Since Rapidly Reviewing Reboot was such a success, and that project is now fully complete, I figured that it’s only right to do another television series from the 90’s. After mulling through multiple choices of shows to review, I went with one of the biggest staples of 90’s kids TV, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Brought to us by Saban, this Americanized version of the Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger series in Japan would become an overnight success, nabbing high ratings for the Fox Kids television block, as well as becoming a toy selling juggernaut.
Though nowadays, for the most part, the show has become rather cheesy in its very kid friendly writing and its acting, but I still like looking back at it since it’s still has some great action sequences, some decent humor, and the overall nostalgia factor helps it hold up far better than most products of the 90’s. Hell, the show is still a major success as it’s still under the air under the name Power Rangers Megaforce.
Now here’s where I’m going to cheat a bit on this rapid review. Here are the rules that will apply to these particular reviews:
Where with ReBoot, I looked at every single episode, with this rapid review, I’m going to only give reviews to episodes I deem are worthy of a writeup. With 145 episodes of the Mighty Morphin era alone to run through, you can be sure that there’s a lot of filler episodes, as well as similar plot ideas used over and over again. From evil versions of the rangers, to trying to create mistrust among the team, it would be redundant to constantly review the same essential story. I’ll give quick recaps to episodes I pass.
This will be a review of the Power Rangers series, and will draw zero focus on the Japanese Super Sentai series, as I know very little about the sentai version. Since both shows are massively different, it would be far more of a mess to try and cover both at the same time.
And finally at this point, this review series will try to cover the majority of the Zordon era of Power Rangers. The wild blue yonder beyond that? We’ll see how well this review series goes before we give extending the series to beyond the era of Zordon a shot.
So, let’s not waste any more time, and get into reviewing the first episode of the series, Day of the Dumpster.
But before we do, let’s look quickly at the one thing that everyone remembers most about Power Rangers. The theme song.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0YkXmebAGM
Composed by Ron Wasserman (under the name Aaron Waters, and later The Mighty RAW), this theme is epic for the great guitar and simple, but catchy lyrics. It’s crazy to think that a theme song with only six words (Although the longer version does have actual verses) can be so easily ingrained into the mind of anyone who encountered this show, whether you be a fan, or you just ran into the intro while turning the channel. It’s easily the most memorable part of most of the series.
We open the episode on the moon, as two astronauts discover a strange canister which they refer to as a giant space dumpster. First off, how do they know it’s a dumpster, especially when it looks more like a trash can? Second, are space dumpsters a common thing found among the cosmos?
When they open it, they awaken our main villain of the series. This is the evil witch Rita Repulsa. Along with her release in this ten thousand year prison is her general by the name of Goldar, her monster maker Finster, and Squat and Baboo, her comic relief. Honestly, Squat and Baboo may be the most forgettable of the bunch, especially as the series rolls on. She possibly kills the two astronauts (it’s never really said if they live or not), and sets her sights on taking over the closest planet which is of course Earth.
We then go to Angel Grove, California, which is where the majority of this series is going to be set. More specifically, we’re entering the Angel Grove juice bar and youth center, a place where teens and kids can work out, practice gymnastics or martial arts, as well as enjoy the many fine juices from Ernie’s juice bar. It’s here we’re introduced to out main teenagers with attitude.
These being Jason St. John, a master martial artist, Zack Taylor, a hip hop specialist who has his own brand of martial arts known as hip hop akido. Kimberly Hart, a talented Gymist, Trini Kwan, who’s both Kimberly’s best friend as well as talented in martial arts. And finally there’s Billy Cranston, the nerdlinger of the bunch. Good at scientific equations and inventions, but when it comes to any fighting skill, especially early in the series, he’s rather lacking. In fact, in his first appearance in the series, he’s trying to improve on his martial arts skills. But never mind that crap, here comes the REAL stars of this show.
