LLOYD KAUFMAN / BRITISH PETROLEUM PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
You are going to love this, it’s one of dad’s best yet. We can’t stop laughing, we had to share it with you.
P.S. uncanny the resemblance between British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward and our Dad, isn’t it?? Amazing.
You asked for it you got it. After we posted our take on filming the VOMIT SCENE you asked for more of the gory gruesome truth hatching behind the scenes on the set of Poultrygeist.
In response to your emails, dear Troma fans, we bring you footage of our very own Pops in an intimate interview with Academy Award Nominee Trey Parker, creator of South Park, Team America, and the brains behind Cannibal! The Musical in a heated discussion of life, love and the pursuit of musical chicken celluloid.
LIFE LONG CARTOON AFICIONADO and TROMA FAN Alberto Giovannelli gets up close and personal sharing his earliest Tromemories. Giovannelli writes Tromemoir:
Troma has surrounded me…what feels like, my entire life. This is no joke…Troma’s surrounded me, and I didn’t know it at the time. Here’s my story…sorry if it’s ridiculously long:
When I was in Elementary school, I was a huge cartoon fan. The Real Ghostbusters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Toxic Crusaders. My parents went to a Parent/Teacher conference one day while I was home, and they brought me back a “Toxic Crusaders POSTER BOOK”….I thought this was the greatest thing in the universe! That same night (for the story’s sake, we’ll say same night…although it could’ve just been that same month for all I remember), I was watching USA UP ALL NIGHT, hosted by Gilbert Gotfried and Rhonda Sheer (who still looks amazing btw…check her out in Barak Epstein’s “PRISON A-GO-GO”) and they were showing a film called, “Class of Nuke ‘Em High”….this would be my first Troma film watched, absorbed, and worshipped. I didn’t know what the hell I was seeing…punks vs jocks….the punks were the bad guys, yeah, but they were sooooo cool about it! I fell in love. At this point in my life, I didn’t make the connection between “Toxic Crusaders” and “Class of Nuke ‘Em High”…or Troma for that matter.
Flash forward to a year or two later. I’m a little older…I wanna say, 8 maybe? (still in elementary school), and my mother and I are driving around and we visit my uncle at work. He worked at a Blockbuster Video (this Blockbuster bought out a video store called 10,000 videos…or something like that) that was getting rid of a ton of vhs tapes (those were black bricks that contained film in them. You could find these on eBay, thrift stores, and yard sales), and one of them was in an ex rental clear clamshall titled…”The Toxic Avenger”. On it was a sticker from the old video store that says, “PG”. I go up to my mom and say, “Mom…can I get this please? It’s only $5….Look, it’s not bad, it’s rated PG…AND, I think this is a live action version of The Toxic Crusaders cartoon I watch”….
WELL! We get home, get dinner ready (my father’s at work), and I ask my mom if we can watch the movie while we eat. She says yes. While she’s prepping the plates, I pop this black brick of gory justice into the machine. It starts off with the words: WARNING: THE TOXIC AVENGER CONTAINS SCENESE OF INTENSE VIOLENCE….. I didn’t say anything to my mom and just chuckled…thinking it was a joke. Well, the zoom in of breasts, and asses of these gyno-Americans, led me to believe that might not have been a “PG” movie per se….mom didn’t say anything, so I figured it was ok. Then, the first sex scenes, where Melvin gets threatened with a knife (I figured it was ok…it was a switchblade…mom’s Puerto Rican…dad’s Italian…no biggie), but mom was upset over this gyno-Americans melon heavies. So, what does every mom do during a sex scene? “CLOSE YOUR EYES ALBERT”…so I do… Then the movie continues, and we still watch it. Now, comes the scene with poor ‘lil Timmy…as soon as he gets hit by the car, I start laughing. HYSTERICALLY. Then Bozo brings the car in reverse….SMASHES THIS KID’S ENTIRE FUCKING SKULL! I’m in tears laughing at these because it looks so cartoony..obviously it’s fake! But I’ve never seen anything like this before! Mom freaks the hell out, takes the tape out of the player, and throws it away….or so I thought.
