It really all starts with the premise of chickens, animals hardly known for their intelligence, staging an elaborate prison breakout and just gets better from there.
- Babs has a lot of good lines, thanks to her ditziness.
- She and Ginger have this exchange after the latter spends yet another night in the coal bin after the opening credits.
Babs: Morning, Ginger! Back from holiday?
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?
- She and two other chickens arrive at Hut 17 for the meeting wearing ski masks... except while the others are black, Babs' is bright pink with a poof ball, which she clearly knitted herself.
- Ginger asks the others if they'd be happy "laying eggs all [their] lives and then getting plucked, stuffed and roasted". After a beat, Babs happily retorts "It's a livin'."
- The Running Gag of her assuming anyone not present being off on holiday. Especially during Ginger's Rousing Speech about freedom.
Random Chicken: Where's the farm?
Ginger: There is no farm!
Babs: Where does the farmer live?
Ginger: There is no farmer, Babs!
Babs: (Without missing a beat) Is he on holiday?
- Later, when Ginger shows off Rocky's poster to the others.
- After a tense moment where Babs, in fear for her life after spending more time practicing flying instead of laying eggs, finds herself being measured for the pie machine instead of taken to the chop, and nearly faints.
- The film's establishing moment which starts off like your typical prison escape movie, with barbed wire surrounding a shoddy group of cabins and an ominous-looking night watchman leading two vicious guard dogs around. Then the would-be escapee emerges from the shadows, revealing herself to be... a chicken.
- Mrs. Tweedy's introduction. We see Mr. Tweedy, Ginger and the guard dogs all retracting in fear from the figure who just opened the front door to the farm house. Cut to a pan up of... an unamused housewife in a plush pink dressing gown, slippers and shower cap (although the fact that they're all afraid of her in spite of this quickly establishes just how much of a threat she is).
- The entire bit of the fake Mrs. Tweedy of the opening, from just how pathetic it looks to the score changing from a march to a gentle waltz to the guard dogs' dumbfounded expressions.
- Mac asks Ginger if she has a new plan for escaping. She stealthily passes a piece of paper:
Mac: I thought we tried going under.
Ginger: (Wordlessly grabs the paper, turns it around and gives it back.)
Mac: Ah. Over. Right.
- During Nick & Fetcher's intro scene as they leave.
- "I'm sick and tired of making minuscule profits!" (Notices a magazine with the headline "Sick and tired of making minuscule profits?")
- And it even continues the joke by being aimed right at her situation with an ad for the pie machine. "Turn your chicken farm into a gold mine!"
- Mr. Tweedy spying on the chickens through the window with his binoculars. When Mrs. Tweedy gets his attention, he turns around, still holding the binoculars, getting a nice close up of his wife's icy glare.
- When she pounds her fist on the table to get his attention, we get a Freeze-Frame Bonus of their wedding photo, which features Mrs. Tweedy wearing a look of pure disgust next to a nervous Mr. Tweedy and a wedding cake with a chicken-shaped topper.
- When Mrs. Tweedy tells her husband that chickens are "the most stupid creatures on the planet", she opens that premise with the qualifier "apart from you".
- Fowler getting everyone's attention during the meeting... then proceeding to prattle on about how, "In my RAF days, we were never allowed to waste time with unnecessary chit-chat." Ginger then gestures with her eyes towards a group of unamused chickens, at which point he gets the hint and marches out sheepishly.
- When Mr. Tweedy checks inside one of the chicken huts early on in the film, one of the nests has a teapot in it instead of a chicken. Mr. Tweedy doesn't notice at first, but when he does and turns back, the teapot has just had a rag resembling a chicken thrown over it mere moments ago, with an actual chicken making cooing sounds from below. You can practically hear the guy's thought process: "Chicken, chicken, teapot, chicken...wait, teapot?! *Double Take, Beat.* Very odd looking chicken..."
