Angry Birds on the Run is a live-action Angry Birds miniseries. The birds and pigs appear as plush toys, and the human characters' faces are never shown.
Angry Birds on the Run provides examples of:
- Adaptational Dumbass: Chuck. In the original game and toons, he was certainly vain and self-centered, but not dumb. In this series, he is just as dumb as Bomb.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Bomb. In the original game and toons, he was a father figure / The Smart Guy. In The Angry Birds Movie, he becomes a lot dumber, but is still nice to the other characters. In this series, he is an outright Jerkass, and does things like withholding crucial information from Red, taking every chance he can get to waste Red and Chuck's time, and demanding that Red and Chuck respect his imaginary love interests.
- The Alleged Computer: The countdown clock in Season 1. It malfunctions several episodes that it's present in, to the point where it becomes a Running Gag. Lampshaded by Red in E17.Red: Did we pay for this thing? It sucks!
- All for Nothing:
- In S1 E8, the birds find a skateboard, and spend most of the episode learning how to ride it. At the end, the skateboard's owner shows up, and the birds are forced to abandon it.
- In S1 E19, the birds spend the episode building a trap for their kidnapper, only to have accidentally built it at the wrong door.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In S1 E19, Chuck and Bomb are just as concerned about a pile of candy wrappers in the kidnapper's house as they are about escaping.
- Artifact Name:
- Bomb is incapable of blowing up in the human world.
- Defied with the "Angry Birds" moniker in S1 E21, where Red specifically instructs Chuck and Bomb to get angry.
- Beach Episode: In S1 E13, the birds visit the beach. Bomb finds a sand castle and proclaims himself King of the World (but then the tide comes in), and Chuck is used as a volleyball by a group of beachgoers.
- Big Eater: Bomb. In S2 E4, he eats three hundred slices of pizza in one sitting.
- Brain Freeze: In S1 E12, the birds eat tons of ice cream, and then experience brain freeze-induced hallucinations.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: In S1 E21.Bomb: It's almost as if we've done this montage too many times for it still to be interesting.
- Brutal Honesty: Chuck and Bomb do this to Red in S1 E21.Chuck: It's okay, you gave it your best shot. It's just that your best shot...Bomb: ...sucked.
- Bumbling Henchmen Duo: The Minion Pigs. King Pig's plan relies on them destroying the phone so that the birds can't get back into the real world, and the Minion Pigs completely fail to do that. The Minion Pigs also only speak in grunts (like in the original game/toons), even though the birds and King Pig speak in full sentences.
- Character Development: Lampshaded in S1 E15.Red: Wha- What happened? Where are we?Chuck: I hate to break it to you, but you kind of went nuts, and now we're wedged halfway down this slide.Red: Oh, this is just perfect! How did we even get up the steps to go down the slide? Remember when we couldn't climb stairs? What happened to that?Chuck: Uh, Red, that's called growth.
- Christmas Episode: The post-S2 finale special episode "A Christmas Rhyme" features the birds performing a Christmas play.
- Clickbait Gag: In S1 E7, the birds use a computer to figure out where the school is, and are instantly bombarded with clickbait.Chuck: [reading headline] Did you know that if you had a mortgage between 1996 and 2002 and were born between the years 1879 and 1922, you could make $2000 a day working from home?note
- Coincidental Broadcast: In S1 E6, the birds hear that they are going to be replaced from a random person sitting on a park bench watching the news on his phone.
- Couch Gag: The countdown clock in Season 1.
- Curse Cut Short: In S1 E7.Chuck: Nothing? Well, I guess you can kiss my-!
- Deadpan Snarker: Red, due to everyone else being Insufferable Imbeciles.Bomb: I'm King of the World! [evil laugh]Red: I hate to break it to you, King Cnutjob, but the tide's coming in.
- Description Cut: Double subverted in S2 E4, where Red and Matilda are trying to find food, and Red remarks that Bomb must be starving. The camera cuts to Bomb, who is actually desperate for food, but then the camera cuts again to show that Bomb and Stella are right outside a restaurant.
- Door Dumb: In S1 E18, when the birds are locked in the cage, they try pulling the cage door open. That doesn't work, and they find out that it's actually a push door when Chuck attempts to break down the door with his super speed.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Bomb is shown to be this multiple times, such as in S1 E16 where he does this to Red and Chuck, and in the S2 "Love Nest" special where he tries to teach Chuck how to dance.
- Dumbass Has a Point: When Red tries to reach the pie in S1 E2, Chuck and Bomb point out that since Red had so much difficulty crossing the road in E1, it won't really be possible for him to reach the pie.
- The Faceless: None of the human characters' faces are ever shown.
- Fashion-Shop Fashion Show: Parodied in S1 E16, where the birds find a box of clothes and decide to use them as a disguise against the guy with the net, and there is a montage of the birds trying on clothes. The clothes turn out to be a Paper-Thin Disguise that the guy with the net easily sees through.
- Foreshadowing: The vandalized newspaper in S1 E3, and the box moving across the ground in S1 E6 that the birds weren't in, are both foreshadowing for the pigs appearing near the end of the season.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: In S1 E4, when the guy with the net is reading the news, one of the headlines (the one other than "Birds Spotted") is "Mountains Big: Mountains still very big say scientists".
