Hide & Go Hug

"Hide & Go Hug" is the second segment of the 4th episode of the seventh season of Trolls: TrollsTopia, and the 97th overall episode in the series. It premiered in August 11, 2022.
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With the rest of the Trolls hidden away playing a game, Synth, Demo, and DJ Suki are the only Trolls around to take on a pesky invasion of destructive rock-coons.
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Poppy makes an announcement. She has two, in fact. First is a game combining two of the Trolls' favorite pastimes: "hide and go hug" (the Trolls like hide & seek and hugging). She explains that she will hide and everyone must find and join her in the hiding spot until they are all in one giant group hug. For the second announcement, she tells the Trolls to look behind them. While they are looking away, Poppy disappears to hide. DJ Suki reads out a note she left behind. The second announcement is actually that the game has already started and they have to come find her. The Trolls begin to search for Poppy.
6 hours later, Synth is by himself, calling the game "impossible". He hears movement in a nearby push and rushes to hug Poppy only to find Demo and DJ Suki all did the same thing. They talk in unison and make a joke out of it, noting they have no idea how they are doing this. A noise attracts attention and DJ breaks it up. They find a critter causing trouble, Demo explains the critter is a Rock-coon, which are a species of Hard Rock pest; they go around trashing everyone and having bad attitudes. DJ doesn't think it seems all that bad, to which Demo tells her that it is not so bad when there is one, but it is total mayhem when they come in packs. At that moment, a pack of Rock-coons shows itself and begins to trash TrollsTopia. Synth asks Demo how to get rid of them, but he doesn't know, saying that they usually don't come around unless an area has been deserted, which they do as every Troll aside from the trio is in hiding. They beg for Poppy to come and help.
Meanwhile, Poppy is down a well, and Branch asks her if she thinks the hiding spot is too hard for them to find. She says otherwise.
Demo states that they can't wait for the other Trolls and have to take charge of the situation now. The issue is that the three are not "take charge Trolls" unless they're overseeing a party. The three act like they are running a party by doing air-movements and sound improve, then turn around and asks if that has any relevance to their current situation; it does not. Demo says that the other Trolls are clearly better for this, then asks how they would handle it. DJ says that Poppy would come up with a sweet and sincere song that would melt the Rock-coons' hearts. As the Rock-coons drive the Dune Huggy into a stream, they try to sing to them. As they sing, their lyrics suddenly charge to desperation as the Rock-Coons don't feel the song at all. This ends with the trio being beaten up for their troubles.
With Poppy's method coming to an end, Demo suggests Val's method of taking charge by showing who's boss with no weaknesses. The three act tough and break things, and it seems like the Rock-Coons are scared. Demo then ruins things by kicking a rock and hurting himself, losing their intimidation factor in the process. DJ and Synth loose their intimidating stance instantly, and don't realize it until the Rock-Coons being to snarl as they're no longer threatened by the Trolls show of weakness. Once again, they get mauled.
Synth suggests they imitate Rhythm & Blues and use some sort of sci-fi technology to deal with the Rock-coons. Soon, the trio transport down from Vibe Town and Demo aims a teleporter gun at himself, which DJ Suki corrects to point at the Rock-coons. They celebrate as the Rock-coons appear to have gone. It turns out, however, the teleporter sent the Rock-coons onto the Vibe Town ship as they now damage the ship and press buttons. The trio panic as Poppy and the other Trolls giggle within their hiding spot.
All around them, the trio are faced with the destructive Rock-Coons unable to do anything to stop them. In panic, DJ lists off other Trolls like Smidge, Haystack Wiggins; she even makes up a Troll. Synth states every Troll they've imitated has failed, but he knows some Trolls they've not tried to imitate, which DJ thinks he means Satin and Chenille. Demo corrects her to themselves.
The trio starts a party, which seems to halt the Rock-Coons' progress, as even the ones in Vibe Town come to party. They lead all the Rock-coons onto a raft and send them on their way.
Later that night, the trio finishes cleaning up TrollsTopia from the mess the Rock-Coons made. They go off to sleep, with DJ commenting that its good to know by being themselves they resolved the issue.
Meanwhile in the well, Poppy tells the others not to worry, sincere that the trio will find them soon. It appears the trio has forgotten the game.
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;Pop Trolls
*Amanda Leighton as Queen Poppy
*Skylar Astin as Branch
*Fryda Wolff as DJ Suki
*Satin & Chenille (mentioned)
*Smidge (mentioned)
;Rock Trolls
*Charles DeWayne as Demo
*Val Thundershock (mentioned)
;Funk Trolls
*Cooper (non-speaking)
;Techno Trolls
*Vladimir Caamaño as Synth
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*"A Song So Sweet"
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*The episode's plot is parallel to the Trolls: The Beat Goes On! episode "Whimsy Wasps", as both are about infestations of critters.
*The Poppy's involvement is set up like that of the Trolls: The Beat Goes On! episode "Two's A Cloud", with her playing a game while the main plot happens independently of her interactions.
*DJ Suki, Demo and Synth are depicted as three of the least intelligent characters of the show at times. DJ has simplistic desires, Demo never thinks things through, and Synth is known for his lack of grasp on complex situations. The only other Troll with less intelligence than these three is Cooper, who, ironically, is shown in the hiding spot with all the other Trolls, meaning that he managed to find Poppy.
*The Rock-coons are a reference to animals such as seagulls, rats and mice, as well as real life raccoons take advantage of humans after social events such as music concerts and festivals. Often the amount of trash left after humans have deserted an area is a feast of left over scraps of food which these pests then seek out for easy meals.
*The comment that the main trio are not "take charge Trolls" is arguable, as DJ Suki is Pop Village's top DJ, Demo is the manager of Val's band and Synth is the Techno Tribe's delegate. These three positions require that they have a degree of "taking charge". It's likely that what they meant was that they're not used to overseeing a huge TrollsTopian-scale operation.
*Cooper is suddenly in the well with Poppy and the other Trolls. He's not there in the well's other two scenes. It's likely he had a drop-in non-sequitur line, which is his most common inclusion in episodes where he doesn't have a major role; when the line was cut from the episode, the animators may have left Cooper in the scene. This is probably one of the typical late changes to episodes for runtime; as common with 2D animation, some episodes get too much runtime than permitted, and need to have scenes cut, though most of the time it's not obvious. That said, this is the second time a likely change occurred with an episode's runtime in this season, the first being "A Life Less Score-dinary", where Holly doing sound effects was probably going to have a preceding scene of her explaining it instead of her doing so out of nowhere.
Category:Episodes
Category:Trolls: TrollsTopia episodes
Category:TT Season 7 episodes
Category:Pop Trolls Story Arc Episodes
Category:2D animation