- Ginger shares her idealistic dream of an island away from humanity where all the chickens would live in peace and be free of the wrath of farmers. Everyone listening stares in awe, and Bunty shares an insightful reply that is both a gem and kills the mood:
Bunty: In all my life, I've never heard such a fantastic...
load of TRIPE!
- For emphasis, they even animated her uvula when she yells "tripe"!
- Fowler falling over while covered by the sock.
- This exchange when Rocky first arrives:
Fowler: I don't like the look of this one. His eyes are too close together.
Ginger: Fowler, please!
Fowler: And he's a Yank!
Rocky: Easy, pops. Cockfighting's illegal where I come from.
Bunty: And where is that exactly?
Rocky: Oh, just a little place I call "The Land of the Free"; "The Home of the Brave".
Mac: Scotland!
Rocky: [
double take] No! America!
Hens sans Ginger: Ooooooh, America!
Fowler: Poppycock!
Pushy Americans, always showing up late for every war. Overpaid, oversexed, and over here!
- Ginger's very sarcastic smile when Rocky tells her she shouldn't turn him in because he's cute, right before she squawks to get him caught. She later makes the same face when one of Rocky's flying lessons fails miserably... and even goes right back to making it after an off-screen crash momentarily distracts her.
- Ginger starts blackmailing Rocky into teaching them how to fly while his circus owners are looking for him. She squawks twice, trying to alert them, and then the third time, Rocky grabs her beak and snaps: "Was your father by any chance a vulture?!"
- Rocky asks "Now... which bunk is mine?" with all the chickens (save Ginger) enthusiastically responding, only to cut to Rocky having to share a bunk with a pissed off Fowler. You can just imagine that Ginger probably pulled him away with an "I don't think so" and shoved him into Fowler's hut instead.
- There is also this gem from when the two above have to share the bed.
Fowler: ABSOLUTELY OUTRAGEOUS! Asking a senior officer to share his quarters, and with a non-commissioned yank, no less! Huh, why back in my day, I'd never...
Rocky: Hey! You weren't exactly my first choice either. And scoot over. Your wing's on my side of the bunk.
Fowler: YOUR side of the bunk?! THE WHOLE BUNK IS MY SIDE OF THE BUNK!
Rocky: Just...! (Sniff) Ugh, what's that smell? Is that your breath?
Fowler: (Grumpily) It's absolutely outrageous!
- Rocky's response to Fowler criticising his pep talk.
Rocky: You see, flying takes three things: hard work, perseverance, and... (
Beat)
hard work.
Fowler: (From the porch of his hut) You said "hard work" twice!Rocky: That's because it takes twice as much work as perseverance.
(Licks his finger and does a "me one, you nothing" gesture, which gets all the girls squeeing.)Fowler: CODSWALLOP!
(Storms into his coop and slams the door behind him.) - Rocky telling the hens (as part of a Shout-Out to The Italian Job) "We have to work as a team. Which means: you do everything I tell you." Punctuated by the close-up of Ginger's (and only Ginger's) look of excitement giving way to confusion.
- During the Training Montage, Rocky quite shamelessly checks out Ginger's backside. The better part? She catches him in the act, and gives him a Death Glare. All he can do is chuckle and walk off nervously.
- As he walks away, he gingerly tests how much he can move his injured wing compared to his uninjured one... which the hens interpret as a cue to start making Kung-Fu gestures.
- Later, the hens get Rocky's instructions to the three girls giving him a rubdown confused with their training ("Down... make little circles... faster..."), resulting in them all spinning in place until they fall over, dizzy.
- At the end of montage, Ginger is the last one to try to fly, and for a moment seems to have succeeded... only to be revealed to be on top of a giant pile of the chickens that tried before her!
- Mr. Tweedy happens to be making his rounds around the fence with the dogs just in time to catch the chickens engaged in intensive push-ups. He immediately looks away to call Mrs. Tweedy and the chickens use that split-second to go back to acting like normal chickens. Mr. Tweedy weakly tries to explain while the dogs make themselves scarce, and Mrs. Tweedy responds by wordlessly smacking him on the head with her clipboard.
