Toxic Crusaders

The Toxic Crusaders Animated Series (1991) was recently added to Tubi. The storyline follows the Toxic Avenger, and his deformed friends with super powers, who are battling Dr. Killemoff who wants to pollute Tromaville and bring aliens who can reside in a more toxic environment. Can Toxic stop Dr. Killemoff and his mutant friends?

This series was created by infamous Stanley Lloyd Kaufman (The Toxic Avenger) and contains the voices of Gregg Berger (Transformers, Grimlock), Rodger Bumpass (SpongeBob SquarePants, Squidward), Paul Eiding (Transformers The Movie, Perceptor), Chuck McCann (DuckTales) and Michael J. Pollard (Scrooged).

The animation in this series is classic 90s and a helluva lot of fun, as is the characters. The circumstances are hilarious and Michael J. Pollard kills this series. The characters, technology, weapons and vehicles they had in this were great. I'm shocked this didn't have more than 1 season and 13 episodes. This reminded me of the Swamp Thing series in a lot of ways. This also has an underrated theme song and while the adventures were straightforward and predictable, the characters and their one liners weren't. And who doesn't love a terrible singing character, Toxie's girlfriend, played by Katherine Ellen Soucie from Rugrats.

Overall, this is an underrated animated gem that's a must see for fans of Troma Entertainment. I would score this a 7.5/10 and strongly recommend it.

It's one of those great sadnesses when you realise one of your favourite childhood TV shows, frought with possibilities, only ran for 13 episodes. Maybe they did the old Ren & Stimpy thing, where you change the scenes around to make new plots.

Anyway, similar to the movies.....Apolcalyse Inc, an evil corperation run by Dr. Killemoff, an alien. They dump Toxic Waste and trash everywhere in New Jersey, especially here in Tromaville. A complete and hopeless nerd, Melvin Junko falls into some waste and becomes THE TOXIC CRUSADERS, Tromavilles favourite hideously deformed mutant of superhuman size and strength and the first superhero from New Jersey.

Joining him were his Mom, his girlfriend (blind...well, she's have to be really), Junkyard-a half dog/half man, NoZone-who has sneezes that go up to warp 5, Major Disaster-who can control plants.

Their opponants featured Psycho-Killemoff's henchmen, Bonehead-an old bully of Melvin's who has become a walking skeleton.

Overall, the aim of the series was to entertain (it wasn't just a toy commercial) and to educate about the enviroment.

Unfortunately, the TOXIC CRUSADERS never did beat Apololypse Inc.

(Trivia: a live action TOXIC CRUSADERS film was to be made by New Line Cinema, but they didn't honour their agreement....Troma took them to court)

TOXIC CRUSADERS THE MOVIE is available at amazon.com. It's the first 4 episodes stiched together....it's entertaining enough.

Enjoy!

AM

The movie is merely 3 episodes of the short lived cartoon series loosely based on the cult horror movie "The Toxic Avenger" and it's sequels. Chalk it up to what the hell were they thinking? Of course after seeing this cartoon series about a nerd being turned into a hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength, who then teams up with a gang of other mutants to make the world ecologically friendly by doing battle with an alien and his minions, and afterwords buying the endless toy tie ins, kids would want to see the movies that it was based on. But even disregarding that warped notion, the cartoon was ludicrously bad and had an unpalatable 'save the environment' scenario that was only topped by the simply repulsive indoctrinating garbage that was "Captain Planet". Personally I awaiting the cartoon happy house based on "Phantasm" and "Street Trash"

My Grade: D

DVD Extras: An intro by Lloyd Kaufman; Part 1 of the 12 part serial "Rader Men from the Moon"; Chapter 1 of the 12 part serial "Undersea Kingdom"; the same damn Radiation March that's on EVERY Troma DVD (I HATE that thing with a passion now); a promo for Lloyd autobiographical book; a digital version of a Toxic Crusaders comic book; Trailer for "A very Classic Cristmas"

This is another under the radar gem, this show is also another childhood gem as I saw this when I was about eight and at that time, I was a "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" fan, when this show caught my eye it really took me by surprise as it was an animated show slightly similar to that property but a lot stranger and just as cool. I honestly never even knew that this show was a licensed animated adaptation of "The Toxic Avenger" let alone the movie company "Troma", this show led me to both as the film is one of my favorites of all time as well as a fan of "Troma".

