August 20th, 2018 
Jackson Murphy 
For fans who can’t get enough of DreamWorks’ “Trolls” – good news! Not only is production of the sequel to the 2016 hit movie in full swing, but a new season of the spin-off TV series Trolls: The Beat Goes On! debuts this week (8/24) on Netflix. And with series veteran Matt Beans back as Executive Producer for Season 3, it’s clear that “Trolls” feeling can’t be stopped.
Jackson Murphy: How has this franchise – these characters – how have they all changed your life?
Matt Beans: Wow. That’s… not the question I was expecting but I love it. One – it’s the first time I’ve ever executive produced a TV show, so just immediate impact on my life is that it’s made me so much busier. And in addition, I think… when I started working on this show, the movie hadn’t come out yet, but there were some early cuts that I had seen. The first thing that you take away is kind of the more over-the-top elements of it: the glitter farting and the cupcake pooping and all the very crazy characters. But then, at the heart of it, I find that what this is really about is a bunch of – a whole culture of characters who insist on being positive and optimistic, whatever the circumstances are. And I think that’s pretty healing and therapeutic. And I think at the end of the day, it’s made me a little bit lighter and less cynical.
JM: I think that works pretty well when it comes to healing… but so is the glitter farting.
MB: You gotta get it out! Right?
JM: You do. Sometimes you just have that party feeling and it’s gotta come out one way or the other.
MB: Exactly. Exactly.
JM: Since this is your first show you’ve executive produced, were there people who inspired you to get into that? Somebody you looked up to who’s been an executive producer in the world of animation or television?
MB: Yeah, 100%. I was an assistant to Seth Green and Matt Seinreich, who are the EPs on “Robot Chicken”. I worked with them, first as an assistant and then as a writer, for probably six or seven years. And those guys treated each other so well, and they were making a show that was, especially at the time when it got started, really different – and had its own unique voice and tone. So I looked to those guys and still do often as inspirations for both how to run a show effectively and how to treat people so that they feel part of the thing that you’re building and part of the community that’s building it. Those two were big inspirations for me.
And then, just in terms of a creative inspiration: Dan Harmon. I don’t know him, but his story circle kind of helped me figure out how to not only break down stores for myself, but to give everybody in the writers room a way of talking about how to shape and structure a story so we can all be on the same page. Those thoughts spring to mind right away.
JM: I have met Seth and Matt. I have been to Stoopid Buddy, where they make “Robot Chicken”. And I will send this tape to them, because I think they will appreciate your kind words very much.
MB: Please do. They are the best.
JM: “Robot Chicken” is a stop-motion show. “Trolls” is a hand-drawn show. Did you notice some immediate dynamics going into “Trolls” – the differences between those animations as far as how you created these episodes?
MB: Yeah. In the middle of those two experiences, I worked on “Dawn of the Croods”, which is another DreamWorks show, so that was my real… my first fore from my stop-motion experience into hand-drawn animation. And I’d say “Yes”. The main difference is the lack of immediacy. For stop-motion, because of the way it’s done, it’s really localized. Like you said, you visited Stoopid Buddy. And the producers’ offices and the writers there are upstairs in one part of the building and then all the animation is going on right there – on the floor – just beneath them. I think what that causes is just a direct connection, probably easier communication, and abilities to rectify and change course. And with us, it’s a much more lumbering process where you have to communicate things overseas. You have to send a lot of documentation so that everybody stays on the same page. You’re talking to people who come from a different culture and language, and that just takes more time.
And then the advantages are: I think the nature of hand-drawn is more fluid than stop-motion. Doing a re-take in stop-motion is much more arduous – much more painstaking. You have to set-up entire sets, re-call puppets… set-up lights exactly the same way. It’s just a lot more intensive to make a correction than it is in hand-drawn.
JM: And you’ve been under an interesting time schedule when it comes to releasing these episodes. We had Season 1 in January, Season 2 in March and now Season 3 in August. Are you making those kinds of decisions or the heads of Netflix?
MB: That’s definitely not my decision. I don’t know who makes that call. But I think the spirit of it is that we want to give our audience episodes… that are spaced-out so that there’s always something really close to look forward to. That’s my take on it, anyway.
JM: Three seasons of a show in one year is rare in television, and I think that’s good for the fans who are really into this show.
MB: Right.
JM: When it comes to these “Trolls” episodes, is it the story content that comes first, or is it the songs? So much of this “Trolls” franchise has relied on the music and the vocals. Is it stories or songs that come first?
MB: Awesome question. After you watch an episode, the thing that you take away from it – now you might remember an episode with a really exciting, fresh premise. And you might be able to say, “Well, that was the one where Poppy got into the Complement Rap Battle” or when they had the Pillow Fight War because those premises stand out. But I think 9 times out of 10, the thing that people remember is, “That had that great song in it!” The songs are so catchy.
