5 Smashing Facts About ‘Attack of the Killer Tomatoes,’ Svengoolie’s Jan. 18 Movie of the Week

You’ll never look at a salad in quite the same way after you watch Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, screening on the Jan. 18, 2025 edition of the MeTV series Svengoolie Classic Horror & Sci-Fi Movie. This 1978 camp classic parodies The Birds, Willard, Jaws, and other ’60s and ’70s movies about nature gone wild, with a plot about giant homicidal tomatoes who rise up against humans and attempt to overrun the planet.
Though critically panned upon release, Tomatoes was popular enough to spawn three sequels and its own TV show (more on that later), and influenced generations of parody movies that followed. And its unexpected success isn’t even the weirdest thing about it! Read on to discover more about the world’s most successful film franchise about evil produce.
1It features a real helicopter crash
Tomatoes was an ultra-low budget film, made for only $100,000. So how did they shoot a fiery, incredibly realistic-looking helicopter crash? Easy: the helicopter the filmmakers rented for the scene actually crashed.
According to a July 1978 AP article, “Production of a motion picture about giant nun-eating tomatoes has been temporarily halted after helicopter used in the filming crashed while trying to land in a tomato patch.” The pilot and actors who had been in the helicopter were quickly pulled to safety, and suffered only minor injuries; moments later, they decided to ad-lib as the helicopter’s wreckage burned, so that they could keep the finished scene in the movie.
2It (probably) inspired Tim Burton
If you’re a fan of campy invasion comedies, you’ve likely already seen Burton’s 1996 film Mars Attacks!, in which some very nasty Martians attack some very silly and unprepared earthlings. Though Burton had a few extra million dollars to play around with that the Tomatoes filmmakers did, the two films share a sensibility — and an ending.
*Spoilers for both Mars Attacks! and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes below*
In Tomatoes, only one thing can subdue the fiendish foodstuffs — playing them a terrible song called “Puberty Love,” which causes them to shrink. Similarly, in Mars Attacks!, no traditional Earth weapons make an impact on the evil aliens … but their heads explode when they hear Slim Whitman’s yodel-rific song, “Indian Love Call.”
Burton has never specifically mentioned lifting the music-as-a-weapon idea from Tomatoes, but if you watch the clip above, it’s hard to imagine that it wasn’t an inspiration. What’s that saying, “good artists borrow, great artists steal?”
And speaking of that terrible song …
3The “Puberty Love” singer would go on to classic rock greatness
Who’s the real vocalist on “Puberty Love,” the song that can bring the tomatoes to their knees … uh, I mean, stems? That would be the great Matt Cameron, better known as the Grammy-winning drummer of both Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. How did Cameron become a part of cult film history in 1978, when he was only a high schooler? As he revealed in a 2011 interview with Westword, it was simply a matter of being in the right place, at the right time:
“My neighbors up the street were making a low-budget comedy/horror movie called Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. So they recruited a lot of kids from the neighborhood to make these big papier-mâché tomatoes and play bit parts in the movie. They knew that I was a musician, so they asked if I knew how to sing. I sort of knew how to sing, but I wasn’t that good. I think that was part of the charm of the song. It sounds like a pre-pubescent voice that is cracking and can’t sing that well. So I fit perfectly for the role.”
4The film’s writer had a distinguished career in politics

Everett Collection
And Matt Cameron isn’t the only Tomatoes alumni to go on to bigger and better things! Writer James Stephen Peace only made a handful of films — Killer Tomatoes, its three sequels, and a 1987 film called Happy Hour. But his Hollywood career ended for a very interesting reason: he got involved in local politics, eventually spending 20 years in the California State Assembly and Senate (a bill he co-authored has been blamed by some for the 2000 California electricity crisis, which caused Peace to not seek re-election). In the years after retiring from government, he held some other intriguing jobs, including advisor to the San Diego Padres.
5Muppet Babies helped finance a sequel and a TV series
You can never tell what will help a small cult film become a genuine cultural phenomenon. And Tomatoes reached a wider audience with help from the strangest associate possible: the Muppet Babies.
A 1986 episode of Muppet Babies — an animated series which depicted the Muppets as whimsical toddlers who went on wild adventures — featured clips from Tomatoes, and depicted Fozzie fighting the mutant beasts (though, so as not to scare children, they were referred to as “silly tomatoes,” rather than “killer tomatoes.”)
The episode was a hit — so much so that the production company that created Muppet Babies reached out to the Tomatoes producers, and offered them two million dollars to make a sequel. That sequel, 1988’s Return of the Killer Tomatoes!, was a surprise hit (and starred a young George Clooney). Pleased with the film’s success, the Muppet Babies producers turned Tomatoes into a Saturday morning children’s cartoon, which ran from 199o to 1991 on Fox, with re-runs showing up on Fox-related networks until 2000.

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