Western Animation / Storks

They're bringing this baby home.

Storks is a CGI-animated comedy written and directed by Nicholas Stoller and Doug Sweetland, and starring Andy Samberg, Katie Crown, Kelsey Grammer, Jennifer Aniston, Ty Burrell, Danny Trejo, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. Released on September 23rd, 2016, it is Warner Bros.' second film under their Warner Animation Group banner after The LEGO Movie.

The titular storks used to deliver babies, but nowadays they deliver packages for global internet giant Cornerstore.com. Junior, the company's top delivery stork, is about to be promoted when he accidentally activates the Baby Making Machine, producing an adorable and wholly unauthorized baby. Desperate to deliver this bundle of trouble before the boss gets wise, Junior and his friend Tulip, the only human on Stork Mountain, race to make their first-ever baby drop - in a wild and revealing journey that could make more than one family whole and restore the storks' true mission in the world.

Preceded in theaters by a five-minute short called The Master, a teaser to WAG's The LEGO Ninjago Movie.

You can watch the first teaser trailer here and the second trailer here.

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Storks provides examples of:

• The Ace: Junior is the best delivery stork at his job, widely popular, and next in line to be boss.
• Actor Allusion:
  • On seeing the baby pod, Junior (Andy Samberg) quietly exclaims "Cool beans!" to himself.
  • When trying to entertain Diamond Destiny on the raft, Junior brags to Tulip that he's a very good singer, a nod to Samberg's career with The Lonely Island.
  • And at one point, Junior says "Cool" in the same manner of another one of Samberg's characters.
  • Ty Burrell once again plays a realtor.
  • Katie Crown voices Tulip, who previously voiced another hyperactive and quirky orange-haired girl.
• All of the Other Reindeer:
  • Tulip is a pariah at Cornerstore for being a huge klutz whenever she tries to help. There's also the implication of genuinely racist feelings against her for being human, as humans are normally not allowed to enter. The trope is lampshaded by Toady.
    Pigeon Toady: Haha! Tulip doesn't fit in! We're all the same and she's a weirdo!
  • Ironically, Pigeon Toady is himself a downplayed version of this trope, since the storks collectively seem to either ignore him or are weirded out by him.
• Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The Japanese release of the film uses "Heiwa" by Ai as its theme song, named after the artist's newborn daughter, fitting for the theme of the movie.
• Amusing Injuries: Junior suffers plenty of these, especially when he is repeatedly hit on the head with a stick and runs smack into several sheets of glass.
• Animated Actors: Supplemental animated interviews made to promote the movie treat the characters like this. Most of the actors are similar to their characters, though the Alpha of the wolf pack is apparently also a musician.
• Anthropic Principle: The film was clearly written as a simple light-hearted adventure and nothing deeper with regards to the world building. It's best not to think about any logic or implications behind the concept of storks delivering babies from a literal factory to the parents, be it the business model or how the parents in this world react when they see their children for the first time, including even the case of an 18-year-old Tulip...
• Armor-Piercing Question: Junior constantly describes how great things will be once he becomes boss of Cornerstore, but has absolutely no answer when Tulip asks him why he wants to be boss or what he would do with the position.
• Artificial Human: Played with; the Baby-Making Machine takes letters from hopeful families to create babies, but by all indications they are genetically and functionally identical to human babies created through normal human reproduction.
• The Atoner: Jasper — it turns out the reason he's still stalking and obsessed with Tulip is because he's remorseful over the incident that resulted in the storks rearing her, and he's spent the last 18 years trying to reassemble her locator beacon, so that he can finally deliver her after his failure 18 years ago.
• Babies Ever After: It's a film about storks. Of course it ends with a lot of babies being delivered to happy parents.
• Babies Make Everything Better: Besides Diamond Destiny being a major reason for Character Development for Junior, the response to the massive flood of babies by the families is universal delight. While all of these families had asked for children from the storks, it had been 18 years since the last delivery. Evidently no one had changed their mind in the intervening time.
• Baby Talk: Junior devolves into this while singing to the baby when he sees it laughing along.
• Berserk Button: Though he pretends not to, Junior is initially annoyed by attempts to learn his motives for seeking promotion.
• Better than a Bare Bulb: Everything gets lampshaded, mostly in an effort to handwave all the weirdness the characters encounter.
• Big Bad: It's made out to be Jasper at first, but it turns out he's the Big Good. Hunter is the Big Bad.
• A Birthday, Not a Break: Nearly happens to Tulip, who thinks Junior was coming to wish her a happy birthday when he was actually coming to fire her. Junior can't bring himself to do it, so instead, she's Kicked Upstairs to the (defunct) letters department.