Flash forward some more, and I’m 13 years old. We just moved to Florida, and I’m going through the vhs box because I wanna watch something while noone’s in the house. Noone to bother me. I was about to pop in “Night of the Living Dead”, when I see a clear clamshell box…THE FUCKING TOXIC AVENGER!!! I run to the vcr, pop the movie in, hit play…IT’S PLAYING EXACTLY FROM WHERE SHE LEFT IT YEARS AGO!…I stop the movie, rewind it…anxiously awaiting the loud “CLUNK” to let me know it’s ready to be soaked into my brain. “CLUNK” goes the VCR…”JOY!” I think….I hit play, and sit on the couch.
An hour and a half later and I’m convinced, this is the Holy Grail of filmmaking. This is THE absolute greatest thing I have ever witnessed. Do they still make movies like this? I look on the back on the vhs box and see ” TROMA ENTERTAINMENT”…I so I run to my computer and just take a lucky guess at http://www.troma.com , just to see if it would work (what can I say? Honor classes I know)….there the Troma team is advertising it’s latest opus…”Terror Firmer”….I knew my parents were weird with their credit cards online…so I asked my mom if she could order this new horror movie for me, called “Terror Firmer”….it looks gory, cool, I really want it. She said ok! I give her Troma’s phone number (this was during the time where you could call in your orders to “Mother Millie” and she would hook you up).
I anxiously waited every God damn day for that UPS bastard to knock on the door. When the package arrived, everyone was at work, and I was home. I popped the dvd in (yes, a little quick sidenote…this was not only my first Troma dvd, but my first 2 disc dvd, and one of my first dvds in general [my parents got my some Jackie Chan dvds for Christmas the year before]), and when the movie was over….I was almost in tears. Tears because it was over….this masterpiece of sex, violence, and punk music was over….I immediately put the 2nd disc in to check out the “making of”…AN HOUR AND HALF?!….Who the hell does that?!…Well, Troma does….I sat there and watched and watched, and laughed, and felt bad for Lloyd. “People don’t read the script like they’re supposed to”, I thought. “This guy’s gonna die of a fuckin heart attack!”…. Then I popped the 1st disc back in a rewatched the movie, this time with all the deleted scenes put back in. Well, wouldn’t you know it…. my mother and father walk in during the “pickle fucking” scene….”ALBERT!” my mother yells. “What are you watching?!”….”oh…this is the movie you ordered for me. It came today” 😉
My father, at the time, used to get these newsletters of conventions and stuff…just cool stuff to do. And that year, he heard of Megacon, and that Lloyd was going to be there. I almost shit on myself. My IDOL was going to be in the same town as me? What do you do at these places? Do you just meet them? Or can you have them sign stuff? So, I brought my Toxic Avenger dvd, Terror Firmer dvd, “All I need to know about Filmmaking I Learned from the Toxic Avenger” book, …I’m sure there were other things I had brought…but these are the two that stick out in my mind.
I was also wearing my Toxie sterling silver ring, and my Troma “supporter” (which was a jockstrap), hat. When I walked up to Lloyd, I was terryfied. “What if this guy’s a dick?” I remember seeing him on that making of and how angry he got. That would fuckin destroy me if this guy was mean to me. So, I walked up to him, waited for everyone to leave…and asked him to sign my stuff. HE DID! He signed everything I had! He gave me an 8×10 from the upcoming “Citizen Toxie”, and he signed it…I was shaking so bad! I had purchased a few dvds from him and he signed those as well. It was the happiest day of my life! I went home that night and watched EVERYTHING Troma related I owned…and couldn’t wait for more.
I’m 24 now, almost 25. Married, and I have a son on the way. You bet your ass he’s going to watch Troma movies with his father, meet Lloyd AS SOON as he’s able to. Lloyd Kaufman and the Troma Team made me how and what I am today. I love Troma, and my Toxic Avenger tattoo was one of my first pieces….Long live Troma and TRUE Independent cinema.
