I Was A Teenage T.V. Terrorist



AKA: Amateur Hour

Paul is an aimless teenager stuck in his own version of American Midwest Suburban hell and already seeming disillusioned with life. His mother, frustrated with his attitude and not knowing how to handle him, decides to send him off to New York for the summer to stay with his estranged father, John Reid, a marketing executive at the very low budget Romance Entertainment Cable Company, Romanceco. Her hope is that the experience will somehow straighten him out. So off Paul goes to New York with his girlfriend Donna in tow, with visions of low-level stardom in her eyes.

But of course when they get there things aren’t as glamorous, or hell, even as decent as either of them would have hoped. Between the shoddy living conditions they’re forced to reside in, the even worse working conditions, the non-existent wages AND being blackmailed by their taskmistress of a boss (who also makes unwanted sexual advances on Paul), it doesn’t take more than a couple of weeks for the two of them to become hopelessly alienated by the entire industry. And how do two angry teens who are bitter and exploited decide to react to these inhumane conditions? Why, by getting revenge of course!



Not too long ago I watched I Was A Teenage Zombie, which is about a group of teens who accidentally create a zombie who is subsequently out to get them, so they intentionally end up creating another zombie to try to stop the first one. I found it amusing. And it also reminded me of another movie I saw years ago called I Was A Teenage Werewolf from 1957, starring a young Michael Landon. So that got me to thinkin’: I wonder how many of these films are out there?

The answer is, apparently, a lot. The 1957 film was just the first in a string of films where teens were singled out and either attacked by or turned into something. You’ve got all, or most, of your standard monster movie villains, of course, like I Was A Teenage Frankenstein, I Was A Teenage Werewolf and I Was A Teenage Zombie. But teenagers have also been cavemen, vampires, “from outer space”, and even vampires from outer space (not a joke, but a real-life movie called, Teenage Space Vampires from 1999. Look it up). And there are other, more recent films out there like Teenage Ghost Punk, or I Was A Teenage Feminist. And surprisingly not all of them are from the 50s or 60s. Most of them are actually from the 80s and onward. So I thought, let’s see what I can find for free to expand my knowledge of what teenagers can be nowadays. But since there are so many of them, for the most part I’ll be sticking to the “I Was A Teenage ___” for my own sanity.



And thus we have I Was A Teenage T.V. Terrorist, a 1985 American comedy film from Amateur Hour Productions and distributed by our dear friends at… Troma. Oh, what joy. But don’t be too put off by the Troma connection, or even  the ‘comedy’ designation. Unlike some (okay, most) of the Troma related films, this one is a bit too smart for your standard Troma affair. And despite its genre listing it’s also not strictly a comedy. Or at least it’s not going for the stupid ‘hardy, har-har’ type of humor that Troma films typically aimed for. If anything the movie is more of a dark satire or social commentary on society and the seedier, and oftentimes dumber, side of the TV and film making industry. And because it was made by people who were likely very familiar with that world, it’s probably fairly accurate.


Interestingly, we never see any romance shows from Romanceco. It’s all News, Game Shows and vegi commercials.

I gotta be honest though, the movie is pretty odd. I know, I know. That probably shouldn’t be surprising. But I don’t mean it’s odd strictly in a story sense (though there is that too). I mean that it’s odd in that it’ll likely only appeal to those who are in the proper head space to appreciate it. Because the people who see this is a Troma film and a comedy are likely going to put this movie on expecting a very certain kind of film… aaaaand this is NOT that type of film. It also doesn’t help that most of the descriptions online mention things like ‘boycotting’ (there is no boycotting), or try to make the movie sound suspenseful or action packed (it is neither of those things.) Hell, the posters add to the befuddlement by making the woman on the cover either look like some animal-print-wearing French Rebel (at no point does anybody wear that) or some blonde, leather-clad biker chick (she doesn’t wear that either… and she’s a brunette). So before the movie even starts the messaging is very confusing.



So instead of being ha-ha funny, it’s a commentary on how shitty (and stupid) the entertainment industry can be, and by the end it makes a couple of points of what it SHOULD BE instead. But instead of being serious, the film is done in a rather lighthearted way and filled with a bunch of sarcasm and several silly situations to try to make the message a bit more entertaining and not make the situation seem so friggin’ bleak. Yeah, they’re living in a shit-hole apartment, but Donna keeps trying to look on the bright side. Donna loses her acting job playing a dancing piece of asparagus, but Paul tells her she’ll find something better. Paul is sexually propositioned by his evil boss who is twice his age AND currently trying to blackmail him, but he brushes it off her advances with a couple sarcastic remarks.



Point is, people going in expecting strict laughs instead of commentary probably aren’t going to see that. They’re likely just going to think the movie is weird. And I can’t blame them. Because some of it definitely is. And I can’t even tell you that the movie was all that good at conveying whatever message they were going for either. Because I don’t think they were all that successful most of the time, and the non-existent budget they had to work with didn’t do much to help matters any. But (!) the messaging is there, and I do think they were trying. I just don’t know if it really works. Though I do think that what they tried to do is interesting, and it was fascinating to see them make the attempt on a shoestring budget. So I’m still a little puzzled about who exactly this film was made for and I suspect that a lot of people who are going into this blind are going to be very confused by this and walk away disappointed, because it’s not the type of film they were expecting.



