107 Fun Facts About Angry Birds

What colour is Matilda, the bird that drops an explosive egg?

White: Matilda is the flock's peace-loving mother hen in the cartoons, an odd fit for a bird whose game move is bombing pigs with an egg; Maya Rudolph voices her on film.

What have the green pigs stolen from the birds in the original Angry Birds game?

Their eggs: the theft was written in late, after test players said they couldn't see why such docile-looking pigs deserved the birds' attacks.

What device do players use to launch the birds?

A slingshot was missing from early builds: birds were flung with a finger swipe, and the designers first thought a slingshot too obvious, until test players showed it was what made the game clear.

Which Flash game inspired the physics-based gameplay of Angry Birds?

Crush the Castle, an Armor Games browser title with a trebuchet hurling stones at castles, was the gameplay model; the birds' look came first, from a sketch.

Designer Jaakko Iisalo's concept sketch gave the birds beaks, a rounded shape and what else?

Furrowed eyebrows: Iisalo's drawing of round, cross-looking birds had no clear game behind it, but colleagues liked the characters so much that they built the gameplay around them.

What real-world event is widely believed to have inspired making the enemies pigs?

The 2009 swine flu pandemic: a Rovio spokesman said the sickly green pigs were born of the scare, though the game's designer says he simply drew a pig he had been sketching since he was 10.

What was the first episode of levels in the original Angry Birds called?

Poached Eggs: the game launched with only this level pack, and it was Apple featuring it on the front page of its UK App Store, weeks after release, that sent it to number one there.

Which special bird from 'Ham 'Em High' can clear any uncompleted level once per hour?

Mighty Eagle: the player flings a can of sardines and the giant bird swoops in to flatten the level; it arrived as a paid in-app purchase.

What is the maximum star rating a player can earn on a level?

Three stars: each level awards one to three stars based on score, with a bonus for every unused bird, so finishing with birds to spare is the route to a full rating.

Roughly how many downloads had Angry Birds reached when Rovio marked the game's first anniversary?

50 million: Rovio announced the milestone as the game turned one, and by then Android players were getting it free, with adverts paying the bill instead.

What was the 2022 remake of the original game called at launch?

Rovio Classics: Angry Birds was rebuilt from the ground up in Unity because the original's in-house engine could no longer be kept running on newer phones.

Under what hashtag did fans campaign for the relisting of the delisted original games?

#BringBack2012: fans used the hashtag to press Rovio to restore the classic games it had pulled from app stores in 2019, and Rovio answered with a remake in 2022.

What colour is Chuck, the fast bird?

Yellow: Chuck is the speedy yellow bird who rockets forward when tapped; Josh Gad voices him in the films.

What does the black bird do when the player taps the screen mid-flight?

Explodes: Bomb detonates on impact or when tapped, levelling everything nearby; the film gives him intermittent explosive disorder.

Which small orange bird debuted in Angry Birds Seasons before joining the original game?

Bubbles looks like a scrawny little bird on the launcher, but one tap puffs him up like a balloon, shoving blocks and pigs aside.

Which green bird has boomerang-like abilities?

Hal wheels round and flies back at roughly double speed when tapped, so one trick is to fire the toucan backwards and tap to send him rocketing forwards.

Who voices Red in The Angry Birds Movie?

Jason Sudeikis added lines of his own so that Red would draw some empathy, because the directors did not want their abrasive hero to be unlikable.

In The Angry Birds Movie, Red is sentenced to what after snapping at a customer?

Anger management class: the judge sends Red to sessions run by the therapist Matilda, where he falls in with the fellow misfits who later join his raid on the pigs' island.

Which bearded green pig captains the ship that brings the pigs to Bird Island in The Angry Birds Movie?

Leonard: Bill Hader voices the pig captain, who insists his crew has come in peace while Red alone suspects a trick.

Which Game of Thrones actor voices Bird Island's flying protector in the films?

