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CELEBRATING THE JACK KIRBY CENTENNIAL

Without Jack Kirby, many of the comic-based Saturday morning shows we've enjoyed wouldn't have existed. Today, we honor "The King" on his 100th.

TOXIC CRUSADERS

Some links may contain content not appropriate for younger audiences. Parental discretion is advised.

TOXIC CRUSADERS

(Syndicated, March 1-May 20, 1991)

Murakami-Wolf-Swenson, Sachs Family Entertainment, Troma Entertainment

MAIN CAST:
Rodger Bumpass – Toxie/Melvin Junko, Dr. Killemoff
Paul Eiding – No-Zone
Ed Gilbert – Major Disaster
Hal Rayle – Headbanger/Dr. Bender, Bonehead
John Mariano – Headbanger/Fender
Gregg Berger – Junkyard
Patric Zimmerman – Czar Zosta
Kath Soucie – Yvonne
Michael J. Pollard – Psycho
Chuck McCann – Mayor Max Grody
Susan Silo – Mrs. Junko

            Troma Entertainment had built itself up on a reputation for crass, crude, gory, and gratuitous low-brow entertainment. What better place to find fodder for Saturday morning television?

Troma's logo.

While working as the pre-production supervisor for Rocky, Troma Entertainment co-founder Lloyd Kaufman got the idea to create a horror film set at a health club. However, it would be a few years before he got to see those plans to fruition. Kaufman had initially formed a production company with Oliver Stone, but it fell apart shortly after Stone went his own way and his 1973 film, Schwartz: The Brave Detective, bombed horribly. Kaufman then partnered with Michael Herz to form Troma and produced a softball-themed sex comedy in 1979 called Squeeze Play.

Lloyd Kaufman amongst memorabilia from his empire.

When that movie became an unexpected hit, Troma was brought on to produce the time travel film The Final Countdown in 1980. While it performed well and was also a success, the stresses of working on a massive film led Troma to decide they would rather keep to the joy of simple low-budget fare and produced two more teen sex comedies. As the 80s rolled on, the teen sex comedy genre began to become saturated, leaving Troma to find a new niche to exploit. After reading an article that said horror films were no longer popular, Kaufman decided to resurrect his old idea and make his own horror film.

Toxie in all his hideous glory.

Rather than straight-up horror, Troma decided to make it a horror comedy that was partially a satire on superheroes and contained all the signatures Troma’s films would become known for. The resulting film was The Toxic Avenger, which was set in the fictional Tromaville, New Jersey: the toxic waste dumping capitol of the world and subsequent setting for all of Troma’s future films. Melvin Junko (sometimes Ferd, played by Mark Torgl) was the mop boy at the local health club where some of the regulars decided to torture him. Their ultimate prank ends up with Melvin in a tutu kissing a sheep, and in his humiliation he ran out a window and fell into a vat of toxic waste. That waste turned him into the monstrous and nigh-indestructible Toxic Avenger, aka Toxie (Mitch Cohen, voiced by Kenneth Kessler), who set out to get his bloody revenge and unleash justice on those that would prey on the weak. The film was written by Joe Ritter and directed by Herz and Kaufman (as Samuel Weil).

Theatrical poster.

The Toxic Avenger was released in 1984 and was completely ignored. It wasn’t until the following year when it was a long-running midnight movie at the Bleecker Street Cinema in New York City that it developed a solid cult following, and soon found regular broadcasts on cable. It became the film that introduced the world to Troma and their leanings into satire, gore, parody and nudity, as well as their tendency to save money by reusing props, actors and even footage from other films. Troma revisited Toxie in 1989 for a sequel that, after running extremely long, was chopped up into two sequels: The Toxic Avenger, Part II and Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie. John Altamura was initially cast as Toxie until he became disruptive on set and was replaced by Ron Fazio for the remaining scenes. The second film was written by Gay Partington Terry, with Kaufman and Herz credited for the third. Neither was a box office success when they were released in February and November; pulling in $793,000 and $364,000, respectively. A fourth, Citizen Toxie, would be released in 2000 and a reboot would receive a limited release in 2023 before gaining wider distribution in 2025.

