Western Animation / Trolls: TrollsTopia

Trolls: TrollsTopia is a TV series produced by DreamWorks Animation and Atomic Cartoons that started airing in November 19, 2020 on Hulu and Peacock. It's a follow-up series to the movie Trolls World Tour detailing the fallout of its plot, in a similar vein to its predecessor Trolls: The Beat Goes On!, which followed the first Trolls movie. In the series, "TrollsTopia" is the name given to a project conducted by the Pop Troll Queen Poppy to bring trolls from each tribe together and live in harmony as they exchange culture and music.

Alongside the show, two adjacent promotional web series have also aired, titled What They Got Right (premiered in 2020 and ended in 2021) and Trolls Scrapbook Stories (premiered in 2021 and currently ongoing).

After 52 episodes, the show's final season aired on August 11, 2022.

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Trolls: TrollsTopia provides examples of:

• Alien Geometries: On the flying saucer that is Funk Town, things like time, space and gravity aren't always linear. Visitors usually have to wear special belts to keep their gravity going in one direction.
• Alternate Self: In "Wormhole Scavenger Hunt", Poppy, Guy and Holly meet counterparts of them from an alternate dimension, whom they eventually compete against in Lownote's game.
• Animation Bump: Compared to its predecessor, this series features improved animation with more flexible character movement and shading. However, this uses puppet animation instead of digital ink and paint animation, likely because of the involvement of Atomic Cartoons in the series.
• Art-Shifted Sequel: Like its predecessor, it uses 2D animation instead of the CGI style the Trolls franchise uses for its movies, TV specials and shorts.
• Brown Note: In "The Joy Chord", after Dante is snubbed by Beetrollven, his attempts to replicate the Joy Chord based on what he knows instead results in Poppy and Holly experiencing hiccups, sneezing, itching, their legs falling asleep, and being forced to act like chickens.
• The Bus Came Back: Not only DJ Suki, who was absent in World Tour, but also a number of characters who were introduced The Beat Goes On!, either as cameos or supporting characters.
  • Season 2 has an episode with Chaz, introduced in World Tour, trying to take over TrollsTopia.
  • The series' final episode included the return of King Trollex, introduced in World Tour.
• Call-Back: Branch playing catch with his remote Gary in "It's Dad-urday" is a reference to the previous Trolls: The Beat Goes On! episode "Branchception", where in his dreams Gary listed catch as one of the things they can do together.
• Canon Discontinuity: While it's a Sequel Series to Trolls: The Beat Goes On!, like its predecessor it's not considered part of the 3D canon storyline by neither fans nor the show's staff, instead existing as mere "secondary canon".
• Continuity Nod:
  • Biggie declares "Hopscotch is overrated" in the beginning of "Hopscotch Extreme", which Poppy immediately agrees to, having expressed a similar opinion back in Season 1's "Classical Rock". Demo also brings out his classical guitar again, to play a song lauding Val's skills.
  • Marshtato Mary, Guy Diamond and Meadow Spriggs are the instigators of the plot in "The Party Pooper". Their respective focus stories from The Beat Goes On! are quickly recapped at newcomer Holly's lampshading.
• Cool Car: "Manager Poppy" introduces a vehicle called the "Dune Huggy", which has extendable arms that allow it to hug, climb or turn sharply on obstacles.
• Culture Clash: Though nothing major has come up yet, a recurring plot point is how the different tribes have different cultural norms. "Bring It In" is about how Classical trolls prefer to bow rather than hug, while a miscommunication in "Classical Rock" is based in the preconception that Rock trolls don't do gentle and sensitive.
• Demoted to Extra: Most of the Snack Pack (sans Poppy and Branch) have their roles severely reduced and after the first season, they have rarely been seen together all at once. At most, one or two members now take part in stories per episode, with Season 1 being the season with the most members together at once. This is a result of the main cast being expanded after World Tour.
• Dirty Kid: Averted in a variant to romantic music in "Smooth Operator". Chaz expected all the Trolls in TrollsTopia to get hypnotized by his Smooth Jazz music, which is generally oriented around romance and attraction, but he finds out that the child Trolls aren't affected, with Keith making a negative comment about it on top of that.
• Doorstopper: The guidebook to being a Fun Deputy that Gust gives to Smidge in "Smidge in the Saddle" is so big that it's almost as tall as an average Troll, and heavy to the point it craters into the ground three times over.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first season has about double the episodes each season of the previous series has, with 13 episodes; all subsequent seasons follow the same tradition of 6 or 7 episodes.
• Flying Seafood Special: Although Techno Trolls are able to float in the air when out of water in most Trolls media, it's averted in this series, where they use their fins to walk on the ground instead.
• Friendly Local China Town: A variation in that, instead of having trolls from other tribes all live in pods like pop trolls, Poppy works with the ambassadors to make small towns for each of their respective tribes that every troll can choose to live in or visit whenever they want.