It also doesn’t help that the story itself can also be rather confusing. The opening in particular seems to have been shot in one of the most convoluted ways imaginable by switching back and forth between various scenes, sometimes out of order. First you have Paul filming his girlfriend on stage as she performs one of the Greek plays for a high school. But he gets right up on the stage to do it, which angers the director. Then there’s static. Then Paul and Donna are in a car. Donna complains about living in their crappy town and performing Oedipus to high schoolers. More static. Some woman is doing exercises, counting down from ten. Static.


Are you sensing a pattern yet?

Paul and Donna are back in the car. Static. Paul and Donna are back on stage, the director gets angrier. Static. The exercise woman is down to 9. Static. The director has had enough and tries to stop Paul by taking the camera away from him. He ends up falling. Static. Exercise lady is down to 8. Static. Paul and Donna are back in the car. Paul stole the camera. Static. There’s the woman again. She’s down to 6 now. More static. Paul and Donna are in bed. She tells him she wants to stayed wrapped up in blankets with him forever. He sleepily tells her they’re sheets. Ever more static. The love birds are back in the car again (presumably). Still more static. We never know what number Exercise lady got down to, because a car pulls up and she calls for Paul. Guess that was his mother and she’s mightily pissed at him. Seems that ‘prank’ he pulled on the director and staying out all night with the girlfriends was too much for her. She calls him a nuisance, a petty thief and an ‘overall pain in the ass.’ And Donna’s dad doesn’t seem to be fond of Donna hanging out with Paul either. So off Paul goes to New York… with Donna tagging along with him.


Wait, huh?

The confusing part around all this isn’t so much the wonky set-up (which, though oddly laid out, I don’t necessarily mind). But rather that the set-up, which is meant to give us a quick overview of the characters and their situation, both utilizes features like the static that are never used in the film again (thank the gods), AND seems to bring up more questions than it answers. The foremost for me being: how old are Paul and Donna supposed to be, exactly? They say they’re getting sent away for the summer, and Donna mentions that Paul is one of the few guys in school who isn’t a jock or a computer geek (boy, is she going to regret overlooking them in a few years). So it’s implied they’re still in high school. But we’re never given an idea of how old they’re actually supposed to be. So, and I’m guessing here, that they’re at least 17. Because if he were older he’d likely just refuse, and if they were any younger Paul’s mom probably wouldn’t just send him off like that. Or maybe he’s just THAT MUCH of a pain in the ass, who knows?


I’m sure his mom is going to be thrilled to find out that her plan to send her son to his father to ‘straighten him out’ landed him in a New York jail.

Yet the whole sequence also begs the question: if Donna’s dad doesn’t like Paul, why is he letting her go to New York with him? I mean, I know things were different in the 80s, but I think most parents would still be strongly against their underage kids going off to another state and shacking up together, let alone giving them money to facilitate it. Yet that’s exactly what happens. And how old did you have to be to legally rent in the 80s? Because they mention renting the apartment they’re staying in, but if they’re still in high school that doesn’t seem quite right. Pretty sure it was still 18 to rent, even back then. But if they ARE 18, then how are their parents forcing them to do these things? If they’re that old then they can just vamoose from their crappy town on their own. The movie certainly already implied that that was their eventual intention. Then of course there’s the whole thing regarding the 40-some-odd-year-old woman hitting on her boss’s teenage son, which is a whole other level of ick. And then Donna runs off with someone even older than that later on and… I guess I’d just like some clarifications regarding motivations and possibly a couple birth dates, is all.


Man, some of the stuff that damn latchkey generation went through is wild.

Meanwhile the acting is…actually not too bad for a movie associated with Troma. It’s still sort of a mixed bag in regards to quality. But I think other than a couple of outlier side characters everyone is pretty decent. Or at least decent enough for their parts, which are all pretty one dimensional. Now the dialogue on the other hand…that can get a little wonky. But again, this was a ‘comedy’ and is meant to be a little strange. So I suspect that was all fully intentional.



Other than that though, I think I Was A Teenage T.V. Terrorist was surprisingly okay. Though I’m still not sure how good it is. Whether it works for you or not is going to be in the eye of the beholder on this one, I’m afraid. But I did think it was interesting. It felt sort of like watching one of those biking, beatnik, ‘rebel teen’ movies from the 60s, just centered around some disgruntled teens and a crappy TV station. And though I did have some issues with the story, I was still fairly entertained by it, which I didn’t think I was going to be when the movie started. So it has that in its favor. That said though, it’s not going to be for everyone. The plot’s not very exciting, the pacing is pretty sedate, and though it IS a comedy and it does have its moments, it’s really not all that funny. Or at least it’s not going to be the ‘ha ha’ funny a lot of people probably expected it to be. But hey! If you’re curious about the TV and film industry, or even involved in it, then you might find parts of this interesting. But if you’re not, then unless you’re some sort of die-hard Troma fan you can easily skip this.

I Was A Teenage T.V. Terrorist is available on a variety of streaming services.

I Was A Teenage T.V. Terrorist is not available on current physical media. At one point it had a limited DVD release from Troma, but it is now long out of print.

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