Alex Faber sends in very helpful constructive feedback on our first installment of MONSTERS AND DAUGHTERS:
This is a strong chapter right off the bat! The structure of having it bookended by the production of Poultrygeist gives it a sense of cohesion and throws us into the Tromaverse right away, and you do a really effective job of communicating how you have one high heel in Wall Street and a flip-flop in Lloyd’s world of B-grade horror/comedy, not only in detailing both but the language you use in describing your Dad’s movies.
Here are my notes: I wouldn’t call “Poltergeist” a zombie movie. In Par. 6, I didn’t get this line: “a gym I’d rather be caught dead in than sweating on the treadmill next to my MD.” I kind of get the intent, but the comedy is muffled because I just honestly found it confusing.
I think you meant “GDP” instead of “GPD.” I’d also like to see the paragraphs devoted to your mother moved up near the start of the chapter, as giving her time about 3/4 through and after everyone else has been established makes her seem out of place in the chapter.
Finally, your epiphany is amusing, but you give it too little time – I think it’s essential to your character and intent to write this, but as it’s written now, you don’t really explain what about it was revelatory to you.
Overall though, it’s great to hear an insider’s story of Troma, and your personality comes across very strongly here, which makes this a doubly rewarding read!
Alex, Thank you for this excellent critique. We are hard at work making revisions thanks to your insightful feedback! We’ll post the edits shortly so you can see the changes we made thanks to your input.
Dear Readers! Beginning now, we will be introducing our book to you in segments for your input and particiation! We want you to be a part of the creation of our tromemoir: rip us apart, tell us what you like, what you don’t like, what to add, what to change.
HERE WE GO:
Growing up Toxic
Everyone is throwing up. I am surrounded by projectile vomiting. There are buckets of vomit all over the place. It is a 102 degree August day in Buffalo, N.Y., and I am literally taking a bath in a McDonalds up to my knees in vomit. There is only one word to accurately express the acute trauma I am experiencing: TROMA.
I grew up in a family of six: Mom, Dad, myself, two little sisters, and the Toxic Avenger- a large green creature of super-human size and strength and the star of Troma Studios. Toxie, as we called him around the house, technically is the oldest child, as he was “born” in the mid ‘70’s when my dad brought to life, on camera, his idea of a 98 pound weakling who turns superhero upon falling into a vat of toxic waste. Dad’s next sub humanoid masterpiece was a co-production with our dear mother, a trilogy and a work in progress: Me, my sister and our baby sister.
Every couple of years throughout our childhood, dad churned out a low budget title for the independent film company he had founded in the ‘70s, Troma Inc. Each film tended to be inspired by his fixation du jour. Recently, he had been reading and preaching from the book Fast Food Nation. He had “converted” to vegetarianism, and in a pre-blog world was posting rants about the evils of the meat and poultry industry on his website. And now, here was Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, a play on the zombie film Poltergeist. In Poultrygeist the evil practices of a chicken fast food chain built on an ancient native American graveyard causes the awakening of zombie chickens.
When I told my dad that I was taking August 8th off from the trading desk to come up to Buffalo to visit the Poultrygeist set, which had been constructed in an out of business McDonalds franchise, he told me it would be hot, very hot. But, the good news was that I would be right in time for the “Protest” scene.
I gathered that the protest was critical to the film, and perhaps took up a large portion of the production’s small budget. But I didn’t know much else about this latest Troma flick. It was a “Chicken Zombie” movie, dad told me, and, it was a Musical.
At the time, I was living in New York City, close enough to my parents to see them nearly every evening after work, and every morning before work for that matter. In fact, I lived at home. Yep I was that cool, a sort of adult living at home basically in my parents’ attic. I had a high flying corporate job and all, oh sure, in fact I worked on Wall Street. That’s right, I worked in a building that had specific elevators depending on which floor you were going to, a subsidized cafeteria, a gym I’d rather be caught dead in than sweating on the treadmill next to my MD. I even wore a suit (and not the grey champion sweat suit like my dad jogs to work in and wears as his uniform all day) and communicated to clients in a minimalist language as if to say hey, I’m in on it, I know you’re too important to have the time to stick around to hear me say alot of words here, so I’ m just going to save everyone time and just use some acronyms like EBITDA and consolidate a whole bunch of numbers into a few ratios to save your precious time.