Peter Dinklage, Tyrion in Game of Thrones, voices the island's legendary guardian, who turns out to be a gone-to-seed slacker long retired from flying.

Which country singer voices Earl, a pig musician, in The Angry Birds Movie?

Blake Shelton was asked to voice Earl and sing a song in the film, and said yes on the understanding that he could write it himself; the result was 'Friends'.

Which studio distributed The Angry Birds Movie in 2016?

Sony Pictures won the worldwide distribution rights in 2013, while Rovio developed, produced and paid for the film itself.

The Angry Birds Movie's $352 million gross ranked second among video game films at the time, behind which other adaptation?

Warcraft took $439 million worldwide in 2016, yet only about a tenth of it came from cinemas in the United States and Canada.

Who voices Zeta, the villain of The Angry Birds Movie 2?

Leslie Jones voices Zeta, the sequel's purple villain, revealed as the jilted fiancée of Bird Island's flying protector; her assistant Debbie is their daughter.

From where does Zeta launch her giant ice balls in The Angry Birds Movie 2?

Eagle Island: Zeta bombards Bird Island and Piggy Island from her frozen base there, forcing the old enemies into their first truce.

Silver, Red's love interest in The Angry Birds Movie 2, is the sister of which bird?

Chuck: Silver is his brainy sister, an engineering student voiced by Rachel Bloom, and by the end Red hands her the credit for saving both islands.

On its 2019 release, The Angry Birds Movie 2 overtook which film as Rotten Tomatoes' best-reviewed video game adaptation?

Detective Pikachu had led at 68% for only three months when the sequel opened above 70%, a leap from the 44% of the first Angry Birds film.

Angry Birds Space, released in 2012, was promoted with help from which organisation?

NASA: astronaut Don Pettit demonstrated the game's physics in microgravity aboard the International Space Station as part of the 2012 launch promotion.

What new square-shaped character did Angry Birds Space introduce?

Ice Bird: the square newcomer freezes nearby blocks and pigs when detonated, turning them into weakened ice that the next bird can smash.

At which landmark did Rovio and T-Mobile erect a 300-foot bird launcher for the 2012 zero-gravity game?

The Seattle Space Needle: T-Mobile, based nearby in Bellevue, hosted the launch stunt there in March 2012, with a 35-foot red bird hung from the giant launcher.

In Angry Birds Star Wars, which character does Red portray?

Luke Skywalker: Red wields a lightsaber as Luke, while the fast bird is Han Solo with a blaster and Bomb is Obi-Wan using the Force.

What drew a backlash to the 2013 console versions of Angry Birds Star Wars?

A higher price: Activision's console versions sold for up to $50 against a few dollars on phones, and reviewers found the extra levels did not justify the gap.

Bad Piggies, the 2012 spin-off, has players doing what?

Building vehicles for the pigs: players snap together wheels, fans and motors, starting with boxes that roll downhill and ending with rockets powered by soda bottles.

Angry Birds Rio was a tie-in with an animated film from which studio?

Blue Sky Studios, the Fox-owned animation house behind Ice Age, made Rio; the tie-in game has players freeing caged exotic birds instead of bashing pigs.

What innovation did Angry Birds Rio bring to the series?

Boss levels: Rio ended chapters with a fight against a single tough foe, starting with the film's villainous cockatoo Nigel, who has to be hit several times before he goes down.

Angry Birds 2 was soft-launched in Canada in 2015 under what working title?

Angry Birds: Under Pigstruction tried the sequel's changes on Canadian players first, among them letting players pick which bird to fling instead of following a set order.

Angry Birds Seasons was first released in October 2010 under what name?

Angry Birds Halloween began as a spooky iOS spin-off; when Christmas levels arrived that December it became Seasons, and those who had bought the Halloween game got the upgrade free.

Which Japanese company acquired Rovio in 2023?

