The family vacation is going great! We’ve been on the road since we got to Tunisia, traveling from the island of Djerba in the south to the desert town of Douz, checked out Sidi Bouzid where the Arab Spring started, and visites many incredible ruins as impressive as the structures you would expect in Italy!

We are slowed down because at every stop toxie makes an appearance, and a scene. People gather around, stare, sometimes they love it, love toxie, love the entertainment, sometimes small children are frightened

4 hrs early at the airport….check!

Stay tuned, next post from a far and foreign overseas land!

The story of Rocky has a special meaning to Troma, fans know that Dad worked on and had a bit part in a couple of the Rocky films alongside Sly Stallone.

Whether it’s in a fictional boxing ring, or behind a low-budget camera Sly, Dad and Director John Avildsen would agree that you have to fight for what you believe in.

Check out this preview for the upcoming TV retrospective : The Rocky Saga: Going the Distance, and low and behold, who is prominently featured, but our very own pops, right up there with Stallone.

Lesson of the day:  It’s the underdog believing in what he is doing who is going to be successful.  Take it from Dad, Sly and Rocky!

Special thanks to Ron Mackay for sending this clip our way!  

This year, the whole family and some special guests, are headed to North Africa, where we’ll do some some post-revolutionary tourism.  It is a historic time in the Middle East, one year ago this weekend, a Tunisian fruit seller set himself on fire in protest to the Tunisian government, this set off a revolution in Tunisia resulting in the ousting of the Tunisian Dictator, and in turn sparked a wave of revolutions across Africa and the Middle East.

We are headed to a calmer part of North Africa, a country which has recently held successful democratic elections.  So, while I don’t expect we should run into any revolutionary activity, I do expect to run in to the unusual…

When it comes to family vacations we have always been far from traditional.  In Cameroon, we hitchhiked through the Yaounde hills after our car broke down.  The three of us sisters crammed into the luggage space of a random local’s car with only the smallest hint of grumbling.  A few nights later, as Mom pushed a dresser against the door to “secure” the abandoned house we had no choice but to stay in when our hotel did not exist, it was only our driver who flinched.

I will admit that it was at 5,000 meters above sea level in Tibet, that a cement shack with a tin roof almost pushed me over the edge.  That was until my sister shook me to my senses.  The straw mattresses did not, in fact, have bed bugs, she pointed out.  And she was quite confident that the stray dogs howling outside the “door” could not jump high enough to slip in through the space between the corrugated tin roof and cinderblock walls.  And besides, TOXIE is alway there to protect us if anything goes wrong.

Kaufman vacations are unpredictable, but the one thing we can always count on, is that Toxie will be there right by our side to tuck us in at a bed-bug infested flea-bag hotel, to guard the door of an abandoned hut in the Cameroon Jungle, or to turn off the single bulb that dangled from a cord from a tin roof held up by cinderblocks in the Himalayan peaks of Tibet.

Although fictional, The Toxic Avenger, or “Toxie,” as we called him, is a constant real part of our Travel.  We can expect Toxie to appear at any moment.   A typical Toxie in real-life scene might go like this:

INTERTITLE: INCA TRAIL, 16000 FEET

Guide leads group of hikers, including KAUFMANS, up steep terrain.

          (Suddenly)

             CUT!

Group halts.  Non-KAUFMANS and guide look confused. 

DAD pulls out TOXIE mask from backpack and puts over his

head, hands video camera to MOM, loyally prepared to assist.

          DAD

         And… ACTION!

MOM films as DAD, dressed for a flood in ultra short khakis and wearing TOXIE mask, waves hands and feet in dance.  DAD/TOXIE points out scenery, attempts to engage others hikers.

Two INCA WOMEN in traditional clothes and with baby goats approach, expecting tourists and opportunity to charge for photos.   INCA WOMEN stop in tracks when see DAD in TOXIE mask.  DAD approaches INCA WOMEN, motions he would like to charge them to take a picture with him.

INCA WOMEN flee.

KAUFMAN SISTERS stand by in background.  NON KAUFMANS look bewildered.

So stay tuned, we will keep you posted on our adventure.

Lloyd Kaufman Oxford Master Class MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN MOVIE.

I’m at the master class, and it’s a great success. Troma fits right in at Oxford, among the classical literary greats of history. Dad does needs a little help with some translating the English in the Q&A into American.

Great Format: Dad will introduce a subject and lecture a lesson, for example: brainstorm the script with a group of writers. Then he will show a clip of a well known filmmaker who has made his way through Troma to Hollywood : James Gun screenwriter dawn of the dead, Scooby Doo and wife Jenna Fischer The Secretary from the show The office, or Eli Roth, or Stan Lee creator of Spider Man. Next he will show a hilarious clip of Troma behind the scenes: how Troma team brainstorms the script, cut with clips of the film that was produced in the end. Very funny and informative

Movie tip: Low budget luxury of non union films is you can shoot in sequence. Unions have such strict rules about hours while stars so highly paid that big budget films have to consolidate and shoot scenes out of order. Meanwhile non union Troma shoots in order of timeline of movie so has flexibility to make changes to plot, character development.

I’m on the road with dad, tagging along at Oxford University, the intellectual capital of the world, where dad has been invited to give a master class.

The Honorable Roger Kirby and St. Hilda’s College at the University of Oxford present… LLOYD KAUFMAN MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN MOVIE! MASTER CLASS

Dad is giving a crash course in indie filmmaking, the TROMA way to a packed sold out room of students, journalists, professors, fans and Harry Potter.

Filmmakers and actors dad has worked with, like Eli Roth, share advice via video. Here, Eli talks about the value of starting out as a PA on a movie to learn Filmmaking, Tarantino learned the ropes as a PA before he ran the show on Resevoir Dogs, Roth reminds filmmaker hopefulls: