Syndication Files 01.06.10: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

Posted by Porfirio Diaz on 01.06.2010

It’s Morphin’ Time! Mighty Morphin Power Rangers started out as a children’s series and ended up catapulting into pop culture thanks to a merchandise of colorful spandex costumed heroes, silly villains, and giant freakin mechas~!! Thank you, Japan!

My 411 2010 resolution: to use shorter and more effective teasers for future columns. I am already off to a great start.

It's a new year and I'm still writing down "09" instead of "10" on today's date. I hate that.

Welcome in and welcome all to Syndication Files Twenty-ten! Before we begin this dissertation of wonderful inscription, I would like to officially introduce myself as 411 Fantasy Champion Porfirio Diaz. "Up There" should be my new nickname since everyone that participated had to have been looking up at me throughout the whole season. There is no secret to my success. It's just a matter of picking all the right players, inserting the right players into a bunch of starting slots, and doing it all over again on a weekly basic.

Steve Cook is most particularly upset. I dunno, something about me mounting on his fantasy championship hopes made him feel quite devastated. So much so that I apparently climbed up his "411 Enemies List" at #2, right behind Randle. Number two? What's this "number two" you speak of? Me don't understand. Maybe I should ask Cook himself since he knows a lot about being #2.

I don't know what Randle did to secure his #1 spot but if beating Cook's fantasy team in the championship game doesn't put me on top of his list, then nothing will.

Just a little 411 bashing between colleagues folks. Moving on.

There is a reason why I picked the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers as the first installment of the new year. Reason #1 will be explained later on in the column. But the other reasons are mostly for nostalgic purposes (duh). I've been meaning to do this one for a while now, just waiting for the right time to re-introduce the audience to one of the more surreal things I've ever experienced as a child. I grew up watching these awesome visuals of rainbow colored costume rangers fighting ridiculous monsters and driving around giant mechas such as Megazord.

Ah, now the memories are flooding back to me now.

That was until I turned into a young teenager and found the whole thing soooo hokey. Now as a young (and cynical) adult, I will break the show down even more to point out all of their preposterous features and logic (or lack thereof). But we should never forgot just how truly awesome this show was.


Syndication Files #25

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers


Go Go Power Rangers!

I don't care what you say. That theme song still rocks hard.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is based on the 16th installment of Japan's long-running Super Sentai franchise called Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger. So file MMPR under the (extremely long) "concepts and ideas that the U.S. stole from Japan" list. In this case, it was Haim Saban and Saban Entertainment who distributed the series overseas to the U.S. Not only did the company use Japan's idea for their Americanized version, they even used the exact costume, props, and actual footage from the Super Sentai series.

Sorry to break everyone's hearts but yes, much of the footage for MMPR was originally utilized from Japan's Super Sentai franchise. All the producers needed to do is hire a bunch of good looking American teenagers, have them do their live scenes, dub in their voices onto their power ranger counterparts, dub other people's voices over other onscreen characters, splice the two footage together, and bingo, you have a successful series!

Of course, the producers then needed to think up stories for their Americanized series and see how they can fit everything into the Japanese stock footage. That led to some very interesting (read: crazy) storylines. Mind you that not all of the scenes are from Super Sentai but there are some that can notice the difference right away. The series made its debut on August 28, 1993 on Fox (Fox Kids) and suddenly kids across the nation fought other kids, wanted to be like their favorite power ranger.

Mighty Morphin Power Ranger has a great simple concept: take five teenagers (requirement: attitude and lots of it!) and have them be recruited to become super heroes. Isn't that every kid's dream come true? To have a super hero secret identity with a bunch of your friends, kicking bad guy butt, and saving the world one day at a time?


Hey, that pyramid pose led to NOTHING! Show offs

If I learned one thing from this show, it's this: random posing and twisty flips = unstoppable.

The series takes place in a fictional town of Angel Grove, California. Evil alien witch Rita Repulsa is released after 10,000 years of confinement (those cramps must really hurt by now) and has set her sights on conquering Earth. A wise sage by the name of Zordon (big talking head guy) is the one who confined Rita in the first place and commands his robot sidekick Alpha 5 to find five "teenagers with attitudes". I don't know what Zordon's requirements are for "teenagers with attitudes" are but the search has been set. The search leads to finding these five racially assorted teens "with attitude": Jason (Austin St. John as the Red Ranger), Zack (Walter Emanuel Jones as the Token Black Ranger), Billy (David Yost as the Blue Ranger), Kimberly (Amy Jo Johnson <3 as the Pink Ranger), and Trini (Thuy Trang as the Token Yellow Ranger). They are given the neato ability to morph into Power Rangers along with having an array of weapons, powers, and super cool giant robots called Zords.

With the battle cry of "It's Morphin Time!", the super heroes unite to fight off the evil threat of Rita while continue to live the unaffectedly traumatized life as high school teenagers. Clearly this was every child's dream.


A rapping Pumpkin monster? So many levels of wrong…

That's the premise. It's a simple story structure of good vs. evil. The episodes that follow are even easier to understand.

Synication Files exclusive: The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers episode plotline in 8 simple steps:

1. Teens find subject/problem of interest

2. Putty Attack!

3. "Monster" is born – bonus points for having monster be related to heroes' subject/problem

4. Power Rangers fight "Monster", Power Rangers best "Monster"

5. Make "Monster" GROW!

6. Power Rangers call on their Zords, combine Zords

7. Power Rangers use "hacks" move to beat Monster

8. Day saved, problem solved, potential life threatening consequences ignored…YAY!



So knowing that, let's take a random episode and use that as an example:

Episode Title - "Something Fishy" (February 9, 1994)

1. Billy has a fear of fish

2. Putty Attack!

3. "Goo Fish" is born – fish monster (bonus points earned)

4. Power Rangers fight "Goo Fish", Billy overcomes fear, Power Rangers best "Goo Fish"

5. Make "Goo Fish" GROW!

6-7. Zoids, pew pew pew, hacks, boom~!!11

8. Bill now lives free from his fear of fish. YAY!

Fin.

Rinse and repeat. Viewing audience recommended. Coherent logic not required.


One of Rita's worst monsters ever? Sure.

But let's reflect something here with this famous quote: "It's not the destination, it's the journey." The promos were not fooling anyone. You just knew that the Power Rangers were going to win out in the end, no matter how dire the circumstances were. There's the beginning of the show and there's the end.

It's everything in the middle that fans really paid attention to. Why? Because it's freakin awesome. What's not to like about super heroes wearing colorful spandex costumes, rubbery monsters that looked like they came from an idea out of the manatee tank, fireworks and explosions that equals extreme pain, exaggerated acting, and violence that's fun for the whole family?

Well actually, parents back then scoffed at the show's display of lite-bright colored violence and refused their young children to be won over by such barbaric practices. Apparently their definition of stopping evil is different from ours. Rather than using the many highly advanced methods of punch-kick (it's all in the mind), parents used forms of protesting, complaining, and finger pointing ("It is time to stop pointing fingers! Fingerpointing gets us nowhere! Steve!"). But when Pokeman came out, no one said a peep. I guess violence is okay as long it's dressed up in cartoon form.


That was so haxxorz

Then there's the monster. Some were awesome in that not only did they look cool, but they looked totally capable of destroying the Power Rangers at any time before their cockiness and/or stupidity gets them killed. Some were just totally lame. I mean, just listen to these names: Goo Fish, Mr. Ticklesneezer, Gnarly Gnome, Pumpkin Rapper…? Pumpkin Rapper? Get this – his power is the ability to distract the Power Rangers with his clever raps and rhymes. I can just hear Dr. Dre preparing that big money contract right now. Seriously, it all starts with the name and I don't think any of those monsters could put the fear of terror on the faces of children, much less a group of super-powered teenagers. Whatever the case, all the monsters died a horrible death in the end anyway thanks to the hands of some uber haxxor power gun or to Megazord.

There are special occasions where the series breaks the normal episode format, normally when one big story is broken down into several episodes. Their best example is the massive five part episode which introduces Tommy (Jason David Frank) aka the Green Ranger and later (spoiler alert!) the White Ranger. This epic five part production also happened to be one of their best stories of the series. After that, it was nothing but Tommy wanting to get Kimberly in the power sack to do a little quick morphin of his own.


Green Ranger pwnage

The show is fun to watch, there's no mistake in that. Kids are not going to purposely point out questionable logic holes that fill their screen. However, I am not that kid and if I don't do it, then I'm not doing my job to entertain you in the most fantastic (crappy) way possible.

So I present to you the following questions/comments:

- Why only send one monster? Why not send a whole freaking fleet of them?

- In relation to the pervious question, why only in the daytime and in the same town all the time!? There are only places on Earth you know.

- There are so many ways those monsters could destroy the Power Rangers but they have to choose the most asinine way possible. I mean, Goldar is right there…

- Why does no one point out the fact that giant robots have continually destroyed their town, caused billions in property damage, and killed many people in the process? Not only that but they don't move away either. That must be one hell of a life insurance plan.

- Also, shouldn't the army have done an investigation by now? It's not like anyone is trying to hide the fact that GIANT ROBOTS ARE FIGHTING GIANT ALIEN MONSTERS ON AN EVERYDAY BASICS CAUSING THE TOWN BILLIONS IN DAMAGE AND KILLING MANY INNOCENT LIVES.

- Amy Jo Johnson…what a bod. <3

- So the Black guy is the Black Ranger (and on top of that he has an ax-gun for a weapon), the Asian chick is the Yellow Ranger, the Red Ranger always has to be a white guy (always), and the Pink Ranger always seems to be equipped with skirts to her costume. Apparently Zordon is blind to gender and racial stereotypes. Well, he is a giant head trapped in a cylinder.