• Bittersweet Ending: Junior has to part ways with Diamond Destiny and will face similar heartbreak in future baby deliveries. However, Diamond Destiny is with her family, Nate won't be alone when his parents have to work, and it's implied that the parents will ease up on their workaholic tendencies. Tulip is reunited with her intended family, ending with a group hug, with pulling Junior into said group hug, meaning that he will always have Tulip as family. And lastly, storks are delivering babies again.
• Blank White Eyes: The penguins have these.
• Body Bridge: Exaggerated. After Junior cuts the rope bridge so the wolf pack can't follow them, he and Tulip then have an Oh, Crap! moment as the wolves proceed to (improbably) form an elaborate suspension bridge using their own bodies.
• Bound and Gagged: Junior when he gets captured by Hunter and his goons.
• Breaking the Fellowship: Twice. The first time is when Junior decides that Tulip has stopped being useful after she crashes the plane, which is Played for Comedy at Junior's ruthless discarding of Tulip. The 2nd is when Jasper appears with most of Tulip's homing beacon. Tulip's happy exclamations that she can see her real family hurts Junior enough to remind him that he was supposed to fire her.
• Broken Ace: Junior has a bit of this, since while he's superficially popular he doesn't seem to have many close relationships or much of a family, is desperately gunning for a promotion despite not really knowing why, and on the whole is a lot lonelier and unhappy than he initially seems.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Despite being The Ace, Junior receives several hilarious injuries and hijinks. He attempts to shut down the baby manufacturing machine by pressing the emergency off button which is behind a bunch of cogs; this results in him injuring his wing since it gets caught in the cogs. As he is determined to deliver the baby girl Tulip accidentally created to her rightful family, he attempts to fly out of Cornerstore with one wing, only to fall to the floor and make the injury of his thought-to-be broken wing worse. While traveling through a tundra, Junior is encountered by wolves and one of them knocks him unconscious. Shortly after, Tulip whacks him over the head with a stick several times to entertain the baby and distract the wolves. When Junior and Tulip are chased by the wolves through the warehouse, Junior runs smack into so many sheets of glass since "birds can't see glass."
  • Tulip is clumsy, which is established during her scene of introduction. Her jet packs get out of control, cog up the ventilation system, and set the factory on fire. While Junior and Tulip are flying an airplane to deliver the baby, Tulip tempts Junior to tell her why he wants to be boss, prompting him to scream at her and cause her to fall out of the plane; luckily, Junior saves her. During their escape from the wolves in the tundra, Tulip falls through a crack in the ice and Junior has to save her again.
  • Hunter gets this in the end starting with Diamond Destiny taking control of the robot's remote control and continuously turning the machine on and off. By messing with the remote control, Diamond Destiny makes Hunter hit his face on the control panel inside the cabin. Then she sends the robot with Hunter still inside falling out of the baby factory. As the robot is tangled in cables, the robins Hunter abuses early on retaliate him by detaching the cables from the baby factory causing Hunter to fall off Stork Mountain along with Cornerstore.
• Captain Obvious: Some of Pigeon Toady's lines are just pointing out the obvious.
• Chase Stops at Water: Double Subverted and Lampshaded. While Tulip and Junior try to escape the wolf pack, they use a makeshift raft to try to get away... only for the wolves to form a wolf boat and a wolf submarine. The chase only ends when the duo go over a waterfall, and the wolves (logically) fail to form a wolf plane, falling into the water unable to catch up.
  Tulip: I didn't know wolves could form a submarine! I've never seen that before in nature shows.
• Cheated Angle: In the trailer, Diamond Destiny is only shown from the front, making the feminine hairstyle less obvious.
• Chekhov's Gag: Birds' inability to see glass.
• Chekhov's Gun: The large multi-armed robot in the beginning is later used by Hunter in the climax.
• Chekhov's Gunman: The miniature Angry Birds-style Robins that Hunter uses as everything from golf balls to stress balls. They come back to send him to his Disney Villain Death and help Junior in the end.
• Chewing the Scenery: Kelsey Grammer is clearly having a friggin' ball as the not-quite-sane, ultra-intense Hunter.
• Children Raise You: Even though it's not their child, Junior and Tulip both benefit from taking care of the baby as they try delivering it.
• Close on Title
• Cloudcuckoolander: Whatever version of reality Pigeon Toady thinks he's existing in is not the same as any other character in the movie.
• Comedic Sociopathy: Junior ruthlessly mocks Tulip's tearful statement for being unintelligible as he walks away from her. Later, Tulip returns the favor when beating him with a stick to amuse the baby.
• Commonality Connection: Tulip seeing her own reflection in the baby's pod convinces her to help the baby, as she knows what it's like not to be delivered.
