Angry Birds

Angry Birds is a video game franchise created by Finnish computer game developer Rovio Entertainment. Inspired by Crush the Castle, the first game in the series was initially released in December 2009 for Apple iOS. As of October 2010, 12 million copies of the game were purchased from App Store. The company then released ports of the game for other touchscreen smartphone operating systems, including Android, Symbian and Windows Phone. The franchise has since been expanded to include video game console and PC ports.

Angry Birds has been praised for its successful combination of fun gameplay, comical style, and low price. Its popularity led to many spin-offs, versions of Angry Birds being created for PCs and gaming consoles, a market for merchandise featuring its characters, a televised cartoon series, and an upcoming feature film. In January 2014 there had been over two billion downloads across all platforms, including both regular and special editions: as of July 2015, the series’ games have been downloaded more than three billion times collectively, making it the most downloaded freemium game series of all time. The original Angry Birds 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".An animated feature film based on the series will be released by Columbia Pictures on May 20, 2016, and the first main-series sequel, Angry Birds 2, was released on July 30, 2015.

Judge John Hodgman

Judge John Hodgman is a weekly, comedic court show podcast hosted by humorist John Hodgman and distributed online by Maximum Fun.

The program features host John Hodgman acting as a judge (with Jesse Thorn as bailiff) adjudicating real-life disputes within a courtroom simulated by sound effects.

History

"Tonally, there was no discussion; I just don’t know any other way to do it. I don’t want to make people feel bad, and I don’t want to make their problems into a joke. I do love telling people when they’re right and wrong, but for the most part, it was always going to be about real fights where people have a real difference of opinion and a real dispute. I want to make jokes, but I also want to make a decision that is fair."

Judge John Hodgman was originally a segment of the Maximum Fun podcast Jordan, Jesse Go!. When Hodgman ended his podcast Today In The Past, he began Judge John Hodgman as a full-fledged podcast.

Format

In each episode, "Judge" John Hodgman hears and renders a judgment on a dispute (often over petty or trivial matters) between two people (calling in via Skype or similar program from their home location) in a virtual "courtroom" setting. Hodgman is assisted in most episodes by "bailiff" Jesse Thorn, who acts as co-host, introducing each episode, interjecting humorous questions and observations during cases, and interviewing the disputants before and after Hodgman's verdict is announced. Several episodes have also included notable "expert witnesses" who call in and offer their insight into the case. Though Hodgman has no formal legal training or experience (often describing himself as a "fake internet judge"), and much of the content is played for laughs and entertainment, the disputants in each episode do verbally agree to abide by Hodgman's ruling before their case is heard.

Angry Birds Rio

Angry Birds Rio is the third puzzle video game in the Angry Birds series, developed by Rovio Entertainment. Based on Angry Birds, Angry Birds Rio was released for devices using Apple's iOS, Google's Android and Mac OS X in March 2011. The game was released as a marketing tie-in with the 20th Century Fox animated films Rio and Rio 2, and was promoted with those movies. While utilizing the same basic gameplay as the original game, Angry Birds Rio added a number of new elements, most notably the first use of boss levels.

Gameplay

In Rio, the Angry Birds have been kidnapped and taken to Rio. Just as in the original Angry Birds, players use a slingshot to launch birds at nearby structures, with the intent of hitting targets located on or within them. Instead of the pigs that have stolen eggs, players must now rescue caged exotic birds or defeat Nigel's marmosets, depending on the level being played. Because of the game's setting, several characters from Rio make appearances. Blu and Jewel both feature as types of bird exclusive to this game, along with all the existing birds from the series.

Angry Birds Toons

Angry Birds Toons is a Finnish animated TV series based on Rovio's video game franchise of the same name. This animated series provides explanations for the rivalry between the birds and the pigs; it also relates the birds' and pigs' comedic adventures among themselves and against each other. Episodes are being released on a schedule of one per week every Sunday.

There was an introductory episode called "Meet the Flock" in March 2013, which introduced the characters to the audience and gave most of the birds their names. None of the green pigs have been identified by name so far, but all the various types of pigs visible in the Angry Birds game (such as the king pig and the helmeted pig) have been shown. The episodes are all fairly short; so far they are all under three minutes. No dialogue is used, only facial expressions, sound effects and simple vocalizations, allowing the cartoons to be broadly understood without alteration or translation.

As of September 2013, Angry Birds Toons has been viewed more than one billion times. By July 2014, Angry Birds Toons episodes had been viewed over three billion times and by December 2014, episodes had been viewed four billion times.