- The stunts, poses, and battle grunts is a mixture of awesome, lame, and ridiculously unnecessary.

- The show boosted the most amazing soundtrack ever to come out of a children's show. The song just stayed in your head for days!

- Was Bulk and Skull anything more than comedic relief?

- Megazord vs. Optimus Prime – who wins?


Ah, Megazord. How I wish to ride thee.

That just about sums up all of the awesome original zords...well most of them. Seriously, Black Frog Zord?

As you can tell, the show was a massive success and the merchandise sales (toys, action figures, clothing) were off the charts. It was a brilliant marketing scheme: kids would run to the stores to get Power Rangers action figures, giant robots that formed into even bigger robots, various monsters, and other crazy assortments. I seem to remember kids bum rushing to get that Power Rangers Power Morpher set with a "Power Gun" that turns into a "Power Sword". I doubt we'll see that in the Toys R Us aisles ever again.

But along the way, I lost interest. Part of it was growing up and part of it was when new actors came in to replace some of the original actors. Later it became a game of Power Rangers musical chairs, where one hero leaves the group and immediately plugs in another. Then they had that season where everyone turned into kids which introduced the Alien Rangers and…it was just getting too hysterical, even for them.

Then came the many many many many sequels. Ugh.

Technically, the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers show ended on November 27, 1995 but the series continued on to the next incarnation of the Power Rangers franchise entitled Power Rangers: Zeo, then Turbo, then in Space, then…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Believe me, it's more of a generational thing than anything else. I grew up watching the original, so I love that version best while others who grew up in the late 1990s may think differently. Power Rangers: RPM (wait…what?) became the seventeenth and (as of 2009) final entry in the Power Rangers series, ending on December 26, 2009.

It's weird looking back at this show and knowing how much certain reactions have changed during a person's lifespan. As a child, it's the best show ever. As a teenager, it's totally lame. As a young adult, it's awesomely lame. It's nostalgia running at the peak of efficiency.

So what are the original six actors doing now? Austin St. John (Red) is currently working as a paramedic in Washington D.C. Walter Emanuel Jones (Black) is still in the entertainment business but has not gotten any roles that allowed him to escape the identity of being highly known as the Black Ranger…unless you count him being in Backyard Dogs. Same with David Yost (Blue), though he moved on to become a producer later on in his career. Thuy Trang (Yellow) unfortunately died in a tragic car accident on September 3, 2001. Amy Jo Johnson (Pink) went on to slightly bigger success by having major television roles in Felicity, The Divison, Wildfire, and Flashpoint. As for Jason David Frank (Green/White)... well just look at what he transformed into now.



Yes, he's a MMA fighter now and looks like a total bad-ass. When did this happen? Was there anything posted about this under the 411 MMA section? Why isn't this bigger news? You can just vision the other MMA fighters licking their clops in wanting to beat the ever loving crap out of the former Green Ranger. If interested, his first opponent will be against Jonathan Mack on January 30, 2010 in Houston, Texas. The event is called Lonestar Beatdown.

I want an all expenses paid trip to Houston, noa!

The appeal of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers continues to elude people to this very day. So much so that the Walt Disney Company (who purchased the series as part of a buyout in 2001) has recently brought the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers series back to life! The series underwent a re-vision that includes a new logo, comic book-referenced graphics, alternative special effects, and new footage from the 2009 Super Sentai series.

That all sounds neat and everything but….


The new opening

Ah, what the heck. That's the new opening? Weak. I don't care very much about the added graphic effects, no sir.

But if you missed it the first time, now's your chance to watch it and marvel in it's color coded glory...or laugh at all the skittle-colored cheesiness. You konw, whatever floats your boat.


Commercial Break


Do it Hollywood

I have to point out, if it wasn't already obvious, that this is a fan-made trailer complaining some of the more recent stock footage from the Super Sentai. That doesn't make it any less awesome. As long as Hollywood is on the "re-trend" train, why not make a mature Power Rangers movie? Hell, have Michael Bay direct it. Say what you want about Mr. Bay, but he never came across an explosion he didn't like and Power Rangers is nothing but explosions!

There's your idea Hollywood. Make it happen…along with me getting 10% in box office earnings and merchandise sales.


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Syndication Files Upcoming Show Listing

1/6/10 - Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

1/13/10 – Batman: The Animated Series

1/20/10 – Survivorman

1/27/10 – Pee-Wee's Playhouse

2/3/10 – Space Ghost: Coast to Coast

2/10/10 – Celebrity Deathmatch

2/17/10 - Titus

2/24/10 – Three's Company

Like what you see there? I know I do.


Ending Credits

It's 2010. Where is my flying car?

Heroes is back and for that I'm happy. Let the continual nonsense begin!

That's it for this week. Don't forget to catch me on this week's Fact or Fiction coming up later in the week.

And with that, I'm out of time. Out like every every opponent the Green Ranger faces from now on.