Sega: the Sonic publisher completed its purchase of Rovio in August 2023 and later put the Angry Birds into Sonic Dash.

Rovio was founded in 2003 under what original name?

Relude: the three founders set it up in 2003 after winning a Nokia-and-HP-sponsored mobile game contest with King of the Cabbage World; it became Rovio Mobile in 2005.

In which Finnish city is Rovio headquartered?

Espoo: Rovio's headquarters sit in the Keilaniemi business district just west of Helsinki; the first official Angry Birds shop opened in Helsinki on 11 November 2011 at 11:11 a.m.

An unlicensed Angry Birds attraction opened in 2011, before any official park, in which country?

China: a theme park in Changsha let visitors fire toy birds at pig balloons, and Rovio, instead of suing, said it would welcome a partnership.

What was the first Angry Birds animated series, which premiered in 2013?

Angry Birds Toons premiered in March 2013; its 52-episode first season was shown through a channel built into the games themselves.

Which Premier League club put the Angry Birds logo on its shirt sleeve from 2017?

Everton: the deal went beyond the shirt, with stars including Wayne Rooney coaching and refereeing two teams of children in Rovio's YouTube series BirLd Cup.

Which Finnish Formula One driver raced with an Angry Birds-themed helmet in 2012?

Heikki Kovalainen carried the birds on his Caterham helmet under a deal with Rovio, which also built Angry Birds Heikki, a browser game that added a level each race weekend.

A character designed with Rovio was the official mascot of which 2012 sporting event?

IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship: Finland's organisers unveiled Hockey Bird as the first angry bird to break out of the games, saying the brand was Finnish and known worldwide.

Leaks in 2014 showed which agencies used Angry Birds as a 'leaky app' to gather user data?

The NSA and GCHQ: Snowden documents published in January 2014 showed the US and British agencies harvesting data from 'leaky apps' like Angry Birds; hackers defaced Rovio's site as 'Spying Birds'.

Which Hasbro toy line teamed up with Angry Birds for a 2014 game of running and shooting?

Transformers: the crossover recast the flock as Autobirds and the pigs as Deceptihogs, with Red as Optimus Prime, and swapped bird-flinging for stomping and shooting.

What new name did the 2022 remake of the original Angry Birds take on the App Store in 2023?

Red's First Flight: the remake was retitled on iOS in 2023, while its Android version was pulled from Google Play because it outranked Rovio's newer games in search.

Which studio was announced as the distributor of The Angry Birds Movie 3?

Paramount Pictures acquired the third film's worldwide distribution rights in April 2025, taking the series away from the studio that had released the first two.

Piggy Tales used computer animation to imitate the look of which handmade technique?

Claymation: Rovio wanted a hand-moulded look but judged real clay too slow for a whole series, so the wordless one-minute shorts were made on computers instead.

Angry Birds Go!, released in 2013, took the series into which genre?

Kart racing: every track in Angry Birds Go! runs downhill, so players only steer their soapbox karts while gravity supplies the speed.

In Angry Birds: Summer Madness, where do a tween Red and his friends spend the season?

Lakeside camp: the Netflix series sends them to Camp Splinterwood for a summer of pranks, while they fend off the pigs camped on the other side of the lake.

Angry Birds Mystery Island premiered in 2024 on which streaming service?

Prime Video: three teenage hatchlings and an exchange-student piglet are stranded together on a deserted island; Amazon launched it after the previous series had gone to Netflix.

Which comics company launched Angry Birds Comics in June 2014, written by Paul Tobin?

IDW Publishing gave the birds something the cartoon shorts never had: speech, with writer Paul Tobin developing a voice for each of the usually wordless characters.

An Angry Birds attraction opened in 2013 at which Florida site?

Kennedy Space Center: its visitor complex opened the Angry Birds Space Encounter, where firing birds at pigs was used to teach visitors a little physics and space science.

Rovio built its Angry Birds Playground preschool programme with which academic partner?

