TGIF! Here we are again with another Fangirl Friday! I know it’s been awhile since the last Fangirl Moments post. Every time I got ready to write one, something else would come up and before I knew it a few weeks had breezed by… I’ll do my best to keep this from happening again, but, hey, life happens… Also THANK YOU to everyone that voted for this topic in the Twitter poll I ran, you guys were a huge help!!
So this week I’m feeling a bit nostalgic, what with the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers film reboot coming out next week and the Twitch MMPR marathon going on right now, I’m in full blown Power Rangers mode! Now, as much as I love the Power Rangers, I’m only going to cover the seasons based on the Super Sentai season Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger… because #notmyrangers!
Okay, I kid, I love all iterations of the Power Rangers, though I have the fondest memories of the original line-up of Rangers, even though I was barely out of diapers when the show originally aired. Heck, I can still sing the entire theme song from start to finish, with air guitar accompaniment and so what if I can still kind of do the hand movements for the morphing sequences… *cough*
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (MMPR) is the first entry in the American children’s live action Power Rangers franchise, adapted from Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger, the 16th season of the Japanese Super Sentai series. While the series takes some liberties with the original source material, the costumes and fight sequences were taken directly from Zyuranger. The latter two seasons borrowed elements from 17th and 18th seasons of the Super Sentai series, Gosei Sentai Dairanger and Ninja Sentai Kakuranger.
The series follows five teenagers with attitude (their words not mine) from the fictional city of Angel Grove who are recruited by an alien being, Zordon and his robot assistant Alpha 5 to fight an evil sorceress, hellbent on terrorizing the Earth. Zordon imbues the group of teens with power coins and morphers that allow them to transform into the Power Rangers in order to take on Rita Repulsa and her various monster minions!
While the Rangers are skilled at hand to hand combat, their biggest assets are their huge fighting robots the Zords, which they use to take on the forces of evil. Most of the series follows a set formula, Rita sends a monster to terrorize Angel Grove, the rangers kick monster butt, only for Rita to revive her monster of the week as a 10 story high behemoth that can only be defeated with the combined efforts of the Rangers and their Zords. It’s kind of predictable when you think about it, but as a kid, I really just thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen… I mean the cool karate moves and the explosions, what’s not to love?!
MMPR ran from 1993-1995 for a total of three seasons (there are 24 seasons in the entire Power Rangers franchise), during which the team went through a number of cast changes, some more heart breaking than others. Not going to lie, I got weepy when Jason, Trini, and Zack left the show, but I’m getting ahead of myself… *ahem* The team was originally a five man group: Red Ranger Jason, Blue Ranger Billy, Yellow Ranger Trini, Black Ranger Zack, and Pink Ranger Kimberly.
Part way through the first season Rita kidnaps a local teen, Tommy and turns him into her evil Green Ranger only for him to break free from her evil influence and join the Rangers as their sixth member… And let me say that that whole five episode arc was by far the most epic thing to come out of the first season! I might have wanted to be the Yellow Ranger as a kid, but I was definitely in LOVE with Tommy *fans self* that man is gorgeous!
Nostalgia glasses off for a second, re-watching the show as an adult I see a lot more of its shortcomings… Like the fact that the Black Ranger was played by an African American actor and the Yellow Ranger was played by an Asian American actress, whether this was intentional or not, it’s still problematic as hell! Or the fact that some of the dialogue is cringe-worthy at best… the 90’s lingo *whimpers*… it’s not perfect. So, regardless of how silly MMPR may seem to folks who didn’t grow up with the series, I can honestly say I still love the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers! It was a huge part of my childhood and even though I’m well into my twenties, I still watch some of the newer seasons from time to time… Oh, and best believe I will be in the theater next week watching the Power Rangers movie, you know, just to make sure they do the series justice… 😉
Are you a fan of the Power Rangers? Which Ranger is your favorite? Are you going to see the movie next week? Do you have a favorite childhood television show that you want to share? Let me know what you think in the comments section. If you like what you see, like this post or follow Nice Job Breaking It, Hero! As always THANK YOU FOR READING!!
Tommy!! White Ranger was the best!! And the hottest lmao! Great post! Can’t wait for the movie!!
LOLOLOLOL I missed the Green With Evil saga and the White Ranger Saga *weeps* But, Tommy will always be one of my favorite rangers ever!! OMG me too!! They better do the series justice!
My favorite ranger was the blue ranger. Second favorite was the black ranger. I always loved the intro song. I heard on the 3rd season of series, the black ranger changed actors and they got Johnny Yong Bosch, a voice actor who does anime characters like Ichigo from Bleach.
