On the 11th April, 1986 Troma Entertainment released the first film in their most successful franchise - The Toxic Avenger. So seeing as this wonderfully crass flick has surpassed another year of existence today, here a bunch of facts for you to indulge in relating to it.
- Vincent D'Onofrio, who you may know as Pvt Pyle in Full Metal Jacket, Edgar the bug dude in Men In Black, and Orson Welles in Ed Wood, was originally signed on to play the part of Bozo, but after having the audacity to ask for a raise he was promptly fired and replaced by Gary Schneider.
- D'Onofrio is pretty famous, at least compared to the rest of the cast, but you couldn't call him a famous castmember since, y'know, he wasn't in it - but did you know The Toxic Avenger featured an Oscar winning actor? Well, pre-Oscar winner, of course. That actor was Marisa Tomei, who can be seen as an extra stepping out of a shower in a pink and blue striped bikini at the start of the film when Melvin runs through from the pool.
- Toxic Avenger is most fondly remembered by fans for the infamous head-crushing scene, in which a young boy is mowed down by the film's gang of teenage delinquents who are also responsible for the creation of Toxie. This effect was surprisingly simplistic to create, with the kid's head being substituted for a melon injected with corn syrup and food colouring, and a wig put on it for added "realism".
- Surprisingly though, this shot was not Toxic Avenger's most complained about scene, that award actually goes to the scene in which the guide dog is shot, which landed Troma the most complaints of any of its previous work up until that point. The scene was accomplished by teaching the dog to glide across the floor on command to simulate it flying back from gunfire, and its entrails were a combination of spaghetti and grey paint.
- One of the film's other memorable but less grisly scenes is the one of Pat Ryan, playing the Mayor, laying atop a giant sandwich. Fun fact about that, after shooting this scene, the crew allegedly ate the giant sandwich, as up until this point they had been living off abysmal catering food, and the idea of eating a large sandwich was incredibly tantalising despite the fact it had just been mounted by a semi-naked man.
- Despite its R rating, and all of the horrendous scenes we have just covered, the film managed to spawn a Saturday morning kids cartoon series in 1991, entitled Toxic Crusaders, and it even spawned its own children's toy line.
- Love for The Toxic Avenger continues to this day, including two stage musicals being developed in homage to it, the latter of which was written by Tony winner Joe Dipietro and Bon Jovi's David Bryan.
- At the time of writing, a reboot has been in talks for some time though never fully coming to fruition, however the most recent talks for the film currently have the guy who directed Green Room signed on, so if hopefully this is the incarnation that finally gets off the ground!
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