Chicken Run



Chicken Run is a stop-action animated film. Described as The Great Escape -- with chickens.

A ginger chicken named "Ginger" is the ringleader in the attempts of the chickens to escape from Mr and Mrs Tweedy's Chicken Farm, a prison where they must lay eggs at least once a week or face being beheaded and end up on the dinner plate. Ginger is at her wit's end having found she is now unable to convince the others into anymore escape attempts (which end with them in failure and her being locked in solitary confinement in a coal bunker). Then a rooster named Rocky, who can apparently fly, falls from the sky and agrees to teach the chickens how to fly like him, in return for Ginger keeping mum on his presence.

However Mrs. Tweedy, tiring of the low profits selling eggs brings her, decides to convert her business into chicken pot pies. Needless to say, things get drastic in a hurry and Ginger must get the whole coop into the air before they all become mincemeat.

Tropes featured:
"Rocky: Oh, just a little place I call the land of the free and the home of the brave...
 * Actor Allusion: Rocky yells "FREEDOOOOOOOOM!" when he first flies into the farm. Also, one of the chickens says "I'm not even certain he was American.", a reference to the fact that many people, even in the UK, think Mel Gibson is Australian (he was born in the US, but moved to Australia at age 12). Another Braveheart allusion occurs when asked where he's from:

Mac: Scotland!

Rocky: No! America!"

"Rocky: Was that English?"
 * To top it off, there's also a Running Gag with Rocky finding Mac's Scottish accent incomprehensible.

"Fowler: Pushy Americans. Always showing up late for every war. Overpaid, over-sexed and over here!"
 * Affectionate Parody: of The Great Escape
 * There are also a good number of references to Stalag 17 and Hogan's Heroes.
 * The Video Game adaptation borrows its mechanics from Metal Gear.
 * The Alleged Plane: Subverted. While the crate is made of whatever the chickens could find, it appears to run quite well.
 * Almost Kiss: ...How do you animate chickens kissing, anyway?
 * Already Undone for You: When falling towards a load of spinning blades in the pie machine, Rocky grabs a bar at the side which falls down and stops his fall. There is no sign of how Ginger survived moments before, however...
 * Alternate Animal Affection: No, seriously, how do you animate chickens kissing?
 * Same way you give them teeth.
 * America Wins the War

"Babs: Chicken feed. My favorite!"
 * This was an actual complaint that British soldiers had of American soldiers in WWII, due to the US Army paying better, and their willingness to use that extra money to get girls. The Americans usually countered that complaint by saying that the problem with the British troops was that they were underpaid, under-sexed, and under Eisenhower.
 * Aw, Look -- They Really Do Love Each Other:.
 * Ax Crazy: Mrs. Tweedy in the climax. Double points for actually wielding an ax.
 * Babies Ever After
 * Bad Boss: Mrs Tweedy, especially regarding her henpecked husband.
 * Bad Vibrations: Lampshaded.
 * Bamboo Technology: The crate.
 * Barefoot Cartoon Animals: Nick and Fetcher.
 * Becoming the Boast: Rocky and Fowler are an interesting contrast. Both of them make big boasts that they they can't live up to (Rocky's claim that he can fly, and Fowler's exploits in the Royal Air Force). Rocky runs away rather than face the shame of exposure; Fowler comes clean about the fact that he was a mascot, not a pilot, and at Ginger's urging he takes the pilot seat in the chickens' homemade aircraft.
 * To be clear, Fowler never claimed to be a pilot and seemed surprised Ginger assumed he was. He was just openly proud to have served.
 * Belligerent Sexual Tension: Ginger and Rocky have traces of this.
 * Big Damn Heroes: Rocky's return in the climax; while Mrs. Tweedy has Ginger pinned to the ground and is threatening to kill her, Rocky comes flying over the fence on a tricycle, screaming Ginger's name as he does so.
 * Big Eater: Most of the hens, especially Babs.


 * Averted by Ginger and Mac, who are considerably skinnier than all the other hens. They're about the same size as Rocky and Fowler.
 * Big No: Done by Rocky when Includes a Futile Hand Reach.
 * Big "Shut Up!": From Ginger to the other chickens during the mudfight.
 * Bonnie Scotland: Mac
 * Boxed Crook
 * Break the Cutie: Ginger goes through all kinds of hell, no doubt about it.
 * Brief Accent Imitation: Ginger, when arguing with Rocky.
 * Rocky's "Thrrrust"
 * British Accents: Everyone except Rocky, of course, who makes a point of not understanding a word the Scottish-accented Mac says.
 * Captain Obvious: This little exchange near the end. It's meant to be a big plot twist, but it's just so obvious that you can't help but laugh.


