The Toxic Avenger

Episode 206: The Toxic Avenger (1984)

Theme: Troma Movies Month
Hosts: Oz & Curtis

This week, Oz and Curtis plunge headfirst into The Toxic Avenger — a movie marriage of Death Race 2000 + The Incredible Hulk + Dexter, all brought together by The Blind Side (Curtis is absolutely going to hell for that one). It’s the crown jewel of Troma: radioactive sludge, gym-class bullies, Polaroid-snapping sociopaths, a blind girlfriend with superhuman enthusiasm, and a mop-wielding mutant hero who tears limbs off with Looney Tunes logic. It’s trash, it’s art, it’s aggressively offensive, and it somehow holds together better than it has any right to.

Join your two favorite “Melvin, put on this tutu” podcasters as they mop through:

• A health club full of neon spandex, open toxic waste barrels, and the most stressful man alive: Bozo.

• The prank heard ’round Tro-ville — Melvin meets a goat, a window, and his destiny.

• The Mexican Place sequence: equal parts infamous, horrifying, and bizarrely well-choreographed mayhem.

• Sarah, the world’s most upbeat blind girlfriend, who can’t see Toxy’s gags but laughs anyway.

• The mayor, the cops, the Cretins, the pimps, the punks, and anyone else unlucky enough to meet a mop with a moral compass.

From tutu humiliation to deep-fryer fatalities to a finale involving the National Guard, civic uprising, and a surprisingly enthusiastic crowd for public disembowelment, Oz and Curtis break down a film that’s gleefully repulsive, unexpectedly coherent, and foundational to everything Troma ever became.

Final Verdict

Oz — 84 Toxic Barrels
Curtis — 75 “Melvin’s on Fire!”
Both — Convinced Lloyd Kaufman is the nicest man alive… who makes the most diabolically unhinged movies ever.