 

In 1990, Kaufman sought to expand Troma’s audience base into the juveniles by bringing Toxie to the mainstream; namely, Saturday morning network television. Troma partnered with Murakami-Wolf-Swenson, who had brought another adult-oriented mutant-hero franchise to animation with their adaptation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the original comics, while not as brutal as the Avenger films, were decidedly more violent than the eventual cartoon version). Of course, the series would have to be almost entirely scrubbed of Troma’s signatures in order to be appropriate for young audiences. Also, to fulfill FCC requirements for children’s programming, the show took on a pro-ecological message.

The Crusaders: Dr. Bender, Fender, Toxie, No-Zone and Major Disaster.

Toxie (Rodger Bumpass) had a similar origin as he did in the films, except he didn’t go on a murderous vengeance spree on those who wronged him and future foes. The mop that he used to clean the health club where he worked was also changed by the toxic waste to be a super-powered, semi-sentient being (aptly named Mop). Further differences included Toxie was given a team of similarly mutated freaks. Amongst them was No-Zone (Paul Eiding), a test pilot that crashed into a silo of radioactive pepper giving him powerful sneezing powers; Major Disaster (Ed Gilber), a soldier that fell into a radioactive swamp and gained the power to control plants; Junkyard (Gregg Berger), a homeless man merged with a junkyard dog after he took shelter in a toxic waste-covered dog kennel that was struck by lightning; and Headbanger, a fusion of mad scientist Dr. Bender (Hal Rayle) an surfer-like singing telegram boy Fender (John Mariano) that became fused when Fender accidentally knocked them into Dr. Bender’s invention. Together, they became the Toxic Crusaders. They were often aided by Toxie’s tone-deaf girlfriend, Yvonne (originally a blind girl named Sara/Claire, voiced by Kath Soucie), and his mother (Susan Silo). Toxie was also given a pet in the form of Blobbie; a little blob of goo that came to the toxic waste dump that served as the primary base for the Crusaders.

Dr. Killemofff and Mayor Max Grody.

Their foes were the Smogulans; aliens from the planet Smogula who wanted to pollute the Earth in order to make it habitable for their people and conquer it. The primary ruler of the planet was Czar Zosta (Patric Zimmerman), whose forces on Earth were led by Dr. Killemoff (Bumpass). Psycho (Michael J. Pollard) was an obese bio-mechanical being that worked for Killemoff and had the uncanny ability to predict the future—specifically, the failure of Killemoff’s plans that often went unheeded. Hazmat-suited minions known as Radiation Rangers served as Killemoff’s foot soldiers and cannon fodder. Bonehead (Hal Rayle) was the lead health club bully (replacing Bozo—yes, that was his name—from the first movie) that led to Toxie’s creation and who was changed into a monster when Toxie threw him into a barrel of acid rain. Bonehead joined forces with Killemoff, but wasn’t much of an asset as he was brainless and incompetent. Also working with the Smogulans was the corrupt mayor of Tromaville, Max Grody (based on the mayor from the first movie, voiced by Chuck McCann). George Goodchild and Carlos Huannte handled the character designs.

Dr. Killemoff, Bonhead and Psycho.

 Toxic Crusaders (so named because Avengers was deemed too violent sounding) premiered in syndication on March 1^st, 1991. Even though they couldn’t go to the lengths of brutal, dark, gross-out humor that the films it was based on did, the series had its fair share of adult-oriented jokes, toilet humor, and often broke the fourth wall by being self-referential. The series was written by a combination of MWS and Troma alum, including Jack Mendelsohn, Carole Bruce Mendelsohn, D.J. MacHale, Ned Candle. Walt Kubiak, Jeffrey W. Sass and Andrew Wolk, along with Chuck Lorre and Herz. Lorre, who had written the Turtles theme, co-wrote this series’ theme with Dennis C. Brown. Brown and Larry Brown handled the rest of the series’ music. Although the Avenger films were popular enough to inspire enough networks to put decent orders for the series, they weren’t sufficient enough to guarantee a second season. The show ended after its 13-episode run.

Marvel Comics released an 8-issue comic series that ended up cancelled alongside their other TV-based projects. In the UK, Fleetway Publications published their own series that ran two issues longer. Playmates, which produced the toys for Ninja Turtles, also made a line of figures in a similar style. Bandai and Sega released side-scrolling platform beat ‘em up video games for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy and Sega Genesis developed by TOSE, Realtime Associates, and Infogrames (now Atari SA), respectively. A SNES version was planned but never released. Other merchandise included trading cards by Topps; coloring/activity books and puzzles produced by Golden Books; junior novels by Boxtree; a Colorforms playset; a card and board game by International Games; lunchboxes by Thermos; costumes by Collegeville; and costume patterns by McCall’s Patterns.