 * Captivity Harmonica: Parodied
 * Cassandra Truth: Mr. Tweedy's belief that the chickens are "organized."
 * Chekhov's Gun: Why on earth did they make such a big deal of showing the lights getting caught on the plane's wheel? Oh, now they're using it to climb! But I'm sure they don't serve any other...
 * Another example is the turnip catapult from the escape meeting scene, which shows up again in the climax when it's used to launch eggs at the attacking Mrs. Tweedy.
 * Chekhov's Gunman:
 * Chick Magnet: Rocky. Quite literally...
 * Claymation
 * Closet Shuffle: Whenever Rocky's presence needs to be hidden from the Tweedys.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Babs and Fetcher.
 * Coincidental Article: "Sick and tired of making miniscule profits?"
 * Comically Missing the Point: Babs thought . This got on Bunty's nerves, and this escalated into a huge brawl until Ginger stops it.
 * Composite Character: Bunty was originally two separate characters, the pushy one and the overly productive egg-layer (who, ironically, was going to be Edwina).
 * Conscience Makes You Go Back
 * Conspicuous CG: The rain and the gravy explosion. This is why Flushed Away was all-CGI; it's near-impossible to do with clay.
 * Conveyor Belt O' Doom: though this one is sideways with the chickens upside-down.

"Rocky: Flying takes three things; hard work, perseverance and...hard work.
 * Crapsack World: The farm is depicted as one.
 * Dance of Romance: Arguably, the dance scene is when Ginger starts to fall for Rocky.
 * Death Course: The pie machine.
 * Death Glare: Ginger does this several times.
 * Department of Redundancy Department: Lampshaded.

Fowler: You said "hard work" twice!

Rocky: That's because it takes twice as much work as perseverance!"

"Mr. Tweedy: [covered in chickens] Mrs. Tweedy! The chickens are revolting!
 * Determinator: Ginger.
 * Did the Earth Move For You, Too?
 * Disney Death: gets one in the final escape attempt. Lasts considerably shorter than most examples, though.
 * The Ditz: Babs. "I don't want to be a pie! ...I don't like gravy!"
 * Doing It for The Art
 * Dope Slap: Mrs Tweedy to her husband.
 * Double Entendre: When Mr. Tweedy is outside begin attacked by the rebelling chickens.

Mrs. Tweedy: [inside the house] Finally something we agree on."

"Babs: Mornin', Ginger. Back from holiday?
 * Eagle Land: Well, for Fowler's reaction to Rocky, go to America Wins the War. The funny thing is, Rocky is indeed a mixed flavour leaning towards flavour 2. Quite frankly, Rocky actually is also indeed "overpaid, oversexed and over here".
 * Earn Your Happy Ending
 * Establishing Character Moment: For Babs.

Ginger: I wasn't on holiday, Babs, I was in solitary confinement.

Babs: Oh. It's nice to get a bit of time to yourself, isn't it?"

"Rocky: Ouch! What happened to my wing?
 * Everything's Better With Chickens: Does this really need to be explained?
 * Everything Makes a Mushroom: a gravy explosion looks an awful lot like a mushroom cloud.
 * Evil Overlooker: The main posters and DVD cover have Mrs. Tweedy's face projected onto a cloud in the background.
 * Executive Meddling: Dream Works and composer Hans Zimmer (who heads the Dreamworks music department) forced director Nick Park to drop an already-recorded musical score by Wallace and Gromit composer Julian Nott because Zimmer decided his people should do the score (Zimmer has a history of doing this). This was one of many reasons why Aardman would leave Dream Works in 2006 to go to Sony.
 * Expospeak Gag: After Rocky wakes up with an injured wing, there is this bit of dialogue:

Ginger: You took a rather nasty fall.

Mac: And sprained the anterior tendon connecting your radius to your humerus. I gave her a wee bit of a tweak, Jimmy, and wrapped her up.

Rocky: Was that English?

Ginger: She said you hurt your wing. She fixed it."

