 Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers has grown on me over the years. I used to love it as a kid, so I came across some old tapes of episodes that I had. When I watched them, I couldn't believe a show so stupid could've possibly been on television. That's no overstatement - especially if we're talking about the first season, where the episodes were written so poorly and the special effects were so incredibly dumb that I just could not believe people were watching it. But, I still watch crappy shows today - surely little kids are afforded the same right. Someday they too will join the purveyors of such highbrow entertainment as The Anna Nicole Show and Survivor Meets Husbands Who Cheat On Their Dangerous Pet Racoons.
In spite of all the bad acting and bad storylines and bad Japanese women that throw monster-growing staffs from the moon, I like how each episode managed to get across some kind of positive message. In the end, if a show can entertain kids and get a good moral across without turning them into smartass brats, it's gotta be a-ok with the general public. The only 'crime' Power Rangers 'committed' was allegedly influencing kids to karate chop each other. Come on now - there's some things kids are just born with. Fear of loud noises, fear of falling, and of course, the innate desire to karate chop their friends. It's gonna happen whether they watch Megazords blast some giant frog or not.
For me, the great thing about Power Rangers is how it's kind of like watching your standard teen sitcom cast thrown into a Godzilla movie. You've got really cheesy monsters in costumes more hilariously bad than you'd find in even the most iconic 80s sci-fi/horror flicks. You've got a bunch of kids wearing neon racing uniforms dancing around and punching gray mimes in the stomach. And if that's not enough for ya - you get a talking robot who really loves his vowel sounds. Because it was such an immense kiddie fad, people like me often overlooked the terrific similarities between Power Rangers and all the quirky monster movies of years past. Okay, so Godzilla movies never had a fat guy who ran a juice bar. But there's still a lot here to enjoy, even if it's only on a mocking level.
With that, here's an episode review from very early on in the series( 5th episode to be exact), back before they mastered the fine art of voice-over dubbing. It's titled 'No Clowning Around,' and really displays all the great qualities I was referring to up above. It's got the worst evil monster I've seen this year,crappy dialogue, and crappy dialogue. I mention 'crappy dialogue' twice because there's a whole lot of it. I don't want to give too much away, so let's just hop into the show...
 It's a beautiful day in Angel Grove, and our heroes are at a carnival. Nobody seems all that excited by the festivities, but that's less surprising once you remember that Angel Grove seems to have some kind of circus/fair/carnival at least once every two episodes or so. They may be tired of it all, but they still love their cotton candy. Not that Power Rangers was ever heralded for its character development, but the kids were really undefined this early in the series. All we know about Jason, the leader, is that he has muscles and loves the color red. All we know about Trini is that she looks really flat-chested in her yellow power suit. Billy's the only one who has a clear personality, but that's only because they script every one of his lines to include words and terms like 'invention' and 'scientific transmogrification' and 'polaric pinesoliffic pontanticularity'.
In case you're new to the lore, the Power Rangers are a group of five good-natured and racially diverse high school students chosen by Zordon to fend off the evil world-dominating plots of Rita Repulsa and her endless supply of monsters. Zordon, by the way, is a floating graphic of a head. Just so we're clear on this show being dumb. The kids were given the power to call upon their Zords, which in this stage of the game are all different robot dinosaurs that merge together to form the Megazord. Each episode featured the kids suiting up to save their hometown against whatever new creature Rita sent down from her home base on the moon. Just so we're clear on this show being really, really dumb.
 Trouble, folks. Like most carnivals, this one has a whole lot of clowns running around. But they seem a tad off. They're all making angry faces and seem to be only faking their clownish cheer. Just when you're about to put the puzzle together, we see that the clowns are just Rita's army of Putties in disguise. 'Putties' are the Stormtroopers of the Power Ranger universe - there's thousands of them, but they can do no real damage to any of the hero characters. The lead clown is today's choice monster in disguise, and just wait till you see him!