• Contrived Coincidence: The storks stopped delivering babies eighteen years ago, but the mail service to get letters to the storks (which involves a pelican deliveryman) still works their shifts, thereby ensuring Nate's letter gets to them. Eventually justified, as the ending reveals that the storks HAVE continued to receive letters over the years, but they haven't been processed due to Hunter shutting down the baby-making machine earlier.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive:
  • Hunter is more concerned about the value of the company's stocks than the baby's fate.
  • Toady qualifies when he agrees to play along in exchange for the promotion initially offered to Junior.
• Crowded-Cast Shot: Everyone — the storks, the wolves, etc. — attends the moment where Tulip finally meets her intended family.
• Curse Cut Short: Pigeon Toady, when he realizes Tulip and Junior lied about the game last night, even though he was the one who brought it up.
  Pigeon Toady: WHAT THE FU— [elevator closes]
• Cut Apart: It initially looks like Junior got Diamond Destiny safely to her new family despite sabotage from Hunter, but the home he's visiting turns out to be a trap set by Hunter, and the family is actually getting a visit from a very stiff-capped inspector about their recent "home renovations" needing to be taken down.
• Cuteness Proximity: Babies cause this in almost everyone. Diamond Destiny's cuteness leads to her not being eaten by wolves (no matter how much they try), who attempt to keep her instead. Hunter seems to be the only exception.
• Delivery Stork: In this case it has become modernized. Now, instead of storks delivering babies by flying and having the baby in a sheet, carried by their mouth, they now use machines to create them and a special pod as the transfer medium. They go back to the classic bundle after Cornerstore.com is destroyed.
• Designer Babies: Given a fantasy twist with the letter department. It has a machine that uses letters requesting a baby as a template to grow newborns. Given that Diamond Destiny seems to have the karate skills Nate asked for, it looks like people can request specific traits for their babies.
• Did Not Think This Through: Junior says it word for word after he stuffs the baby machine full of letters, thus creating millions of babies.
• Disney Villain Death: Hunter fell to his apparent death after being unable to escape from the robot armor he's piloting.
• Dodgy Toupee: Alone of every single bird in the movie, for some reason known only to his very confused mind, Pigeon Toady wears a blonde yuppie wig.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • Junior and Tulip sound a lot like a young couple struggling with their new baby, and their argument about who's going to rescue the baby is straight out of a divorce. One deleted scene even shows them getting couples counseling from the wolves.
    Tulip: This baby is the only good thing to come out of this whole thing!
  • Alpha and Beta's arguing makes them look like a gay old married couple.
• The Dog Bites Back: The robins whom Hunter abuses are key players in his Disney Villain Death.
• The Dragon: Pigeon Toady as he's Hunter's main henchman in his pursuit of Junior, Tulip, and Diamond Destiny
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: Junior is shown very early on to be the best delivery stork in the entire company. So his wing is injured to prevent him from easily delivering the baby.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Tulip is only reunited with her biological family after she goes through an adventure that sees her become an adoptive mother temporarily and essentially become family with Junior. Narrative wise, she has to develop an adoptive family before she gets to see her biological one.
• Easily Forgiven:
  • Jasper is forgiven very quickly for what he's done.
  • Junior decides not to punish Pigeon Toady, mostly out of how pathetic he is.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • Junior is introduced as the widely popular Ace who masks his disappointment with quick talk and strained casualness.
  • Tulip is first seen as she prepares to help herself and her flightless bird friends achieve their dreams of flying with untested jet-packs, neatly summing up her reckless and altruistic personality.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Before fighting Junior and Tulip, the leader of the penguins keeping the baby hostage shushes them as said baby is sleeping.
• Even the Subtitler Is Stumped: During his Imagine Spot, Toady's rendition of "How You Like Me Now" eventually devolves into random vowel noises as the subtitles desperately try to keep up.
• Executive Ball Clicker: Hunter, the baby-hating CEO of Cornerstore, has a Newton's cradle with baby birds instead of metal balls.
• Extremely Short Timespan: The movie takes place over 5 days, which makes the bonding with the baby pretty rapid.
• Facepalm: The Alpha Wolf facepaws when Beta Wolf reveals too soon that the pack still intent to eat Tulip and Junior after they give up the baby.
• Failed a Spot Check: Junior is tricked into stopping at a suburban home... in the middle of a factory district.
  Hunter: You are so idiotic! How were you not suspicious?
  [camera zooms out to show only the front wall of a house between two dilapidated factory buildings]
  Junior: ...I thought it was a gentrifying neighborhood!
• Failed Attempt at Drama: Pigeon Toady's attempt at destroying the Baby Factory with his drone, complete with slo-motion and heroic lighting, is unceremoniously ended when one of the gears flicks him away, ending up with him being shoved into a delivery container, thrown out of a window and through a helicopter.
• Falling-in-Love Montage: Of a sort. The montage set to the Talking Heads song "And She Was" is split between the Gardner family bonding and Junior and Tulip bonding with Diamond Destiny. For Junior, this is the moment where he really begins to love the baby.