Mr. Tweedy: MRS. TWEEDY! The chickens are-!(cue the chickens immediately putting on the "normal chickens" act) -pecking?
- During the chickens' flight training:
Nick: Flippin' hell. Look at this, Fetcher.
Fetcher: They're gonna
kill themselves! ...Wanna watch?
Nick: Yeah, alright. - Nick and Fetcher when the chickens are trying to get airborne:
Nick: Poultry in motion!
Fetcher: The tension's killing me!
Nick: It's gonna kill her!
- After a failed day of flying lessons:
Rocky: Ducky, I think you flew four feet today!
Nick: Right, four feet. From the roof to the ground!
- Rocky's inability to understand anything Mac, the Scottish chicken, says. Especially the "thrust" speech.
- When negotiating with Rocky:
Nick: So we slipped into the farmer's room, all quiet-like...
Fetcher: Like a fish.
Nick: Yeah, and then we-
Like a fish? You stupid Norbert.
- The Dutch dub ups the joke by translating the first line into "Het is een slachtpartij!" (It is a massacre).
- A small one when Mrs. Tweedy is ready to begin converting her farm for pie production, and she doubles the feed to fatten the chickens up, she looks on the gluttonous chickens with a wicked grin, and gives Mr. Tweedy a flirtatious pinch on the butt.
- Fowler walking in on the dance party and starting to protest, only to be dragged in by Bunty. A minute later, we see him in a tango with a rose shoved in his mouth, and what makes it funnier is that he seems to be enjoying himself for once.
Fowler: Now, see here! I-I don't recall authorising a hop!
Bunty: Oh, shut up and dance!
- During the adorable barn dance, the rats are up in the rafters putting the Christmas lights together. Fetcher innocently asks if Nick wants to dance and Nick stares at him, seeming like he's gonna blow him off, and then agrees. Cue awesome disco dancing from the pair complete with rudeboy sunglasses.
- When the Pie Machine is introduced.
Mr. Tweedy: Oooh, that's champion, that is... What is it?
Mrs. Tweedy: It's a pie machine, you idiot. Chickens go in; pies come out.
Mr. Tweedy: Oh, what kind of pies?Mrs. Tweedy: Apple.
Mr. Tweedy: My favourite!Mrs. Tweedy: Chicken pies, you great lummox! Imagine it! In less than a fortnight, every grocer's in the county will be stocked with box upon box of "Mrs. Tweedy's Homemade Chicken Pies".
Mr. Tweedy: Just "Mrs."?
Mrs. Tweedy: Woman's touch. Makes the public feel more comfortable.
- "We mustn't panic... WE MUSTN'T PANIC!!!" [Beat] [every hen starts freaking out accordingly]
- ...and the follow up after the pie machine scene.
Ginger: Ladies, please. Let's not lose our heads.
Bunty: Lose our heads?!All: [scream at the top of their lungs in fear]Ginger: [Facepalm] - Both those 2-seconds parts are shown in the menu screen via the Panic Button, which pretty much shows the chickens freaking out and screaming bloody murder in panic.
- When Ginger falls into the pie machine:
- While they're escaping the oven and running towards the quickly closing door, Rocky manages to fall into every single pie before getting out.
- "I don't want to be a pie! ...I don't like gravy."
- Bunty, when the chickens find out Rocky is a fraud: "I knew he was fake all along. In fact, I'm not even certain he was American."note Rocky's actor Mel Gibson was born in America but raised in Australia from age 12 and had an Australian accent when he first rose to fame.
- After Rocky's deception is revealed and the hens start turning on each other, Fowler tries to restore discipline only to be essentially told to shut it by Bunty. Outraged, Fowler promptly whacks her round the head with his swagger stick, only to immediately regret it and offer an apology ...upon which Bunty punches him full in the face and then bodyslams him into the mud. The look of utter horror on Fowler's face as Bunty's shadow descends on him is a picture.
- When Ginger stops the fight, Fowler is lying face-down in the mud at the bottom of the heap, which suggests he wasn't even able to get up after Bunty floored him.
