Chicken Run opened on this day 25 years ago. The movie ended up becoming the sleeper hit of the summer, briefly becoming the biggest animated movie ever not released by Disney (it was a simpler time, okay?). Anchored by a terrific script and an equally great voice cast, headlined by Mel Gibson (yeah, I know) doing some of the best comedic work of his career, Chicken Run was loved by pretty much everybody (well, except for my mom when she first saw it, which broke my heart at the time, but I won’t bore with my therapy session), and it not being recognized at the Oscars supposedly lead to the creation of the Best Animated Feature category.
I can remember in the weeks leading up its release a full page advertisement for it being published in The Washington Post every Sunday. Each poster would have a terrible/brilliant pun. However this one, apparently, wasn’t considered appropriate for a “family paper,” so I didn’t actually see it until years later…
Of course, there was a marketing campaign beyond newspaper advertising, and Chicken Run had all the usual trimmings, including books, video games, toys, and the always important fast food promotion. Burger King had the honors, and they went all out, spoiling the ending of the movie with four Kids Meals toys which could build a plane when connected together. Unfortunately, I never got to create my plane. As I said in parenthesis earlier, my mom didn’t like the movie at the time, for whatever reason, and since I was a kid who kept quiet when I loved a film my family didn’t, I didn’t bug her about collecting the set (my mom does like the movie now, by the way).
I did still get Ginger, who was a pull-back vehicle which which lit up when you switched it on (I always hated when these things didn’t have replaceable batteries), and an entire year later when I went to Burger King around my birthday (look, I was a Burger King Kids Club kid, which meant I received free shit even once I was a teenager, and I think they continued to give it to me after the club had ended because I still had my membership card), I got Bunty. With God as my witness, I shall complete my set. I will make my chicken plane before my dying day.
And speaking of chicken…you know the Chick-fil-A cow who carries the sign urging customers to eat chicken instead of beef? You know, before all of their commercials were “Hi, I’m a real customer paid for my testimonial, and the thing I love most about Chick-no-Gay’s peanut oil-drenched food is..”? With that awful ukulele? God, I hate those ads. Anyway, Burger King did a parody of the cow, but in reverse, with the heroic chickens from the movie trying to persuade people to buy Whoppers instead of nuggets. I somehow don’t think Ginger and her friends knew that Burger King ran special chicken tenders for this promotion (shaped like planes, because again, they didn’t care about spoiling the end of the movie). They aren’t your ally, Ginger!
One really cool thing about the marketing, though, was that they got Aardman to actually animate the commercial. Listen to all of these very British BK customers wanting to “save the chickens” because they’ve been brainwashed by poultry holding signs. It’s adorable (also, two Whoppers for two bucks? It really was a different era).
Have a clucking good day, y’all! Also, barring me being unable to get on a computer or whatever, the night thread should take us to Burger King again for another anniversary for an animated movie which happened to feature Mel Gibson’s voice. Huh. Insert your “if I had a nickel for every time” meme here.