Angry Birds Cinematic Trailer is a short film produced by the animated studio Kombo, released on February 3, 2010. It depicts the conflict between the Angry Birds and the Piggy kingdom, with King Pig attempting to steal the birds' eggs to eat them.
The film is a promotional video for the original Angry Birds. Kombo founder Lauri Konttori headed the project, with funding from Rovio. At the time, Angry Birds lacked a backstory, and the trailer established core aspects such as the Angry Birds' guardianship over the eggs and King Pig's desire to eat them. The YouTube video saw unusual success for a Finnish production and went viral a few weeks after release. As of 2025, it has amassed over 120 million views.
Toons.TV description[]
- Enjoy the epic adventures of Angry Birds as they battle against the army of the Bad Piggies, ruled by the fearsome and ridiculous King Pig. The Bad Piggies are out to steal the eggs from the birds, and that just puts our fiery fowl in a rage.
Plot[]
Angry Birds Cinematic Trailer
The full video
The Angry Birds, a flock of colorful birds consisting of Red, the Blues, Chuck, and Bomb, are tending to their three eggs, jovially hopping around them as they finish the nest. Nearby, King Pig is eating grass with his subjects. Disgusted with the meal, he spits it out and notices the eggs.
The birds' happiness ends when Red spots a mosquito landing on one of the eggs. Incensed, he brutally beats the mosquito by crushing it multiple times, cheered on by his friends. Meanwhile, King Pig, tempted to eat the eggs, sends his lackeys to steal them. The Angry Birds do not learn of the theft until after they have made sure that the mosquito is dead, by which point they see footprints leading to the pigs that are attempting to cook their eggs. The birds get so infuriated that the sky gets covered in red clouds, and the short ends with a distant shot of an emerging mushroom cloud and the logo of Angry Birds, followed by footage of the game to encourage viewers to purchase it.
Production[]
Angry Birds Cinematic Trailer was made by Kombo, a Finnish animation studio founded by Lauri Konttori, under the request of Rovio Entertainment. Konttori worked as director, scriptwriter, and storyboarder, and oversaw the visual direction and sound effects of the trailer. Rovio's Niklas and Mikael Hed, who had pitched the concept, were in charge of the creative side and overall direction of the project.[1]
Kombo had been aware of Angry Birds by then. However, the game's backstory was virtually non-existent at the time, and Konttori's team had to tackle inconsistencies such as the presence of multiple of the same bird across the levels. Rovio provided them with little reference material, with Kombo working off of screenshots captured from their own smartphones. Due to the low resolution of phones at the time, the character designs in the trailer stemmed from Konttori's vision of what they would look like. The pigs also sported different designs at first, inspired by Ren & Stimpy: they had large teeth, eyebags, and drool. An early version of the trailer with these designs was turned down by Rovio, as they found the pigs unappealing.[1]
The film was made under a tight budget, although Rovio later provided funding for the production. According to Konttori, an early idea involved giving the pigs arms to fight off the mosquito. The team established that the Angry Birds only take care of three eggs; there was also one of each bird, depicted as usually jolly but overprotective of the eggs. Ari Pulkkinen, the composer of Angry Birds, scored the trailer's music within around a day. On that same day, Konttori did the voice for the birds, based off the in-game sound effects of the characters.[1]
Release and legacy[]
The trailer released on YouTube on February 3, 2010, a week prior to the update that added Mighty Hoax to Angry Birds. It saw unprecedented success for a Finnish animation, garnering half a million views a few weeks after, and eventually crossing the 10 million mark.[1] By March 2015, it had over 104 million views on YouTube,[1] growing to 122 million as of May 2025.
The film established many basic elements followed by future Angry Birds media. The birds becoming enraged by anything approaching the nest–ironically exposing the eggs to danger‐became a running gag. Kombo would go on to work on a few more promotional trailers before being absorbed into Rovio Animation, with Konttori ultimately serving as a game designer at Rovio. His voice impression of Red would later be used as a reference for Antti Pääkkönen's depiction of the character in 2013's Angry Birds Toons.[1] A retelling of the trailer was also present in Poached Eggs's description in 2013's The World of Angry Birds Official Guide, with the only noteworthy difference being that Red is ultimately unsuccessful in killing the mosquito.[2]
Trivia[]
- A prototype version of the trailer depicts a few notable differences, such as a K.O. text when Red hits the mosquito, different pig designs (even having Corporal Pig replacing the Minion Pig), and a Minion Pig replacing Foreman Pig in the shot of the eggs getting roasted.