- Also, Babs having a chicken's leg in her mouth when Ginger stops the fight is downright hilarious!
- When Ginger promises Bunty's eggs to Nick and Fetcher in exchange for them stealing Mr. Tweedy's tools to build the plane, this conversation arises:
Nick: Just like the ones that rooster was going to lay. Only roosters don't lay eggs, do they?
Fetcher: Don't they?Nick: No. It's a lady thing, apparently.
Ask your mum. - Half of what happens while building "The Crate": When Mr. Tweedy sees the rats in the garden gnomes making off with his tools "Oh, gnomes now?", the bunk collapses on another chicken, Fowler with the "cheaters", Mrs. Tweedy getting a face full of soot (and later, gravy, causing her to literally give Mr. Tweedy a kick in the arse).
- Fowler's face as he painfully releases the nuts and bolts from said trousers and his shaky salute add to the hilarity.
- There's also a split-second moment of a chicken getting hit in the head by one of the tools Nick and Fetcher first retrieve.
- "Eggs from Heaven!" "No, from her bum!"
- Mr. Tweedy's reaction when he discovers that the chickens have been stealing his tools. No, he's not surprised to find chickens using them to build a machine; he's surprised because they're using his tools to do it.
- Cue the entire hut of chickens swamping Mr. Tweedy.
- Also Mr. Tweedy's vain efforts to get his wife's attention and aid:
Mr. Tweedy: (Covered in chickens assaulting him) MRS. TWEEDY! THE CHICKENS ARE REVOLTING!
Mrs. Tweedy: (Not looking up from her work) Finally,
something we agree on!
- Nick and Fetcher's...interesting airline safety demonstration as the hens are in the Crate:
Nick: In the quite likely event of an emergency, put your head between your knees and—
Fetcher: Kiss your bum "goodbye!"
- Fowler's response to the shocked question, "You mean you never actually flew the plane?": "Good heavens, no! I'm a chicken! The Royal Air Force doesn't let chickens behind the controls of a complex aircraft!" To which one of the hens promptly declares "We're all gonna die!"
- During the climax, as the chickens are flying to safety, Babs is still knitting.
- This Shout-Out when Mrs. Tweedy grabs onto the plane:
- During the plane scene, where they are being pursued by Mrs. Tweedy:
Fowler: Increase velocity!
Babs: What does that mean?
Bunty: IT MEANS PEDAL YOUR FLIPPIN' GIBLETS OUT!!
- At the end, after the chickens have escaped and the pie machine has blown up, creating a huge mess, the only thing Mr. Tweedy has to say to his wife is "I told you they was organised!"
- While this is happening, we see their two guard dogs joyfully slurping up the gravy on the ground, completely oblivious to everything around them.
- Just before the pie machine blows up, Mr. Tweedy rushes into the barn calling "Mrs. Tweedy, Mrs. -" to see his wife's legs sticking out of the top of the pie machine as she screams and the machine's about to blow. Instead of trying to help, he quietly backs out of the building and closes the door behind him.
- And then there's the downright over-the-top growl Mrs. Tweedy delivers to her husband directly after he said that. You'd have to imagine if Mrs. Tweedy's voice actress, Miranda Richardson, burst into laughter right after she recorded it.
- At the end when the chickens have finally escaped in their 'crate' and Ginger's let Mrs. Tweedy drop to her fate, Rocky and Ginger kiss, prompting an "Aww!" from the other chickens... which then quickly becomes hilarious when the crate starts to drop because they stopped pedaling and they all frantically resume doing so. Followed by Fowler berating them for stopping, as no doubt he wasn't aware of the kiss.
- Before the credits roll, Nick gets the idea of starting their own chicken farm so they can have all the eggs they want. Fetcher suggests they get a chicken, but Nick insists they get an egg. Of course, this evolves into a conversation of which came first, the chicken or the egg
. The argument continues over the closing credits until Rocky tells them to stop. The rats comply, but not before calling Rocky a "gitface" and a "pillock".