Now, I've gotta wonder how all of these Putties-dressed-like-clowns got into the carnival unnoticed. What happened to the real clowns? Didn't anyone notice that nobody hired this strange set of evil clowns? Why would Rita be disguising her troops as clowns, anyway? It's not like she can't just throw her minions into the middle of anywhere she wants anyway, so why all the nonsense? I really should reserve all these inquiries, because as the events transpire, they'll only become more numerous.
 Ah yes, there's Rita herself. Rita is followed by a group of other creatures up on the moon, ranging from a giant blue dog in gold armor to a batmonkey wearing a monocle. I've always been curious - out of all the monsters she has available to her, why does she stick with the most useless ones? Rita can create new creatures simply by having someone on her staff mold them out of clay. Why doesn't she make anything more interesting than things like pigs dressed up like gladiators, or chickens with extra beaks? I think Rita is too dependent on nailing some style points with her monsters - creating a bird-faced rabbit who spits carrots might get you noticed, but it's not gonna beat a giant robotic Tyrannosaurus.
I really want to print out this article and switch it with a priest's chosen passages before Sunday church.
Rita is happy to see her plan unfolding so nicely - but while she explains what today's monster is capable of, I think I'll hold off on telling you. This is way too good to spoil.
 Sure enough, one of the clowns is up to no good. Trini was baby-sitting her little cousin, who recites her lines in such a way that you would swear they wrote out makeshift cue cards on poor Trini's forehead. The evil clown leads her cousin away, and after an extended chase sequence, Trini finds the duo and wonders what's going on. Her cousin might be naive, but surely the clown should know better than to lead small children to the other side of the park.
Just before they head off, the clown reveals his true colors by attacking Trini's cousin, who from this point on I'll call Bitsy. It's not the kind of attack you'd expect - he doesn't break out with the kidnapping or karate moves or anything like that. No, it's much worse. See, Rita's monster is hiding in that clown suit. And Rita's monster can do something downright magical...
 Turn people into cardboard cutouts!!! No, really - that's his super power. They don't even bother trying to say that poor Bitsy in trapped in a two-dimensional wormhole or some other technical jargon that'd sound a little less stupid, since Rita herself specifically said that the monster turns people into freakin' cardboard cutouts. So now Bitsy's all made of paper and stuff. It's pretty horrific. The fright levels were kinda watered down though by the clown's reaction to what he's done:
OOOH HOO HOO!
Your cousin needs to put on a little weight, Trini!
Trust me, I'm CRYIN' ON THE INSIDE!
CLOWN RHYMES WITH FROWN!!
OOOH HOO HOO!
Just when you think things couldn't possibly get any better, we get to watch poor Trini try to figure out why her cousin is made of cardboard. Now, I don't know how much acting Thuy Trang did before this series began, but if this is any indication, she never learned how to effectively display emotion towards characters made of paper. Trini looks at her mangled cousin with the same level of puzzlement you would upon noticing a freckle on your arm for the first time. She doesn't seem all that concerned, but I guess I wouldn't be either if I had a funny robot and a floating translucent god head to help me solve all my problems.
 Trini explains what's happened to the other Rangers. "There's a clown at the park turning people into cardboard cutouts!" Trini's always looking at the downside. Can't she just be satisfied enough with the nice day and the fact that this is the one carnival that's gone unaffected by the seemingly universal price hike on funnel cakes? Stupid glass-half-empty pessimist. The Rangers yell for everyone to get out of the park, which was interesting since they never really explain why everyone should leave. Because nobody in Angel Grove knows their true identities, it's even tougher to swallow. If you were at a carnival, would you believe a few high school students who run into the middle of everyone and start shouting about evil clowns? Angel Grove must be a trusting place, because this turns into a stampede scene, with everyone running for their lives even though they've got no idea why they're running. Maybe they all saw a butterfly and cheerfully chased after it.
After the park's cleared, the clowns all revert to their normal monstrous forms. This begs the question of why they bothered infiltrating the carnival to begin with, but Rita's plots were always a little tough to understand. I'd say that people just think differently on the moon, but really, this is probably what happens when evil plans come from the mind of someone wearing a dead goat on their head.