- The Rovio logo in the trailer would later be recycled for Angry Birds & the Mighty Eagle and the Summer Pignic Short Movie. The former retains the same music from here, whilst the latter uses a completely different theme.
- Corporal Pig is the only character only appearing in the prototype version.
- The music heard when the closeup of the empty nest with the footprints leading to the pigs is shown is the stock "Mystery" sound effect/music cue from Apple iMovie, which is one of Dick DeBenedictis' production music samples, known as "Evil Mind 3".
- Many of the cartoon sound effects in this trailer come from classic Disney shorts and can be found on the Cartoon Trax sound effects library by the Hollywood Edge.
Gallery[]
Released version[]
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Early version[]
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 The pigs look different from the final to correlate with the Angry Birds' designs in the video. Corporal Pig was replaced with a Minion Pig in the final version.   The "K.O." at the top was removed in the final version.  Foreman Pig was replaced by a Minion Pig  |
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Kent, Lark (March 5, 2015). Throwback Thursday – The making of the original Angry Birds trailer. Angry Birds Blog. Archived from the original on September 6, 2015. Retrieved on May 18, 2025.
- ↑ Scott, Cavan (2013). "Poached Eggs". The World of Angry Birds Official Guide. Penguin Group. Pg. 44-45. ISBN 978-1-409-39269-9.
| v • e Cinematic specials | |
|---|---|
| Angry Birds | Angry Birds Cinematic Trailer (2010) • Angry Birds & the Mighty Eagle (2010) • Angry Birds Bing Video (2011) • Red's Mighty Feathers Trailer (2013) • Short Fuse Trailer (2013) |
| Angry Birds Seasons | Season's Greedings Short Movie (2010) • Summer Pignic Short Movie (2011) • Ham'o'ween Short Movie (2011) • Wreck the Halls Short Movie (2011) • Year of the Dragon Short Movie (2012) • Meet the Pink Bird (2012) • Trick or Tweet (2012) • On Finn Ice Short Movie (2014) |
| Angry Birds Rio | Angry Birds Rio Trailer (2011) • Nigel Mashup (2011) • Return to Angry Birds Rio (2014) |
| Angry Birds Space | Angry Birds Space Origins Short Movie (2012) |
| Bad Piggies | Bad Piggies Cinematic Trailer (2012) • Bad Piggies First Birthday (2013) |
| Angry Birds Star Wars | Angry Birds Star Wars Cinematic Trailer (2012) • Boba's Delivery (2013) |
| Angry Birds Go! | Angry Birds Go! Cinematic Trailer (2013) |
| Angry Birds Epic | Angry Birds Epic Cinematic Trailer (2014) |
| Angry Birds Stella | Angry Birds Stella Comic-Con Trailer (2014) |
| Angry Birds Transformers | Angry Birds Transformers Comic-Con Trailer (2014) • Angry Birds Transformers Cinematic Trailer (2014) |
| Angry Birds 2 | Angry Birds 2 Animation Trailer (2015) • Angry Birds 2 - Introducing The New Bird Melody! (2022) |
| Angry Birds Reloaded | Angry Birds Reloaded Cinematic Trailer (2021) |
| Angry Birds Journey | Angry Birds Journey Cinematic Trailer (2022) |
| Rovio Classics: Angry Birds | Rovio Classics: Angry Birds Cinematic Trailer (2022) |
| Angry Birds Toons | Meet The Flock (2013) • Angry Birds Toons Season 2 Trailer (2014) • Angry Birds Toons Season 3 Trailer (2015) |
| The Angry Birds Movie | The Angry Birds Movie - Hal and Bubbles (2016) • Hatchling Easter (2016) • Hatchlings Mother's Day Greeting (2016) • The Early Hatchling Gets the Worm (2016) • Season's Greetings from the Hatchlings! (2015) |
| The Angry Birds Movie 2 | Happy Father’s Day from the Hatchlings! (2019) • Take Your Hatchlings to Work Day (2019) • Skip Button (2019) • Bomb vs India (2019) • Live Stream (2019) |
| Other | Hungry Pigs II KAAL (2011) • Angry Birds and Tyrkisk Peber Volcano (2011) • The Angry Birds Easter Egg Hunt (2012) • Angry Birds join Philadelphia Eagles (2012) • 2012 VGA's - Samuel L. Jackson Mode - Angry Birds (2012) • Bomb's Christmas (2021) |