Legendary Schlock Company Troma Beat Disney To The Punch With One Animated Masterpiece

If you don't know about the Long Island-based B-movie studio Troma, it's time you learned. Founded by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz in 1974, Troma began its life producing raunchy sex comedies like "The First Turn-On!," "Squeeze Play!," and "Waitress!" Kaufman and Herz would hit the big time in 1984 with the release of their film "The Toxic Avenger," which marked a turning point for the company. After the success of "Toxic Avenger," a twisted, low-budget superhero movie (with a soon-to-be-released remake!), the studio would skew more heavily toward horror-comedies, gore films, and splatstick humor. Troma would continue to make and/or distribute notable schlock staples for years, including "Class of Nuke 'Em High," "Surf Nazis Must Die," "Troma's War," "Rabid Grannies," "A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell," "Sgt. Kabukiman, NYPD," and the James Gunn-penned "Tromeo and Juliet," a riff on "Romeo & Juliet." They even distributed "Cannibal! The Musical," the first film from "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

For brave explorers of 1980s-era video stores, Troma was vital. They produced low-budget, eye-grabbing horror movies that offered adventurous renters a little more surrealism in their lives. Through it all, Lloyd Kaufman, the face of the company, had remained chipper and upbeat, happy to make goofy crap for the weird-ass masses. 

Troma also oversaw several subsidiary distribution houses and would oversee the release of multiple films outside of their usual stable. For instance, Troma released "Breakin' in the U.S.A.: Break Dancing and Electric Boogie as Taught By the Pros," an instructional breakdancing video, in 1984. That video may be best known these days for including a teenage Vin Diesel. Troma also released "The Puppetoon Movie," a 1987 animated anthology film that featured shorts like "Tubby the Tuba" (1947) and "Tulips Shall Grow" (1942). 

Perhaps surprisingly, one of Troma's subsidiaries, 50th Street Films, briefly held the theatrical distribution rights to Hayao Miyazaki's 1988 children's fantasy "My Neighbor Totoro." Yes, the same outlet handling "I Spit on Your Corpse" put out one of the best, gentlest children's films of all time.

"My Neighbor Totoro," a sweet fantasy about a giant forest spirit and the girls it befriends, has become pretty well-known among generations of kids, largely thanks to a hard home video push by Disney in the late 1990s. It was in 1996 that Disney signed a deal with Studio Ghibli, the animation studio that made "Totoro" and all of Miyazaki's other movies, that they would have sole distribution rights to their movies in the United States. Disney re-dubbed Ghibli's movies with famous English-speaking actors, and released super-crunchy DVD (and, later, Blu-ray) editions. Their new dub of "My Neighbor Totoro" didn't hit video store shelves until 2005.

Before Disney's deal, however, "My Neighbor Totoro" was released in American theaters in 1993 by 50th Street Films. Troma subcontracted the English-language dub to a company called Streamline Pictures (specifically so it could be shown to English-speaking audiences on international flights to Japan), and for a few years, one could only see the Streamline dub of the movie. In the original Japanese version, the two young protagonists of "My Neighbor Totoro" were played by Noriko Hadaka and Chika Sakamoto. When Streamline dubbed the film, they were played by Lisa Michaelson and Cheryl Chase. Disney hired Dakota and Elle Fanning.

The Troma/Streamline version of "Totoro" made its way to VHS shortly after its brief 1993 theatrical run, and the VHS release was overseen by 20th Century Fox. Anime fans will speak of the Fox/Troma/Streamline VHS of "My Neighbor Totoro" as a distasteful aberration, a lost oddity from a time before Miyazaki films were given their due respect. The older VHS tapes are not highly sought collector's items. 

For the most part, Troma has stuck to their gore pictures, slime movies, and sex romps. But they did line their coffers with some animated classics and classy international films while churning out their schlock. Had "Totoro" been a bigger hit in 1993, it's entirely possible Troma would still be sitting on Studio Ghibli films to this day.