• Fun with Acronyms: Although not as common, the series continues with the acronym terms in conversations from The Beat Goes On!. For example, at the beginning "Kick-Off Party", Val responds to Poppy's question about her plan for a kick-off party by saying that Rock Trolls go with the "flow"; it's not until the end of the episode (after the kick-off had been set up solely by Poppy and the Snack Pack) that Val clarifies that with "flow" she meant "fake laziness so that others work."
• Gelatinous Encasement: Poppy and her gang get caught up in an interdimensional scavenger hunt against alternate versions of themselves. They manage to pull one over on "Pushy Poppy" by tricking her into portalling into the Desert Dimension and landing inside a giant gelatin mold.
• Girl's Night Out Episode: Although not without a few male characters, "Girls' Night", "Laguna Tidepool & the Lost Game Room" and "Gal Pal Getawaycation" only have females as the main focus.
• Girls With Mustaches: A side effect of Chaz's Smooth Jazz brainwashing are afflicted trolls growing a mustache like his, even on the female ones. They immediately fall out when the spell is broken.
• Go-to-Sleep Ending: At the end of "Wormhole Scavenger Hunt", Lownote sends Pushy Poppy into the Pillow Dimension so that she can take a nap.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Rufus, the farmer Troll, turns out to be the retired author of Poppy and Val's favorite scrapbook series, who actually speaks in a sophisticated accent.
  • Demo the Rock Troll is very talented at playing classical guitar.
• High-Speed Train Reroute: In "Cakes on a Train", this is what Branch said must be urgently done after he found out that the brakes were forgotten while recreating the Metroll train, since the railway infrastructure was still unfinished. The others, who were more worried about the Perfection Cake that the train was carrying, tried to find an alternative until they finally complied and changed the way to give out the cake.
• How Is That Even Possible?: During a flashback in "Daylight Ravings Time", Synth questions how the pieces of the DJ mask that he just dropped could catch fire underwater.
  Synth: Fire?! Underwater?!
• "I Am Great!" Song: "Right Trolls For The Job" is one for Branch, Val, Gust and Laguna.
• Immune to Mind Control: In "Smooth Operator", Keith is unaffected by Chaz's Mind-Control Music because he realizes too late it has no effect on children.
• Inventional Wisdom: For whatever reason, the funk trolls have a robot designed to create messes along with one to clean them up.
• Just One More Level!: "Laguna Tidepool and the Lost Game Room" is about the girls helping Laguna uncover an ancient board game said to combine aspects of every board game. Turns out it was hidden away in the first place because it was so fun that trolls couldn't stop playing it.
• Lampshade Hanging: During an episode that involved a lot of the highly advanced technology of the Funk trolls, Rufus is seen commenting how wormholes, spaceships and tractor beams etc. are a thing now.
• Mind-Control Music: In "Smooth Operator", Chaz plans to brainwash all of TrollsTopia into becoming "Jazztopia" with his Smooth Jazz music.
• Mining for Cookies: "Glitter Rush" is entirely about the trolls digging a mine for glitter due to a shortage. Glitter is explained as coming up from beneath the earth, in the form of magma, to the surface where it cools. It even has a "fool's" variant, discernible by the fact that it doesn't stick to skin at all, unlike authentic glitter which clings for at least three days.
• Mirthless Laughter: In "Blaze and the Blazing Blazes", Poppy, Minuet, Blaze, Romper and Rose get into one together when the former two make up that Blaze's fake band is named the same as how he wanted it back when he was with Romper and Rose.
• Mundane Utility: The Funk troll sisters Rhythm and Blues love to use their highly advance technology for utterly mundane things, like opening a wormhole to a dimension of cyclones to blow-dry hair. When asked why not use the simple solution, they just reply "Where's the fun in that?"
• Name and Name: "Piney & Lord Prickles", even if those are only nicknames given to inanimate objects.
• Non-Indicative Name: In "Hairicane", the titular term is a pun between "hair" and "hurricane". However, the fictional natural phenomenon that it refers to looks more like a tornado.
• No-Sell: In "Smooth Operator", Chaz's Mind-Control Music can brainwash any troll alike; however, it has no effect on children, Keith for instance, which he realizes too late before he takes the flute from him.
• Opening Shout-Out: The series finale "Troll Exchange Program" ends with all the Trollstopians singing a heartfelt, acapella version of the opening theme "Living in Harmony" as they all hold hands.
• Other Me Annoys Me: In "Wormhole Scavenger Hunt", Poppy and Guy Diamond dislike their respective alternate dimension selves, the former due to her Jerkass persona and the latter because of how he defines being "natural".
• Prank Gone Too Far: This trope continues with Cloud Guy since the previous installments of the Trolls franchise. In the episode "Cloud Control", it was shown that Cloud Guy had also been pranking on other Trolls who found it annoying. Although, he did it with good intentions, since he just wanted to use his pranks to help them learn how to spend their time better.