• Family of Choice: Tulip and Junior bond acting as parents for Diamond Destiny. Tulip even chooses to first make sure Diamond Destiny was correctly delivered before seeing her own biological family for the first time.
• Fantastic Racism: The Cornerstore company has a no humans policy, and Tulip mentions that if she were boss, she'd hire a more diverse bird and mammal work force.
• Fat and Skinny: The Beta and Alpha Wolf!
• Feather Fingers: Only the poor, abused robins avert this; every other bird uses feathers as fingers repeatedly.
• Feather Flechettes: Junior uses a couple feathers during his attempt at preventing Tulip from activating the Baby-Making Machine to disable the security cameras.
• The Foreign Subtitle: The Latin American release is subtitled "La Historia Que No Te Contaron" (Basically "The Untold Story"), though the subtitle itself doesn't appear at the end.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Nate asks that his baby "brother" have ninja skills. And there are two hints in which Diamond Destiny shows ninja skills: Batting away her bottle and Junior's vision of an older Diamond Destiny practicing karate skills.
  • Tulip's personas resemble some of her biological family members, such as the bearded persona resembling Tulip's father.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • It goes by quick, but when Toady is showing off his "girlfriend" (which is a picture of a live-action Canada goose) you can see that he actually pulled the picture up in a Google image search.
  • In the montage near the end of new parents with their babies when the storks go back to delivering infants, you can see several inter-racial and same-sex couples, along with a few single parents. There's even a blink-and-you'll-miss-it frame of a single father among the mix of single parents.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Despite his best efforts and delusions, the storks collectively seem to view Pigeon Toady as at best an easily ignored irritant, and at worst a borderline lunatic.
• Friendship Moment: Junior lets Tulip name the child after hearing about her sacrifice of her own hopes of finding her family to find the baby's family.
• Furry Reminder: Storks and wolves can talk in this film but the birds can't see glass.
• Gadgeteer Genius:
  • Tulip designed an airplane that can also function as a hovercraft.
  • Pigeon Toady assembles a functional drone in a few seconds.
• Gagging on Your Words: Junior is unable to bring himself to fire Tulip, despite his efforts, so he simply gives her a job somewhere she won't be any trouble.
• Gene Hunting: Tulip felt that knowing her intended family was impossible thanks to her beacon being destroyed, but she thinks that delivering the baby will allow her to find them as well. Little did she know that Jasper had been taking pains to repair the beacon, and is only missing one piece of it — the one currently in her possession.
• Genius Ditz: Pigeon Toady is made out to be a moronic wannabe with No Social Skills, but even so, he's able to masterfully track Junior and Tulip.
• George Jetson Job Security: Junior is ordered to "liberate" (i.e. fire) Tulip if he wants any hope of becoming boss of Cornerstore.com. He circumvents the issue by putting her in charge of the letter department, which hadn't been used ever since the storks stopped delivering babies eighteen years ago.
• Getting the Baby to Sleep: Diamond Destiny apparently dislikes sleeping, and Junior tries "manually" closing her eyes several times. It gets to the point that a fight scene is willingly made as quiet as possible (by both sides) to avoid waking her up.
• Girlfriend in Canada: Toady claims to have a girlfriend who's migrating and produces a photograph of a real Canada goose he introduces as her.
• Glamour: Hunter has a corporate version of it: he just offers to make someone the boss, and they bow to his every whim. Once Junior sees through this, Hunter is no longer able to use his persuasion power on him, but thanks to his Disney Villain Death, Junior ends up taking over anyway.
• Glass Smack and Slide: Happens a lot. Because it takes place in a world of Funny Animals, and we are frequently reminded that birds can't see glass.
  Hunter: You know why I built my office entirely out of glass, even though birds can't see glass?
  Junior: I do not.
  [two storks smack into the glass window and slowly slide down it]
  Hunter: Power move.
• Gray Rain of Depression: After the police tell the Gardners to take down their stork beacon, and Nate's parents sadly tell him that storks don't deliver babies, a despondent Nate starts to take down the lights... just as the skies darken and a heavy rain starts to fall.
• Group Hug: Near the end of the film, Tulip receives one from her entire biological family. She then pulls Junior into in.
• Hair Flip: Pigeon Toady does this twice when he daydreams about being a investigator.
• The Heavy: Pigeon Toady and the wolf pack are the characters who chase Junior and Tulip for most of the movie. The wolf pack have a Heel–Face Turn while Toady eventually reports their actions to Hunter who takes over from there.
• Heel–Face Turn: The wolf pack, as evidenced by the final scene.
• Heroes' Frontier Step: Junior going back for Tulip is the first thing in the movie that he does that could be considered heroic.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Pigeon Toady presumably thinks he's doing this at the end when, on Hunter's frantic demand that the Baby Factory be shut down, he tries to pilot his drone into the central mechanism in a kamikaze move. It ends in a disastrous Epic Fail.