University of Helsinki: it helped base the programme on Finland's national curriculum for six-year-olds, then stayed on to train teachers and study how well it worked.

'Angry Birds Yoga', a series of essays using the game to explain Vaishnava yoga, came from which movement?

Hare Krishna: Giridhari Dasa, a devotee in Brazil, read the birds and green pigs as a yoga lesson, arguing that the old masters drew their teaching from everyday village life.

Which winner of two Best Actor Oscars voiced Terence in The Angry Birds Movie, a role made up entirely of grunts?

Sean Penn took the part of the huge, silent bird and never speaks a single word. When the character came back for the 2019 sequel, Nolan North did the grunting instead.

Ryan Gosling blamed The Angry Birds Movie for sinking which of his comedies at the box office in 2016?

The Nice Guys opened on the same weekend and finished fourth. Gosling said in 2024 that the birds had wrecked its chances of ever getting a sequel.

Before the first Angry Birds game became a hit, its maker Rovio was close to which fate?

Bankruptcy loomed because the studio had money left for only one more game. It bet everything on a sketch of scowling, wingless birds.

Which British prime minister was known as a fan who played Angry Birds on his iPad?

David Cameron shared the habit with NBA star Kevin Durant, who challenged fellow basketball players to matches. The game drew famous fans well beyond the usual gaming crowd.

Which Frozen star at first turned down The Angry Birds Movie, fearing the role was too much like Olaf?

Josh Gad changed his mind after seeing a story reel of the film. Speaking so high and fast as the hyperactive speedster cost him his voice, and he needed physical therapy between sessions.

Which punk band's three members appeared as pigs in special Angry Birds Friends levels in 2012?

Green Day got 20 levels of their own, with each member drawn as a pig and an exclusive track on the soundtrack. The levels were pulled that December.

Rovio said in 2015 that Angry Birds Go! had been downloaded more times than which Nintendo series had sold?

Mario Kart had been outdone by the spin-off's 130 million downloads, a Rovio manager boasted. Go! puts the birds in engineless soapbox racers that only ever roll downhill.

In May 2026 the original Angry Birds entered the World Video Game Hall of Fame, found in which US state?

New York is home to The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, which runs the hall. The game was nominated four times before it finally got in.

The Angry Birds Movie was written by Jon Vitti, a veteran writer for which long-running animated sitcom?

The Simpsons is the show Jon Vitti is best known for, and he co-wrote its big-screen film too. He also scripted the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies.

Angry Birds Friends began life in 2012 as an exclusive game on which social network?

Facebook hosted the game first, under the plain title Angry Birds Facebook. It was the version that brought power-ups into the series.

Angry Birds seemed an overnight success, but which number game was it for its maker, Rovio?

Its 52nd game was the one that finally paid off for Rovio. The first 51 were mostly made to order for bigger publishers such as Electronic Arts.

Alongside the iPhone, the first Angry Birds launched on the N900, a device from which phone maker?

Nokia had the game on its N900 internet tablet from the very start. Two years later the firm announced that Angry Birds would come preloaded on its budget Asha touch phones.

Rovio, the company behind Angry Birds, takes its name from a Finnish word for what?

A bonfire, or funeral pyre, is what rovio means in Finnish. The firm took the name in 2005, two years after three students founded it.

The 25 Christmas levels added to Angry Birds Seasons in 2010 were laid out in the style of what?

An Advent calendar was the model, with one level opening on each day of the run-up to Christmas. The episode carried the punning title Season's Greedings.

In Angry Birds Rio, which animals replace the pigs as the enemies the birds must defeat?

Marmosets do the dirty work for Nigel, the cockatoo villain borrowed from the animated film Rio. On other levels the goal is to free caged exotic birds.

Which Eastbound & Down star voices Bomb, the bird with a short fuse, in The Angry Birds Movie?