I really, really want to print out this article and switch it with a priest's chosen passages before Sunday church.
 There's a Putty. They usually don't have clown equipment. If you've never seen the show, Putties all wear gray spandex suits with black lightning bolts on 'em, have rocky gray faces, and walk around like they're trying to avoid stepping on any ants. I don't think they ever got the better of the Rangers in battle, mainly because they don't really try to attack. It's more like their mission is to get really close to one of the Ranger's faces to make weird fishy sounds at them until they get kicked in the chest. The Rangers still approach them as if they're dangerous, but everyone else knows better.
 Of all the Power Rangers, I'm pretty sure the pink one was the only to have expanded her acting resume past kiddie karate shows. That's her up above, Amy Jo Johnson. Though she's probably the most successful Ranger, it's not really saying much. The only things I can recall seeing her in elsewhere are Felicity and a Lifetime made-for-tv movie where she plays an anorexic ballerina. It's not the classic Hollywood success story, but at least she didn't spend ten years punching paper mache monsters like some of the others.
Anyway, they handle the first bunch of Putties easily enough, and just when things seem to be calming down, the lead clown evaporates and reforms into today's monster: The Pineoctopus!
 Don't worry, I couldn't tell what it was either. I can understand the 'octopus' part, since it's got all these yellow tentacles growing out of its head. And I suppose some of the monster looked enough like a plant to warrant the 'pine' part. Still a little unclear as to why it turns people into cardboard cutouts. Oddly, the Pineoctopus had the most lines in the entire episode. It's probably the most talkative monster in Power Ranger history. I just wish it would've mustered up insight a little heavier than "Ya can't beat me Rangers, I'll turn you into cardboard cutouts!", or conversely, "Try to stop me Rangers, cardboard cutouts you will turn into!" Then again, it's pretty amazing that a rubber octopus plant could talk to begin with.
While all of Rita's monsters have a unique power, they also all share the ability to shoot bombs and lazers. This is especially important in the Pineoctopus' case, since he may have a little trouble taking over the planet sheerly by turning people into paper one-by-one.
 Finally, the Rangers suit up. They're not in full force, since Trini's taken her paper cousin to Alpha's secret lab. She can't return home and explain to her aunt that not only did she lose little Bitsy at the carnival, but when she found her, she was made out of cardboard. That's the sort of thing that'll make you lose stock with your family - she'll be right off everyone's Christmas card list.
I wonder if the Rangers fought over who got to be what color, and who got to have what Zord. I mean, Jason got the swank red outfit and the T-Rex. Trini? Poor Trini got stuck with the lame yellow suit and the damn sabretooth tiger. What leadership qualities did Zordon see in Jason that made him decide to give him all the good stuff? Did he have the foresight to know that Trini would be a terrible baby-sitter for her cousin, and thusly not a good choice to lead a team of teenagers that save the world week after week? Zordon works in mysterious ways. He also owns a crappy robot:
 Actually, Alpha wasn't so bad. Especially earlier in the series, when they didn't make him "ai yai yai" at the beginning of each sentence. Hearing a robot say "ai yai yai" when he's confused was cute for the first 40,000 times, but once you get in the mid-70,000s, it can get pretty annoying. Still, he's an essential ingredient to the success of the Rangers. Without Alpha, they wouldn't be able to solve the intricate puzzles Rita throws down from space. In this case, Trini's faced with the impossible: how do you bring your cousin back to life when she's a piece of cardboard? They don't teach that kinda stuff in Angel Grove High. Surely Alpha would know of some alien root or magical potion that'd bring her back to life, right? Alpha always has a solution. The way to save Bitsy was so unique and vague that only a super-robot could've unearthed it: just add water.