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Offscreen but heavily implied. Tulip is reared as a baby by a company of storks who view her as an accident, and want to fire her the moment she turns 18. She's obviously not considered one of the storks given that they call her Orphan Tulip and her friends are all non-stork employees. It's mostly played for Black Comedy.
  Tulip: Tulip is just fine, Orphan hurts my heart!
• Hilarious Outtakes: Animated version that milks the notion of having to make a film with a baby for comedy.
• Homosexual Reproduction: As seen in the ending montage, the storks can generate babies from same-sex parents, as well as single parents.
• Hypocritical Humor: Pigeon Toady mocks Tulip for being different even though he's the only pigeon in the company and pretty eccentric himself.
• Hysterical Woman: Tulip freaking out because of maternal instincts over the baby crying instead of flying the plane causes it to crash. Though when Junior thinks the baby is in trouble, he quickly becomes just as hysterical.
• I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: Tulip is very surprised that someone as popular as Junior is actually talking to an outcast like her.
• Idiot Ball: "How were you not suspicious?" ( Hunter gestures to the fact they're at a home BETWEEN brick warehouses.)
• I Fight for the Strongest Side!: After failing miserably at stopping the baby machine, Pigeon Toady is quick to proclaim his support for Junior's new baby delivery regime once it's obviously popular. Though in his defense, he is also clearly suffering a massive concussion at the time.
• Implacable Man: Jasper, the rotund stork who was supposed to deliver Tulip, has an unsettling fascination with the newly created baby that seems to mirror how crazy he went back when he broke Tulip's address beacon, and he stalks after the group while ominously saying, "My baby..." Subverted when it turns out that he had spent the past 18 years trying to repair the beacon, and he just really wants to complete the delivery as intended so that she can finally know her true family.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Junior and Hunter are pretty much Stork versions of Andy Samberg and Kelsey Grammer, respectively.
• Insistent Terminology: Tulip would prefer not be called Orphan Tulip for obvious reasons.
• Instant Home Delivery: Exploited. After the baby is taken by Hunter and his henchmen, Tulip places an order with Cornerstore.com, the box arriving right next to her, and then immediately issues a return order on the website, letting them get back to the factory just as quickly by hiding inside of the box.
• Intelligible Unintelligible: Diamond Destiny and babies in general are this, although Junior doesn't realize this until near the very end.
• Interspecies Adoption:
  • Tulip was adopted by the storks after Jasper broke her beacon.
  • The wolves would like to adopt Diamond Destiny.
• Interspecies Romance: Pigeon Toady claims to have a goose as a girlfriend.
• Inventional Wisdom: The emergency shut-down button for the Baby Making Machine is located behind four large moving cogs, with the gap between them being barely large enough for Junior to reach through (and he ends up breaking his wing in the attempt).
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: Tulip doesn't like when Junior refers to the baby as a "package". The storks do this purposefully to prevent another incident where a stork becomes too attached to their baby and refuses to give them up.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: This is apparently the hardest part of the storks job. They have to carefully move a baby across large distances regardless of the danger, but in the end, giving it up hurts the most. Junior doesn't hesitate in delivering Diamond Destiny, though he struggles on the way back home.
• Jet Pack: Tulip invents them early on and they work pretty well, despite user problems.
• Kicked Upstairs: Hunter claims that this is what's happening to him after the upcoming StorkCon, which is why he's offering to promote Junior. Junior ends up doing this to Tulip when he promotes her to the letter department (which has been out of commission since she was born) as his first order of business when he can't bring himself to fire her.
• Kick the Dog: Tulip doesn't appreciate being called "Orphan Tulip", which Junior is quick to do once he deserts her in the middle of the tundra after their fight.
• Lampshade Hanging: The movie is an avid user of this trope.
• Large and in Charge: Hunter is about a head taller than Junior, who is regular stork-sized.
• LEGO Genetics: How else can you explain some of the hair colours of the babies, which include blue and bright pink?
• Like an Old Married Couple: Junior and Tulip. Also, Alpha and Beta.
• Like a Son to Me: Hunter says that Junior becoming boss will make him like a son to him, even describing him as a "sonployee". This doesn't stop him from dropping Junior like a hot rock when he finds out that Junior accidentally made a baby.
• Longing Look: The movie draws a parallel between Sarah Gardner's look of love to her child and husband bonding to Tulip looking at Junior entertaining the baby.
• Madwoman in the Attic: Junior's solution to firing Tulip is to give her a job in the out-of-the-way letter-sorting office and tell her to never leave. He assumes that nobody will check the closed down department and nobody will realize that she still works at Cornerstore.