Ad for Trick or Treat Studios' vinyl masks of Toxie and Killemoff.

Nearly 30 years later, Super7 released new toys as part of their Keshi, ReAction and Ultimates toylines between 2017-24. In 2023, toy designer Justin Ishmael released a large vinyl figure of Polluto; a Godzilla-like pollution creature created by Killemoff that was one of the unproduced figures for the cancelled second wave of the Playmates line. That same year, Trick or Treat Studios would release figures of Toxie and Killemoff and a metal sign, as well as a Halloween candy pail in the form of Toxie’s head and masks of Toxie and Killemoff the following year. In 2024, as part of the growing craze of retro-style arcade beat ‘em ups, Retroware released a four-player game based on the series. Terror Vison Records & Video released the series’ soundtrack on vinyl records. 

Add for the Toxic Avenger collection.

In late 1991, Golden Book Video released several episodes to VHS. In 2004, Troma released Toxic Crusaders: The Movie, which edited the first three episodes together into a single film. In 2005, the first four episodes were presented in their original format in Toxic Crusaders: The Television Series Volume 1. In 2008, the complete series was included as part of The Complete Toxic Avenger set, which contained all four Avenger movies. By the end of 2024 for the film’s 40^th anniversary, the complete series was remastered and released onto Blu-ray with bonus features. The series has been made available to view on YouTube initially from the official Troma channel, and has been available to stream on Prime, Tubi, Screambox, Plex, and Troma Now!

EPISODE GUIDE:

“The Making of Toxie” (3/1/91) – Melvin Junko becomes Toxie and fights the forces of Dr. Killemoff with the aid of No-Zone and Major Disaster.

“This Spud’s for You” (3/8/91) – Killemoff plans to put his chemicals in the food of a local restaurant while Dr. Bender and Fender end up mutated and merged into Headbanger.

“Club Fred” (3/15/91) – Killemoff and his Radiation Rangers clear out a retirement community to make room for an alien arrival.

“Tree Trouble” (3/22/91) – Killemoff plans to push “Smog on a Can” while Major Disaster falls in love and begins having trouble with his powers.

“Pollution Solution” (3/29/91) – Killemoff sends the Radiation Rangers to invade the Toxic Dump to prepare for a Smogulan invasion.

“A Sight for Sore Eyes” (4/6/91) – Mayor Grody moves the Crusaders to his penthouse in order to clear the dump for Czar Zosta.

“Mr. Earth: Superhero” (4/13/91) – A new superhero joins the Crusaders against Killemoff, but ends up causing more harm than good.

“Toxie Ties the Knot” (4/20/91) – Zosta’s daughter arrives in Tromaville and falls in love with Toxie.

“Invasion of the Biddy Snatchers” (4/27/91) – Zosta replaces Killemoff with General GarBage, who plans to replace senior citizens with evil clones.

“The Snail Must Go Through” (5/6/91) – New superhero Snail Man helps the Crusaders fend off the latest pollution attack while also preparing for Yvonne’s concert.

“Nab That Toxie Cab” (5/6/91) – The Crusaders start their own cab company and Yvonne grows jealous when Toxie falls in love with his cab.

“Still Crazy After All These Shears” (5/13/91) – Mayor Grody’s tree-planting campaign actually involved alien seeds that grow into a Weed Monster.

“That’s No Villain, That’s My Mom!” (5/20/91) – Toxie’s mom ends up switching minds with Killemoff while the Crusaders deal with his convention for hideous creatures.

Originally posted in 2017. Updated in 2025.

JAY THOMAS DEAD AT 69

You can read the full story here.

Thomas was an actor who appeared in an episode of Batman: The Animated Series as a guard, Aaahh!!! Real Monsters as Disembodied Voice, and Barry Anger in Teacher's Pet, and starred in Hercules: The Animated Series as Ares. He also provided a voice for an episode of Goof Troop.

JERRY LEWIS DEAD AT 91

You can read the full story here.

Jerry Lewis was an actor, comedian, singer, producer, director, writer and humanitarian best known for his partnership with Dean Martin and being the long-serving chairman of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. While Lewis has been parodied and homaged in many productions, his sole Saturday contribution was the creation of Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down?, which utilized his name and likeness and where he made uncredited contributions to the series' scripts.

