Trivia / The Toxic Avenger

• Completely Different Title: For the first film:
  • Germany: Atomic Hero
  • Japan: Devil's Poisonous Monster
• Dawson Casting:
  • Tito and Sweetie Honey in Citizen Toxie are supposed to be 13.
  • One of Toxie's victims in the first film is a man who's pimping out a twelve-year-old girl. If she's twelve, this website is the Gutenberg Project.
• The Other Darrin: Toxie has been played by a total of four actors across the four films: Mitch Cohen (Toxie) in the original, John Altamura (and his stunt double, Ron Fazio) in II and III, and David Mattey in Citizen Toxie. Then human Melvin. Played by Mark Torgl, originally. Then Michael J. Kaplan in the 3rd film. Finally, Sara who is played by 3 different actresses. She is the innocent Sara in the first film, played by Andree Maranda. Then in the following two sequels, she receives a name-change and and lowered IQ as Claire, played Phoebe Legere. Finally she is played by Heidi Sjursen in the fourth film. Her name is changed back to the original (though spelled as Sarah this time), and her clothing style is toned down again from the skimpy-dressed Claire in 2 and 3.
• The Other Marty: John Altamura, the original actor that was hired to play Toxie in the second and third films, was fired halfway through filming due to an alleged case of Small Name, Big Ego. Because they couldn't afford to re-shoot the footage, they just had his stunt double, Ron Fazio play Toxie for the rest of the shoot. In a rare case of this trope being acknowledged, both men were credited as Toxie in the finished films.
• Our Lawyers Advised This Trope: An early teaser trailer for Citizen Toxie included Hugh Hefner loudly declaring "Only The Toxic Avenger knows for sure!". Although Troma was given permission to film at the Playboy mansion, Hefner never gave them permission to use the Playboy name nor his likeness, and a cease-and-desist letter caused Hefner to be purged from all subsequent trailers and the film proper.
• Self-Adaptation: Writer and director, Lloyd Kaufman wrote the first movie's novelization.
• Spared by the Cut: A deleted scene centered around Wanda and Julie, the female half of the Serial Killer quartet, reveals that Toxie spared their lives but gave them Amusing Injuries and made them turn themselves into the police. Without that scene, the actual film implies that they are Killed Offscreen in a Pay Evil unto Evil manner.
• What Could Have Been: The film was going to be called Health Club Horror and be more of a straightforward horror film, but was reworked into its current form.
• Working Title: The Monster Hero, which is why the line gets thrown around so much in the first movie - it was supposed to be a Title Drop.

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