Funk Trolls are a type of Trolls appearing in Trolls World Tour and Trolls: TrollsTopia. Their leaders are the heads of The Funky Family, Queen Essence and King Quincy. They were the only other type of Troll to be represented in Trolls, since Cooper appeared in the movie.[1]
History[]
Pre-Trolls World Tour[]
A figure representing the "Funk" ancestor
At some point in the past, the ancestors of the 6 Tribes created 6 Strings for each type of music, after a sound was made. As their name suggests, they were centred around "Funk Music" and hold the String related to their culture.
Unfortunately, the Funk music string was stolen by the Pop Troll elder. The Funk elder devised a plan with the other tribes to retrieve its string from the harp. They grabbed their string from the white harp and ran away. This was also done by the other Tribes. Afterwards, Like the other tribes, They vowed to never meet the other tribes again and went separate ways. The Funk Trolls especially grew to fear the Pop Trolls and fled to the furthest corner of Troll Kingdom. They settled in the desert far from everyone else. Some time later, Vibe City was built.
Trolls World Tour[]
The current royal couple, King Quincy and Queen Essence, at some point of their lives got twin eggs. Unluckily, a bird stole one of their unborn sons, but fortunately this egg survived and hatched in Troll Village. This lost prince Cooper would later live among the Pop Trolls until the events of Trolls World Tour, which would bring about his reunion with his parents and his twin brother Prince D.
In the years after Cooper's abduction, the Funk Trolls worked together, and thanks to Queen Essence reached a point that they stopped fearing the return of the Pop Trolls. Meanwhile, Quincy looked for his lost son to the point he almost gave up by Trolls World Tour. Prince D also marked the start of the rise of Hip Hop among the Tribe, as during his teens he learnt how to remix and cut up his parents' music, adding this genre to the Tribes' Funk and soul focus.
The Funk Trolls soon had to face the conquest of the Rock Trolls, which they failed to counter due to their technology being disabled. King Quincy and Queen Essence would be briefly brainwashed into Rock Zombies until the Guitar was shattered. They would ultimately reunite with the other Tribes in the end after long-term isolation.
Biology[]
Anatomy[]
They have long necks and some are quadrupeds instead of bipeds like all other Trolls; quadrupedal individuals usually have three toes on each foot instead of the four digits of all other Trolls. They tend to have less hair than most Trolls by default (Trolls can grow their hair longer at will) and it often doesn't stick up into the air; members often have their hair as wool-like dreads. Instead, their bodies are covered in Troll hair or fur. Like the Pop Trolls, their skin is a soft felt-like texture. Their designs are loosely animal-based, and make them quite distinct to other Troll Tribes. Because of the patterns in their fur, these Trolls are the most colorful ones. The majority of the Tribe are naked save accessories such as sunglasses, hats and jewelry, with King Quincy's cape being an exception.
Members of this tribe are among the tallest Trolls in Troll Kingdom, and adults tower over the other Trolls from other Tribes (the typical Troll from all other Tribes is approximately 6 inches in height). Only a few Trolls such as Biggie and Skyscraper compare to the height of the members of this Tribe. Their fur is either randomly generated as long or short resembling a gown or dress, and have varying stripped patterns, which range from having 2 to 4 colors. The Funk Trolls have some of the largest amounts of random generation variables.
Most Funk Trolls are randomly generated.
The 3D models of Funk Trolls were made with a high amount of segments and layers compared to other Trolls, with Essence and Quincy relying on their own tool to render the bounce in their movements.
They mostly resemble as they did in Trolls World Tour, though they tend to have even more accessories, making them have a lot of detail, even for 2D design standards.
- Sexual Dimorphism
In Trolls World Tour females can be picked out by their long eyelashes. Aside from this, another indication of gender is their attire, with either gender more likely to have a certain item of clothing than the other. An example of this is that females may have hooped earrings. Certain hairstyles only generate on either gender, such as a small bun in females. Otherwise, there are no specific physical differences between the two genders.