While my mom constantly peppered me with questions about the difference between what I did trading derivatives and what her stock broker did, and my dad would corner me daily and ask what I thought about investing in GE, Citi, or Alan Abel’s latest editorial in Barrons, when it came to my parents’ professional film careers, I kept my distance.
It was my parents who had drawn the boundaries separating my sisters and me from the world of Troma. Growing up, I had never really questioned why exactly it was, that I wasn’t allowed to watch my Dad’s films other than the specific dailies from scenes I had been in. Then as I got older and more familiar with his particular “artistic style” let’s call it, I understood that his films, clearly a product of ideas he must have developed as a teenage boy, were not intended for my demographic.
Troma movies had violence, they had bad words, they suggested sex. No, they definitely were not porn films, I often had to confirm, but they had busty ladies – lots of them. Let’s just say dad wasn’t producing Disney’s next Little Mermaid.
Although we never saw the final product, my sisters and I had spent several childhood summers hanging around the Troma sets. Clearly, I’m not talking glamorous Steven Spielberg film sets with a production budget that rivals the GPD of a small nation, fancy air conditioned trailers and 50 people just to do the under-eye make-up of the lead actor. On a Troma set, the cost of the entire movie was probably equal to the catering budget alone of a huge Hollywood film.
Troma Low-Budget R&D focused on new innovations in red-die-corn-syrup fake blood and low cost special effects such as:
CLOSE ON BLONDE MAN WITH GUN TO HEAD
CUT TO:
WATERMELON WEARING BLONDE WIG
WATERMELON EXPLODES. BLOOD SPEWS FROM WATERMELON IN SPURTS THEN FLOWS FREELY FROM HIDDEN PLASTIC TUBE.
“You can stay in the basement with the crew” my dad offered one morning when he was home for a couple days. I was putting my high-heels into my bag and wearing my flip-flops with my suit, the modern day corporate uniform: sneakers + white socks 2.0 trend that had evolved recently among young women walking to the office in NYC. My dad stood in the kitchen ready for work, he was wearing his sweat suit. Today he had on a yellow polo shirt tucked in, maybe he was meeting someone for lunch. “Your sister just brought a sleeping bag, you can do the same.”
As a kid, I had run around his sets without a care, or a clue for that matter. But the older I got, the more I felt I stood out in Dad’s world. It made me writhe to think about what the ultra cool tattooed film students in ragged jeans and grungy clothing who surrounded my dad on the set thought about me, if they even noticed me.
Sure, I may not have had the stereotypical signs of an unruly teen like many on my dad’s sets. In fact, for all the judging I felt they did of me, I scoffed at the amateur ploys of these typical “rebellious” young adults. Dyeing your hair blue, piercing your nose, a boyfriend on a motorcycle.
I too had rebelled, in my own way. I did exactly what a rebellious child does: the opposite of his or her parents. I had joined Corporate America.
If there was one thing my dad stood for, or against, it was Corporate Conglomerate America. His anti-fast-food rants were a mere sub-sector of his resentment of corporate conglomerates. While he had financed his own films in order to stay independent, most film companies, he would say in disdain, gave up their goal of producing art and sold out to the mainstream film companies just for the money.
So nothing could have been more shocking than my taking a job on Wall Street. For five years, I held strong to my rebellion, working on a Trading Desk. Money, cursing and derivatives– If I was going to do Wall Street, I had surely found the TROMA of the Markets.
My friends complained about suits, offices, corporate culture. No tattoos, no worries that you will shock someone with your profession, nothing potentially offensive or inappropriate, this career was terrific! On my dad’s sets, I felt like just another yuppie, but at the desk, and to my work friends, I was the creative one.
My baby sister was younger, grungier, and 8 years my junior she had 8 years less of being hammered by the pressure of making the decision between following a career you loved but did not pay for the lifestyle you wanted, or the corporate world that did.
