TrollsTopia takes the various citizens of the Trolls world -- previously separated and defined by their musical place of origin -- and places them all together into one large community. The show delves into the inner workings of the citizens, coupled with an irreverent sense of humor and catchy songs.
During an exclusive interview with CBR, Trollstopia Executive Producer Matthew Beans -- who previously worked on Trolls: The Beat Goes On! -- revealed how his history with the irrelevant Adult Swim sketch series Robot Chicken helped prepare him for the world of Trolls, and how the show tries to find new ways to play with music as a concept.
"Robot Chicken was where I got started," Beans explained. "Matt Enrich and Seth Green are kinds of mentors, in a way. I owe them so much, it was a great experience for me. And what Dreamworks told me when they brought me on was that my Robot Chicken background was actually what appealed to you them about my resume, because Trolls is irreverent at its heart but packaged in something that is still appropriate for kids... we strive to hit a joke every second or third line of dialogue, and also to do visual payoffs to jokes so that you're taking advantage of animation. That was all stuff that were principles of how we wrote Robot Chicken too."
Finding the balance between comedy and character occasionally proves difficult for the producers, Beans admitted -- but it's something he relishes about working on TrollsTopia. "All the left turns, all the unexpected things, and all of the slightly cheeky things that come out of the characters and in the moments and the comedy is just... It's the essence of it. You can't do Trolls without capturing that. It is hard. And you know, we get a lot of notes... But landing that balance is what gives the show, its identity. It is hard, but I love it. And I'm so grateful that we did it that way, where we tried to constantly strive for that balance because it makes the show stand out from anything else that's on TV or digital."
TrollsTopia is just the latest entry in the Trolls franchise, which was reinvented in 2016 as a comedic and musical universe. "I remember when I was a kid," Beans recalled, "and I was aware of what Trolls were. The pencil topper ones I remember, but then you'd lose them. And they were more like ornaments and decorations for me... I really identified with GI Joe, for example, losing a GI, Joe would be heartbreaking, but a Troll did not have that space in my heart. And I kind of feel like, from most of my friends, it was the same way they were around. They looked kind of cute. They were ornamental, it was fun to to play with their hair and etcetera. I don't have this deep warm-hearted connection to the trolls of the past.
"I was just impressed by how thorough a world, how big and interesting a world was created by the people at Dreamworks who launched the Trolls franchise because that took a lot of creativity... There was not that much to work with other than really the hair and the fact that they were a little and cute, but other than that it was a complete invention. And the fact that [the modern Trolls] is such a fun world to play in, and it's taken audiences and it's captivated audiences. I think it's such a credit to the people who saw enough in those old toys to make a movie out of it. That's pretty impressive."
TrollsTopia also juggles an impressive amount of music along with the more emotional character beats, with the show's central elements often being tied in some form to the musical of this world. "It's not as hard as you might think for me," Beans explained with a laugh. "In fact, in some ways, I'd say the music is the easiest part of my job because I'm not a musician. I don't create music. I'm heavily involved in writing the stories and figuring out where the song in each episode is going to go. But then the writers and I, we do a write-up on each individual song and then we send it to our music producer, Alana Da Fonseca. One of the real delights in my job is that a couple of weeks later, she sends back a demo of the song and it's like Christmas... she delivered this perfect pop song or country song or funk song.
"The hardest part of it is we just don't want to do too many of the same kind of songs or to use them in the same way. The most familiar place that we do songs is in the second act. We'll do a montage... and you'll throw a song on that in order to pass the time. And we've seen that in TV all over the place, but it's like, we're only going to do that so many times before it starts to feel like a routine. Well, we can use the song to open [the show]. So, or in a couple of cases, we've used the song as the very last thing that happens in the episode, or we use it as a joke, where the song is a buildup to an expectation. And then we subvert that expectation and the song comes to a crashing halt. It's very satisfying when we come up with like, well, here's a way we've never used a song before, let's experiment and try that."
Executive Produced by Matthew Beans, TrollsTopia stars Skylar Astin, Amanda Leighton, David Flynn, Ron Funches, Kenan Thompson, Megan Hilty, Jeanine Mason, Kevin Michael Richardson, and Sam Haft, returns to Peacock and Hulu Mar. 18
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