Something to do with contract dispute. Allegedly. I haven’t seen Zack make an appereance since. Trini sadly passed away. Same with Billy. JYB is known for Ichigo but also Lelouch, Kira from wolfs rain :P.
Really? That’s sad to hear about Trini and Billy.
Yeah, they all left the show on bad terms, though the actor for Jason was brought back for a short period of time. Though they did have Zack appear in one of the later season when they brought back a bunch of the rangers from the past, but I can’t remember if they had Walter Jones reprise his role…
LOL Johnny Young Bosch is everywhere in anime!
Oooooh, a Billy fan and of course Zack was awesome too!! Yes they did, the after they wrote the actors and actress for the Red, Yellow and Black rangers out of the show, they replaced them with all new folks. Johnny Young Bosch has done a ton of VA work since leaving Power Rangers it’s amazing!
Yeah I thought they were great. It’s sad to see them gone but at least they kept the show going.
Yeah… you should have seen the comments people were making on the Twitch chat when they switch over from the original Power Rangers… there were a whole lot of #notmyrangers LOL
Haha oh my gosh! I really need to get a Twitch account. XD
I still remember me and my friends starting a “We want Kimberly!” chant in the school cafeteria after she left.
LMAO, that’s hilarious! The Twitch chat was full of Kim>Kat posts immediately after Kimberly was written out of the show.
I kind of agree, I liked Kimberly more than I liked Kat, especially when they started shipping Kat with Tommy…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wt6XlVob_E
Curtesy of Simon Cowell xDD. Shuki Levy and Hain Sabhan are right cheapskates. But made a fortune on making cheesy songs like this. Anyway blue ranger was my fav xDD.
LOLOLOLOL
Yeah, Saban definitely made a killing with all the footage they took from the super sentai series over the years… But, I have to admit that some of the battle songs were pretty catchy LOL
OOH! Another Blue ranger fan!! 🙂
I just kind of hide my face when I think about the Black Ranger and the Yellow Ranger. It’s soooo bad, but MMPR was the show everyone watched even though it was campy as hell even back then. it’s a hit or miss going back and watching shows from your childhood. The Super Mario Super Show is extra cringeworthy, and don’t even get me started on He-Man lol.
I agree 100%! When I was watching the stream I had to take a step back at times… the show is just so dated but nostalgia was so strong lol.
The business with the black and yellow rangers was supposed to be coincidence… but I know for a fact that Walter Jones auditioned for the role of Billy and Saban decided to recast him as the black ranger, because it would be more memorable… but swears it was a coincidence… right.
Lmao girl, that’s a whole post right there 😋
The Zach was by far the cream of the Power Ranger’s crop. Think about it. He was the only one of the cast who would actually do the flips and stunts out of costume and he was the creator/master/innovator behind the revolutionary Hip-Hop Kido. The Black Ranger can do no wrong in my book.
Zack was my dude, the original Black Ranger!! Another Zack fan!! He is one of the most underrated Rangers ever!
Go Go Power Rangers! I’ll be honest. I didn’t actually watch Power Rangers as a child, so this marathon is my first time watching the series proper. But I have been enjoying this marathon so far, especially the original seasons. The chat makes these cheesy episodes even more enjoyable. AYAYAYAYAY! It has made me excited to watch the Power Rangers movie next week, so good job, Twitch and Saban.
*plays air guitar* Go Go Power Rangers, You Mighty Morphin Power Rangersssssssssss~
OMG, you are the second person to tell me that they didn’t watch MMPR as a child. Which season of the show was your favorite?
LOL the chat made the whole thing 100x better! BL BL BL BL BL 😛
Did you see the movie? How was it?
I enjoyed the first few seasons and the “Power Rangers in Space” seasons. Though keep in mind the entirety of my experience with MMPR is from watching with Twitch, hahaha! But I think the chat making fun of the cheesiness and constantly going AYAYAYAY and BLBLBLBL made it that much sweeter.
I just saw the new movie today and I honestly loved it. I went in expecting it to be bad, and I thought it did a really great job of rebooting the franchise into something… respectable. Maybe it’s because I don’t have nostalgia for it or maybe I enjoyed the real teen drama of it, but I was hooked for the entire two hours. Have you seen it?
Power Rangers in Space was so good, but I love Mystic Force and Time Force, those are my absolute favorites!
LOL the chat was too much #notmyrangers and Kim> Kat
Folks have had mixed views on the teen drama, but I’m glad to hear that it was done well. Not yet, money is kind of tight rn, but I’ll see if I can see it on Tuesday since the theater near me has a special discount thing, so we’ll see!
I didn’t know anything about the Power Rangers but I really liked the movie, it was so much fun!
OH wow! Now I really need to see it, everyone I know that has seen it loves it!! Thanks for stopping by and sharing!! 🙂