- Juveniles
Baby Funk Trolls are notably much smaller than adults, having shorter necks and legs, and bigger heads in proportion of their body. They come from eggs with a small tuff of dreadlocked hair on the top, and a metallic texture with a funky design on.
- Eggs
Funk Troll babies hatch from chrome eggs with funky patterns on.
Habitat[]
Vibe City, a city within a UFO
They live in Vibe City, a ship with an almost surreal, science fiction-esque landscape of mirrors, neon lights and disco ball-like installations set against an often dark background. Even the plants are strange compared to other parts of Troll Kingdom. This makes their home more like venturing to an alien world compared to all other Tribes.
The city itself roams a desert that's completely covered in sand. The fact the city moves around makes the Tribe the only nomadic Trolls.
In Trolls: TrollsTopia, the Funk Tribe delegates, including Lownote, Rhythm & Blues, reside in Vibe Town, which was established in the episode "The Buddy System".
Diet[]
They're known to eat various kinds of "funky" fruit, which give them a reactionary surprise. Recipes in their cuisine include Mashed Potatoes and Groovy.
Tribal Abilities[]
- Tribal Traits
The Pop trolls have been using Cooper's fur to make Hug-Time Bracelets, indicating Funk Troll fur has special properties instead.
They often have four legs instead of two, with the front legs able to be used as hands for brief periods of time, giving them the ability to do bipedal actions. All four of their feet can function as hands, though the frontal pair are more likely to be used for this process of handling things as they'll temporarily lift them up to do bipedal movements. The fact they can have four feet, as well as their long necks, means that the members of this tribe can pull off dance moves that Trolls of other Tribes cannot, giving the Tribe some unique moves. This also results in the tallest members of their Tribe towering over most other Trolls from other Tribes.
- Intellectual
Those who understand Funk science such as Rhythm & Blues often display high levels of scientific knowledge and understanding, and thus are some of the most intelligent Trolls; Funk technology is simply part of their everyday lives. With the exception of Cooper, the typical Funk Troll appears to have an above-average intelligence, as Queen Essence and King Quincy understood social basics like differences. Lownote Jones referred to helping balance the planets "groovytational flow" in the Trolls: TrollsTopia episode "The Snug-a-lug Situation". Funk Trolls do, however, have an issue with their technology in that it's both often prone to technical oversights (Vibe City was taken out in Trolls World Tour simply by Riff unplugging the main light source) and isn't easily acccessible by Trolls of other Tribes (in the Trolls: TrollsTopia episode "The Funk Wash", The Clean Team had trouble cleaning Vibe Town for this reason).
Society[]
The Funk hand gesture
Behavior[]
They're a friendly and peaceful Tribe. However, in spite of their normally passive nature, they're more than willing to fight to defend themselves should the need arise, as seen when the entire kingdom mobilized to fight against Barb and the Rock Trolls.
Their ideals on life often fit in with their music, displaying a relaxed, unstressful and carefree reaction to things, though it tends to come out in different ways. This includes Cooper's lack of intelligence leaving him blissfully simple-minded, Lownote Jones' cool persona and social abilites, and Rhythm & Blues' fun-loving inventions and dislike of drama. Aside from Cooper (as with most things, it's likely due to him being raised by the Pop Trolls), the Funk Trolls use a lot of funky-sounding jargon such as "groovy" or "baby", and often say terms that sound gibberish (especially ones that have a "funky" flare to them) or double-talk.
The Funk Trolls also tend to display a lot of confidence in themselves. They only fray from their relaxed, confident and cool mannerisms when there's something going hugely wrong, but aren't often seen to rush to panic like some of the other Troll Tribes, such as the over-hysterical reactions of the Pop Trolls. They are keen to lift others up and often are open about being impressed by others, honest in their criticisms and have high expectations.
