Angry Birds Stella is an CGI animated series based on the Angry Birds Spin-Off game of the same name and is the third series created in the franchise, after Angry Birds Toons and Piggy Tales. It features the titular Girly Girl pink bird and her friends Poppy, Luca, Willow and Dahlia, as well as her former friend-turned-enemy Gale and her army of Bad Piggies. Each episode is six minutes long.
The series premiered on November 1, 2014 and ended on March 11, 2016, with a total of 2 seasons and 26 episodes. Like Angry Birds Toons, it could be viewed in some of Rovio Entertainment's apps as well as ToonsTV until it was shut down in 2017, moving the series as well as Toons to the official Angry Birds YouTube channel
. It is also available on Netflix through compilations alongside Toons and Piggy Tales.
Angry Birds Stella provides examples of:
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Downplayed. While the Minion pigs are still the antagonists, their status as Affably Evil becomes more apparent in this series since most of their antagonistic actions toward Stella's flock are due to Gale's orders as they never harm them or do anything bad before she becomes their leader. In fact, they are generally kinder to the birds (albeit, still kind of annoying) and didn't hesitate to team up with the birds in the first season finale to rescue both Stella & Gale from the volcano.
- Adaptational Wimp: Downplayed. While Stella's flock are still capable of fighting the pigs, they rarely use their abilities from the game. And in the cases of Luca and Dahlia, they are never brought up at all.
- The Bad Guy Wins:
- The Shaman Pig succeeds in assimilating everyone into his horde (including Stella and Gale) and the scene breaks into a wild dance of the assimilated birds and pigs. Then we cut to dawn, where everyone is normal again and the Shaman Pig and his minions have returned to their rest. And the short ends with the Shaman Pig's laughter, making it clear he has simply returned to his rest. In other words, if the spell hadn't only lasted till dawn, (or maybe the Shaman Pig needed to return to his rest, this would have been the end of everyone on the island as we know them.
- Gale successfully retrieves the golden egg in "The Golden Queen".
- Birthday Episode: "Don't Steal My Birthday" features Gale trying to ruin Stella's birthday party out of jealousy.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Shaman Pig's main shtick in the "Night of the Bling" episode, where he is capable of turning the pigs into his gold-wearing minions. When Stella and her flock accidentally awaken him, he's not affected by Gale's crown and can also turn members of Stella's flock into his piggy minions.
- Camping Episode: "Camp Scary" features Poppy, Willow, and Dahlia going camping and deliberately scaring each other.
- Darker and Edgier: While it still has the same tune of humor like the other Rovio animated series, the Stella series features a semi-heavy drama storyline and occasionally some creepy moments. Oh, and Gale nearly died. Granted, she did survive, but barely...
- Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: Stella sings the them song in the beginning of "The Storm".
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The show used to have a unique opening for the first few episodes until it was replaced with the clips from the Angry Birds Stella cinematic trailer instead.
- Everyone Has Standards: As much as the minion pigs are loyal to Gale and (almost) never hesitate to do anything she tells them to, they find her turning one of their friends into gold with her recently found golden egg to be too cruel. They are even disgusted at Hamsome Pig deciding to rejoin Gale's side after being spared when he already planned to take away the golden egg along with them to avoid further harm (and to regain her attention, for Hamsome Pig's case at least).
- Face-Revealing Turn: Stella finds Luca on Halloween after being attacked by the Shaman Pig and his minions, only to find he's already been turned into a pig minion himself. This is done again with Gale.
- Fake Danger Gambit: In "Own the Sky", Luca faces a "monster", causing Willow and Poppy to get Stella to rescue him. It's just a wooden cutout set up by Dahlia to get her back from hang gliding after her accident.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: "To the Bitter End" ends with Gale getting crushed by falling rocks. Subverted in the end of the next episode, however, where it is revealed that she did survive, just severely battered.
- Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: In "Night of the Bling", Shaman Pig zaps the Minion Pigs, who stop carrying Gale's litter. The litter stays in the air until Handsome Pig notices, and then it falls to the ground.
- Halloween Episode: "Night of the Bling" features the birds dressing up in costumes and trick-or-treating.
- Hope Spot: When the Shaman Pig awakens and has turned most of the birds and pigs into his own piggy minions, Stella uses herself as bait while Poppy destroys the stone speakers to put the horde back to sleep... except it doesn't work for long and Poppy gets turned. A second one occurs when she's cornered and finds Gale, and it seems they may work together... until she turns around and is revealed to be assimilated too.
- Imagine Spot: Gale has one in "A Fork in the Friendship", where she imagines being Queen and worshipped by her friends and the minion pigs.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The minion pigs are known for their Blind Obedience and relentless optimism, no matter how bad they being mistreated by their higher up. So, when they decide to strike back against Gale by taking her golden egg away behind her back in "Glided Cage", it proves how abusive she's become towards them as Gale decides to use the egg to turn them into gold one by one as a punishment.
- Punch-Clock Villain: The minion pigs. See Adaptational Nice Guy.
- Recursive Canon: In "It's Mine!", Poppy can be seen playing Angry Birds, complete with sounds from the game and the classic theme song.
- Smelly Skunk:
- In ''All That Glitters", Gale is seen searching a cave for treasure and finds a gem "guarded" by a skunk-like creature. She manages to take the gem but gets sprayed in the process.
- This also happens to the Handsome Pig after Gale pushes him down the cave to retrieve her crown, only to realize it was on her tail and to make matters worse, she doesn't go back to help him.
- In the season one finale "To the Bitter End", another skunk (or the same one from before) was seen "guarding" the golden egg and fires at Gale but hides behind Stella to shield herself from the blast.
- Sticky Situation: Dahlia suffers this in "The Prankster".
- Title, Please!: Particularly bad given that the title sequence is 20 seconds long (while the episodes are only 6 minutes), yet the actual episode title is not given.
- Unholy Matrimony: When Dahlia and Handsome Pig are turned into the Shaman Pig's minions, they immediately begin crushing on each other. When they're back to normal, they're disgusted and flee from each other.
- What Did I Do Last Night?: In "Night of the Bling", Dahlia and Handsome Pig are zapped by Shaman Pig. The episode ends with them lying next to each other and kissing each other. Then they wake up and freak out over what happened.
- You Wake Up on a Beach: In "Don't Steal My Birthday!", the birds place Stella on the beach while she is asleep as a surprise for her birthday.
