Trivia / Trolls

General:

Main franchise and first movie:

Main franchise

• Cash-Cow Franchise: Shortly after the first movie's release, the franchise was the second biggest-selling licensed property after Star Wars, outgrossing other established cash cow franchises like Pokémon and PAW Patrol. Over the course of 4 years, the franchise has made over 700 million dollars in DVD and merchandise sales. Its discussed plans to release 5 more movies after the first two would end up making it have more released and planned movies than any other DreamWorks franchise at 7, with Kung Fu Panda being close to it at a potential final total of 6 movies.
• Dueling Works:
  • The franchise mainly appears to be this with Frozen, another Cash-Cow Franchise spurred from an animated musical film, as both seem to have similar merchandise sales, are popular among young girls (even though both actually have an unisex aiming), and feature a Troll species. In addition, there were two times when both franchises have had their own works duel with one another:
    • The first holiday specials for both franchises, Olaf's Frozen Adventure and Trolls Holiday, were released on the exact same day. However, the former was released in theaters with Coco before airing on ABC two weeks later, while the latter aired on NBC. While Olaf received a very mixed critical reception, Trolls Holiday got a largely positive one, and was watched by six and a half million people, beating out new episodes of some TV cartoons aired the same night, as well as Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie. The merchandise line of Trolls Holiday also had a better performance in sales than the one for Olaf, which stayed on store shelves long after its release.
    • The second films of both franchises were slated to be theatrically released five months apart. However, Trolls World Tour went straight to video on demand due to the coronavirus pandemic. Frozen II also had its Disney+ release bumped for the same reason the theatrical release for Trolls World Tour got cancelled, as it was originally slated to launch on the service in June. The films also coincidentally feature a similar plot twist in which the protagonists learn that their ancestors oppressed another culture they deemed inferior. Due to the circumstances listed under Release Date Change, plus the fact that Frozen remained more popular at the time, Frozen II grossed more than Trolls World Tour overall.
  • Two less overarching cases occurred with Smurfs: The Lost Village and Ugly Dolls:
    • The part of Smurfs: The Lost Village comes because of the fact that the first Trolls movie took a lot of inspiration from the entire Smurfs franchise, while the former movie was a rehash attempt from Sony Pictures Animation as an "apology" for their two live-action/CGI hybrid Smurfs movies. Trolls was obviously the winner, while The Lost Village received mixed-to-negative critics and flopped at the box office due to the success of Beauty and the Beast (2017); it got to the point that The Lost Village was considered to be Sony's version of Ice Age: Collision Course.
    • UglyDolls was released a year prior to the release of Trolls World Tour (coincidentally, both movies had Kelly Clarkson among the cast). Like the Trolls franchise in itself, it was based on an existing toyline, and similarly to the first movie involves a pink-colored female protagonist venturing their world outside their home, with scenes in which the respective title species fall into despair being featured as part of major plot points. Unlike Trolls, UglyDolls didn't perform well at the box office (one of the particular causes being that it was heavily overshadowed by Avengers: Endgame), though it still did greatly in merchandise. Although it's clear that UglyDolls won't get a major franchise of its own, a TV series spin-off was set to premiere in Hulu (one of Trolls: TrollsTopia's two channels, the other being Peacock), but there hasn't been any information after the earliest announcements. With Kelly Asbury, who directed this incarnation of UglyDolls, losing his battle with cancer in 2020, it's unknown if the TV series will ever see the light of day.
  • The franchise has also been on this less directly with Moana and Sausage Party, both of which came out around the same time as the first movie and have similar main points in their premise with said movie (Moana involves a main duo of a risk-taking girl and a more laid guy, and Sausage Party involves a character species that's being eaten by another one with a main gang trying to work against it). Overall, Trolls was clearly the winner in both cases due to the phenomenally large success of its merchandise, as well as grossing more than Sausage Party in that case, but Moana was more competitive in that it managed to gross more money in most places aside the United Kingdom, where Trolls remained above it.
• Live on Stage!: The franchise had a live show known as Trolls Live! in 2020. It involves Poppy trying to save Hug Time from disappearing.
• Recursive Adaptation: The franchise, originally based on the Troll Dolls toyline, had a lot of toy merchandise from many brands, as well as tabletop games, paper-related products, and many other kinds of merchandise and promotions.
• Referenced by...: The lore of this franchise, in addition to Trollz, is discussed by Athena P as a part of her series on the lore of children's media. This is one of her longest lore videos at over an hour in length.
• Sleeper Hit:
  • The first movie was released when everyone believed that DreamWorks was well past its prime, having released a long string of original movies beforehand that, while none were actually bombs, could be considered as such for the standards they had established. However, due to it being a musical, the fact that it was the first DreamWorks film aimed at children after years of making movies aimed mostly at a general family range, and star Justin Timberlake deliberately stabbing at the Breakaway Pop Hit entry by releasing the soundtrack's lead single "Can't Stop the Feeling!" well before the movie's release date, Trolls became one of the most successful movies of fall 2016, and eventually led to the Cash-Cow Franchise event mentioned above. This improved further when its Surprisingly Improved Sequel World Tour was released.
  • A bigger example of this happened in Japan with The Beat Goes On!. Before the series began, Dreamworks Animation's films didn't do as well in Japan as they did overseas. After multiple box office failures in the country, ending with Megamind being released the exact same weekend as a major earthquake, the films went Direct to Video, including Trolls, where they still weren't gaining an audience. Despite this, TV Tokyo picked up the rights to The Beat Goes On! and tried hyping it up by using well-known Japanese celebrities as the voices of the characters and having idol group Tsubaki Factory promote the show. These methods paid off as the show wound up being a major success in Japan, as explained further in Germans Love David Hasselhoff at the YMMV page.
• Unisex Series, Gendered Merchandise: The franchise has an unisex aiming towards children, but most of its merchandise is made for girls, presumably because a number of the major characters are female, as well as the franchise's overall aesthetic.

