her [[JustForPun henpecked]] husband while bossing him around.

** Babs' knitting was animated to be as accurate as possible.

* ShownTheirWork: The way Mac lands square on her head and falls forward after attempting to fly? That would earn a perfect score in caber tossing.

* HypocriticalHumor: When Fowler first meets Rocky, he comments "I don't like the look of this one. ''His eyes are too close together!"'' in spite of the fact that ''every single characters’ eyes'', including Fowler’s, are too close together.

A sequel titled ''WesternAnimation/ChickenRunDawnOfTheNugget'' is set for release on Creator/{{Netflix}} on December 15, 2023.

* HypocriticalHumor: When Fowler first meets Rocky, he comments "I don't like the look of this one. ''His eyes are too close together!"'' in spite of the fact his won eyes are too close together.

* OnlySaneMan: Ginger is the only chicken who is both clear-headed about the danger of staying on the farm and doesn't have.

** It is played straight, however, when Mrs. Tweedy spares Babs from the chop. It notifies Ginger that their eggs will no longer keep them alive, and the chickens decide to use them to get tools from Nick and Fetcher [[spoiler:to build an escape plane]].

** The theme from ''The Archers'' can be heard as Rocky tunes the radio right before the dance number.

'''Fowler''': Good heavens, no! I'm a chicken! The Royal Air Force doesn't let chickens behind the controls of complex aircraft!

** Rocky's poster is torn at the bottom corner. [[spoiler:The missing piece depicts the cannon.]]

*** The first is an almost patriotic orchestral melody. This version gets several reprises, including a [[DarkReprise dark one]] when the flock finds the second half of the circus poster.

** [[spoiler:Ginger, when she unfolds the bottom half of Rocky's poster.]]

* WhamShot: Ginger putting up the bottom half of Rocky's torn poster, showing [[spoiler:the cannon he's getting shot out of and revealing that Rocky can't actually fly.]]

** Rocky's line inside the pie machine: "Whoa, it's like an oven in here." Immediately after he says that, cue the OhCrap when he realises it ''is'' an oven. Seconds later, he and Ginger get another one, noticeably jumping when the door starts closing.

* UnintelligibleAccent: The first time Rocky hears Mac, the Scottish-accented technical minded hen of the flock, she fires off a rapid explanation of how they found him with such a think accent that Rocky asks, "Was that English?" Afterwards he makes comments on how she must be speaking another language.

** Rocky, who lets his "flying rooster" reputation go to his head. Once he has to give an actual demonstration, he [[JustForPun chickens out]].
** To a lesser degree, Fowler. While he never outright says he was a wartime hero, his ramblings gave off that impression. When he finally admits he was just the mascot, he insists that it should have been obvious, since no air force would employ chickens as pilots.

* FearsomeFoot: Mrs. Tweedy is often introduced in her black boots marching through the chicken farm during inspections, purposely parallelling the visual sight of an approaching concentration camp officer.

* {{Projeggtile}}: As Mrs. Tweedy tries to climb into the chickens' airplane, they throw their own eggs at her to try and stop her.

** When Fowler shouts "Chocks away!" it shows the chickens removing "Tasty-Choc" chocolate bars from the wheels that are very similar to the widely known Toblerone bar.
** When first discussing compensation for acquiring stuff for the chickens, Ginger tosses Nick a bag of chicken feed. [[note]]"Chicken feed" is slang in English speaking nations for a pittance or otherwise pathetically small amount of money.[[/note]]
--> '''Nick:''' "You call this pay?"
--> '''Fetcher:''' "It's chicken feed!"

* ClosetShuffle: Whenever Rocky's presence needs to be hidden from the Tweedys he gets stuffed by the chickens into a cramped space under the floor.

* FakeUltimateHero: Rocky, who lets his "flying rooster" reputation go to his head. Once he has to give an actual demonstration, he [[JustForPun chickens out]].

* {{Fanfare}}: With kazoos!

* HamsterWheelPower: The "crate" is a vehicle powered entirely by the chickens themselves, who in a variation of this trope use bicycle pedals.

* HateSink: [[BigBad Mrs. Tweedy]] is characterized as a vile and greedy "warden" responsible for all the misery on Tweedy's Chicken Farm. [[CruellaToAnimals She runs the coop like a concentration camp]], forcing the chickens to constantly lay eggs to fill her profit margins and sadistically killing any that fails to deliver the quota. When she becomes unsatisfied with their egg production, [[FinalSolution she decides to turn them all into chicken pies]] for short-term profits. [[DomesticAbuse She is also extremely abusive to her husband]], dismissing his concerns about the chickens plotting an escape as mere delusions and forcing him to build (and eventually repair) the pie machine alone.

** "In all my life, I have never heard such a fantastic... load of '''[[SuddenlyShouting TRIPE!!!]]'''"
* HypocriticalHumor: When Fowler first meets Rocky, he comments: "I don't like the look of this guy. ''His eyes are too close together!"''

* JustEatGilligan: While the arrival of the pie-making machine was inevitable, Rocky could have saved a lot of heartbreak had he just told the hens from the beginning that he can't really fly (he tries to tell Ginger after the dance scene, but by then they had already gotten their hopes up and their disappointment would have been more painful than it needed to be).

** Ginger orders everyone to work together to [[spoiler:build the plane]]. For once, the chickens are completely serious and focused on the task, dismantling their hatches for the wood and nails. Then when [[spoiler:Mr. Tweedy catches them just as they're about to finish, they join in on attacking him when Ginger orders them to charge]].