• Mama Bear: Tulip's maternal instincts are awakened early on and she'll do anything to get Diamond Destiny to her family.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: Tulip's family turns out to consist of at least ten other children.
• Mean Boss: Hunter, the head stork made his office entirely out of glass, knowing full well that birds can't see glass. Cue storks smacking into the glass walls. He also uses tiny ball-like robins as various office items, and the balls in Office Golf.
  Hunter: Junior! Do you know why I built my office entirely out of glass even though birds can't see glass?
  Junior: I do not.
  [two storks slam into the glass]
  Hunter: Power move.
• Men Don't Cry: Junior insists that he's not crying or even feeling any emotions after delivering Diamond Destiny.
• Mirror Character: Junior is very near the top of the pyramid of the company as a popular male stork whose next in line to be boss. Tulips is the unwanted human girl who keeps screwing up at the company. Despite this massive gulf in social status, they both turn to have quite the longing for family, and are pretty decent at being parents.
• Mirthless Laughter: Tulip realizes pretty quickly that Junior laughs when he's uncomfortable which only causes Junior to laugh louder and more uncomfortably.
• Misplaced Wildlife:
  • In a Cutaway Gag, a penguin gets eaten by a walrus. The problem with this is that walruses don't eat penguins because they live on opposite sides of the planet.
  • A snow monkey, endemic to Japan in real life, appears to live in the same location as a polar bear and an Arctic hare, both of which are confined to the Arctic.
• Monochromatic Eyes: The penguins Hunter hires to take Tulip all have Blank White Eyes.
• Mood Whiplash: The film is very fast-paced, with even the comedy springing from deadpan to hyper within a scene.
• Motor Mouth: Both leads.
  • Once you get Tulip yammering, she doesn't shut up. Especially if she's forced to talk to herself out of boredom.
  • Junior, being played by Andy Samberg, has a habit of explaining things very quickly under his breath.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: The Robot Hunter uses in the climax.
• The Nameless: The wolves and the penguins.
• "Nations of the World" Montage: Near the end of the film. Not only brings in multiple ethnicities, including mixed-race couples, but also a gay couple, a lesbian couple, and a single mom.
• Never Trust a Trailer:
  • Diamond Destiny is only shown from the front, making it look like the movie is going to be about a baby boy who turns out to be non-existent.
  • The teaser has Hunter showcasing the storks' new super-efficient baby-making-and-delivery process, while the actual movie is centered around how storks have stopped delivering babies at the start of the film.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Junior and Tulip manage to rescue Diamond Destiny disguised in the spherical box costume. They even get past the other storks easily enough with their disguise. However, Junior and Tulip blow their cover when fighting over a jet pack. Their argument disturbs Diamond Destiny so much it causes her to attract the attention of the other storks (including Hunter) surrounding them.
• Ninja: Nate makes it abundantly clear in his letter to the storks that he wants a baby brother with ninja skills. Well, he got one of those things.
• No Endor Holocaust: It's quite fortunate that all the parents who sent in letters over the years were still excited and receptive of having children after presumably many years of waiting. Things could have gone terribly wrong if some of the would-be parents had moved on to careers that would make child-rearing difficult, or had become too old to care for the child, or were no longer financially stable, or had just flat out changed their minds in the intervening years. Or died.
• Non Sequitur: Pigeon Toady tends to come out with these.
• No OSHA Compliance: Cornerstore's warehouse is haphazardly attached to the former baby-making center at the top of a mountain peak by way of cables. Is it any wonder when the entire company goes belly up in the finale?
• No Social Skills: Pigeon Toady possesses no social skills whatsoever. This is not an exaggeration. None.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Tulip launches a more or less continuous stream of this to Junior when he's sent to fire her, expressing a surprised joy that he'd talk to her at all and (mistakenly) thanking him for coming to wish her a Happy Birthday. Junior understandably struggles to fire her after that.
• Off the Chart: Junior's boss Hunter shows him a line graph plotting the rise and fall of company profits caused by Orphan Tulip "helping" before sending him to give her the boot. When Junior hesitates from guilt and glances back up at the office, Hunter glowers at him while pointing out the line having hit rock bottom, then pulls a flap to show the line continuing downward even further by the damage Tulip just did.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Junior does this when he realizes that Tulip has inadvertently reactivated the baby-manufacturing machine.
  • Tulip does this when Junior points to the chamber where all of the letters are supposed to go, therefore realizing that inserting Nate's letter into the baby manufacturing machine was a mistake.
  • Junior again when the elevator stops, the doors open, and Junior fears that the other storks will see the baby Tulip has accidentally created.
  • Later, Junior does this when he first finds himself surrounded by wolves.
  • Both Junior and Tulip when they see the wolves forming their own suspension bridge just when they thought they escaped after Junior cuts the bridge.
  • Tulip when she says "Birds can't see glass."
