The Definitive History of the Power Ranger! Our Power rangers Recap is here! The full history of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers goes back further than 30 years, to the 1970s. We walk you through every iteration of the team, and how they evolved to elite franchise status over the years. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always
Thanks for supporting our channel! Check out our MERCH Store Here → screencrushmerch.com/
Go here → screencrush.com/
TikTok → / screencrushnews
Like us → / screencrush
Follow us → / screencrushnews
Get our newsletter → screencrush.com/newsletter/
Written by Jack Piccone / jackienobrakes
Hosted by Ryan Arey ( / ryanarey )
Edited by Harriet Lengel-Enright, Randolf Nombrado, and Brianna McLarty
#PowerRangers #Recap #OnceAndAlways
And today I’m going to explain just what exactly the Power Rangers are. Not just the Mighty Morphin, but the franchise as a whole, one that includes 20-plus teams of color-coded superheroes imported from Japan.
I’ll explain what the show was about and some major storylines that have occurred over two decades. I’ve also got some interesting trivia, like how a key part of the series can trace its origins directly to Marvel.
If you’re a little too young or a little too old, this may all be new information for you. But pretty much any 90s kid has heard of the Power Rangers. For a few years in the mid 90s they DOMINATED pop culture.
The original series helped launch the Fox Kids block of programming, spawned three theatrical movies, and ushered in a wave of copycat shows like Masked Rider and Big Bad Beetleborgs. By 2002, the franchise had made over six BILLION dollars. This was mostly revenue from Bandai-branded action figures and other Power Rangers toys.
For a while, this merch was the holy grail of toys, up there with Tickle-Me-Elmo and Cabbage Patch Dolls. The guy who wrote Jingle All the Way, a movie about two dads fighting over the last Turbo-Man toy on Christmas Eve, probably got the idea after trying to find a Red Ranger for his own kids.
Honestly, that’s probably why the show has lasted as long as it has. With its focus on creature designs, new suits, and special zords that combine together Voltron-style-Power Rangers was less an action drama than it was a giant toy commercial.
But that doesn’t make it any less interesting as a pop culture phenomenon. For one thing, the way it was produced was kind of ingenious. On a trip to Japan, producer Haim Saban became fascinated with a Japanese kids show called Super Sentai. He immediately saw the appeal of five superheroes in color-coded matching spandex suits fighting absurd-looking monsters.
Eventually, he obtained the rights to Super Sentai to make an American version of the show. To save money, he didn’t bother remaking the special effects scenes of the monsters destroying the city, or the masked heroes fighting the creatures on the ground. He and his team would use the original footage in the American show-only rewriting and remaking scenes where the young heroes had their masks off.
In between the monster brawls, Saban used American actors to film all new storylines of the heroes at their high school. Saban figured young audiences wouldn’t be interested in watching the original Japanese counterparts, either dubbed or with subtitles.
This wasn’t an original idea either. Way back in 1956, Hollywood did this by taking the 1954 Japanese film Godzilla, and adding in a bunch of scenes with American actor Raymond Burr. While all the scenes of Godzilla destroying Tokyo and stepping on tanks were kept, it barely cost the studio anything to film Burr asking Japanese scientists questions like “Hey what’s Godzilla up to?” [CLIP: Godzilla]
This process is called localization, or at least, it’s part of what the term can be used for. It worked for Godzilla, giving him a whole new audience in the West. And it worked for Super Sentai.
Super Sentai first aired in 1975. The title literally translates to “Super Squadron Series.” Part of the popular, special effects-focused tokusatsu genre, the show featured a team of five 20-somethings equipped with electronic battlesuits that gave them super strength and speed.
In 1978, Toei Company, the studio behind Super Sentai, put the show on hiatus for two years. This was because it had made a deal with Marvel to make an original live-action Spider-Man series. The show didn’t star Peter Parker but a new, original hero named Takuya Yamashiro. Yamashiro was a motorcycle racer who finds a spaceship from Planet Spider, and uses his alien powers to fight the gloriously-named Professor Monster.