The McElroy Brothers Will Be In Trolls 2: The Final Chapter

March 6, 2020 9:28 AM

It all comes down to this.
posted by Tevin (11 comments total)

Damn. They really did it gang.

I was inevitably going to take my kids to see this in theaters but now I am no longer dreading it! It will be fun to be on the look out for the brothers.
posted by Tevin at 10:16 AM on March 6, 2020

This podcast and the whole saga has been a bright light in an otherwise rough, rough time.

Parasocial relationships are weird but I'm so happy for and of the brothers.
posted by slimepuppy at 10:40 AM on March 6, 2020 [1 favorite]

This was hilarious and just the right mix of schmoopy. As soon as Joel said "I'm doing this because I love them" I thought, yup, there it is, there's that Emmy juice.

I also enjoyed how when Griffin was talking about not compromising his values for fame, I was like yes, this is that great thing Griffin does where he's serious about something but he pretends like he's pretending to be serious but he's really not pretending, he's just saying something true in a funny way. I love that shit.
posted by bleep at 10:52 AM on March 6, 2020 [2 favorites]

You know, I like these guys, but once you're friends with Lin-Manuel Miranda, hang out with Jimmy Buffet, and are represented by an agent from CAA, acting like getting a voice gig on an animated move is some sort of con job pulled by lovable outsiders starts feeling a lot more like an act than an impossible dream.
posted by maxsparber at 1:51 PM on March 6, 2020 [2 favorites]

When the first seeds of this were planted on the episode of MBMBAM it felt ridiculously impossible but at this point it seems inevitable. When they have an interview in Entertainment Weekly it doesn't feel like a story about underdogs any more. Still an enjoyable story but uh, definitely requires a certain suspension of disbelief.
posted by Tevin at 6:01 PM on March 6, 2020

I love how when they first found out about it they were like "These fuckers are making fun of us they don't really want to be in Trolls 2" because of course nobody that wants to be in a movie does it by making a goofy podcast about it. But then their agent got in touch, which is the actual right way to get in a movie, and suddenly the wheels start turning.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:13 PM on March 6, 2020

I dunno I got the sense that it definitely could have gone the other way, I kind of heard in the producer's voice that they had a discussion about what to do about this annoyance, how they would deal with future precedent and whether or not it had some brand alignment they could spin ("there were edibles involved..?") It seems like this only worked because they caught the attention of one guy who liked their schtick, that's not really inevitable. Like Lin and Jimmy might be their friends but neither one is actually getting them gigs.
posted by bleep at 6:24 PM on March 6, 2020

Sure, they still had to have luck, but it's more similar to the kind of luck a professional voice actor needs than the kind of luck a complete outsider would need. They had an agent who knew someone who he thought would like them, that's standard industry stuff, not outsider stuff. They also run a company that produces comic books and I'm pretty sure have a deal with Marvel? Being friends with Jimmy and Lin and having a multimedia empire don't get you roles, but they absolutely get you that meeting easier. Grants legitimacy.
posted by neonrev at 7:08 AM on March 7, 2020

I still don't think that having a little bit of starting capital makes it not an underdog story. They have the minimum of social capital you probably need to get stunt casted. And that's really what this goal was, not just to get a voice acting job (which they already did & didn't make a big deal out of), but to be legitimized by Dreamworks as an *act* that *could be* stunt casted. They're kind of playing a game in the space of "how famous are we really? How much social capital do we really have?" that flips back and forth in perspective from "huge/lots among people who know us" to "not at all/none to people who don't know us" which then becomes "How do we get more people to know us then? Can we just, barge in? That's not usually ok to do... unless?" There's humor in these contrasts and Justin took a big swing to put the contrasts front and center with this project. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
posted by bleep at 10:53 AM on March 7, 2020 [2 favorites]

They also run a company that produces comic books and I'm pretty sure have a deal with Marvel?

The first is definitely not true, not sure about the second. (Lots of people write for Marvel.)
posted by kmz at 5:07 PM on March 7, 2020

I agree with bleep, to me the humor of this particular podcast/project has always been that juxtaposition between "we have a reasonable amount of internet fame and success" and "...but like, enough to get stunt cast in a big budget animated movie??? LET'S FIND OUT". An equally funny, if less heartwarming and underdog story-style satisfying result would have been if they hadn't succeeded. After all, their careers in no way rely upon this bit of stunt casting; they're getting some voice acting work on their own, they have many successful projects, an animated adaptation of TAZ is in the works with NBC...they're doing great! And if Trolls World Tour hadn't worked out, there would have been plenty of humor to mine in how they failed where rando youtubers succeeded.
posted by yasaman at 9:21 PM on March 10, 2020 [3 favorites]