  • Both Junior and Tulip when they see Jasper above them before he rescues from the wolves. If you look closely, you may notice the wolves making the same reaction.
  • Junior when he sees Hunter answering the door of the fake house Hunter has set up between two abandoned warehouses.
  • Hunter does this twice. First when Junior inserts millions of letters into the baby manufacturing machine causing it to causing a massive load of babies. Second when Hunter is trapped in the giant robot after falling out of the baby factory when he sees the little birds he tortured about to send him falling down the mountain.
  • Pigeon Toady, when his attempt at shutting down the Baby Factory ends with him being hurled out of a window and through a helicopter, can be audibly heard wailing "Oh noooooo!" in the distance.
• "Oh, Crap!" Smile: Junior does this when the wolves form their own suspension bridge.
• Orphan's Ordeal: Tulip's delivery address was smashed and thus she was never delivered to her parents.
• Orphan's Plot Trinket: Tulip has a part of the homing beacon that would have guided her home.
• Papa Wolf:
  • While it takes Junior time to warm up to the baby, after Hunter has penguins kidnap Diamond Destiny, he goes after them, even though he no longer has any chance of being boss.
  • Jasper also develops a protective streak for Tulip. When she, Diamond Destiny, and Junior are surrounded by the wolf pack, he swoops in and saves them.
    Jasper: [ferociously] THAT'S MY BABYYYY!
• Parental Neglect: The plot is set in motion by a young boy whose realtor parents are both Married to the Job, so he writes to the storks to send him a baby brother.
• Potty Failure: Junior bluntly admits that he peed on his seat out of fear while the plane fell out of the sky.
• Prim and Proper Bun: Sarah has her in a bun in the first half of the film. Until she lets it down when she and Henry began to bond with Nate.
• Professional Buttkisser:
  • Junior; while he's skilled at deliveries and popular in his own right, he sucks up pretty hard to Hunter.
    Junior: I love a good profits chart.
  • Pigeon Toady quickly steps up to the plate when Hunter offers to name him as the company successor.
• Punny Name: "Pigeon Toady" is a punny name for the condition known as "pigeon toed".
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: The babies, and anyone who comes within Cuteness Proximity of them. Played for Laughs when Tulip and Junior have to keep making the baby laugh to distract the wolf pack, who become so enamored that their eyes soon take up the entirety of their craniums.
• Quirky Curls: Tulip has very curly hair (later revealed to be a family trait), and is highly energetic and fun-loving.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Tulip's friends at the Cornerstore are all flightless bird employees, seemingly brought together by being outsiders of the stork-dominated company.
• Raised by Wolves: Attempted when Junior and Tulip run into a pack of wolves that want to rear the baby as one of their own. Technically, Tulip counts too, as she was reared by the storks.
• Random Events Plot: Bordering on Self-Deprecation: the film seems quite self-aware that there is no rhyme or reason to pretty much anything and everything that happens to Junior and Tulip on their journey other than it's supposed to be funny.
• Rapid-Fire Comedy: Though the film knows to slow down for emotional moments, its comedy moments are barrages.
• Redundancy Department of Redundancy: Count just how many times, in his letter to the storks, that Nate insists that the letter is being written by adults.
• Resentful Guardian: With her beacon destroyed, the storks were forced to raise Tulip. Hunter makes it clear that he views her as a burden to the company and wants her fired on her 18th birthday, because that's the earliest they can legally get away with it.
• Rose-Haired Sweetie: The baby, whom Tulip names Diamond Destiny.
• Rule of Funny: All over the place. Why in the world is the off button to the baby machine behind four huge spinning buzzsaws? How can a pack of wolves form a suspension bridge? What's the revolutionary benefit of a sphere-shaped packing container? Why are we asking?
• Running Gag: Oh so many:
  • The wolves forming more and more improbable shapes.
  • Hunter saying "Boss" and causing a small visual effect implying how much it means to the characters. He attempts this at the end, but is surprised when it doesn't work.
  • The house additions getting more and more improbable.
• Savage Wolves: Subverted. The wolves are antagonists, but Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains who think they should rear Diamond Destiny and are pushy about it. Later, they pull a Heel–Face Turn.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Junior and Tulip.
• Schmuck Bait: Even the person who sets up the trap mocks Junior for falling for the obviously fake house in an abandoned warehouse district.
  Junior: I thought it was a gentrifying neighborhood!
• Searching for the Lost Relative: Tulip was raised by the Delivery Storks for basically her whole life after an incident with her assigned stork destroyed the beacon containing her intended address. One of Tulip's main motivations in the film is finding out where her intended family lives.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: The Gardeners build a giant, elaborate landing pad on their roof for the stork to deliver the new baby, but Junior just lands at their doorstep. The father is the first to realize that their big project was ultimately pointless.