But beside that this was a fun animated show even though in my book it's not quite a classic licensed cartoon on the level with "The Real Ghostbusters", "Men in Black.", etc. But came pretty close. Yeah, I know making a licensed animated adaptation for kids based on an extremely R rated film is kind of of strange but back then there were really no rules on what kinds of film adaptations you can do for a certain audience.

Personally, I'm glad because it shows how people back then were willing to take chances and we're worried about Politically Correctness or Cancel Culture two big barrels of toxic waste that truly are polluting our entertainment environment. Seeing this show at times makes me wonder about what other R rated movies could have been made into licensed animated shows.

The animation is solid it's about the same kind that you would see from "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" (80's show) and certain other shows in the 80's. I really like the character model roster who are animated well; from Toxie whom still looks like his live action counterpart but a lot of the other characters from the Crusaders to the Bad Guys, whom are all ugly yet uniquely cool looking at the same time much like some of the "Turtles" character roster. The theme song is an honorable mention in personal favorite theme songs as well as another under the radar theme song, the song just has this rocking tune that is catchy.

The action is solid really like seeing Toxic and the crusaders kick ass, but one other thing about them is each of them much like the "X-Men" have superpowers, which are each unique and have different functions. Toxic doesn't really have superpowers except for his superstrength and having a mop being alive as a useful pet. Nose Zone who has the power of wind though sneezing. Major Disaster superpower is the strongest and best in my book, like "Swamp Thing" he has elemental powers where he's able to command the elements of nature.

Story and characters are solid, from Toxie whom is the usual straight man. Really like how he reacts to certain things going on around him which feel a little how any of us would, in a way he's really the only sane person in town.

But I also really like the bad guy Doctor Killamoff whom is another underrated villain, this guy is pretty much a corporate jerk. Really like the voice where he is menacing but due to his over the topness he's also kind of funny. But one thing that's interesting about him is his motive where he's polluting the environment to create a livable one for him and his people from the other dimension. And I like that because here they did something different with the whole environment pollution premise which at times is always simply about greed which is still here, but they also put in alien invasion, so I thought that was creative showing how you can do more with an old premise.

Show could be a little dark as it's hinted that Killamoff may have already succeeded in his scheme of polluting most of the Earth and that Tromaville is the last or one of the last non polluted areas. This just adds to Killamoffs menace and makes the stakes all the higher for the Crusaders because if the Crusaders fail to defend Tromaville then it's game over for us permanently.

What makes this show truly unique is that is in its tongue and cheek humor as well as some cleverness in it. This show is kind of self-aware of how ridiculous and crazy it really is. It's interesting how it has that two way affect similar to Batman 66 where when you watch this as a kid it seems straight forward, it's funny but some jokes might fly over your head. But when you watch this when you are older, the show I find even funnier as you can see certain jokes you've never picked up on. The show does have a good message on taking care of the environment but it not preache, doesn't shove it down our throat, but is stuttle as it focuses mainly on one thing having fun.

It would be cool having an animated revival of "Toxic Crusaders" but it could be one for adults so it would be truer to the "Troma" fans where we would see the crude humor and over the top graphic violence which would be cool as we'd see the Crusaders kick ass more but turned up to 11. This show could be on a streaming channel or even on the Adult Swim block on Cartoon Network which would be fitting as most of there stuff can be even stranger and messed up than "Troma"

Though if anything it would be cool to have a live action version of this show, there are two ways this can happen either "Troma" thinks of making a fifth sequel to "The Toxic Avenger" where we would see Nose Zone and Major Disaster come as supporting characters and Dr. Killimoff does become the main villain. Or this can be a sequel to that upcoming revival movie to "The Toxic Avenger" that is if it doesn't suck. Well thoughts to consider anyway.

"Toxic Crusaders is worth a crusade.

Rating: 3 stars.