Trolls: The Beat Goes On!

***Trolls: The Beat Goes On!*** (also listed as ***DreamWorks Trolls: The Beat Goes On!***) is an American animated television series that serves as an adaptation of the film *Trolls*, and the first TV series in the DreamWorks Trolls franchise. Produced by DreamWorks Animation, it aired from January 19, 2018 to November 22, 2019 on Netflix, with two web mini-series titled *ASK POPPY* and *Trolls: Pump up the Party!*. It was succeeded by *Trolls: TrollsTopia*.

The series was trademarked by DreamWorks on February 28, 2017.

Throughout the series' 8 seasons, 52 episodes were released, divided into 103 separate stories.

## About

In 2013, Netflix and DreamWorks made a deal to bring 300 hours of animated content to the service provide from movies *Shrek*, *Madagascar* and *Trolls*. The name "DreamWorks Trolls: Cupcakes and Rainbows" was filed as a trademark on December 3, 2014; it seems to have been the series' working title.

*Trolls: The Beat Goes On!* was scheduled to premiere on January 19, 2018, to be released on Netflix. The announcement came alongside with other DreamWorks' TV series *She-Ra and the Princesses of Power*, *The Boss Baby: Back in Business*, *Harvey Street Kids*, *The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants* and *3Below: Tales of Arcadia*.

### Post-premiere & Ending

The series premiered on January 19, 2018 on Netflix. The series, while having its own canonical storyline, isn't part of the *Trolls* franchise's major storyline, and is simply based upon the events of the *Trolls* movie.

The second season consisted of seven episodes was released on March 9, 2018, the third season with 6 episodes on August 24, 2018, the fourth season with 7 episodes on November 2, 2018, the fifth season with 6 episodes on January 18, 2019, the sixth season with 6 episodes on April 9, 2019, the seventh season with 7 episodes on August 27, 2019, and the eighth and final season with 7 episodes on November 22, 2019.

The episodes are typically 23 minutes long, and usually consist of two separate stories.

The show had two promotional web mini-series aired alongside it, titled *ASK POPPY* and *Trolls: Pump Up the Party!*.

On January 16, 2020, it was announced that a new *Trolls* series titled *Trolls: TrollsTopia* will be released on the streaming service Hulu, as well as the then-upcoming service Peacock. This series will be taking over from *Trolls: The Beat Goes On!* and cover the events of *Trolls World Tour*, thus bringing to an end the coverage of projects on *Trolls*, and in turn the eventual ending of this show.

Like most other TV series produced by DreamWorks, *Trolls: The Beat Goes On!* fits within the related canon storyline of *Trolls*, but isn't considered canonical to the overall franchise's storyline, with the later *Trolls World Tour* movie ignoring it completely. This is acknowledged by the staff, who are aware that fans don't consider the show canon, and it seems that no Season 9 was ever planned. It was mentioned later that when *Trolls World Tour* started production, the show was on the Party Crashers arc. This caused a temporary pause in their storyline, as *Trolls World Tour* was supposed to reveal the existence of other Troll Tribes. The Party Crashers interfered with that concept, and to avoid confusion they made one of its named members, Archer Pastry, claim that they're distantly related to the Bergens.

## Synopsis

Join Poppy, Branch and all of Troll Village as they keep the dance party raving in their fantastical forest home. Picking up where the blockbuster film left off, the Trolls are quickly adjusting to a life of cohabitation with those grumpy Bergens. Bursting with their signature positivity and a whole lotta music, *Trolls: The Beat Goes On!* opens up the colorful world of Trolls for new adventures and a dance party around every corner!

As Queen Poppy celebrates a time of peace in Troll Village with parties, competitions and special occasions, Branch tries to be more fun-loving.

## Plot

Picking up where the film left off, the series follows the everyday lives of the Trolls, and is very "slice of life"-themed. Many episodes start off with Queen Poppy explaining a particular event occurring in an episode. Branch is often also used as a means to explain to the audience what's going on, providing a secondary narrative for a episode's events.

In "Sorry Not Sorry", it's confirmed that Season 2 of the show takes place one month after the *Trolls* movie. This canonically puts the season at a similar time to *Trolls Holiday*, which takes place at least four weeks after the movie. Season 8 is later confirmed in "BFFF" to have taken place many months after *Trolls*.

## Cast

### Main Characters

* Amanda Leighton as Queen Poppy
* Skylar Astin as Branch
* Fryda Wolff as DJ Suki, Satin & Chenille
* Sean T. Krishnan as Guy Diamond
* David Fynn as Biggie & Mr. Dinkles
* Kevin Michael Richardson as Smidge
* Ron Funches as Cooper