This is Farkas “Bulk” Bulkmeier, and Eugene “Skull” Skullovich. They’re the show’s other antagonists. A pair of bullies that will be the cause of annoyance to our heroes. However, they aren’t so much violent and cruel as they are just a pair of bumbling idiots. I honestly think they’re the closest thing to the 90’s equivalent of Laurel and Hardy. And surprisingly, they’re going to be the characters with the longest tenure in the series, as well as the most character development. But for now, they’re just a pair of bullying douches. Bulk and Skull try to ask Trini and Kimberly out, only to be easily shot down. When they try to force their way into a date, they get easily taken down by the girls.
Back on Rita’s moon base, she’s already setting up her plans to take over the earth by telling Finster to prepare putty patrolers, which will be the show’s main foot soldiers for the majority of the Morphin’ era. Back at the Juice Bar, Billy’s still having some problems keeping up with the lessons Jason is teaching him, and begins to have his doubts. But this lesson is interrupted by Bulk and Skull, who want to learn karate so they can beat people up. And once again, they’re easily humiliated and outmatched by Jason’s skills.
After the lesson, things really begin to escalate as Angel Grove is hit with what appears to be an earthquake. At a large building in the mountains, we’re introduced to a robot and a giant head in a glass tube. This is Zordon and his robot pal Alpha-5. With the situation looking dire, Zordon tells Alpha to teleport five, and I quote, overbearing and overemotional humans. In other words, five teenagers. Because, you know, Enlisting the military or anyone with any real combat skills is in no way a smarter idea. And those five teens just happen to be Jason, Trini, Zack, Kimberly, and Billy.
The five of them are teleported into what is known as the command center, as Zordon gives the group some much needed exposition. He tells the group about Rita, and how she’s an intergalactic sorceress bent on destroying the universe. And the five of them have been chosen to battle Rita by harnessing the power of the ancient dinosaurs. Each of them are given a power morpher, a device that will give them the power to transform into a powerful fighting force known simply as a power ranger. They also have access to vehicles known as Zords. Each representing the prehistoric beast on their morpher.
Jason is the leader, and become the red ranger, in control of the tyrannosaurus zord. Zack will be the black ranger (make your racist jokes here), and will control the mastodon zord. Kimberly will be the pink ranger in control of the pterodactyl zord. Trini is the yellow ranger (again, make your jokes if you must), and controls the sabretooth tiger zord. And finally Billy is the blue ranger in control of the triceratops. And when all five of the zords come together, they form the mighty Megazord.
Of course, all of this information is a bit too much for our young heroes, and they essentially decline the offer. But this assessing the whole situation is put on hold as Rita’s army of putties attack the group. They’re at first easily outmatched by the soldiers, and they’re quickly beaten down. That’s when they finally put their morphers into action, transforming into the power rangers for the first time.
And from here, most of the footage is now from the Japanese sentai series, since they wouldn’t really use the Ranger outfits in most of the American footage for a while. Zordon tells Aplha to teleport them back to Angel Grove as Goldar is attacking. They battle with Goldar and the putties, managing to pull off a far more impressive performance. This of course irks Rita, but she’s reminded that she can make monsters grow with her magic scepter. This turns Goldar into a giant, as he’s able to rampage the city. Our heroes retaliate by activating the dinozords, activating stock footage of the zords that we’ll see in almost every episode.
They all get into their zords, and lock on their respective parts, managing to zap him down with their tank form, and finally forming the mighty megazord. Goldar manages to get more shots into the machine, before the group manage a come back by activating the power sword. However, Goldar retreats, much to the anger and headache of Rita. The episode ends with the group finally signing on to be power rangers, which comes with three simple rules. #1. Never use the powers for personal gain (You make money off this, Zordon gets a cut). #2. Never escalate a battle unless forced by Rita. #3. Don’t go revealing your secret identity. And thus the power rangers are born.
For a pilot episode, this really does a great job. We get to know the main characters, the villains, and even the essential side characters. It flows well enough, never feeling too slow. Though it does feel a little rushed at the end where we really don’t get a lot of them as rangers. But for a first episode with a lot to focus on, what we get still works rather well.
Next time, we’ll take a look at the 2nd episode of the series, and how this team is starting to shape up in High Five.