Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road: App & Short Review
Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? Well, there are so many variables in the question it’s hard to know where to start but Wonky Films have had a go at answering this age old query.
After making the rounds at animation festivals across the world, Wonky Films‘ delightful short, Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road? addresses the issue at hand by injecting a chicken back-story plus a little danger and intrigue into the dialogue. So many issues you may not have thought about in this one old joke; could evil Robins be working some kind of scam? Are chickens really that easy to hypnotise? It’s all explored in the short.
To celebrate the release of the short online, the guys at Wonky Films have also made a great app which includes not just the short but some fun games, behind the scenes animatics, storyboards, designs, and scripts too.
The games are: Whack A Robin. A devilishly fast paced game which seems all too easy until some chickens and dinos are thrown into the whacking arena too, it then becomes a battle of wits and quick perception to ensure you don’t whack the wrong bird.
Eggcatching Eggstrvaganza: A slip and slide game that relies on your ability to move your chicken by tilting your phone. I was awful at this and the controls could have been a little more sensitive but I still enjoyed it!
The Quest For The Golden Egg: A sidescrolling platformer which again, needs a few tweaks to the sensitivity but once you do get the hang of the controls is as enjoyable as it is frustrating. And let’s not forget; these games are free so any quibbles you might have over their performance should be roundly dismissed by this fact. Nobody’s forcing you to play them, they are just a pleasant bonus to downloading the film.
Lastly, we have a Joke Generator, there to remind us of the film’s origins as an age old joke that adapts and changes through time and with each telling, swipe the screen and a new joke appears – invaluable fun for kids on long car journeys!
For me, someone with a huge interest in the art of animation, the best part of this app is the behind the scenes look at storyboards and designs for the short. It is a fascinating look at the process involved with a good quality production such as this, the character design sheets are particularly absorbing.
This new film and game app is a brilliant way to enjoy a new animated short, it is a novel way to introduce children with an interest in animation to new films that they might otherwise overlook. As I’ve already said, the short itself is completely charming and well deserving of the attention it has garnered via film and animation festivals over the last few years. The animation is slick, the character designs visually engaging and the voice-over is brilliantly humourous with a touch of melancholy toward our hapless chicken friend and his efforts to overcome a life full of setbacks; the message this film gives us is that you have to do the best with cards dealt to you, disregard any stumbling blocks life throws your way and most of all, be wary of any seemingly friendly families of robins who may move in next door; they are almost certainly up to good.
In conclusion: I really enjoyed this short and its accompanying app. This is the second such bundle we have featured on the site in the last six months so I’m sensing s trend in the way online content is delivered for our smartphone generation. The most wonderful thing about this app is that it is free, you get to watch a quality short, learn about its production and play some fun games for nothing, nada, absolutely gratis so the very least you can do whilst you are doing all that is go on twitter and Facebook and share it with your friends. Score: 8.5
Synopsis “Why did the chicken cross the road?” is a short film that finally provides us with the answer to one of life’s greatest questions. A question more baffling than whether the chicken or the egg came first, but now Wonky Films have the true story behind the famous question. Its a journey that begins way back in the chickens childhood.”
Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road? from WÖNKY Films on Vimeo.
Catch up with Wonky Films via their website, tumblr or Facebook.
"There are also other characters that come and go (also owned by the Warner Bros. Discovery conglomerate media company)."
Huh. Is that just referring to other characters from the show itself, or is this implying that the new season is going to have cameos from other WBD IPs