They can, however, be forceful when needed. In the Trolls: TrollsTopia episode "The Funk Wash", Lownote Jones noted that Funk technology had never trusted to be handled by Trolls of another Tribe. He allows The Clean Team to clean his ship (Vibe Town), but they ended up damaging it. By the time Lownote arrived, the ship was in far worse state than when he had left it. Lownote was okay with this, as he himself had done worst. However, he proposed them to clean it for free as punishment, but when they go to point out that they don't ask for payment, he warns them that he could have come up with a lot worse punishment due to the access to Funk technology he has at his disposal. Upon hearing that, the trio accept his punishment and clean the ship.
Social Structure[]
The Funk Trolls are lead by their royal family, which is known as the "Funky Family". The royal family is in charge of keeping the general population safe and will lead the battle defence of their people as well as make decisions.
They're friendly and focus on love, most Funk Trolls are chilled with each other.
It's common for Funk Trolls to nickname and shorten each other's names to just one letter. King Quincy had his name shortened to "Q", Prince Darnell to Prince D, and Rhythm & Blues are often referred to as "R" & "B". Meanwhile, their best friends from Vibe City are known as "Big J", "Little J" and "Medium J", which are likely shortened versions for three identical or similar names beginning with "J".
Inter-Tribe Relationships[]
When Poppy first met them, they were unwilling to ask for help from the Pop Trolls, believing like all Tribes, that differences separate everyone. But in their eyes, to deny their differences would be to deny the truth of who they are. They have come to terms with this, but still have trust issues. In "The Funk Wash", Jones had issues just handing the keys over to Vibe Town in order for The Clean Team to clean their vehicle, meanwhile in Trolls World Tour King Quincy and Queen Essence both displayed huge reluctance to combine Funk and Pop music to fight off Queen Barb and her Rock Trolls. In "Wormhole Scavenger Hunt", Pushy Poppy's behavior and demands to declare herself the winner of his Scavenger Hunt lead Lownote to be annoyed with her, but he simply teleported her to the Pillow Dimension because he felt she needed a nap, showing the Funk Trolls deal with other Trolls accordingly and are not above just dealing with the other Trolls when they have to.
In both 3D and 2D media, Funk Trolls display a relaxed understanding of the limitations of Trolls of other Tribes, and have a lot of patience for them, despite any shortcomings. From King Quincy and Queen Essence to Lownote Jones, many of the Tribe's more senior members display an open and honest critism towards others, and usually carry themselves with dignity, maintaining their relaxed mannerisms and cool approach, even when having to raise negative points to others.
However, outside of this Funk Trolls are shown in Trolls: TrollsTopia to be keen to get along with Trolls of all Tribes, Rhythm and Blues are willing to lend their inventions to bettering the lives of TrollsTopia's population, and Lownote lifts the spirits of Trolls of all tribes, which he even worries about in regards of how it would impact Guy Diamond's birthday with his presence in "The Makeunder".
Tactics[]
Thanks to their advanced technology, they're well equipped for battle and very organized. They likely would have been able to hold off the Rock Trolls' attack if their power wasn't cut.
Funk Trolls have some issues with camouflage compared to other Tribes such as Pop Trolls, due to their long neck and they can struggle to hide themselves. Cooper was captured by Chef in Trolls due to this very reason. They also tend not to rely on their hair as a form of defence so much either which hinders this ability as well. Lownote has also noted that what Pop Trolls call "mind-blowing" can be mundane and underwhelming to the Funk Trolls, though in this particular instance he was immediately proven wrong by Guy Diamond.
Funk Trolls settle their differences with a Time‐Honored Ceremonial Jam Battle, in which Funk Trolls battle against each other using bass guitar riffs and glares according to To Hug A Snug-A-Lug.
Holidays & Events[]
For a list of Holidays & Events that have occurred on this tribe, see Holidays & Events#Funk Trolls.
Culture[]
Funk Trolls have a high culture with a lot of influences on a science-fiction theme, Funk Troll culture and arts is often abstract and varied.
Architecture[]
Funk Trolls live in saucer-shape ships, their designs are after simple on the outside with basic yellow, glitter or sequins on the outside depending on which ship is looked at.