• Sheet of Glass: Junior has to go through a warehouse full of them — no mean feat, since being a bird, he can't tell where the glass is. Just when he thinks he's in the clear, in come two guys carrying a large sheet of glass.
• Ship Tease: Junior and Tulip accidentally fire up the old baby-maker and have to deliver a baby. The rest of the movie has them parenting the baby they created, which originates some very interesting scenes for a stork and a human. Helps that they bicker Like an Old Married Couple.
• Shout-Out: To Super Friends. The Alpha Wolf shouts the Wonder Twin's catchphrase "Form of!" before he has the wolfpack reassemble into a new form.
• Siblings Wanted: Nate kicks off the plot by asking his parents for a baby brother.
• Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: Tulip, the main heroine.
• Slogans: Make a plan. Stick to the plan. Always deliver!
• So Much for Stealth: After rescuing Diamond Destiny from the penguins while disguised inside a Sphericus box during the StorkCon event, Junior and Tulip were about to escape with a jetpack that Tulip’s chicken friend Dougland found for them to use, but due to their argument over who would use the jetpack which wakes Diamond Destiny up and caused her to cry loudly, it unfortunately blows their cover.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: Not just Tulip but, as implied in the climax, all humans can communicate with storks and understand each other. It's not revealed if this extends to wolves or other animals as well.
• Stealth Pun: "Wolfpack" tactics were a strategy used by submarines in World War II. Here, a literal pack of wolves become a submarine.
• Strong Family Resemblance: There's no doubt in anyone's mind when Tulip finally meets her true family.
• Super-Persistent Predator: The wolf pack turns into a series of vehicles to pursue the protagonists. Subverted when they let them escape to sea instead of turning into a boat.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Nate's letter to the storks, which contains repeated assertions that it was sent by his adult parents, who are adults, and most certainly not by Nate.
• Synchronized Swarming: The wolf pack can form into various things, such as a bridge, a boat, a submarine, a plane that doesn't fly, a minivan and a broken heart. In Pigeon Toady's Guide to Your New Baby, the wolves are shown even forming a baby crib and swing.
• Taking You with Me: Hunter tries to pull this as he is falling by using the giant robot claw to grab the ledge that Junior, Tulip, and the baby are standing on, but Junior flies himself and the girls back to safety.
• The Talk: Nate asks his parents where babies come from besides the storks since they stopped delivery 18 years ago. His parents burst into nervous laughter.
• Talking Animal: In this case, talking storks and wolves, though there are plenty others throughout the movie.
• Talking to Themself: Tulip's job in the mail room becomes so boring that she winds up creating various co-worker personae to bicker with. One of them even covers for her when she tries to leave.
• Tap on the Head: The wolves manage to do this to Junior despite not having flexible front legs.
• Those Two Guys: The two leaders of the pack of wolves, played by Key & Peele, who attempt to take the baby for themselves. They're never seen apart, and there's some implication, if only as a joke, that they're actually a couple.
• Token Human: Tulip is the sole human on Stork Mountain.
• Toothy Bird: All of the avian characters have large sets of straight, human-like teeth.
• Totally Radical: Pigeon Toady tries way too hard to sound cool by talking like this.
• Trying Not to Cry: Junior, after delivering Diamond Destiny to her family. Tulip tells him it's okay if he does, but he shoots this suggestion down.
  Tulip: Junior, it's okay to let your feelings out.
  Junior: I'm not feeling.
  Tulip: It's healthy!
  Junior: I have no feeling!
• Unusual Euphemism: Hunter orders Junior to "liberate" Tulip. And then bluntly and repeatedly makes crystal clear that he means to fire her.
  Hunter: If I'm not being clear, I mean fire her!
• Wave of Babies: Invoked by Junior in the climax.
• We Need a Distraction: Junior is forced to distract the baby so Tulip can feed her with various embarrassing ways.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Junior, in a moment of sympathy to Tulip, lets her name the baby. He immediately regrets allowing her to name the baby Diamond Destiny.
• The Workaholic: Nate's parents who promise to be on call even on Christmas.
• World of Technicolor Hair: All of the babies have hair coming in a wide variety of bright colors.
• Yes-Man: As his name suggests, Pigeon Toady tries to act like this as part of his general "1980s corporate yuppie" thing. Although he adds much more eccentricity than normal.
• You Said You Would Let Them Go: The Alpha Wolf and the Beta Wolf try pulling this. Unfortunately, The Beta Wolf reveals the lie a little too soon:
  Alpha Wolf: If you don't give us Tiny Thing, we're gonna eat you!
  Beta Wolf: We're gonna eat you anyway!
  Alpha Wolf: You don't say it! You make the deal, and then you eat them anyway.
  Beta Wolf: Gotcha! ... We're not going to eat you!
  Alpha Wolf: Well now it's too late!

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