From Rated-R to Saturday Morning Cartoons: How Toxic Crusaders Made Grimy Cool for Kids (And Why Your Inner Scorpio Loved It)
Added on August 21, 2025 inEntertainment News Cards, Movie News Cards
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Ever wonder if the stars could predict when an R-rated horror icon would put on a cape and turn into a kid-friendly cartoon hero? Well, the universe works in mysterious ways—and so does the media biz. Today, we’re diving into the wonderfully bizarre saga of The Toxic Avenger, a cult classic from the shock-happy folks at Troma, who somehow cleaned up their nasty, gory mascot for a 1991 kids’ show called Toxic Crusaders. Talk about Mercury retrograde magic—transforming madness into mainstream! From battling bullies and toxic waste to fighting alien invaders with a sentient mop sidekick, this show proved that even the nastiest antihero can find a new audience when the stars align just right. Join me as we unpack how this freakshow went from blood and guts to a squeaky-clean, eco-warrior crew that somehow charmed 90s kids—and check out what’s brewing for 2025, including a shiny new video game revival. Ready to mop up some cosmic weirdness? LEARN MORE
Kids’ Media is one of the most lucrative things you can get into. Really, advertising anything to children is and has always been the way to go. Remember when cigarette companies tried to appeal to children with how cool it was? While that has gone away, although E-Cigs definitely go for the subliminal approach, getting stuff out there to kids is big business. From the wholesome like Bluey and Miss Rachel to today’s topic, The Toxic Avenger, wait what? Yeah, today we are talking about one of the surprisingly many R rated, or at least not aimed at children, properties that were directly turned into a kid’s property, and this one may be the most surprising. How could it possibly translate from the outright outlandish Troma series that was designed to shock and offend, to a 13-episode run of an early 90s kids’ cartoon? While the remake has finally come to fruition and is getting released, let’s look at how the Toxic Avenger cleaned up his act, formed a team, and became the Toxic Crusaders.
Cartoons and animation haven’t always been just for kids either in the moment or retroactively. Looking back at the inappropriate or racist images of the old pre-1970s things including Looney Tunes is the best example. For the record, I still really enjoy all of them and appreciate that they weren’t altered or censored but rather kept intact with an explanation of it being of its time and to delete it would be to pretend it never happened. Cartoons definitely became more actively made for adults as time went on, though, from the very mature stuff we were getting overseas to the stuff here like Watership Down, Fritz the Cat, or Heavy Metal which I have covered and loved. A whole network called Adult Swim was created to showcase cartoon shows made for adults or at least not made for young children and both movies and TV shows continue to follow that pattern.
What became interesting was when studios decided to make full on kids cartoons adapted from R rated movies. The first one of these was Rambo. First Blood doesn’t really lend itself too well to a cartoon adaptation but a year after its sequel Rambo: First Blood Part 2 came out; it was time to capitalize on that success by reaching a whole new audience. The best show it could emulate at the time was the incredibly popular G.I. Joe, which is exactly the approach it went after. Rambo would lead a team and go after a group of terrorists known as SAVAGE who would try to destroy the world by creating chaos in different countries. Sly Stallone wouldn’t voice the character, but they would find Neil Ross as well as other heavy hitter voice actors of the time like James Avery, pre-Uncle Phil, and Optimus Prime himself, Peter Cullen. Oh, and Scooby Doo or Frank Welker. The show would run for 65 episodes and open the world up to other R rated adaptations. While Police Academy and RoboCop would follow suit, it would be the change of decades into the early 90’s that would usher in the strangest choice for kids cartoons.
Troma is secretly, or not so secretly, one of the most successful independent studios of all time. Lloyd Kaufman doesn’t quite get the same credit as a Charles Band or Roger Corman with their various studios, Kaufman and Troma have not only been around for what seems like forever but also built a very successful empire with films, TV shows, physical and streaming media, and more. While Mother’s Day from 1980 was their first big hit, it was The Toxic Avenger from 1984 that made them well known and gave them a mascot of sorts. The movie follows a nerd named Melvin who is the victim of a cruel practical joke and falls into a vat of toxic waste which turns him into the titular Toxic Avenger. He is terrifying looking but actually quite the hero. A hero that kills bad guys in horrifying ways and has villains that give points for running over kids on their bikes. Let’s turn this into a kids show, shall we?
