The Final Episode #35: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (1995 - 1996)

 

Ah let's double dip with Saban Entertainment and talk about the most popular thing they ever did, but first I figure we should talk a little about Saban Entertainment and the guys who ran it. They are two dudes from Israel who pretty much wrote every theme song to a 1980s cartoon put out by DIC (it's been a while since I mentioned them and felt like I had too!) Heathcliff? Done by them! M.A.S.K.? Them! Mysterious Cities of Gold? THEM! I heard it through the grapevine that they are not the nicest men in the world but you can be the biggest asshole in the world after you compose three killer theme songs like those!

Anyway in the 1990s they found some TV series from Japan called Super Sentai, like every one of them had Sentai in the name. This is where they get all the fighting footage from. The goofy Saved by the Bell nonsense was filmed in America. This set up was incredibly popular with us kids. This was like the biggest fucking thing that ever became a thing. This thing knocked the TMNT off their pedestal as the biggest kid thing in the universe. I loved this show and watched it all the time, even watching the 82,000 ripoffs of it. Like Superhuman Syber Squad and VR Troopers. I didn't even do that for the TMNT. I didn't watch those ripoffs. Unless you count Mummies Alive as a ripoff, I liked that one.

So you might be asking yourself "Michael, the Power Rangers are still on the air, you cant be doing a Final Episode of that shit!? Well yeah I can, kinda. Every new series takes place in a different setting, new characters and even a new name. The first series was called Mighty Morphin Power Rangers then it was Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers (for a whole 10 episodes!) then Power Rangers Zeo, then Power Rangers Turbo then Power Rangers in Space then Power Rangers Fuck Some Sweet Assholes. 

I've talked a few times about the website Jump the Shark, where people talked about where tv shows went downhill. This was the first time as a kid I could tell the quality of something just went downhill. Yeah we can joke about Power Rangers ever having quality if we want too. I just know that once characters changed from the ones that were there at the start to new characters. I think it was the Red Ranger who left first. Then I think Black, Pink and Yellow left in the movie (even though the TV show showed different reasons for them leaving, I guess they just didn't care) and I just stopped caring. I think I ended up watching the first few episodes of Power Rangers Zeo before writing it off as sucking poop or something. I was like 11 give me a damn break.

This one was hard to do because it was honestly just as boring and lame as I remembered as a kid. There's only two REAL Power Rangers in this Power Rangers episode! The other ones can go fuck goats for all I care. I'm still mad about this after more than two decades!!! Also this show technically changes it name to Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers or some shit like that. And it's pretty much a eleven part story telling how the Power Rangers go from being Power Rangers to being Power Rangers Zeo. I'll watch a two part series finale. I'll watch a 3 part series finale. I'll even watch a 5 part series finale. To get me to watch a eleven part series finale you better give me the greatest story ever told  and I'm guessing from this episode here that watching ten more episodes of this would have put me into a coma.

This episode involves Rita Repulsa's dad Joey Joe Joe Junior Repulsa coming in and taking over to destroy the Power Rangers. They plan to turn them back into children. Lord Zedd says they did this before and failed. He also later on says that he was amazed that the man actually did it. I have no idea if this plot has been revisited but I'm sure it was a lot more fun the first time around. I think they stopped caring around this time with the show and it somehow got 342 sequel series. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is The Simpsons of children's TV. It should have ended several decades ago.

This episode ends on a cliffhanger of the Power Rangers being turned into kids and Rita and Zedd and some other monsters get turned into giants. Apparently Joey Joe Joe Jr Repulsa tells them to come back. Then the Alien Rangers come and they build a machine to turn them back into adults. That's how that concludes.  I was so bored by these new shitty Power Rangers that I didn't even bother to watch part two or three or four or five or you get where I'm going. I told you I'm not watching a 11 parter. I'm going to say that Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers is a whole new show. One that lasts 10 episodes. So I don't have to talk about it.

FINAL VERDICT: Yeah this was my least favorite Final Episode to do. I didn't really want to cop out and be like hey it's a new show but I don't get any enjoyment out of these new Power Rangers. Even though they are 26 years old now but still they are considered to be new to me at least, remember NBC told us "If You haven't seen it, It's new to you!" Uh yeah, don't watch this episode.