Angry Birds, Wildly Popular iPhone And Android Game, Comes Alive In Israeli TV Spoof

If you have an iPhone or any Android SmartPhone or live or work anywhere near someone who does, you're probably aware of Angry Birds, the addictive game where you use a slingshot to launch birds into the fortified structures of little green pigs in an attempt to reclaim the eggs that the pigs stole to set the game in motion.

Last month The New York Times reported that people around the world are racking up 200 million minutes of game play every day, including many people who would never consider buying a video game machine.

Last week Etgar Keret, a Tel Aviv filmmaker and novelist, wrote a funny column in the online magazine Tablet about the effect the game has had on his family life.  One of his observations:

Angry Birds is so popular in our home and in others because we truly love to kill and breaks things. So, it’s true that the pigs stole our eggs in the short opener of the game, but between you and me, that’s only an excuse for us to channel some good old rage in their direction. The more time I spend thinking about that game, the more clearly I understand something:  Under the adorable surface of the funny animals and their sweet voices, Angry Birds is actually a game that is consistent with the spirit of religious fundamentalist terrorists.

Eretz Nehederet, the Israeli equivalent of Saturday Night Live that we have mentioned a few times in our blog, posted a video on YouTube that has gone viral, presenting the Angry Birds and their nemesis, the egg-stealing pigs, meeting in a peace conference to end the conflict, only to have the talks break down into more (hilarious) violence.  We're sharing the video below, with a word of caution:

Viewers are advised that the English subtitles include an F word that usually doesn't make it past our family-oriented censors, but we felt that it is so fleeting and integral to the hilarity that we're letting it go through with just this advisory.  It also shows that Israeli TV is not as prone as US TV to censor language.

Enjoy!

P.S.  In the Tablet article, Keter quotes his wife as saying “I  think there are more Japanese soldiers hiding in the forests, not knowing that World War II is over, than people on this planet who don’t know this game. It is probably the most popular iPhone game ever.”  If you are one of the latter, we're including the video below, which shows how the basic game works.