"Two Party System" is the first segment of the 2nd episode of the first season of Trolls: The Beat Goes On!, and the 3rd episode overall in the series. It premiered on January 19, 2018.
Synopsis[]
Poppy faces a dilemma: Branch's birthday party is the same day as Bridget's!
Plot[]
At Bergen Town, Poppy meets with King Gristle Jr. to invite him to a special birthday party that she's throwing for Branch tomorrow. When Gristle learns of this, he tells Poppy that Bridget's birthday is also tomorrow. Poppy is shocked to learn this, but before the matter is settled, Bridget suddenly arrives and Gristle tells her that they were discussing about her birthday. Not wanting to disappoint Bridget that she hasn't prepared anything yet, Poppy is forced to announce to her that she's planning her a birthday party on Bergen Town tomorrow.
Over the next 24 hours, Poppy, along with Smidge and the Bergens, work tirelessly on assembling the preparations for both Bridget and Branch's birthday parties without neither one knowing. Poppy starts with Branch's birthday party, which she reveals is a "Lifeguard Party", where Branch acts as a lifeguard at the party for the entire day knowing that he loves enforcing safety. With Branch occupied, Poppy proceeds to travel to Bergen Town to commence Bridget's birthday party. She shortly stumbles into Smidge, who is working on with the fireworks for the finale, and asks her to cover her absence.
Poppy commences Bridget's party at Captain Starfunkle's pizzerÃa, and she happily enjoys herself on her first birthday celebration. Gristle then tells Poppy that their mayonnaise and anchovy pizza is lacking the anchovy toppings, knowing that the Bergens won't eat them. Poppy's alarm rings and she's unable to come up with solutions, as she's been absent for too long at Branch's party, so she asks Gristle to stall the Bergens for a while.
Arriving recklessly at Troll Village, Poppy checks on things with the party, which is going smoothly. However, the skies become clear, leaving the party scorched by the sun and making the trolls flee for shade. Poppy tries to fix the situation as she tries to find the umbrellas she brought, but realizes she gave them to the Bergens at Bridget's party, where they've used it for their drinks. When Poppy comes back to retrieve them, Bridget informs Poppy that some of the Bergens are strongly complaining about the lack of anchovies on their pizzas. Poppy tries to calm them down, but the Bergens threaten to start a riot if Poppy fails to deliver the anchovies in 10 minutes.
Not able to attend Branch's party for long, Poppy hurriedly plants the umbrellas for the party to continue while quickly netting a lot of anchovies near the lake. She returns back at Captain Starfunkle's, and barely manages to plant the anchovies in time as the Bergens grab their weapons for the incoming riot. With the riot prevented, Poppy is happy that she has done a job well done for Bridget, so she decides to leave to attend Branch's party. Bridget wants to express her gratitude to Poppy, but she finds her already leaving, and decides to follow her all the way to Troll Village.
Despite being notably tired, Poppy expresses her accomplishment of keeping Branch and Bridget's parties separate and unknown from the two and that it was worth it, but Bridget arrives and quickly notices that another party is occurring in the village. She tries to cover it up by saying it's her after party, but Branch shows up too and Poppy tries her best from preventing the two having a discourse about their birthdays. Unfortunately, Biggie and other Trolls arrive with a cake and start singing "Happy Birthday". With only moments away until the song finishes and Bridget finding out that she lied, Poppy manages interrupt the event by lighting up the fireworks. It stops the party but quickly results in chaos, as fireworks fire all around and Poppy gets hit, knocking her out.
When she wakes up, she finally relents and admits that she threw two separate birthdays. She apologizes to Branch and Bridget, thinking that she failed to give them the perfect birthday party, but the two are actually upset of how Poppy pushed herself into throwing two big parties, even though they don't need one to make them feel special because Poppy herself is already doing it. Poppy is relieved, but admits that it would've been a great achievement for her to pull off two parties on their actual birthdays. Branch tells her that today wasn't actually his birthday but tomorrow, making Poppy realize that Branch's party was meaningless and let out a scream.
Cast[]
- Amanda Leighton as Queen Poppy
- Skylar Astin as Branch
- David Fynn as Biggie
- Kevin Michael Richardson as Smidge
- Fryda Wolff as DJ Suki
- Satin & Chenille (non-speaking)
- Cooper (non-speaking)
- Sam Lerner as King Gristle Jr.
- Kari Wahlgren as Bridget and Bernice
- Kevin Michael Richardson as Groth, Chad, and Todd
- Buzby
- Other
Physical distribution[]
This episode is available on the "Trolls: The Beat Goes On! - Complete Seasons 1-4" DVD.
Trivia[]
- This episode mentions that the Bergens don't celebrate birthdays.
- Branch's birthday is revealed to be one day after Bridget's.
- According to a tweet from the official DreamWorks account, Branch is a Virgo, meaning that Bridget would either be a Leo (if Branch's birthday is the first day of Virgo's rotation) or a Virgo like Branch.
- Biggie's birthday was about animals, Smidge's based around extreme fun, and DJ's about sleeping. Branch's was a lifeguard party. Meanwhile, Bridget's party is a more traditional style.
- The title is a reference to the political situation of a Two-party system, wherein two political parties end up dominating a political situation.
- This episode was a subject of one of the Trolls Mad Libs stories.
- The storyboard animatic version of the entire episode was uploaded by Jim Mortensen on Vimeo and can be watched here.
Errors[]
This is the only episode to contain animation errors. So here's the clue:
- At one scene when Smidge get a yellow roller skates to Poppy, the shoelaces is blue instead of pink.