"Mrs Tweedy: (To her husband after he voices his suspicions of the chickens) They're chickens. They don't plot, they don't scheme and they are not organized!
 * Fake Ultimate Hero: Rocky, who let the "flying chicken" myth go to his head. Once he had to give an actual demonstration, he chickened out.
 * To a lesser degree, Fowler. While he never outright said he was a wartime hero, his ramblings gave off that impression. When he finally admits he was just the mascot, he insists that should have been obvious, since no one used chickens as pilots.
 * Fanfare: With kazoos!
 * Fat and Skinny: Mr and Mrs Tweedy; Nick and Fetcher.
 * Feather Fingers: This is a movie which features a chicken using scissors.
 * Five-Man Band: An almost perfect one at that:
 * The Hero: Ginger
 * The Lancer: Rocky
 * The Big Guy: Bunty
 * The Smart Guy: Mac
 * The Chick: Babs
 * Team Dad: Fowler
 * Foreshadowing: Whenever Fowler gets to talking about "the crate."
 * Friend in The Black Market: The rats, Nick and Fetcher.
 * Funny Animal: though with some anthropomorphisms, mostly limited to cues based on clothing
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: Pops up quite often. Notable examples:
 * Fetcher's hat.
 * "So... which bunk is mine?" And the enthusiastic response from nearly all the hens in the place.
 * "Overpaid, oversexed, and over here!"
 * That's more an example of The Radar Does Not Exist.
 * During the Training Montage, there's a precious moment where Ginger is leaning over and stretching and Rocky is checking out her bum. And then she catches him. And he coughs and continues instructing the class. Wow.
 * Mr. Tweedy pretty clearly jumps after Mrs. Tweedy apparently grabs his rear off-screen.
 * Gilligan Cut: This wonderful exchange.

(Cut to Ginger banging a gavel at one of their escape meeting)

Ginger: Order, order!"

"Nick: "Poultry in motion!""
 * Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death!: Spoofed.
 * Gory Discretion Shot: The death of Edwina.
 * Gray Rain of Depression: When the chickens find out that
 * Great Escape: Complete with a Suspiciously Similar Song version of the theme!
 * Greek Chorus: Nick and Fetcher.
 * Grumpy Old Rooster: Fowler.
 * Gut Punch / Mood Whiplash: When Edwina gets beheaded, albeit offscreen, and later her bones are seen on the kitchen table. As Roger Ebert stated in his review, Mrs. Tweedy is not fooling around. This is not a film that pulls punches, and there's a very real threat to the chickens.
 * Hard Work Montage: Several of them.
 * Henpecked Husband (hee hee!): Mr. Tweedy
 * Heroic BSOD: Ginger after.
 * Heroic Sacrifice:
 * Hurricane of Puns: Nick and Fetcher, when the chickens are trying various methods of getting off the ground.

"Mrs. Tweedy: Bring me the chickens, Mr. Tweedy.
 * Did anyone else realize that they flew the coop?
 * I Just Want to Be Free: Ginger's personal reason for escaping.
 * Improvised Zipline: The chickens did it with coat hangers.
 * Indy Escape: Done with gigantic gears while avoiding bolts bolting from the walls.
 * Indy Hat Roll: Ginger rescuing her beret.
 * Karma Houdini: Rocky, and the only punishment we ever see him get is a slap across the face from Ginger.
 * Well he did come back and help save them, that counts for something.
 * Kill'Em All:

Mr. Tweedy: Um, which ones?

Mrs. Tweedy: All of them."

"Rocky: Thank you ladies and gentlemen, you've been a wonderful audience."
 * Lady Looks Like A Dude: It's hard to tell that Mac is female, because she's a tomboy and speaks really fast in technical jargon.
 * Lady Macbeth: Mrs Tweedy
 * Last-Minute Hookup
 * The Leader: Ginger is a combination of Types II and III.
 * Leitmotif
 * Let's Meet the Meat
 * Literal Metaphor
 * Loud Gulp: The chickens gulp in unison (swallowing the heaps of chicken feed they all had in their mouths) after Ginger tells them that the food they've been eating was to fatten them up for slaughter.
 * Meaningful Name: Nick (as in English euphemism for steal) and Fetcher.
 * Million-to-One Chance: The chances of the chickens escaping, according to Bunty. Guess what happens in the end.
 * Moment Killer
 * My Life Flashed Before My Eyes: Happens to Babs, who then adds with a deadpan, "It was really boring."
 * My Name Is Not Durwood: It's not Dollface, it's Ginger.
 * Never Say Die: Played straight with the humans ("You are going to be a pie!") but averted with most of the chickens.
 * Never Trust a Trailer: The advertising for the movie focused on the action sequences and screwball slapstick elements while glossing over the parallels to World War Two, the references to prison escape films, the love story and the constant threat of death.
 * Nice Hat: Ginger's. She's the only chicken that has one.
 * Non Sequitur Thud: Replace "thud" with "gets hit on the head with a feeding trough."