MIGHTY MOUSE PLAYHOUSE

MIGHTY MOUSE PLAYHOUSE/

MIGHTY MOUSE AND THE MIGHTY HEROES

(CBS, December 10, 1955-September 2, 1967)

Terrytoons, CBS Films

MAIN CAST:

Roy Halee, Sr. & Allen Swift – Mighty Mouse (shorts)

Tom Morrison – Mighty Mouse (shorts & new content), Oil Can Harry (shorts)

Herschel Bernardi – Strong Man, Diaper Man, Tornado Man

Lionel G. Wilson – Cuckoo Man, Rope Man

            In 1942, Terrytoons writer Izzy Klein became fascinated by the Fleischer Studios Superman theatrical shorts and decided to create a parody starring an insignificant animal with similar powers. He proposed “Super Fly” at a Terrytoons story conference, but boss Paul Terry nixed the idea. Instead, he wanted to the idea to feature his go-to animal: a mouse.

Super Mouse and his original damsel, Mitzi.

            “Super Mouse” made his debut in theaters on October 16, 1942 in The Mouse of Tomorrow (a play on a nickname often attributed to Superman, “the man of tomorrow”) released by 20^th Century Fox. In it, the city of Mouseville was under constant siege by cats until one mouse went to a supermarket, bathed in super soap and ate super celery and cheese that gave him the powers to fight back and save the populace. Among the standard powers of flight, super strength and invulnerability, he was also shown to have x-ray vision, psychokinesis, time-manipulation abilities and could even use the red contrail he left when he flew as a band of solid, flexible matter.

Poster showing the new name over the original colors.

Super Mouse (Roy Halee, Sr., Tom Morrison & Allen Swift at various points in the series) appeared in six subsequent shorts between 1942 and 1943 when Terry learned of the existence of another Supermouse appearing in the pages of Nedor Publishing Co.’s comic, Coo Coo Comics, who made his debut just before the first short was released. Not wanting to promote another company’s creation, Terry renamed his character “Mighty Mouse” and later altered the color of his uniform from blue and red to yellow and red. The newly christened Mighty Mouse made his debut in 1944’s The Wreck of the Hesperus. The original shorts were later altered to reflect the new name.

Mighty Mouse's new supporting characters.

Although Mighty Mouse never reached the heights of popularity as other theatrical cartoon stars, he became Terrytoons’ most popular character; often appearing on promotional material for other Terrytoon projects and in Terrytoon Comics, published by Timely Comics (precursor to Marvel). In 1945, Terrytoons decided to change the format of the series. Until that point, Mighty Mouse would only appear in the last third of his shorts for a last-minute rescue. It was decided to give him a new rival in old Terrytoon villain Oil Can Harry (Morrison), remade a cat that always had evil intentions towards Mighty Mouse’s new main squeeze, Pearl Pureheart. Their adventures were done completely in mock opera beginning with Mighty Mouse and the Pirates, similar to how they were presented in Harry’s original theatrical outings in the Fanny Zilch series. 1947’s A Fight to the Finish began the plot device of starting each short off with Mighty Mouse and Pearl in peril as if a continuation from a previous chapter’s cliffhanger ending. It was during this period that Mighty Mouse’s catchphrase “Here I come to save the day!” debuted.

By the 1950s, theatrical shorts began to fall out of fashion due to the loss of audiences in favor of the growing medium of television and the popular and financially beneficial low-budget, stylized, limited animation techniques presented there. In 1955, Terry retired and sold his studio to CBS; however, Fox retained the theatrical distribution rights. CBS decided to take the existing Mighty Mouse library and broadcast them on television. On December 10, 1955, they launched Mighty Mouse Playhouse, which was comprised entirely of the 80 theatrical shorts produced during Terrytoons’ run. The only new content were commercial bumpers and Colgate commercials with Morrrison reprising his role, as well as a half-hour 1961 cartoon made in cooperation with UNICEF. The show’s theme was the theatrical theme written by Marshall Barer and composed by Philip Scheib, was originally credited to The Terrytooners with Mitch Miller and orchestra, but in later years it was revealed it was actually done by a group called The Sandpipers (not to be confused with the more well-known band of the same name).

The Mighty Heroes: Diaper Man, Cuckoo Man, Strong Man, Rope Man and Tornado Man.

