For the Birds (film)

A small blue bird lands on a telephone wire and makes itself comfortable, only to have a second small bird land next to it. The two birds quickly start to squabble as others land on the wire and join in. They are interrupted when a large, gangly, awkward looking bird sitting on top of the pole honks to them. Soon, the small birds start mocking the large one by puffing up their feathers to resemble his plumage and imitating his honk.

They then slide farther out along the wire and chatter suspiciously among themselves, ignoring the large bird's attempts to befriend them until he settles in the middle of all of them out on the wire. However, his weight causes the wire to sag almost to the ground and all the small birds slide down toward him, which causes him to lose his balance and flop over to hang upside down by his feet. The two nearest to the center start pecking at his toes, egged on by the rest of the crowd. One of the other birds suddenly panics, realizing how low the wire is and tries to stop the pecking.

The others understand and stop too late; when the large bird's last toe slides off, the wire snaps upward and flings all the small birds out of sight like a slingshot. The large bird is so close to the ground that he's unaffected by the whole thing, but is accompanied by a shower of feathers from the small birds.

One of them falls to the ground, having lost all its feathers and the large bird laughs and offers it a leaf to cover itself. The others soon tumble down as well, without feathers, and hide behind the large bird as he laughs even harder. A white splatter with the words, "The end", on it against a black screen, marks the end of this film.

For the Birds won the following awards:

• 2002: 74th Academy Awards—Best Short Animated Film[1]
• 2001: Vancouver Effects and Animation Festival—Animated Computer 3D Short
• 2001: Anima Mundi Animation Festival—Best Film x2
• 2001: Chicago International Children's Film Festival-Short Film or Video—Animation—Second Place
• 2000: Annie Award—Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Short Subject
• 2000: Sitges—Catalan International Film Festival—Best Animated Short Film

A For the Birds sculpture in Vasylkiv, Ukraine

A reference to For the Birds was put in the 2006 Disney–Pixar movie Cars. When Lightning McQueen is in the back of Mack, they drive down the freeway and pass a section of power line with the birds resting on top, which is accompanied by the squeaks the birds made to communicate with each other.[5] A similar appearance occurred in Inside Out, while Riley and her family are driving to San Francisco at the beginning of the movie.[6]

A cameo appears in The Star, where a wall with resting birds are seen distracting each other (one even falls).

For the Birds is one of two short films on the DVD and VHS release of Monsters, Inc. The film was also released as part of Pixar Short Films Collection, Volume 1 in 2007.

• Official website
• For the Birds at IMDb
• For the Birds at the TCM Movie Database
• For the Birds at The Big Cartoon DataBase