First movie

• Adored by the Network: FX, which was already known for frequently airing some DreamWorks movies, loves showing Trolls almost every week. In 2019, from December 22nd to 27th, it was aired along with The Secret Life of Pets every day, occasionally getting a second airing during late night hours.
• Breakaway Pop Hit: Lead single "Can't Stop the Feeling!" seems to have been tailor-made for this trope, as while the movie eventually became quite popular through 2016 and 2017, the song has distanced it a bit from the general public. The fact that the song came out 7 months before the film did definitely help.
• The Cast Showoff: Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake do all their own singing.
• Casting Gag: In How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, Jeffrey Tambor played a guy trying to get a woman played by Christine Baranski to fall in love with him; he was the Big Bad while she was the Love Interest of the titular Grinch. Here, Baranski voices an Evil Chef who's trying to get all of the Trolls eaten; the Trolls' leader King Peppy is voiced by Tambor. In other words, the reverse of their previous roles.
  • Anna Kendrick and James Corden also count in this case. They had played with Baranski as part of a group of allied or related characters in a number of films like Into the Woods; Kendrick played Cinderella, Corden played The Baker, and Baranski played Cinderella's Stepmother. Here, Kendrick and Corden voice the Trolls Princess Poppy and Biggie, respectively, while Baranski voices the Bergen Chef.
  • On the subject of Into the Woods, Scullery Maid Bridget undergoes a makeover in order to woo King Gristle Jr. Given Kendrick's aforementioned role as Cinderella, it would seem fitting that she led Bridget's assistance in a Fairy Godmother-like role.
• Creator Backlash: A now deleted tweet made by an animator at DreamWorks Animation condemned the infamous teaser trailer, stating that it misses the point of the film.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Smidge, a female troll, is voiced by Walt Dohrn.
• Divorced Installment: The movie was originally supposed to be partially based on Terry Pratchett's Nomes Trilogy, back in the 2000s and early 2010s when Anand Tucker was set to direct it.
• Dub Name Change: There's a number of them in the Spanish dub, including:
  • Branch - Ramón
  • Gristle Jr. - Grisel Jr.
  • Biggie - Grandulón
  • Guy Diamond - Diamantino
  • Smidge - Chiquilina
• Missing Trailer Scene: Some scenes in the trailers are different from the actual film to avoid spoiling certain plot events, such as Poppy becoming Queen of the Trolls (which was already seen in a deleted scene included in one of the earlier trailers, though) and Branch getting his colors back.
• No Export for You: The only home releases with the movie's 3D version are in Mexico, Portugal and Sweden.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Zooey Deschanel is normally a Cloudcuckoolander or the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Here she voices a put-upon scullery maid who needs to be taught to be happy via The Power of Love.
  • To a lesser extent James Corden. Whenever he acts, he normally finds himself playing roles that evoke the Fat Bastard or Butt-Monkey tropes. Here he's a peppy Genki Guy (which is closer to what James is like in Real Life).
  • Speaking of Genki Guy, Russell Brand is nearly unrecognizable as an Erudite Stoner. Even less so as a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, Dirty Coward, Romantic False Interest, Evil Brit, and overall Hate Sink all rolled into one.
• So My Kids Can Watch: Much of the cast of Trolls, specifically Justin Timberlake (who oddly enough did children's shows before he was popular) and Gwen Stefani, got roles in the film because they wanted to show it to their young children.

Other media:

• Trolls: World Tour
• Trolls Holiday
• Trolls: The Beat Goes On!
• Trolls: Trollstopia
• Trolls: Holiday in Harmony
• Trolls Band Together

Trivia tropes with their own pages:

• What Could Have Been

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