 Sure enough, Alpha throws a few buckets of water on Bitsy, and she's brought back to life, unlike most pieces of cardboard which would become soggy and warped. Christ Rita, could you please think these plots through a little further next time? What kind of master plan is this? All they had to do was pour water on her, and viola! Problem solved. The villains up in space are creative enough to conjure up a monster that's part-octopus, part-plant - and this is the best they could do? Turning people into cardboard cutouts with the super-secret antidote being the unknown and ultra-rare element known only to the mages as "god damned water?"
But the Rangers haven't won the battle yet. Even though Bitsy's back to normal, they've still got the Pineoctopus to deal with. Now he's really mad because everyone keeps watering his victims. He'll be even tougher to deal with now, since Rita's about to pull the ol' "throw a stick at a mountain and make the monster grow" trick.
 It's a flawed plan, really. See, Rita has the ability to make all her monsters grow to impossible heights by throwing her staff towards Earth. Now I'm not arguing that it makes the monsters appear more menacing, and surely, they're a lot more powerful when they're a hundred feet tall. But it's still flawed. Whenever the monsters get big, the Power Rangers suddenly remember that they've got these gigantic dinosaur robots waiting in the wings. When those dinosaurs come out, the Rangers always win. But they don't ever call on them unless Rita jumbo-sizes one of her monsters. So you'd think she'd pick up on this, right? Her monster is doing just fine at normal size, completely kicking the heroes' asses from one side of Angel Grove to the other. Why mess with success?
One of the interesting things about the show is how they edited it for American viewing. Effectively, they take bits and pieces from the Japanese series and sort of reword them to fit the story the wanted to tell here. So, you really can't tell - the real Rita Repulsa might not have had any idea than her monsters were turning little kids into cardboard. In fact, "Power Rangers" in of itself is a completely American invention. The Japanese version of the show had a different name, and the action was far different because they're not as anal about violence or 'controversial conflicts' in their entertainment mediums over there. So while you can certainly blame Japan for some of the bad effects, you really can't say that we made lemonade with their lousy lemons over here. In fact, we created our own lousy lemons, mostly because our culture won't allow children to see fake blood or to hear anything that some bored housewife in Detroit might sue over.
Oh yeah, the Pineoctopus...
 He's a lot bigger now.
If you've seen the show at all, you can probably predict what happens next.
 In addition to having giant robot dinosaurs at their beckoning call, the Rangers have another ace up their sleeve. The 'Zords' can all merge together to form one mighty Megazord, and once that happens, we're about six seconds from a monster exploding. Sure enough, with one zap from his visor lazer, the Megazord blows Pineoctopus to pieces. The battle is won.
This was the ending in 95% of the episodes. Sometimes the monster would be able to block the Rangers from calling on their Zords, and a few other times it was smart enough to run away before getting blown up. But this was the standard finale - Rangers merge their robots together, Rangers shoot at monster, monster blows up. It's a pretty simple formula, but you can't argue that it didn't work. The main goal with most children's programs is to create a merchandising franchise. The Power Rangers have made more money with toys, television shows, movies and everything else than would even seem possible. It's still making money, even though the fad's popularity simmered down years ago.
 Bitsy apologizes to Trini for walking away from her earlier in the show, confirming that she learned a valuable lesson and that Trini was indeed a great baby-sitter. I liked Bitsy better when she was made out of cardboard.
Rita promises that she'll be back. She keeps her promise, but she just comes back with more stupid monsters that blow up the second a Megazord shoots at them. She needs to work some espionage or blackmail into her act. Something more subversive. Just because she's the only person around who can send out 100' hellbeasts down to the planet doesn't mean the plan's working.
Overall: "No Clowning Around" featured a lot of the more ludicrous aspects of the show that makes me enjoy it so much, but it probably isn't the best choice to watch all the cool things I've mentioned. There's been better monsters on the series, and most of the other episodes have more action than this. Still, it's the only time in the history of Power Rangers tv shows that anyone turned into a cardboard cutout.
MY Score : (out of a possible ten)
6.5
RAVEN-SYMONE'S Score : (out of a possible ten)
6.5
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