The show ran for an impressive 11 seasons pulling in respectable ratings. However, as the 1960s rolled on, networks began producing more and more new content for Saturday mornings that began to overshadow and edge out the increasingly dated animation presented in the low-budget Terrytoons shorts. CBS decided to compliment the show with a new feature and eventually settled on Ralph Bakshi’s The Mighty Heroes.

The Mighty Heroes was a play on the growing superhero genre, particularly the successful premiere of the live-action Batman earlier in the year, with the most goofy and impractical heroes imaginable protecting the city of Goodhaven. The team was comprised of Strong Man, a farm boy-turned-big city mechanic with super strength; Tornado Man, a weather forecaster who could create tornadoes by spinning very fast; Diaper Man, a fully articulate baby that led the team and could use his bottle as a bludgeon weapon or to fire high-pressure streams of liquid (all Herschel Bernardi); Rope Man, a British sailor that could turn into an unlimited length of rope (and often got tangled into knots); and Cuckoo Man, a bird-shop owner with avian powers that changed into costume by jumping up into a cuckoo clock and popping out its little door (both Lionel G. Wilson). All of the heroes could fly, but a running gag had the rest of the team emitting jet sounds while Cuckoo Man would always lag behind with jalopy sounds.

Only 20 episodes of The Mighty Heroes were produced before Bakshi left Terrytoons. The show alternated between showing two Heroes episodes around a Mighty Mouse short, and breaking up a singular episode to bookend two shorts. The series was also renamed Mighty Mouse and the Mighty Heroes. Unfortunately, the show went up against DePatie-Freleng’s similar, and more popular, series, The Super 6, and little was done to ease the declining ratings. CBS removed the show from the schedule the following season and allowed it to enter syndicated reruns; both together and with the two different shows separated (Mighty Mouse ran considerably longer than the Heroes). The Heroes did get a brief second life as the first ten episodes were released as theatrical shorts by Fox between 1969 and 1970. They made one additional appearance with Mighty Mouse in an episode of the Bakshi-produced Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures.

An issue of the Dell series.

In 1967, Dell Comics produced a four-issue Heroes comic series. They returned to comics in a one-shot produced by Spotlight Comics in 1987. In 1998, Marvel published another one-shot that explored the untold origin of the Heroes as part of their Paramount Comics imprint. In 1989, Anchor Bay Entertainment released two VHS collections containing 6 Heroes episodes.

EPISODE GUIDE (The Mighty Heroes):

“The Plastic Blaster” – The Raven uses the Plastic Blaster to terrorize Goodhaven.

“The Frog” – The Frog plans to flood Goodhaven with water from the swamp.

“The Junker” – The Junker’s robot dogs eat anything metal, and he sets them loose on Goodhaven.

“The Shrinker” – The Shrinker shrinks the Goodhaven bank in order to steal it.

“The Ghost Monster” – The Heroes face the Ghost Monster that terrorizes the city every century.

“The Stretcher” – The Stretcher’s robots steal everything made of rubber in town.

“The Monsterizer” – The Monsterizer uses his machine to change the Mayor and Police Chief into monsters.

“The Drifter” – The Drifter uses his anti-gravity gun to lift Goodhaven up and hold it for ranom.

“The Shocker” – The Shocker attempts to steal Goodhaven’s power supply.

“The Enlarger” – The Enlarger calls out the Heroes by unleashing giant bugs on the city.

“The Toy Man” – The Toy Man’s toys come to life at night and rob their owners blind.

“The Dusters” – The Shrinker’s new sidekicks sprinkle dust that makes the citizens fall asleep or laugh hysterically.

“The Big Freeze” – A mad scientist uses his genius to freeze all the citizens of Goodhaven.

“The Timekeeper” – NO SYNOPSIS AVAILABLE.

“The Scarecrow” – A lightning bolt brings a scarecrow to life and he’s determined to spread fear throughout Goodhaven.

“The Time Eraser” – NO SYNOPSIS AVAILABLE.

“The Return of the Monsterizer”

“The Paper Monster” – NO SYNOPSIS AVAILABLE.

“The Raven” – NO SYNOPSIS AVAILABLE.

“The Bigger Digger” – The Frog return and uses his Bigger Digger to cut away pieces of land in order to replace it with swamp water.


Original post 2017. Updated in 2020.