Trollz

***Trollz*** is an American animated television series produced by DiC Entertainment (now owned by the Cookie Jar Group) and features the adventures of five teenage Trolls, who call themselves the Best Friends for Life of "BFFL", who use magic to help them with their everyday life as well as battling whatever magical creatures and issues they may find themselves up against.

The series uses Troll-puns for surnames and magic-puns for items. It is also noted for its use of "z" in place of the letter "s" in plurals, for example BFFL are also known as "the Girlz" and the male love interests of the BFFLs are referred to as "The Boyz".

As an officially licensed series, the characters from Trollz are considered part of "Good Luck Trolls".

## About

### Origins

The characters were based on the troll doll created in the 1960s becoming one of the biggest fads internationally during the 1990s. Due to licensing issues in the 90s, Dam Things (owned by Thomas Dam, the original creator of the Troll Dolls) had issues with copyright over their dolls allowing the market to be flooded with counterfeit dolls.

### Licensing

By the end of the 1990s, Dam Things had regained their licensing, which not only stopped the number of fake dolls but also ended the Troll Doll craze in turn. To try and revitalize the franchise, The Troll Company (the American and global licensing company for the dolls outside of Europe) attempted to license a animated series to create new dolls and interest. The official settled name by this point was Good Luck Trolls.

The resulting series was "Trollz" and it was expected that DiC Entertainment would earn a lot of money from the dolls. The series was debuted in syndication as part of the DIC Kids Network block in 2005. Reruns of the series was part of *KOL Secret Slumber Party on CBS*; the series was also part of *KEWLopolis*, through 2007. The series last aired on *Cookie Jar TV* on CBS in 2011.

The merchandising, including toys, were handled by Hasbro.

### Cancellation

DiC itself folded and was taken over by the Cookie Jar Group, who in turn later were taken over for WildBrain (formerly DHX Media). Trollz was one of the properties listed as having contributed as part of the reason for the poor performance of DiC at the time, citing that license had performed poorly and cost the company a $2.3 million provision coverage cost, DiC had expected a high level of consumer production-consumption which had not been met. The licensing ended after DiC and the American "Good Luck Trolls" company, known as "The Troll Company", came into issues over counterfeit dolls and DiC sued the Troll Company for not fully disclosed the impact of counterfeits to DiC, though DiC knew about the issue when they acquired the license. The company had seen a loss of $10 million from the previous year, making the loss from properties such as Trollz very impacting on its finical failings.

## Plot

The show is set in a city called Trollzopolis and follows the adventures of five teenage girls (who're **Trollz**, not humans), (Amethyst, Ruby, Sapphire, Topaz, Onyx) who call themselves the Best Friends for Life (B.F.F.L.), who use magic to help them with their everyday life as well as battling whatever magical creatures and issues they may find themselves up against. The series is mostly "slice of life" style showing the day-to-day adventures of the girlz, with an occasionally run in with Simon.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.investegate.co.uk/dic-entertainment--deke-/rns/interim-results/200709280705296921E/
2. ↑ https://kidscreen.com/2007/10/25/dic-20071025/