Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Rock! Shock! Pop! VS Troma - A Look Inside

Collapse
X
Collapse
  •  
    Ian Jane
    Administrator

  • Rock! Shock! Pop! VS Troma - A Look Inside The Legendary Independent Movie Machine!




    One of the cool things about running a website like Rock! Shock! Pop! is the opportunity to meet awesome people from around the world - and sometimes, those people are a quick ten minute drive away. When official greetings from Tromaville arrived, it seemed only natural that we'd accept their gracious offer to tour their facilities in Queens, so off we went, camera in hand and silly grins slapped on our mugs.

    Initially, there was concern that the building might not be so easy to spot, but once we turned onto the street where they're located, those fears were swept aside and it became pretty obvious that there was no reason for concern.




    The first thing we saw upon entering the building was a giant 'hand in a can' - a prop from the recently completed Return To The Class Of Nuke'em High, just sort of sitting there greeting visitors and employees alike.




    From there, it was time to head up the stairs to the offices. The first thing we checked out was Lloyd Kaufman's desk. It looks like this….




    ….except when he's not there, in which case it looks like this!




    Around the corner is an editing suite. Troma does more or less everything in house so it makes sense that they'd have a set up like this. And if you time your arrival just right, you might get to meet Travis Campbell, the man behind Mr. Bricks: A Heavy Metal Murder Musical! We yapped at Travis and distracted him from what he was working on long enough to learn that not only is Mr. Bricks unusually popular in Japan but that we probably haven't seen the last of him. Hooray!




    Located behind Travis' work station was what looked like an old bank safe full of… stuff. As our tour continues you'll realize what we realized: Troma's facilities are jam packed with… stuff. Lots of it. At any rate, behold the safe full of stuff!




    Here's another rad desk. I don't know who sits here but they get points for the Bloodsucking Freaks one sheet hanging in the background. Part of what made this trip so fun was seeing all the little bits and pieces of Troma history just scattered around. Case in point? Check out the picture of the desk…




    ...now check out the close up shot of what's taped to the monitor! It's not every day you encounter random pictures of sleepy boy Ron Jeremy!




    There are also a lot of Toxic Avenger heads around the offices. Here are a few of them!







    And Sgt. Kabukiman too! His head is just hanging out on the floor for some reason.




    It was also very cool to see all the vintage one sheets for various Troma productions and acquisitions. With forty years of failed film-making under their belts, there were loads of these things all over the place. Behold!







    Our tour guide's name was Justin Martell, a friendly guy with a great moustache. He was kind enough to show us around and here he shows off his hand modeling skills with some other prop left over from the Return To Nuke'em High shoot!




    From there we went downstairs, where the building transforms from an office space to a magical storage facility filled to the brim with trashy B-movie goodness! This sign greets you as you head in - a familiar sight to anyone familiar with Troma's productions!




    There are lots of props in the basement too, including a wheelchair tank thing from Return, a menu board from Poultrygeist, and random prosthetics and stuff.










    Alison was excited to find STACKS of DVD copies of The Stabilizer - and why shouldn't she be!




    And check this out - the machine used to help edit Rocky way back when Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz first started out and freelanced on various mainstream projects!




    There are also tons of one sheets going back decades and showcasing the studio's rich history of crazy independent cinema!







    And last but not least, if that weren't enough, the back room is jam packed with film canisters and master tapes and other media - pretty much everything Troma has touched is in here, stacks of stuff everywhere!






















    All in all, this was a pretty great trip. Troma's got an amazing history and it was a lot of fun to get to sift through some of it. Thanks again to Justin for showing us around and to Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz, who weren't around and probably didn't know we were monkeying around at their desks but who have managed to keep the crazy train rolling for four decades strong!


    • Scott
      #3
      Scott
      Intellectual Carrot
      Scott commented
      Editing a comment
      What a magical dump!

    • Alison Jane
      #4
      Alison Jane
      Girl Boss Jane
      Alison Jane commented
      Editing a comment
      I loved how they're located right next to a row of houses and right across the street from a school. There was a mom and daughter outside on the steps of the house adjacent to Troma. How did that mom explain what was going on the day they noticed the garage door painted with Toxie to her?! We need to live on that block!

    • Scyther
      #5
      Scyther
      Senior Member
      Scyther commented
      Editing a comment
      Great article, and looks like an incredibly fun trip!
    Posting comments is disabled.

Latest Articles

Collapse

  • Rock! Shock! Pop! At The Big Apple Comic Con, July 17th, 2021!
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Yesterday, July 17th, 2021, saw the first proper comic convention come to New York City since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. As anyone who watched the news in 2020 will recall, New York City, due to its density and massive population, got hit extremely hard early on and as such, things were shut down for quite a while to stop the spread and help get the positivity rate under control. Hospitals were filled up, people got sick and far too many people lost their lives. It
    ...
    07-18-2021, 10:36 AM
  • Thor - Live At Dante's, Portland, Oregon, September 14, 2007.
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane

    Hey, remember concerts? Concerts were fun. Covid-19 has kind of completely fucked concerts for the time being, who knows when we'll get to enjoy live music again, so with that in mind, why not relive past glories through pictures of concerts from days past? Let's do it! A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away known as Portland, Oregon, one Jon Mikl Thor - or just plain old Thor to the masses - played a show at Dante's, a club on West Burnside in the downtown area famous for o...
    06-20-2020, 06:30 PM
  • David Lynch - Squeaky Flies In The Mud
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Running from November 1st, 2019 through December 21st, 2019 at the Sperone Westwater Gallery in Lower Manhattan is Squeaky Flies In The Mud, an exhibition of artwork created by none other than David Lynch. It's a strange selection of material, as you'd expect if you're familiar with his work, but fascinating to see and an interesting compliment to the film's that he's made. The press release from the gallery reads as follows: “Sperone Westwater is pleased to present a
    ...
    12-15-2019, 01:01 PM
  • Rock! Shock! Pop! Visits The Archive In Bridgeport, CT
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Writing an article about a store visit isn't something that we normally do around these here parts, but once in a while there is a reason to make an exception. Case in point? The guys that run Vinegar Syndrome have opened up a brick and mortar retail store called The Archive in Bridgeport, CT. Why does that matter to readers of this site? Because in an age where online sales seem to be killing physical stores (R.I.P. Mondo Kim's of NYC!), doing something like this is kind of
    ...
    06-10-2017, 04:25 PM
  • Rock! Shock! Pop! At Five Points Fest - New York City, NY May 20th & 21st 2017
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane

    The first, of what will hopefully be a recurring Five Points Festival kicked off yesterday at Pier 36 on the Lower East Side riverfront of New York City. The two day festival, curated by Clutter Magazine and presented Midtown Comics, “is a collision of toys, comics, and counterculture.” Unlike a regular comic or toy convention, Five Points focuses the more artisanal aspect of the toy and comic industry. As such, most of the attendees had a connection to indy or small...
    05-21-2017, 11:52 AM
  • R!S!P! At NYCC 2016 - Comics!
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane



    Despite all the cosplay, movie stars, TV stars, toys, video games and other assorted stuff, comic books are what started all of this and comic books remain, for some of us at least, the most important part of an event like NYCC. As such, we've saved the best for last. All the big publishers are, as per the norm, setup in the main hall. Marvel had a lot going on this year, like they always do, promoting Black Panther and Doctor Strange in a big way this year.
    ...
    10-15-2016, 01:54 PM
Working...
X