### Recurring/Minor Characters

* David Kaye as King Peppy
* Matt Lowe as Creek and Aspen Heitz
* Walt Dohrn as Fuzzbert and Cloud Guy
* Sam Lerner as King Gristle Jr.
* Kari Wahlgren as Bridget, Bernice, Harper, Ripley Wisp, Bella Brightly, Mags Gumdrop, Vega Swift, Smarge and Dare-lene J. McGuffin
* Declan Churchill Carter as Keith
* Abby Ryder Fortson as Priscilla
* Kyla Carter as CJ Suki
* Fryda Wolff as Gia Grooves, Dr. Moonbloom, Gemma Fur, Laroux Laroux and Violet
* Zehra Fazal as Celine Starburst and Timpani
* Gary Cole as Sky Toronto
* Jonah Platt as Milton Moss
* Sainty Nelsen as Nova Swift
* Alexa Kahn as Tug Duluth
* Ashly Burch as Meadow Spriggs
* Mike Mitchell as Chad
* Curtis Stone as Todd
* David Fynn as Sir Tandeth and Frederico the Cheese
* Kevin Michael Richardson as Groth, Rufus, Klaus Von Frousting, Toby, Miner Foreman, Maitre'D, Tae-Kwon Joe, Certain Death and Gary ("Branchception")
* Sean T. Krishnan as Tae-Kwon Kevin
* Patrick Pinney as Nangus Skullcrusher
* David Koechner as Buzby
* Fred Tatasciore as Hank Montana
* Josh Keaton as Dennis
* Rachel Bloom as Cybil
* Vanessa Bayer as Baha
* Corina Boettger as Marshtato Mary
* Jake Green as Pistil Pete
* JP Karliak as Pistil Patrick
* Jim Belushi as Dad Cloud
* Jane Kaczmarek as Mom Cloud
* Utkarsh Ambudkar as Master Controll
* Arnie Pantoja as Archer Pastry
* Josh Peck as Bash
* Ray Chase as Peter and Smack
* Chelsea Kane as Pow
* Adam Ray as Slamm-Oh

## Related Media & Merchandise

The series was released for digital download in 2020, but DVD versions including different seasons were also produced.

The first season was also included in the *Happy Place Collection* DVD, alongside *Trolls* and *Trolls Holiday*, with the second season being featured in a newer edition.

### Toys

Hasbro produced several miniature and small figurines that were loosely tied in to the show. A number of toys that were supposed to get into the marketing of the show were shown off at the New York Toy Fairs of 2018 and 2019, but have never been released.

The unreleased dolls are tied in with the switch of company Hasbro to focus on *Trolls World Tour*, as the first toys were previewed in late 2019. In addition as well, 2019 was the ending of the airing of *Trolls: The Beat Goes On!* and the beginning of production of *Trolls: TrollsTopia*.

## Trivia

* Most of the animation in the series is of a traditional 2D style instead of the computer-animated hybrid 3D style used in the films.
* Many of the original actors did not reprise their roles from the film. Cooper, Cloud Guy, Chad and Todd are the only characters who share the same voice actors as they did in *Trolls*.
* A number of the line references in the series were put up by one of the animators.
* Boom Da Party, Won't Stop and Swagnificent appeared and heard in the series, these songs originally came from *All Hail King Julien*, another TV series by DreamWorks Animation for the *Madagascar* franchise.
* Overall, the series had 5 title card backgrounds for its episodes, each to a correspondent season:
	+ The first one features a Troll hair-like spiral, and was used in Seasons 1 and 2.
	+ The second one shows a hill with two small plants. It was used in Season 3.
	+ The third one depicts another hill with a number of mushrooms. It was used in Season 4, except for the episodes "Three Trolls-Keteers" and "The Helper", which had the previous background instead.
	+ The fourth one depicts a series of pods hanging from trees. It was used in Seasons 5 and 6.
	+ The fifth one has yet another hill, but with a pond-like nature. It was used in Seasons 7 and 8.
* "Party Crashed", the first episode of Season 4, is the only episode in the series that doesn't have two separate stories.
* Starting with "Fun Branch" and regularly happening by Season 5, a running gag in the series involves making a reference to the common classic cartoon rule of "gravity does not work until you look down", which was made infamous by the Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner cartoons. The gag occurred in 13 episodes so far, with two of them ("Scrapbookmobile" and "What Did I Miss?") having it happening twice. This gag continued with *Trolls: TrollsTopia*.
* Most of the episodes make cultural references to a number of media, including their titles. The most common are those of movies and other TV series.
* In the UK television airing of the series on POP TV, the series has issues with pitching and many voices and music have been slightly pitched up. This continues even onto the channels YouTube clips.

## References

1. ↑ Trademark for series
2. ↑ https://www.ibtimes.com/dreamworks-netflix-agree-bring-original-animated-series-growing-market-streaming-1310249
3. ↑ https://www.animationmagazine.net/2017/12/dreamworks-netflix-plan-6-new-series-date-trolls-toon/
4. ↑ https://jimmortensen.tumblr.com/post/630785546446307328/was-there-ever-to-be-a-season-9-for-beat-gose-on
5. ↑ https://jimmortensen.tumblr.com/post/628619921782374400/since-beat-gose-on-is-done-and-you-no-longer-are
6. ↑ Netflix
7. ↑ http://www.litlgeeks.com/toy-fair-2018-hasbro/
8. ↑ https://kastorskorner.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Hasbro-MLP-Trolls-Disney-006.jpg
9. ↑ https://gramho.com/media/2023879353809866351
10. ↑ https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GravityIsAHarshMistress
11. ↑ https://jimmortensen.tumblr.com/post/628800723328630784/do-you-get-the-moments-where-the-trolls-sometimes

## External Links

* DreamWorks Animation Wiki: *Trolls: The Beat Goes On!*
* *Trolls: The Beat Goes On!* on Wikipedia