Now available from Anchor Bay
Anchor Bay is back babies, and their current slate of releases is as random as expected. Here we have the Toxic Crusaders series finally available to own on Blu-ray.
Coming from Troma Entertainment, the Toxic Crusaders series was written by Jack Mendelsohn, Carole Bruce Mendelsohn, Michael Herz, Ned Candle, Lloyd Kaufman, D.J. McHale, Walt Kubiak, Jeffrey W. Sass, Andrew Wolk, and Chuck Lorre (??? what ???) and directed by Bill Hutten and Tony Love, this series was short lived about the beloved character Toxie and his other toxic buddies. Here the Crusaders go on adventures with most of them being environmentally conscious and aiming at stopping a big bad hellbent on destroying the environment, especially that of New Jersey. The stories here are made for younger audiences but with characters that more grown adults can enjoy as well. In terms of storytelling and direction, Toxic Crusaders as a series has aged quite well, making it easy to throw it on these days and let the episodes go by as easy entertainment or include them in a sort of Saturday Morning Cartoon day of entertainment.
The voice cast here works quite well with many having extensive voice acting experience and it shows. The style of voice acting here is very much from the late 1980s and early 1990s, giving that touch of childhood nostalgia that so many yearn for. The style here has aged and some of the lines and their delivery have not aged too well, but in the context of the cartoon, they still work decently well.
As for the animation itself, it feels like the early 1990s on a random weekend morning with a touch of that Troma magic, The cartoon is low on the gore and high on the hijinks, so the animation style works well with that. The nostalgic charm here is full on.
The presentation here is good with high-definition upgrade that works with decent sound quality and design. This new set includes all the episodes, all of which are quite entertaining with a touch of childhood whimsy. The Troma style is very much present here and to make sure everyone knows it, there is a new introduction from Lloyd Kaufman himself, a national treasure and a gent, with a new documentary about the making of the video game based on this film series, and some archival footage of Toxie that was long believed to be lost. This may be a more niche series for most people, but fans of the films, of Troma, of Uncle Lloyd, and of fun out there cartoons will love this and will want to pick this up to have all the episodes easily accessible whenever they want.