- Gainax Ending: In the Season 2 finale, the birds and pigs re-unite, the iPad is reactivated, and King Pig's evil plan is foiled. They turn on the iPad, and then alternate versions of the birds and pigs pop out of the game.
- Halloween Episode: The Season 2 special episode "Let's Play a Game" is a survival horror story that is completely discontinuous from the main storyline, and was released around Halloween.
- Insufferable Imbecile: Chuck and Bomb. Their list of transgressions includes:
- Withholding crucial information from Red about crossing the road.
- Believing that Red's plan (which was to hitch a ride in a stroller/pram) involved wearing a pink hat while drinking a milkshake.
- Believing that Chuck can mind-control a pair of automatic doors.
- Withholding the name of the school from Red.
- Yelling at a computer, demanding that it turn itself on.
- Not looking up the name of the school on the computer.
- Making fun of Red for getting his feathers wet after walking out in the rain. The birds had no idea what rain was, and so Red was possibly risking his life by going out.
- Limited Social Circle: Red, Chuck, and Bomb, due to humans' inability to understand them.
- Live-Action Cartoon
- Loony Fan: Subverted. The birds initially think that the woman with the net is one, but it turns out that she is just trying to help them get home.
- Mythology Gag: In S1 E2.Red: Usually I know exactly what I'm supposed to do. I see some pigs over there, I fire myself at them from a big catapult, and sometimes it's in space.
- No Ending: In the Season 1 finale, we see Red, Chuck, Bomb, and King Pig staring at the iPad, about to jump through. The screen then cuts to a "To be continued..." insert, and in Season 2, everyone is in a completely different location with no explanation as to how they got there.
- Not So Above It All: Subverted in S1 E15, where Red finds a playground and can't help himself, so he wastes valuable time playing there; however, Red does apologize at the end of the episode for wasting time, which Chuck and Bomb never do.
- Painful Rhyme: In S2 E4, the song rhymes "pasta" with "after".
- Paper-Thin Disguise:
- Subverted in S1 E16, where the birds use a bunch of discarded clothes to disguise themselves against the guy with the net, who easily sees through the disguise.
- Lampshaded in the Season 2 finale, when King Pig disguises himself as Chuck, the birds fall for it, and then King Pig takes it off and comments on how obvious it was that he wasn't the real Chuck.
- Parent-Child Team: In Season 1, the mother and daughter work together to return the birds back to the game.
- Pep-Talk Song: Many of the songs featured in the series are this, and have the same tune with slightly different lyrics.Yeah! [verb] that [noun]! You can do it! Yes you can!
- Plot Allergy: In S1 E11, Bomb is allergic to something in the grass field.
- Previously on…: Narrated by Chuck at the beginning of S1 E19, where he describes many of the events that happened over the course of the series. It then turns out that Chuck is an Unreliable Narrator.
- Rousing Speech: Red gives several to Chuck and Bomb throughout Season 1.Red: Get yourselves up off your sorry behinds! We can do this! This right here, this is one Goliath that's gonna wish he never messed with these Davids.
- Shallow News Site Satire: "The Daily Wanted" news website shows two headlines: "Birds Spotted: Non-spotted birds spotted on the run" (the plot-relevant one) and "Mountains Big: Mountains still very big, say scientists".
- Spoiler Title: S1 E20 "The Pig Reveal" reveals that the pigs also fell out of the phone when it was dropped.
- Sudden Downer Ending: Subverted in the Season 1 finale. King Pig drops the phone in the ocean, and the birds realize that their only chance of getting home is gone. Luckily, the mother and daughter happen to have a tablet with them that the birds can use to get home.
- Suddenly Shouting: Red frequently does this to Chuck and Bomb.Chuck: So, how's it going?Red: So, you were watching me, this entire time?Chuck: Oh, yeah.Red: And you didn't at any point think it might be worth, I don't know, STEPPING IN?!
- Surveillance Station Slacker: In S1 E7, the security guard sleeps on the job.
- That Came Out Wrong: In S1 E17.Red: Chuck! Grab my butt with your beak!Chuck: Whoa, buddy, I don't really think of you that way. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm flattered...Red: No, no, no! That's not what I... if you hang on to me, and Bomb hangs on to you, then someone will think they're getting three prizes for the price of one!
- Title Drop: The series title is dropped in S1 E10.Chuck: Shh! Guys, guys, guys! We're stowaways, remember? On the run? Undercover?
- Title Theme TuneYeah! Yeah! Yeah! Birds on the run!
- Title, Please!: None of the episodes show the episode title at any point.
- Toy Transmutation: In S1 E20, it is revealed that the birds actually look like plush toys in-universe, as the mother and daughter mistake them for plush toys.
- Unreliable Narrator: Discussed in S1 E19, where Chuck is telling the story of what has happened up to that point, and Red and Bomb point out the errors in his story.
- Video Arcade: Featured in S1 E16 and S1 E17. The birds take refuge in it after being chased by the guy with the net, but are mistaken for plush toys and placed in one of the claw machines.
- Wham Shot: In S1 E19, it is revealed that the kid who dropped the phone is the daughter of the woman with the net.
