Angry Birds has been praised for its successful combination of addictive gameplay, comical style, and low price. Its popularity led to versions of
Angry Birds being created for personal computers and
gaming consoles, a market for merchandise featuring its characters and even long-term plans for a feature film or television series. With a combined 1.7 billion downloads across all platforms and including both regular and special editions, the game has been called "one of the most mainstream games out right now", "one of the great runaway hits of 2010",and "the largest mobile app success the world has seen so far".
The
Angry Birds characters have been referenced in television programs throughout the world. The Israeli comedy show
Eretz Nehederet (in English:
a Wonderful Country), one of the
nation's most popular TV programs, satirized recent failed
Israeli-Palestinian peace attempts by featuring the Angry Birds in peace negotiations with the pigs. Clips of the segment went
viral, getting viewers from all around the world. The sketch received favorable coverage from a variety of independent blogs such as
digitaltrends.com,
[5] hotair.com[12] and intomobile.com,
[13] as well as from online news media agencies such as
Haaretz,
[14] The Christian Science Monitor,
[6] The Guardian,
[15] and
MSNBC.
[16] American television hosts
Conan O'Brien,
Jon Stewart and
Daniel Tosh have referenced the game in comedy sketches on their respective series,
Conan,
The Daily Show, and
Tosh.0.
[17][18][19] In the
30 Rock episode
"Plan B", guest star
Aaron Sorkin laments to
Liz Lemon, "Our craft is dying while people are playing
Angry Birds and poking each other on Facebook". He then provides a tip for Liz to improve her score in the game. In February 2011, American journalist
Jake Tapper mockingly introduced U.S. Senator
Chris Coons as the "Angry Birds champion of the Senate" during the
National Press Club's annual dinner.
[20] Some of the game's more notable fans include Prime Minister
David Cameron of the United Kingdom, who plays the iPad version of the game, and author
Salman Rushdie, who claims he is "something of a master at
Angry Birds".
[21] Basketball star
Kevin Durant is an avid fan of
Angry Birds, and regularly plays other NBA stars in matches, although he is weary of cheating.
[22] In August 2011, the
Milwaukee Brewersplayed the
Angry Birds theme song during the pre-game introductions of the arch-rival
St. Louis Cardinals players, in reference to former Cardinals' manager
Tony LaRussa's propensity to
beanopposing players.
Angry Birds also appears briefly, for comic relief, during a scene in the 2013 film
G.I. Joe: Retaliation, in which the villain of the film plays the game while waiting for the world leaders' response to his threats of annihilation. Angry Birds were featured in the 2013 Helsinki episode of
Veep.