I called her later that day to ask her about the lodging situation in Buffalo. She was spending the summer on the Poultrygeist set, and despite her special status as director’s daughter, she certainly did not receive any red-carpet treatment. She had been sleeping in the basement of a church, dining from the random assortment of crackers, potato-chips M&Ms, fire-ball candies and the occasional sandwich that makes its way into the fine dining provided to the crew on the set at meal times.
“I sleep in a basement with props and fake blood.” She confirmed, “I personally sleep next to a giant egg, with a bloody fetus chick staring me in the eyes every morning when I wake up. You know, the usual Troma stuff.”
Sure enough the Poultrygeist production was no different from what we had experienced in the past. “I got to personally feather about 100 local extras from Buffalo yesterday,” My sister told me on the phone that afternoon. “I smeared Elmers glue all over their oversized bellies and sausage arms and then delicately placed chicken feathers all over their bodies.”
Critics often described Dad’s work as “shock art.” In fact according to an article I read, Dad had allegedly philosophized that “making movies that shocked audiences would keep them in their seats to see what would happen next.”
I looked to my mom, a perfectly mannered beautiful blonde southern belle. While Dad preferred to make his creative shock horror films in independent anarchy rather than succumb to Mainstream Hollywood conglomerate tyranny, Mom embraced the other end of the film spectrum as the New York State Film Commissioner. She developed economic programs and incentives to enhance the budgets of the films of the Steven Spielbergs of the world.
Hollywood proper embraced Mom. There was nothing like attending a Hollywood event as Mom’s “plus one” sure, quite sure, that this was the time I would be discovered. Gliding behind mom down the red carpet, past the white Mylar sheets with corporate logos for media photos. I’m here! Snap away Paparazzi! Well, maybe they would discover me next time.
So how did she, my beautiful, perfect, demure, modest, well-mannered, proper, church going, former President of the Junior League Mother manage the tattoos, the crazy movies, my dad’s rants, or the uncertainty – had the straight-laced business person on the other side of the desk googled you and seen your name associated with Troma Shock-O-Rama titles such as Nymphoid Barbarians in Dinosaur Hell, and of course Redneck Zombies!
“Your father has a vision.” She told me. “A lot of his work is really quite genius and ahead of its time.”
Perhaps I just didn’t get his art. Maybe I just needed to be educated. Dad was a Yale Graduate after all, and I hadn’t even hit the Ivy’s.
And then one day it just hit me. I had a moment of epiphany. Suddenly the skies opened. My Bloomberg screens cleared. The trading floor fell silent. Even the talking head on CNBC shut up his mindless repetitious jabbernothing. A voice spoke to me through the trade box! I was sure it was God, it said:
“He’s Gonna PUUKKKKEEEE!”
Turns out it wasn’t actually god, it was just the fat guy from the Mortgages desk reporting that the new analyst had made it to 47 out of 50 McNuggets – just 3 shy away from fulfilling the 5 minute eating challenge on which bets had been placed as far reaching as our London trading floor.
But it spoke to me, and I knew my calling at that moment. There would always be a part of my heart reserved for the derivatives markets. But, while I might not have the same talent in creating art from big boobs and blood, I would find my own way back to Troma.
As the eldest, most responsible and I’m quite sure most favorite child, I would illuminate to the world my dad’s genius through a well documented book, or better yet Screenplay. Yes! I’d probably be half way through explaining Dad’s Artistic Genius when the studios would start calling.
The same scum eating academy and conglomerate hollywood studios that had turned their backs on Troma would be brought to their knees with a newfound understanding of dad’s pure genius! They’d offer huge sums of money for a screen adaption, they’d throw him on their celluloid shoulders! They’d give him hours of standing ovations, they’d watch the entire toxie box set director’s cut standing up in standing ovation back to back….! This would conveniently coincide perfectly with the writers block I’d hit around Chapter 10, when I needed some new tension and plot development: take the money and big Hollywood studio offer or stay independent and go the Troma way?
The first step, of course, would be learning to understand Dad’s art myself. So here I was, in Buffalo, throwing myself head on into the protest scene of Poultrygeist. The next step… I’d have to learn how to write.
