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The Original Angry Birds


birds.JPGLast week, I noticed that the video game Angry Birds has inspired a theme park in China, which got me thinking about that whole phenomenon: Since when does a cute, feathered Weeble with bushy eyebrows qualify as an angry bird? Seriously. I realize this is a very popular mobile app that has rescued millions of people from idle moments at traffic lights. But based on my experience, these birds aren’t truly ticked. They’re just mildly irritated. And it all goes back to a seventh grade assembly that changed my life.

It was late 1976. The teacher told us we’d be heading to the auditorium to watch a movie. Cool. You have to remember, the notion of popping in a flick at home—in any format—was still a few years away. And what could be better than watching one at school in lieu of learning to divide integers? Mind you, this was a real movie, not some jittery filmstrip about dormant volcanoes.

I’m not sure if my teacher mentioned the title. If so, it didn’t register. All I remember was marching through the halls, the zwip zwip of corduroy-on-corduroy as we passed busy lockers. Kids looked up, woefully aware that if they weren’t in this seventh-grade parade, they were missing something. We were on the move. Excused from class. We had a blind date with Hollywood and, at least for the next couple hours, were special.

The lights went down. The screen came to life: “Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.” Next thing I knew, some guy was flirting with some lady in a pet store. Oh, great—a kissing movie! Well, it’s still better than integers. But then things got freaky. It’s like this big cloud of weird just settled over Bodega Bay, Calif. Some seagulls went nuts. Then there was that scene where the dude at the gas station blows himself up. And what about the moment when Jessica Tandy finds the old man with his eyes pecked out? Ayyiiii!

Sure, I acted cool with my buddies when the lights came up, but you can bet I was looking over my shoulder and watching the skies when the 3:15 p.m. bell sounded. The Birds scared me! In just a few hours, I went from thinking my teachers were the coolest educators on the planet to wondering if they’d lost their minds. Shouldn’t we have been watching something with educational value, maybe something about dormant volcanoes? I was one traumatized 12-year-old.

So when I hear people talk about the Angry Birds invasion, I don’t immediately think of animated balls of fun destroying the fortresses of greedy, egg-swiping pigs. Rather, I have PTSD flashbacks to seventh grade assembly. Angry Birds? I think not. Rovio’s fowl balls may be slightly annoyed perhaps, but wake me when they congregate ominously on a jungle gym or dive-bomb a phone booth. Now that’s an angry bird.