* LiarRevealed: Played with. As mentioned above, Rocky lets the "flying rooster" reputation go to his head and decides to play along, until, most likely due to fear of being kicked out (which is how the trope usually works), decides to flee and leave behind the piece of the poster that reveals his secret.

** Nick and Fetcher are tired of being paid in chicken feed because it's, well... [[StealthPun chicken feed]].

** While trying to escape the pie-machine, Rocky and Ginger fall into a chamber and he exclaims, "Whew! It's like an oven in here..." A second later, gas flames shoot up on all sides and the door starts to close.

* MeaningfulName: [[StickyFingers Nick]] (as in English euphemism for steal) and [[StickyFingers Fetcher]]. Also, Ginger is ginger (i.e. reddish).

** Invoked by Rocky (while not wrong), who tells Ginger that BrutalHonesty ''isn't'' going to work ("You know, if you want to motivate someone, ''don't mention death''.") Indeed, the chickens' morale is at its lowest after one of Ginger's speeches where she brutally tells them that the Tweedys are setting them up for slaughter.

* RuleOfFunny: Neither Mrs. or Mr. Tweedy seem to notice or care that the chickens are wearing articles of ''clothing''. Gets especially weird when Mr. Tweedy chooses Ginger to go into the pie machine; you'd think he'd at least remove her clothing at that point not have the pie come out with a beanie and scarf inside. A more frightening guess however is that the makers purposefully didn't have him remove her clothing so not to make too obvious a reference to a certain Holocaust event...

* BerserkButton: Ginger gets fed up pretty quickly of being called "doll face" by Rocky. One time he does it, she throws his towel at him. [[spoiler:While escaping, Babs cheerfully calls her "doll face", which makes her sigh wistfully, because at that point Rocky had fled for parts unknown.]]
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Babs may be TheDitz and cheerful for most of the time, but during the mudfight, she gets in with the fighting as well, and can be seen at the end biting another chicken's leg. Later, she's one of the chickens that [[spoiler:takes down Mr. Tweedy]].

* SquashedFlat: Rocky and Ginger ''almost'' suffer this fate inside the pie machine with their feet stuck in balls of dough.

** Rocky Rhodes, is a Rhode Island Red (breed of chicken).

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** When Bunty and the other chickens start to give up on escaping, Ginger tries to change their minds by giving an uplifting speech about a better place outside the coop with wide-open spaces, lots of trees and cool green grass where they could live free from fences and morning egg counts... and Bunty loudly calls it a 'load of tripe' and tells Ginger to face the fact that their chances of getting out are a million to one. It's a nice dream, but it won't convince everyone.
*** In this same scene, Ginger tries to further motivate the chickens by reminding them about Edwina's death. Again, it's Bunty that reminds her that Edwina's death was due to not laying any eggs, which in turn was due to constantly trying to escape.
** Ginger assumed from Fowler's constant boasting about his time in the RAF that he would be the one to fly their escape craft. As she learns when it's time for him to get in pilot's seat, Fowler only served in the RAF as a ''mascot''; he himself is incredulous that she honestly thought the Royal Air Force would ever let a rooster fly any of their war planes.
** Cutting Christmas lights wire with children's safety scissors takes a ''long'' time.

** Fowler is introduced ordering the others to get ready for the roll call when the bell sounds for it, and then talking about his time in the RAF before Bunty tells him to cut it out.

** During roll call near the beginning of the movie, Bunty pushes aside a dark brown chicken who was sleeping on the spot to make room for Ginger. In the next shot we see the brown chicken getting up and looking dazed. When Mrs. Tweedy starts walking down, Fowler gets on the other side of Bunty; knocking over the dark brown chicken again!

* BecomingPartOfTheImage: During the climactic scene Mrs. Tweedy gets rammed into a billboard advertising her chicken pies, and has the smiling version of her face from the billboard stuck over her real one. When she rips the paper off, her actual expression is completely AxCrazy.

* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Babs and Fetcher are both very air-headed and spacy, jumping to strange conclusions and not fully grasping what's going on.

** The hole dug under the fence at the beginning with the spoon. First used in that scene, [[spoiler:then it's later revealed Rocky used the same hole to escape from the farm]].
** Rocky's tricycle. [[spoiler:Shows up first after he has fled the farm, and returns in his second BigDamnHeroes moment when he uses it to save Ginger from Mrs. Tweedy.]]
** Gnomes. One shows up in the opening scene and one of the dogs bites its head off. [[spoiler:Nick and Fetcher later hide inside two other gnomes to steal tools the chickens can use to build the crate with from Mr. Tweedy.]]
** Mrs. Tweedy's axe. Shown first when Edwina is killed, then comes back in the climax. AxCrazy, indeed.
** Both Babs' passion for knitting and Bunty's egg laying capabilities come in pretty useful [[spoiler:when building the 'crate'.]] Later, she lends her scissors to Ginger [[spoiler:so they can cut the safety line when Mrs. Tweedy grabs ahold of it]].

** Fowler is introduced ordering the others to get ready for the roll call when the bell sounds for it, and then talking about his time in the RAF before Bunty tells him to cut it out.

* EurekaMoment

* CaptivityHarmonica: Parodied when Rocky comes back to find the chickens milling about the overturned food trough, having just heard from Ginger that they're all going to die, and there's one hen playing a mournful harmonica.

* HopeSpot: Inverted while the chickens are [[spoiler:building their airplane. They hear the pie machine starting up, suggesting that the repairs on it are complete. Then they hear it wind down and see Mrs. Tweedy kicking her husband so the repairs are finished after all.]]