• Pungeon Master: In "Don't Make Me Laugh", Cooper decides to use Laguna's love for puns against her in order to defeat her in the Laugh Out Bout.
  Cooper: Oh yeah?. Well, it takes one to "tech-know" one!
• Put on a Bus:
  • Most characters from World Tour, like Barb, Hickory, Legsly and the other tribe leaders, are so far absent and aren't that important to the show. The tribe leaders' reason for absence is to run their own kingdoms while their ambassadors handle things in TrollsTopia. However, Barb and Hickory were briefly mentioned at least once, and Chaz eventually makes his first appearance in Season 2.
  • The series finale “Troll Exchange Program” invokes this by finally giving a proper reason for DJ Suki being shooed out of the franchise due to complications with her movie voice actress. She is selected by Poppy and the council to go live with King Trollex and the other Techno Trolls in Techno Reef as part of a cultural exchange program when she proves to be the ideal candidate.
• Rockers Smash Guitars: Played straight as an arrow with most Rock Trolls. An added bonus is that when Val does it, the impact is explosive and the pieces spontaneously transform into bats.
• Rollercoaster Mine: Trolls being trolls, they installed a loop-de-loop on a cart track in a mine they dug.
• Sequel Series: Almost very literally to Trolls: The Beat Goes On!, as it follows up the second movie in the same way The Beat Goes On! continued the first movie.
• Shout-Out:
  • TrollsTopia continues with the title references from Trolls: The Beat Goes On!:
    • "The Ballad of Holly Darlin" - The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
    • "Laguna Tidepool and the Lost Game Room" is named in a similar format to the Indiana Jones movies.
    • "Cakes on a Train" - Snakes on a Plane
    • "The Funk Wash" - Rose Royce's "Car Wash", as well as the film of the same name it accompanied.^note DreamWorks had previously used a remix of this song in Shark Tale.
    • "My Dinner With Dante" - My Dinner with Andre
    • "Journey to the Center of TrollsTopia" - Journey to the Center of the Earth
  • In "Girls' Night", Demo shows Val a broken guitar pick to explain how Rock Trolls get attached to certain picks. He refers to said broken pick as "Pick Jagger", a pun on Mick Jagger's name.
  • In "Mouth Guitar", Minuet Sonata mentions "Beetrollven", which is pretty much a pun between "Beethoven" and "Troll". Said character eventually makes his introduction in "The Joy Chord", where his full name is explicitly stated as "Ludwig Van Beetrollven".
  • In the aforementioned "Laguna Tidepool and the Lost Game Room", Laguna also wears a hat similar to that of Indiana.
  • Rufus' real name of "R. T. Plumegrass" is a reference to either J. K. Rowling or H. P. Lovecraft.
  • In "Hopscotch Extreme", Demo makes a song that mimics the style of Tenacious D. Val also gives Poppy the duo's "look".
  • In "Potluck Poppy", Poppy gets the same Nested Mouths as the Aliens from the Alien movies in a quick gag.
• Slobs Versus Snobs: In the "The Joy Chord", when Beetrollven is first presented he pretends to be a slob, leading to Dante Crescendo to act like a snob. He has no table manners at all. While Beetrollven eventually reveals he's a typical Classical Troll, he also explains how he is used to other Classical Trolls seeking out his Joy Chord and he uses the ruse as a test of humility. That said, it turns out he really loves his sauce despite that.
• Stuff Blowing Up: A popular Rock troll treat are cupcakes done "à la 'splode". These cupcakes are made to blow up so their frosty shrapnel can be eaten.
• Superhero Episode: "The Party Pooper", which continues off from the The Beat Goes On! episodes "Marshtato Fairy" and "The Partier's Apprentice". While the latter episode still had Shout-Outs to superhero media, it didn't have a superhero-like plot.
• Take Over the City: In "Smooth Operator", Chaz tries to take over TrollsTopia so that it's solely dedicated to his music. It backfires on him when he finds out that the child Trolls aren't affected by his music.
• Thinking Up Portals: The Funk trolls have access to technology that allows them to easily generate wormholes to a desired alternate reality on a whim.
• Title Drop: In the first episode, Poppy calls the name of her project to unite all the tribes together, TrollsTopia.
• Trust-Building Blunder: "The Buddy System" is about Poppy trying to strengthen the bond between the ambassadors and her friends by putting them through trust exercises that fail for various reasons.
• Two Shorts: Just like its predecessor, each episode is divided into two unrelated segments.
• Water Is Air: Mostly averted in that non-Techno Trolls need to wear breathing helmets when underwater in Techno Lagoon (in a mild retcon to World Tour). But it's lampshaded in a flashback in "Daylight Ravings Time", where Synth questions how the pieces of the DJ mask that he just dropped could unleash a large fire at the lagoon.
  Synth: Fire?! Underwater?!
• Worthless Yellow Rocks: "Glitter Rush" is about all the trolls mining for glitter due to a shortage. At one point Smidge expresses frustration that they're mostly finding gold, tossing a freshly dug nugget into a massive pile of them.
• Your Mime Makes It Real: In "Mouth Guitar", it's shown that enough of an amount of passion for air guitar playing will allow trolls to smash objects with them like they were real.

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