Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget.
Chicken Run fans have plenty to be excited about in Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget.
Rocky and Ginger are back with the rest of the hens for another adventure, this time bringing along their daughter, Molly (voiced by The Last of Us star Bella Ramsey) who ends up trapped on another, even more sinister farm.
But while the film is packed full of twists and turns, some fans have spotted a bit of fowl play near the end of the movie.
OMG! Feathers McGraw is in Chicken Run 2 !! pic.twitter.com/rfG86TUWDu
— Craftyartygal ?️?? ???️ (@Scarygalgothic) December 17, 2023
That’s right! Chicken Run 2 features a cameo from none other than Feathers McGraw, the nefarious Penguin from the classic Wallace & Gromit film, The Wrong Trousers.
The imposter, who regularly passes himself off as a chicken to evade the authorities, appears right at the end of the movie, in the last few seconds of the film’s final scene. He can be spotted peeking his head over a ridge as the chickens band together to liberate another chicken farm. And Aardman Animation fans are going wild.
“CRIME WATCH UPDATE: the new Chicken Run movie has revealed that Feathers McGraw is still at large, 30 years later,” said one fan on X/Twitter. “A bad penguin indeed!”
“Will anyone else spot Feathers McGraw in Dawn of the Nugget?” said another fan. “If you do see him around town, please just be cool - there really is no need to alert the proper authorities. Just let nature take its course, he's bound to trip himself up sooner or later.”
Others wondered if this has bigger implications. “Also, does this confirm that Wallace and Gromit, Shaun The Sheep, and Chicken Run all exist in the same universe?” wondered another fan. They’re referring to another Easter Egg in the Shaun the Sheep movie, that sees a photo of Feathers up on the board where A. Trumper makes a note of all the animals he’s captured.
Meanwhile, others had some theories about why Feathers was there in the first place. “Maybe Mrs Tweedy must have hired Feathers McGraw as her right-hand hitman to hunt down the chickens,” theorised another fan.
Feathers debuted in The Wrong Trousers in 1993, when he moved in with Wallace & Gromit as a lodger, eventually pushing out poor Gromit while using his new abode as a base of operations to conduct an elaborate diamond heist. He was last seen in the custody of West Wallaby Zoo.
IGN’s Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget review gave it 6/10 and said: “With an uninspired story and original cast members missing, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget rarely delivers. Although the top-tier animation distracts from a lack of chemistry between Thandiwe Newton and Zachary Levi, this latest addition is never better than average.”
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is out now on Netflix.
Want to read more about Chicken Run? Check out the clay crisis that means Aardman is running out of modeling clay and find out why fans got in a flap over the Chicken Run 2 voice actor changes.
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