Two other shows were the inspiration for what became the Toxic Crusaders, changed from Toxic Avengers because that was too violent for the studio apparently. The first one was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that started in 1987, and the creators of that show were friends with the creators of Toxic Crusaders. The second show was Captain Planet about a group of teens that all have powers based on the earth elements that can combine to summon Captain Planet to help fight environmental attacks on the earth. Toxic Crusaders was created by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz who had created the adult live action version, and they teamed up with Fred Wolf to produce. Fred Wolf had his hand in some way in things like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Duck Tales, and James Bond Jr, another TV show spawned from a non-kid-oriented entity, among others and they produced a run of 13 episodes that ran from January 21 to May 20 of 1991. Just like the much more violent original concept movie, Toxic Crusaders would achieve cult status and have more legs than one might expect.
The show is, of course, drastically toned down from the Troma norms of not only the original movie but nearly everything else the studio released. All of the sex, nudity, language, and extreme violence were removed even if they kept in some humor that would go over the heads of the kids to be enjoyed by the accompanying parents who were watching. That first episode to set the table was even written by Chuck Loree. Yeah, THAT Chuck Loree who also would go on to create Dharma and Greg, Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, and help produce Roseanne. Playing both the main hero Toxie and the main villain Dr. Killemoff would be Roger Bumpass who has had a long and stellar career including having the distinction of voicing Squidward for Spongebob Squarepants and all his various adventures. You would also have luminaries like Greg Berger, Paul Eiding, and Michael J Pollard give their voice talents to various characters here.
The show opens with a theme song that is stock and standard for kids cartoons of the late 80s and early 90s where it explains exactly what you are about to get into while also being loud, catchy, and repetitive. The first episode shows us how Melvin becomes Toxie and to its credit, it isn’t completely different than the movie. Gym bullies do trick Melvin into falling into toxic waste which morphs him into Toxie, even if it isn’t as horrifying or painful looking as the movie. He goes to see his mom and is turned away just like the movie, at least at first, then goes to the dump before fighting crime and finding a girlfriend. It is wildly different than the movie, though, as it goes from him killing human criminals to fighting aliens from the planet Smogula. The first episode does everything you’d expect out of a pilot. It sets up the heroes, with Toxie being joined by a couple friends at the end and his pet Blobby and weirdly sentient mop, the villains with Dr. Killemoff, his disposable henchmen, and his main team, and the plot of the evil doctor trying to pollute the planet so his cockroach-like race can inhabit it.
The episodes that follow sometimes introduce new heroes or villains like Czar Zosta which is Killemoff’s boss, General Garbage, and the evil mayor for the bad guys, while Junkyard and Headbanger join the crusaders for the good cause. Episode plots include poisoning fast food, clearing out a retirement home, and destroying the Tromaville Mall. Thee all may seem like small stakes events but to kids, the resonated as really bad actions done by really bad guys. While it is certainly a kids show at heart, it somehow holds true to the grossness of Troma values and even the nihilism at parts. One of my favorite discussions is that Toxie knows that humanity is going to pollute the planet to waste on their own, so they don’t need Killemoff to expedite the process. And that’s in the first episode!
Toxic Crusaders only lasted the 13 episodes and while it was put on a couple DVD sets as well as the most recent Blu-ray collection of the entire franchise, it can be viewed in its entirety on paid apps like Screambox or free with commercial services like Tubi. It is a fun time, and the episodes amount to about 22 minutes each. We are talking about a little over 4 and a half hours of your time to watch one of the strangest shows ever to come to fruition. As if that wasn’t enough, the show capitalized off of its brief popularity the way that all kids shows strive to: with merchandising. Marvel released an 8-episode comic arc written by various people that felt like a mix between the show and the movies while Playmates Toys released a line of action figures. This was the same company that put out the insanely popular TMNT toys and they feel very similar in physicality, just a whole hell of a lot grosser. They even had vehicles and their own gooey version of the stuff that made the turtles mutant ninja teenagers but falling in line with the IP included instructions on how to mess up parts of your house. I speak for all parents when I say thanks Playmates, thanks. I even have a mostly broken Killemoff that MY kids still play with, that is all I have left of my collection, but rest assured that my brother and I had most of these cool looking toys.
Maybe even more strange was the fact that the show received 3 video games based on it with cartridges for the NES, Gameboy, and Sega Genesis. There was a Super Nintendo version in the works, but it was cancelled. These games vary in quality but aren’t anything special, just a reminder of a bygone time when the smallest franchise was required to appear on every console of the day. Interestingly enough, the remake to the original movie isn’t the only thing coming out in 2025, with a new beat em up video game based on the show set to finally be released on all current consoles and PCs by the end of the year. This looks wonderful and is the same style as other recently released games from the Power Ranger franchise and the amazing Shredder’s Revenge that showed the turtles still have great games in the tank. Give the show a chance and let me know what other inappropriately based kids shows we should cover. Swamp Thing? RoboCop? Starship Troopers? Grab your mop and friend Blobby and we will stop the planet Smogula together!
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