Danny McBride plays him as a gentle soul who cannot control his blasts. In the games he goes off on command, so the helplessness was the film's own twist.

Which Saturday Night Live alumna voices the hen Matilda in The Angry Birds Movie and its sequel?

Maya Rudolph plays Matilda as a reformed hothead who now coaches other birds to keep calm. She had joined the sketch show's cast back in 2000.

Which star of the HBO series Barry voices the pigs' ruler, King Mudbeard, in The Angry Birds Movie?

Bill Hader voices the smooth-talking pig captain who lands claiming to be a peaceful explorer. He was one of the first six stars announced for the film, in October 2014.

Designers of The Angry Birds Movie dropped an ornithologist's realism for creatures inspired by which puppets?

The Muppets were the model, so the birds became cartoon creatures with limbs and not real animals. Red at first had a more bird-like stance, dropped at the sculpting stage.

Which toy maker released six construction sets for The Angry Birds Movie, including a pig pirate ship?

Lego launched the range at a 2016 toy fair and built a life-sized model of Red to go with it. The sets were retired by the end of 2017.

The creators of which YouTube comedy channel voiced two minor birds in The Angry Birds Movie?

Smosh founders Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox voiced a boomerang bird and a tiny inflating one. Both were named in the film's supporting cast back in 2014.

In The Angry Birds Movie, how does the short Judge Peckinpah make himself look much taller?

Standing on another bird is the short judge's trick. The bird underneath is Cyrus, who is prone to sneezing, and Keegan-Michael Key voices the judge on top.

Which British pop star voices Willow, a turquoise bird, in The Angry Birds Movie?

Charli XCX voices Willow, one of Stella's friends from the spin-off game Angry Birds Stella. Her casting was announced only weeks before the film opened.

Which Booker Prize-winning novelist has called himself something of a master at Angry Birds?

Salman Rushdie, the author of Midnight's Children, made the boast about his skill with the game. That novel won him the Booker in 1981.

Which late Formula One driver became a playable character in Angry Birds Go! in 2015?

Ayrton Senna arrived in a July 2015 update, played by one of the flock's quickest birds. Online multiplayer had been added to the downhill racer a year earlier.

Which tech giant irked Rovio in 2010 by announcing an Angry Birds port it had not agreed to make?

Microsoft hinted that a Windows Phone version was coming before Rovio had committed to one. The Finns demanded the claim be taken down, then released that very port in June 2011.

Which toy company made Telepods, the scannable figures that beam characters into Angry Birds games?

Hasbro built each figure around a tiny code that the phone's camera reads. Telepods featured in the Star Wars II and Transformers crossovers and in Angry Birds Go! as well.

John Cohen, producer of The Angry Birds Movie, had earlier produced which hit animated film of 2010?

Despicable Me was John Cohen's previous hit as a producer. He signed on when the bird film was announced in December 2012 and came back for its 2019 sequel.

In The Angry Birds Movie, Red loses his temper while delivering what to a family's hatchday party?

A cake that turns up late starts the row which lands Red in front of a judge. Hatchday is the birds' word for a birthday.

Which airline covered an Airbus A340 in Angry Birds art and held a tournament on board, bound for Singapore?

Finnair, the flag carrier of the game's home country, staged the contest in the cabin in 2011. It used the characters in its advertising too.

In the role-playing spin-off Angry Birds Epic, what does a bird swap to change its character class?

Its hat decides the class: change the headwear and the bird gets a different set of moves. Weapons and armour are crafted from loot instead, on the roll of a die.

In the spin-off Angry Birds Stella, which former best friend of Stella rules the pigs of Golden Island?

Gale turns on her old flock and steals Stella's map and photo album, which sets the game's story going. The tie-in cartoon opens with the episode in which the two fall out.

Which publisher released the first Angry Birds on iOS and says it added the pigs' grunts and aiming lines?

Chillingo says its polish also included pinch-to-zoom and the birds' somersault on landing. Rovio had spent years making games for other publishers before this one.

