Back in the mid-1980s, most studios and distributors began to mute their ballyhoo to promote motion pictures, with the notion that, no matter what happened, they could always recoup their money when the picture went to video. That may or may not have proved true, but the scrappy independents like Troma recognized that some of the old methods of marketing still were necessary’s to. In fact, Troma absolutely understood that all the old methods of marketing were still effective mostly because they were cheap. Nobody did ballyhoo like Troma and during their salad days, the ballyhoo they barked was unsurpassed. So much so that it is still much fun to gawk at some 35 years later.
This brings me to The Troma Times, Vol 6 Number 1, February 1988. A faux four-page newsletter printed on ad slick that served the dual purpose of ballyhooing their latest clutch of video releases and theatrical engagements, while also poking fun at themselves and allowing the whole tongue-in-cheek bravado of Lloyd Kaufman to be viewed as text, years before he wrote a book or commented on social media posts.
During our archive digitization (ICFH has been digitizing its massive collection of movie marketing material along with the collection of the late great Joe Kane, since January 2022. It is a huge project that will be covered here on the blog very soon) we discovered this Troma nugget within one of the myriad press kit folders they sent out in early 1988.
I am not certain there were other editions of The Troma Times but we at least have this one to pour-over. A fascinatingly fun read that, for any fan of Troma's offerings, will whip up a bit of nostalgia for the "good old days."
ICFH is proud to offer individual page downloads of The Troma Times, as well as a PDF of the complete 4-page newsletter.
Please keep this in mind. The files provided here are archival scans, and as such, are of the highest quality and take up an insane amount of space.
Each individual page download is around 19MB and the PDF clocks in at 70MB.
The links to download these nuggets of Troma history can be found below