However, story does go first, just the way that we organize things. We write a story, we find a place in an episode where there’s an opportunity for a musical sequence. And then based on what the story is, we kind of have established what the theme of the song needs to be to support the moment. And then we send that to Alana D, who’s our music producer and she just… without fail… comes back with something way better than I was hearing in my head. Sometimes I’ll give her: “Something that feels like this song, or this song, or this song”, and she’ll come back with something that I like even better than the references I have her, which is amazing.
JM: That is fantastic. In Season 3, you introduce this “frenemy” who has a little bit more of a negative vibe coming into the really positive atmosphere. His name is Archer. Was it a risk to… throw a bit of negativity into this well-known, positive vibe?
MB: Yes it was. One of the things that we’re always trying to do with our show is to find conflicts, because when you have a community that’s entirely based on positivity and not only based on positivity, but we really want to write our characters as always having everybody else’s best interest in mind. So if that’s going to be your starting point, you really gotta work to sell that two Trolls might have a conflict between them – or that something arises that isn’t a “Critter of the Week” story where every time there’s a problem, there’s some monster out there that’s trying to get them. And we do those stories, too, but we don’t want to do them every episode.
So I say, the answer to your question is that Archer came out of a desire to create a character that does have more conflict – that immediately brings more conflict into the story. And I think… by the time the arc of his story is complete, that you’re gonna find that it really does fit in the Trolls world… in the same way that the Bergens belong in the Trolls world. And they certainly weren’t positive all the time, either.
JM: He’s a cousin of the Bergens.
MB: Yes.
JM: And he kind of shakes-up this dynamic. We’ve perceived Branch and Poppy to be a certain way for so long. If somebody new comes-in and tries to shake things up, it’s always interesting to see what happens to those core characters – how they feel about that. Now, Archer is part of the “Party Crashers”. Have you ever crashed a party, Matt?
MB: (laughs) I don’t think so. Nothing’s jumping to mind. No. I have to admit, I don’t think I have. Have you?
JM: I have. About 10 years ago, I was working at a TV station, and it was the Christmas Party. They didn’t know I was coming, and I decided to dress-up as Santa Claus. So I come into this ballroom dressed as Santa with a big bag full of candy. And it’s nice and funny for a few minutes, and then I accidentally spill all the candy out of the bag onto the dance floor. And then it becomes, “Oh – he’s that kid – and he came in as Santa Claus – and now we gotta clean all that up.” But it was a fun experience.
MB: I love it! (laughs)
JM: Walt Dohrn voices Fuzzbert. He co-directed the first “Trolls” movie. And he’s directing the “World Tour” sequel that’s coming out in 2020. Is he just all “Trolls” all the time? He’s gotta love being a part of this show and the next movie.
MB: And he’s the voice of Cloud Guy, too!
JM: And Cloud Guy, too. That’s right! There you go.
MB: Walt is… he has to be eating, sleeping and breathing “Trolls” because I know that feature job is a monster, and he’s just gotta be in it all the time. And then you’re right, the moment he gets a break, we drag him over to our show and he gets to do more “Trolls”. I really think, because he’s… a sincerely nice guy and has been so positive and supportive of our show and so game when he shows-up that I think that speaks highly of the quality of person he is. And then, he’s really game. He’s not a trained actor. That’s not his first thing, [which is] art, directing, character building. But when he comes to play, he really brings it. We’ve even made him sing a couple times. He’s really full-on committed to “Trolls” in every capacity – including our show.
JM: Has he given you hints or are you going to be having some connections to “Trolls 2” in your show?
MB: Yeah. The show is the same world, so we work really hard to keep continuity between our show and the movies. By and large, we are in communication with the feature team so that we keep the world consistent. We don’t know everything about what they’re doing, but they’ve given us guidelines to work within. And we tell them the basics of what we’re doing so everybody can stay on the same page and “Trolls” stays a unified whole.
JM: So Matt, Poppy loves these scrapbooks. What kinds of memories, in terms of working on this show, would you put into your scrapbook of your “Trolls” experience?
MB: The first thing I would put in there is… writing the Pilot of the show – the very first episode – because that was when I discovered that… I figured out what the joke of “Trolls” is, and why it’s fun and funny and engaging. And then, a little bit later, it would be when we were working on the episode “Big Poppy”, which is about the Complement Rap Battle. I felt like that was the first episode where we were not only making a clear story, where jokes were landing and what not, but we really upped our game in terms of direction and getting much more cinematic dynamic movement of the camera. It felt like we were clicking on all cylinders there.
I would also put in, for sure, working with my supervising producer, Frank Molieri, who’s been in the animation game for longer than I have and has been so supportive of the work that I’m doing. He’s held me together at times and been the kind of person that you want, not just to work with, but be friends with. He’s just an amazing man. So those things would go in for sure. And then outside of that, we have a great crew. We have awesome people here. I come to work every day. There’s not a single person that I’m trying to avoid. (laughs) And there’s such creative game people. Everybody wants to contribute to what we’re doing, and it shows. So those would be the things that would go in my “Trolls” scrapbook.
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