"Ginger: Ladies, please. Let's not lose our heads.
 * No, You Go First
 * Off With Her Head: Poor, poor Edwina.
 * Only Sane Man: Ginger.
 * Oop North: The setting.
 * Orphaned Punchline
 * Packed Hero: During the pie machine sequence, Rocky and Ginger briefly get trapped inside a pie.
 * Period Piece: Although it's never outright stated in the film itself, Word of God is that the movie is set in 1959.
 * Which makes it rather odd that Rocky was singing along to Dion Dimucci's "The Wanderer," a song that wasn't released until two years later.
 * Phony Veteran: At least semi-phony. Fowler did serve in the military, but only as a mascot.
 * POW Camp: The farm is meant to invoke this.
 * Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner: "Bye-bye."
 * Punny Name: Rocky the Rhode Island Red, or Rocky Rhodes for short.
 * Punishment Box: Ginger is put in the coal bunker everytime she's caught trying to escape.
 * The Rat: Bonus points for the farm's resident scroungers being actual rats.
 * Recycled Soundtrack: Building the Crate and The Chickens Are Revolting end up in Miss Congeniality 2 as the background music for a show called Treasure Island.
 * Red Herring: When Ginger orders the crate prepared for flight after Mr. Tweedy is subdued, Mac tells her that it's not yet ready for use. We're expecting this to be Foreshadowing for some kind of catastrophe during the escape (and originally it was going to be), but in the final film nothing ever comes of it and the crate flies without a hitch.
 * The Renfield: Mr Tweedy.
 * Ring Around the Collar: The chicken character models were made of a combination of plasticine for their heads and silicone rubber for their bodies. To hide the join, all the chickens wear scarves, necklaces, or any other kind of neckgear.
 * Rousing Speech
 * Sacrificial Lamb: Edwina
 * Say My Name
 * Sealed With a Kiss
 * Serious Business: The whole plot, really.
 * Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Mac, at times, especially when she's supposed to be hard to understand.
 * Shout-Out: "A cling-on! The engines can't take it!" spoken by a Scottish chicken. Also Ginger repeatedly bouncing a sprout against the wall of her cell, like the "Cooler King" (Steve McQueen) in The Great Escape.
 * Hey, the whole movie is a Shout-Out to The Great Escape. Even the music.
 * During the escape montage at the beginning, one of the escape attempts is exactly like the tunnel from The Great Escape. Also, the hut number '17' is a shoutout to the escape film Stalag 17.
 * And there are some references to Hogan's Heroes, with the rolling-up maps, the movable bunks, the slapstick escape ideas (which are more in line with Hogan's usual routines than with The Great Escape)
 * Oh, and the Indiana Jones references, as they're escaping the chicken-pie-making machine.
 * Shown Their Work: The way Mac lands square on her head and falls forward after attempting to fly? That would earn a perfect score in caber tossing.
 * Sidetracked By the Analogy:

Bunty: Lose our heads?! [screams]"

"Bunty: We mustn't panic! We mustn't panic!
 * Single Woman Seeks Good Man
 * Sitting On the Roof: Ginger has a habit of doing this. In one scene she goes up to the roof and discovers Rocky already sitting there. "I'm sorry, is this your roof?"
 * Slap Slap Kiss: There is a Running Gag that every time Ginger and Rocky would be about to kiss, they would be interrupted; one of these instances was near the end, when Ginger slaps Rocky across the face as they're about to kiss.
 * This was because the filmmakers were nervous about showing Rocky and Ginger kissing onscreen, fearing that the sight of two birds touching beaks would look too awkward. When the kiss finally comes, it is staged so that the actual contact of "lips" is hidden.
 * Stealth Pun: Stealthier in the US than in the UK, but as mentioned, the coal bin that Ginger is repeatedly thrown into is called a bunker.
 * Likewise, Nick, whose name is also slang for "steal" in British English.
 * Stock British Phrases
 * Take That: Edwina, the chicken that gets beheaded, was named after former politician Edwina Currie who is (in)famous for starting a nationwide salmonella scare in 1988 (confirmed by Word of God).
 * Techno Babble: Mac is full of it.
 * The Reveal:  Bummer.
 * This Is No Time to Panic:

[beat]

All Chickens: AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"


 * The DVD has a special bonus feature called the "Panic Button". Click it and it plays a scene when all the chickens are going bonkers.
 * Those Two Guys: Nick and Fetcher.
 * Toothy Bird
 * Totem Pole Trench
 * Trailers Always Spoil: The theatrical trailers completely spoil The Reveal of the pie machine, while a TV commercial and the Burger King toys were all based around the plane. Then there's one DVD trailer which is comprised almost entirely of clips from the last 15 or so minutes of the film and the final scene in particular.
 * Villainous Breakdown: Mrs. Tweedy.
 * Visual Pun: Many as expected from such a film:
 * In the end, they really DO fly the coop...
 * 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 I Was Your Age: This is part of Fowler's shtick.