Power Rangers

There's plenty of good resources about the Power Rangers on the net, so this page will mostly consist of personal recollections and some obscurities that interest me.

My own experience

Like many kids of the 90s, Power Rangers was a defining part of my childhood—but in a way that was slightly out of sync with my actual birth year. The original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers debuted around my birth, yet thanks to VHS tapes and hand-me-down toys, it became a daily fixture of my early childhood. It was a sort of generational echo, pushing me deeper into millennial nostalgia than my age would indicate.

My initial batch of VHS tapes only had episodes from the first two seasons, so I grew up thinking the Power Rangers: The Movie version of events was canon. Then, much later, I got a single VHS with third-season episodes, and they completely contradicted the movie! That was such a weird discovery to me.

Of course, the zords were awesome! Everyone digs giant robots! I had the MMPR Zords, hand-me-downs from someone who had grown too old for them. I played so much with them that they were pretty much worn out by the end of my childhood! I also had some other toys. The toy weapons, which I somehow got brand new in a box for a birthday (as pictured below), and I always wondered if it was just old stock lingering in a store somewhere. I also had a few of those Power Rangers action figures that switch heads when you press a button (helmet on, helmet off!), likely from the flea market. Oh, and I had two of those Polly Pocket-style micro playsets—one shaped like an MMPR morpher and another shaped like the Red Battlezord. Also from flea markets.

Belgium’s Power Rangers schedule may have lagged behind the US, given how my memories seem to be quite a bit later than American air dates. I think I might have caught the tail end of Turbo on TV, but my strongest early broadcast memories are of In Space. One of the things I loved most about Power Rangers was the continuity between seasons. Even though I missed a good chunk of the Zordon saga, I saw its conclusion in In Space which itself linked up seamlessly with its successor, Lost Galaxy. Continuity lessened after that, with Lightspeed Rescue, though I think its more professional approach to power rangering was quite interesting. But Time Force? That one’s a blank spot—I genuinely wonder if it was skipped over in Belgium or if I just missed it entirely.

Then came Wild Force, which I already thought to be really cool (Lunar Wolf Ranger, what a name!) even before Forever Red tapped into that continuity thing harder than ever before. Ninja Storm and Dino Thunder were the last seasons I remember watching on Saturday mornings, the latter bringing back my childhood favorite: Tommy.

I still remember S.P.D. fondly, but there I was just catching episodes here and there on weekday reruns in later years. Maybe I will try to catch up again, though my brief forays into modern seasonal Power Rangers never really hooked me. Maybe it's the lack of nostalgia, maybe it's the lack of all those chunky practical effects? Once & Always was definitely a fun commemoration, though!

Interesting crosslinks

One of the defining features of Power Rangers is the Zords, the giant (often combining) robots. The Japanese series that Power Rangers is based on, Toei's Super Sentai, originally did not feature such giant robots!

Toei first introduced a giant robot in their (very loose) Spider-Man adaptation. Leopardon, named after the German Leopard tank, proved to be such a success that the concept was then introduced in the Super Sentai series afterwards. In fact, that Sentai series (Battle Fever J) is actually also co-produced with Marvel!

The Purple and Orange rangers

In Mighty Morphin Power Rangers 2016 Annual, there's a parody story in which comic relief characters Bulk and Skull temporarily become rangers. They're depicted rather unflatteringly, with Bulk's suite being too small and Skull's too big.

Given how much these characters have grown throughout the seasons, I actually wouldn't mind it if they ended up becoming rangers for real. I like the mobile game's slightly more serious depiction of them:

They've got zords as well, the punningly named Baconodon and Featherdactyl respectively. I'd like to see some skilled fan create more serious renditions of them that fit with the MMPR megazord.