The 2022 remake of the original Angry Birds swapped the old in-house engine for which widely used one?

Unity was chosen so the remake would keep running on newer devices. It recreated the game as it stood in 2012 and left out microtransactions and pop-up adverts.

A pirate-ship Angry Birds edition of which tabletop game unlocked a bonus mode in Angry Birds Go!?

Jenga buyers found a code in the box for a mode in which the racer is launched down a ramp into blocks and pigs. The mode could also be bought inside the app.

Mattel's 2011 Angry Birds board game borrowed which lucky phrase as its subtitle?

Knock on Wood reached toy shops in May 2011. That November Rovio opened its first Angry Birds store, timing the doors for 11:11 a.m. on 11/11/11.

A viral TV sketch that sent the Angry Birds into peace talks with the pigs came from which country?

Israel's hit comedy show Eretz Nehederet used the sketch to mock failed Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts. Clips of it were picked up by news outlets around the globe.

Rovio hired David Maisel to oversee its Angry Birds films after he had been an executive producer at which studio?

Marvel Studios made Iron Man with him as an executive producer. Maisel had been hooked on the bird-flinging game himself and helped Rovio keep creative control of its film.

What new option did Angry Birds Star Wars II, based on the prequel trilogy, give players in 2013?

Playing as the pigs meant the villains could be flung in just the same way as the heroes. The game drew more than 30 characters from the three prequel films.

In the game Angry Birds 2, one of the spells showers the pigs' towers with a rain of what?

Rubber ducks pour from the sky in one spell, while others bring a blizzard or a chili pepper. Spells were among the sequel's main additions to the old formula.

Angry Birds 2 let players choose which bird to fling next by dealing the flock out as what?

Playing cards stand for the birds a player has unlocked and are drawn at random. Earlier games had fixed the order in which the birds were launched.

Which mode of Angry Birds 2 pits players against others worldwide to climb a leaderboard?

The Arena matches players from around the globe, with upgrades unlocked as they rise through the ranks. It sits beside the main run of randomly generated stages.

Angry Birds 2 was criticised at its 2015 launch for pushing players towards what?

In-app purchases drew a backlash, since players who ran out of lives could pay to skip the half-hour wait. A million people still downloaded the game in its first 12 hours.

The sequel game Angry Birds 2 features a newer bird named Melody, who is which kind of bird?

Potoo is the species, a rare choice for a cartoon bird. Silver, the sequel's other newcomer, is a Peale's falcon.

Which Crazy Ex-Girlfriend star voices Silver, the engineering whiz of The Angry Birds Movie 2?

Rachel Bloom voices Silver, a bird who first appeared in the Angry Birds 2 mobile game. The film's marketing held the character up as a model for girls drawn to science and technology.

Which Crazy Rich Asians star voices Courtney, the pig king's assistant, in The Angry Birds Movie 2?

Awkwafina plays Courtney, who joins the mission to the villain's island. Producer John Cohen revealed the casting in a tweet in February 2019.

Which short film, later an Oscar winner, played before The Angry Birds Movie 2 in North American cinemas?

Hair Love, a six-minute short funded on Kickstarter, opened alongside the sequel in August 2019. It won the Academy Award for best animated short the following February.

In The Angry Birds Movie 2, what does the pig inventor Garry build to carry the team to Zeta's island?

A submarine carries the mixed crew of birds and pigs across. The trip seals a truce, with the two sides dropping their prank war to face a common threat.

At what kind of event does Red first meet Silver in The Angry Birds Movie 2?

Speed dating goes badly: Silver, an engineering student, quickly decides the pair are incompatible. They end the film as a couple all the same.

Which pop star released the single Best Day for the soundtrack of The Angry Birds Movie 2?

Kesha put the song out about three weeks before the film opened in the United States. Country star Luke Combs released the soundtrack's other original track days later.