“Annnnnd… ACTION Come on! More throw-up!” Dad is yelling, “Ben! Give me some more action. Fat guy – you gotta throw yourself into the retching. Retching! I want retching! I want to see and hear retching, come on people. Ben – can you throw up on Janet’s feet, great! Now Joe, run over and projectile vomit right onto Ben’s back. Great every body! Bring in the Blood! Now! Blood! Where’s the blood? Cut! CUT! Goddamnit, where’s the goddamn blood?”
When I finish the screenplay, I’ll start my acceptance speech. And for those sitting in the front row, I advise you wear plastic, it may include fake blood or vomit.
HAVE A TROMA MEMORY? WRITE US A SIDEBAR YOU COULD BE PUBLISHED!
Inspired by GEOFF TARULLI’s kickstarter success raising over $6000 from 83 backers for his film MOVIES OF THE FUTURE WITH LLOYD KAUFMAN, The talented mr. Mitch Dolan (whose artwork, dear fans, you may recall from the TROMEMOIR COMPETITION) write us:
Mitch Dolan July 19 at 6:48pm
It would mean alot to me if you could help promote my fundraiser for my upcoming splatter exploitation movie. here is the link to post on some sites and even if troma wanted to help out that would be amazing!
SLIPPERY SALAMANDER PRESENTS LUNATIC LARRY (click here)
thank you for your time!
Dear Mitch,
Hey that’s cool that you are using Kickstarter. Pretty neat resource to gather small payments from a lot of people in order to make a collective big impact to fund a project.
After checking out your LUNATIC LARRY Kickstarter page, one thought: make the most of Kickstarter! It’s a great advertising as well as fund raising resource, but you have to max it out! Get your parents, siblings, close friends, the nerdy girl next door who has a crush on your third grade math teacher who everyone you can to contribute, so it looks like your film is popular and people dig you. If you only have one backer on there other people may be reluctant to join in thinking, well, if only one person is willing to pledge, I don’t know if I am confident putting down my own hard earned $$.
First step: It may sound crazy, but for buzz and marketing purposes, can you decrease the minimum pledge amount to like $1? Who can say no to pledging a buck?
Second Step: Get a bunch of people, just to support LUNATIC LARRY, in numbers, albeit at only $1.
Third Step: with all this support comes bragging rights about how many backers you have, regardless of the fact that they each only ledged $1. The point is, if 40 people pledged, you can brag that 40 people have confidence in your film. If I heard that I’d be more willing to pledge $5 or even $10, who knows, MAYBE $100 dollars! Wowee, lookout James Cameron, Mitch Dolan is moving into the Big Budget Blockbuster Space.
Anyways, people are like lemmings. They move in packs and masses. So it may be easier to get the bigger backers who will make the larger contributions when you have smaller supporters in big numbers. NOW GO OUT THERE AND RAISE SOME MONEY FOR YOUR FILM!
ok now, you probably didn’t even want our advice. If you still want us to put you on Tromemoir after such a pushy bossy unsolicited kickstarter rant let us know!
-Lloyd’s Kids (who don’t know a thing, so don’t listen to any advice we ever gave anyone)
Update: in response to the above, ROBERT writes in his two cents on the $$ raising debate:
Robert // July 21, 2010 at 3:32 pm | Reply (edit)
And We’re BACK!
Summer vacation can only last so long, even for us students of Life Love and the pursuit of Tromatic Independent Cinema. So after a brief pause from our beloved Tromemoir, we are back in action and brimming with all the fake blood, spewing with spittle and busting out with all sorts of vile vomitous maggot eaten new matrial for you to chew on. Now on with the show, in the NEW PRODUCTIONS CATEGORY:
CONGRATULATIONS TO GEOFF TARULLI, he has Successfully completed raising financing for his film on our very own Lloyd Kaufman: MOVIES OF THE FUTURE WITH LLOYD KAUFMAN: A Movie About An Underground Film Icon.
Genius Geoff took advantage of one of our favorite New York City startups, Kickstarter to collect funding from over 83 sources for his film. check it out Here!
Incidental Characters 