Inside, Funk Troll architecture is bizarre and strange, making use of neon lights and bright colors in general, as well as metallic accents and use of mirrored surfaces. Due to technological advances, Funk architecture can at times make no sense at all and they are the only Tribe to have architecture that truly seems to defy the laws of physics.
Music[]
The Funk Trolls love Funk music. Their music is focused on bringing out a "feel good" feeling, even when times are rough. The Funk Trolls despise bland music and not fans of auto-tuning, they like their unique sounds, against a deep bass riff. Their music generally focuses on creating unique sounds, it is a evolving music that has changed greatly over time to eclipse other genres such as soul, Rhythm and Blues, as well as hip hop.
The evolving genre of "Funk" is how Prince D and Cooper ended up only half-Funk, while Funk is their heritage, Prince D is half Hip hop and Cooper is half Pop, though the pair are identical twins. Both are capable of adding rap and their additional genres overlap to the Funk style as a result.
Dancing Style[]
The Funk Trolls' dancing has adapted to fit with their body type. It usually involves a lot of footwork, with quadrupedal ones taking advantage of having four feet over most Trolls' two. They also move their neck and head a lot in conjunction with this, and bend or swing it to the beat, which is another physical trait other Troll Tribes don't have. This means that they have some very unique dance moves at times compared to some of the other Tribes. For the most part, their dancing involves swinging arms, swinging their necks, crossing feet, circling their bodies and bobbing themselves to the beat of music. Movements are smooth and flow into each other fluidly, and they use their entire bodies to dance.
Technology[]
The Funk Trolls are shown as the most advanced of the Troll Tribes and it is a big part of their daily lives. Their entire city moves through the sky and inside is a series of futuristic bright lights and other technology. They have the ability to manipulate gravity for example, with a projection that resembles bubbles that enshroud a fixed environment and smaller spherical bubbles go down to envelop persons to bring them up into the city. When Barb attacks, a flaw was picked out with the Funk Trolls' technology; it relies heavily on power. Riff pulled a plug and the entire city was left in darkness.
In Trolls: TrollsTopia, the Vibe City-inspired Vibe Town ship in TrollsTopia was said to have technology that had its own sense of time, gravity and reality. Most stories involving Funk Trolls make use or show off their Funk technology in use.
In "The Fun Harvest", while Country Trolls grow their own pieces and Pop Trolls manufactor them, Funk Trolls simply take existing pieces of games and replicate them using replicator technology, which both Sky Toronto and Holly Darlin' both agree was better than their Tribes' methods. Their technology also allows them access to the The Multiverse.
The Funk Trolls are so used to their technology that they have issues when they have no access to it, as seen in "The Tech-less Breakfast". Funk Troll books open to the correct page upon command via vocals, and in "The Farmer and the Hound", it's shown they can also input the information inside the book directly into a Troll's brain, with Synth being taught maths via this method. In fact, Rhythm & Blues struggled in the earlier episode to grasp a basic cookbook to make pancakes because they had no idea how to read a normal non-Funk scrapbook, and didn't even know the concept of pages and turning them with your fingers and thumb.
Use of Fauna[]
The Funk Trolls are the only Tribe not seen using Fauna in their everyday lives, and are completely dependent on their technology.
Record Keeping[]
Similar to the Pop Trolls, the Funk Trolls are record keepers but like to record information on vinyl disks, recording history via song and cover art. As a result, their history keeping is much more accurate than the Pop Trolls' Scrapbooks, and they tend to tell history as it is. The Funk Trolls had been one of the Tribes able to identify Trolls from another Tribe having recognized both Pop and Rock Trolls.
Influences[]
The entire Tribe is inspired from Dam Things' 1965 giraffe Troll doll.
Their animal-like appearance is based on a Troll doll of a giraffe, one of a number of "Troll Animals" produced, which included other animals such as horses, llamas and dogs. Since Cooper was the first member of the Tribe to appear, most of its influences come from his earlier design.[2] Their animal-like appearance is an intended pun as Cooper was described as a literal "party animal". Originally their Troll origins were not given, Cooper himself was listed as a "Trollimal" in Trolls: Crazy Party Forest!, while in other media the family was called "Mystical Trolls".
As their name suggests, they're influenced by Funk music. Funk is a genre of music that was popular in the 1960s, being defined at a similar time to Pop and Rock. It's a product of the influences of Jazz, Soul and R&B, and was mostly performed by African-Americans. It has two major areas of focus: the bassline, having a preference for songs set against a deep tone as such, and creating unique sounds and effects, often with science fiction elements.
Of what little is seen so far, Queen Essence's bass guitar is actually a custom 3-string bass with the "G" note missing, which allows for faster fretting and more reliance on the bassline, and to match her husband. King Quincy himself is likely named after Quincy Jones, an infamous songwriter, musician and singer who greatly influenced Funk, as well as other genres such as Soul and R&B.
The Funk Trolls had been of the most challenging Tribes to design as the creative team didn't know how "Funk" should look. It ended up being their favorite to design. They decided that the Tribe shouldn't wear metallic costumes, but Funk should be in their DNA. Influence from NASA was also drawn, since the Tribe was set to have an urban feel.[3]
Known Members[]
The following is a list of the known members of this Troll Tribe, divided by the media where they first appeared in.
Movies[]
Trolls: TrollsTopia[]
- Big J, Little J (non-credited speaking roles) and Medium J - appeared in the episode "Rhythm & the Blues". They're three friends of Rhythm and Blues from Vibe City. They appear in the episode as holograms.
- Twooper, Twnetynineper and the other Cooper clones - appeared in "R&B Are On It!", he is a clone of Cooper, who was made so Cooper could attend both parties. At the end of the episode, it was revealed there's actually many, many Cooper clones.
Trivia[]
- Cooper's Funk Troll heritage means that he is the only Troll in Trolls to not be a Pop Troll or a variant thereof.
- Note that the Pop Trolls themselves had no problem accepting Cooper as a Troll because the term "Troll" meant themselves, and they had no idea of the greater scope of their world, or of the other Troll Tribes. In fact, they didn't have any issues with Cooper until it was pointed out that he wasn't like them in Trolls World Tour.
- In the Trolls: The Beat Goes On! episode "The Giver", Cooper tells Poppy his backstory beginning with "Darkness... Then I emerge from the womb...", implying that Funk Trolls are viviparous, rather than oviparous. This was later proven false, as Cooper was revealed to have been stolen as an egg from his parents by a bird.
- As shown in a cut scene for Trolls World Tour, the Trolls were originally meant to be viviparous up to some point in the development of the film.[4]
- As seen in the Trolls: TrollsTopia episode "Puffalo Express", Funk Trolls use their own "Funk Years" standard to calculate the rough estimated age of themselves and other Trolls. It's a reference to "dog years", the supposed age of a dog when scaled to that of a human, with 1 dog year being roughly equal to 7 human years.
- Since Trolls: TrollsTopia is a 2D-animated series and therefore only considered to be filler canon, it's unknown if this aging measurement standard also applies to the Funk Trolls in the 3D canon.
- The Funk Trolls' hand gesture means "peace out".
- In early concepts, the Funk Trolls wore armor suits based on the Funk genre's science fiction-esque approach from the 1960s. They were also more prude and less friendly.
References[]
- ↑ https://twitter.com/Trolls/status/1212100290964377600
- ↑ Cooper's design origins "The Art of DreamWorks Trolls", ISBN no.;278-1-937359-95-9
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ https://www.instagram.com/reel/CjHVFCvjMPo/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y%3D
| ||||||||
- †: retired lore
| Funk Trolls | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leaders: | ||||
| The Funky Family (King Quincy • Queen Essence • Prince Darnell • Prince Cooper) | ||||
| Other named members: | ||||
Lownote Jones • Rhythm • Blues • Big J • Little J • Medium J • Dr. Groovetavius Ravenhug | ||||
| Misc. related articles: | ||||
| Funk String • Vibe City • Vibe Town | ||||