"Out of this world is where we want to be..." note
"We are the VBirds, that's who we are."
— Lyric that plays at the beginning of every short
In-universe, the VBirds are a girl group comprised of four alien sisters (Wow, Boom, Bling, and D:Lin) who hail from Planet V. As punishment for refusing to partake in King He:Lin's Dance Farms, they are shrunk, placed in a spaceship, and sent off to Earth. Landing in a fun-fair's arcade room, the ship reforms itself into a DanceDanceRevolution-esque arcade cabinet (the Dance Machine) where the girls are forced to dance along whenever it is played. In spite of their condition, they manage to remain famous pop stars, now performing for a different audience.
In real life, the VBirds were a virtual animated band created by Cartoon Network UK, with the actual music created by a team of musicians. Their single "Virtuality" was released in 2003, being promoted by a series of six minute-long shorts that aired on Cartoon Network and other UK children's channels, a music video, a website, an interview with Dec on SM:tv Live, and even a contest to win merchandise and tickets to see the VBirds open for British boy band Blazin' Squad. While the song was moderately successful, no more singles were released afterward, and the franchise died out by the next year.
VBirds provides examples of:
- Aliens of London: All the girls have British accents, despite Planet V being far from Earth.
- All There in the Manual: The SM:tv Live interview and official website (now offline) gave more information about the VBirds than the shorts, like insights into their personalities and the girls being sisters. While the latter is now largely inaccessible due to the demise of Adobe Flash, the Wayback Machine managed to archive three batches
of articles from the "news" section. - All Women Love Shoes: According to Boom, "if you're tired of shoes, you're tired of life".
- Animated Music Video: The shorts all collectively act as one for "Virtuality" and (to a lesser extent) "Dance With Me", though "Virtuality" also has its own separate music video with different footage.
- Big Bad: The despotic King He:Lin acts as the main (and only) antagonist by having the VBirds exiled and imprisoned.
- Celeb Crush: An entry on the website's newspage revealed Boom has a crush on Orlando Bloom, to the extent that she writes to his website on a regular basis and sulks around waiting for a reply.
- Cheated Angle: Wow and Boom's tufts of hair cover their right eyes, but instead of hiding their faces when they face right in the "Virtuality" video their heads are flipped to cover their left eyes.
- Cleavage Window: Boom's top has a small one.
- Color-Coded Characters:
- Wow - Red/Orange
- Boom - Purple/Pink
- Bling - Blue
- D:Lin - Green
- Curtains Match the Window: The girls' eye colors match their hair.
- Emotion Control: Wow is capable of influencing those around her into a calmer state, even carnivorous plants.
- Energy Ball: Boom has the power to shoot these out of her hands. She is mostly seen using it to decorate.
- Everything's Better with Sparkles: In the fourth short, the girls get new outfits covered in sparkles.
- Evil Overlord: King He:Lin, the tyrannical ruler of Planet V.
- The Exile: The VBirds are exiled from Planet V for refusing to participate in energy-harvesting Dance Farms.
- Fictional Fan, Real Celebrity: Much of the supplemental material involves the group namedropping various real-life celebrities. Aside from Boom's crush on Orlando Bloom mentioned above, a few others revolve around the girls as a whole having affections for then-current British and Irish boy bands like One True Voice, Busted, D-Side, and Phixx.
- Four-Fingered Hands: Averted; both the VBirds themselves and Dec's animated design from the SM:tv Live interview possess five-fingered hands.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: Wow is phlegmatic (the calm mediator), Boom's choleric (confident yet vain enough to note herself as "the pretty one"), Bling sanguine (has "the most mouth"), and D:Lin melancholic (the shy one).
- Funny Afro: When the girls are being shrunk, Bling's afro isn't quite caught up to speed, and ends up being (comparatively) huge for a few seconds.
- Gamer Chick: One news article is dedicated to describing D:Lin's expertise at playing Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, with Bling calling her a "natural". The other VBirds are said to enjoy playing games as well.
- Girl Group: The VBirds, being an all-girl pop act.
- Green-Skinned Space Babe: Wow, Boom, and Bling all have orange/yellow skin, are visibly curvy, and wear outfits that show varying amounts of skin. While D:Lin is literally green-skinned, she doesn't really qualify as her usual outfit covers everything and she's too young to be a "babe".
- He Who Must Not Be Seen: The most we ever see of King He:Lin is his eyes at the very end of the last short.
- Incredible Shrinking Man: The girls are shrunk via Shrink Ray to fit into the Dance Machine.
- Klingons Love Shakespeare: Many of the news articles show the VBirds have already deeply entrenched themselves in keeping up with Earth (especially British/European) pop culture. They gossip about and crush on then-popular boy band members, play newly-released video games, and keep up with soap operas and reality TV.
- Man-Eating Plant: One area of the Dance Machine is filled with these. They try to bite Wow until she tames them into dancing.
- Ms. Fanservice: Boom calling herself "the pretty one" in the SM:tv Live interview aside, she's presented in this role via having the skimpiest clothes, a flirtatious personality, and a fondness for Shaking the Rump.
- No Such Thing as Alien Pop Culture: Averted; Planet V was where the VBirds had their first No. 1 single, implying that's there's enough music to maintain a record chart, and Bling says they had "millions and trillions" of fans.
- Odd Name Out: Boom, Wow, Bling and...D:Lin.
- Only One Name: None of the characters appear to have surnames.
- Opaque Lenses: Zig-zagged with Bling's glasses; while they avert this trope most of the time, they are opaque in some shots and art.
- The Quiet One: D:Lin is the least talkative of all the girls; she doesn't even say anything by herself in the SM:tv Live interview.
- Sampling: "Dance With Me" features a processed sample of the classic Think break.
- Shaking the Rump: Present in some of the girls' dances, mainly Boom's.
- Sibling Team: The VBirds refer to each other as sisters in a few of the news articles.
- Spelling Song: One of the recurring verses in "Virtuality" includes spelling out the group's name.
- Stock Footage: The "Virtuality" video reuses many of the same shots. For instance, one shot of D:Lin riding a dance pad through space is shown about four separate times.
- Team Hand-Stack: The girls sometimes do a variant of this, where instead of laying their hands flat, they each form a V-sign.
- Techno Wizard: D:Lin is described as the VBirds' "gadget-meister".
- Trapped in TV Land: The Dance Machine functions as a method of punishment in this way, where the girls are both trapped in an arcade game machine and forced to dance along with anyone playing it.
- Virtual Celebrity: Cartoon Network UK's stab at one, with a real-life single and a performance as an opening act for a real-life boy band.
- A Wild Rapper Appears!: Bling raps a verse in the middle of "Virtuality", which stands out due to its "bolder" delivery compared to the mellow R&B style featured in the rest of the song.
