Shadoe Stevens crashes in the VHS wasteland on August 17, 1988


Replacing the legendary Casey Kasem as host of American Top 40 wasn't enough of a challenge for Shadoe Stevens in 1988. No, siree, the man was going to conquer Hollywood in the same year. Backed by no less than Dino De Laurentis, a budget of $6.5 million, and the screenwriter of Raw Deal, Stevens would make his bid for celluloid greatness as disgraced former Texas state trooper and soldier of fortune Traxx. 

Yes, Traxx! The very name hangs in the air like the faint aroma of stale Pop Secret and forgotten dreams! And those forgotten dreams would ultimately include Shadoe Stevens' movie career. For, you see, he shot for the moon, but merely landed among the stars...on videocassette shelves. Not destined for the gilded multiplexes, those temples of celluloid illusion where the masses flocked for their weekly dose of manufactured heroism and pre-packaged romance. No, no, my velvet-collared voyeurs of the VCR, Traxx bypassed all that. It slithered directly into the plastic clamshell cases of your local video emporium, nestled between the well-worn tapes of Police Academy 3 and that grainy copy of Debbie Does Dallas your neighbor always seemed to have "out."

And what, pray tell, was this Traxx? A shimmering supernova of cinematic genius, languishing unseen? A lost masterpiece yearning for appreciation? Ha! Don't be such a fool, my friend! Traxx was a glorious monument to the age of "good enough." Good enough to bypass the scrutiny of Siskel and Ebert, good enough to avoid the crushing blow of a box office bomb, good enough to simply…exist in the glowing cathode ray tubes of America's living rooms.

Traxx, with a face that suggested a lifetime of late-night disc jockeying and perhaps a close acquaintance with a rogue wave of hairspray, leaves his Temu Rambo career behind for the prosaic life of a small town cookie baker. That sound you hear was the first of many layers of fine dust beginning to gather upon the clamshell case, which was destined to never be picked up in the video store.

The plot, as the gods of schlock would have it, involved the predictable tropes of bad guys, explosions that looked suspiciously like someone lit a string of firecrackers in a dumpster, and the kind of dialogue that makes you wonder if the screenwriter's muse was a Magic 8-Ball set to "Outlook not so good." But oh, the sheer shamelessness! The swaggering un-self-consciousness of it all! Traxx didn't aspire to greatness; it merely landed, an ejected Federation starship toilet crashing into the vast, uncharted territory of direct-to-video.

And in that landing, my friends, lies a certain…truth. A truth about the voracious appetite of the VCR, the democratization of distribution, and the glorious, unfettered reign of the "B" movie. For every E.T. and every Star Wars, there were a thousand Traxxes, quietly populating the shelves, waiting for some curious soul, lured by the lurid cover art and the promise of cheap thrills, to take them home. Alas, Traxx delivered neither. Somewhere in the night, Casey Kasem was smiling. Ponderous, man. Ponderous!

So on this anniversary of Traxx's direct-to-video debut, let us not mourn its lack of theatrical fanfare. Let us instead celebrate its glorious mediocrity, its testament to the "crank it out" spirit of the era. For in the vast, sprawling landscape of 1980s pop culture, Traxx stands as a monument to the beautiful buffoonery of it all, a reminder that sometimes, just sometimes, "good enough" is gloriously, hilariously…enough. Now, if you'll excuse me, I believe I have a sudden craving for some Jolt Cola and a rewind button.

Location: Texas, USA

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