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Post by sbtbfanatic on Aug 17, 2015 0:51:24 GMT
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Episode 43: Something Fishy
Today we're getting a crazy topsy turvy reversal of all that we know in the Power Rangers universe. Jason, Zack, and Trini are talking about something while Kim and Billy are standing there not reacting. WHAT?! Who wrote this tripe! Why isn't Trini standing in the background while Zack and Jason make fuck eyes at each other?
The forbidden three are planning an exciting deep sea dive after school, but before they can say anything other than how great it is to see fish, Bulk and Skull flounder onto the scene dressed in fisherman attire. Well PARTIALLY dressed in fisherman attire, because Bulk added his own style to it.
THERE ARE DOZENS OF US. DOZENS!!!
Bulk opens up his locker and a bunch of garbage falls out while he comically tries to shove it back in. Coincidentally this is a stunning visual representation of his and Skull's life. I have to give credit to the prop department here; because Bulk's locker wasn't crammed to the brim with food to inform us that "Yes, Bulk is a heavyset character." All that's in the locker is goofy fishing supplies and other assorted garbage. It's significantly more respectful than the last time they did this gag.
Trini inexplicably describes Bulk's messy locker as "disgusting." Maybe she's just repulsed at characters who've been given traits. Bulk defends the fact that he stashed a can of worms inside his locker, and informs the Ranger Teens that bait is going to make them irresistible to fish. Skull then chimes in "Just like with the ladies!", as he adds in a creepy wink. Add another check to the "legitimate laugh" tally, cause that one caught me by surprise.
As the two idiots get into more shenanigans, Jason asks Billy if he wants to come along for this deep sea dive. Billy declines, because fish are the thing he's absolutely most afraid of. Instead he's going on a picnic with Kimberly today. Looks like Billy's REALLY afraid of fish if he's willing to conquer his second biggest fear, hanging out with pretty girls.
Oh and the reason Kim doesn't want to go diving? Because it would mess up her hair. Just another day in the life of a Strong Female Character.
Unfortunately, Rita has been biding her time waiting for someone to mention a deeply held fear of theirs so she could cook up a plan based on it. Goldar says this will be the perfect opportunity to send down her toxic Goofish monster. Rita then commands Goldar to "get to it." Rita, honey, do you remember that Goldar isn't the person who sends down monsters? The person who deals with monsters is Finster. Are you doing okay? Each time we come back to you it seems more and more like you have no idea what's going on around you. I think it's time we put you in a nursing home and put Squatt in charge.
Later in the day, Jason, Zack, and Trini meet up at the beach. Zack tells Jason, but mostly the audience, how IMPORTANT IT IS TO CHECK YOUR PRESSURE GAUGES BEFORE GOING DIVING. I'm all for imparting lessons to your audience, but what kid watching this is going to be in a situation where they're the one checking their fucking scuba gear? Unless some kid steals all his parents stuff to go for an impromptu scuba expedition, your lessons are going a little above the heads of your audience.
Meanwhile, Billy and Kimberly enjoy a picnic out by the pond on a beautiful sunny day. When Billy asks what's for lunch, Kimberly tells him she brought fish and chips. Billy frowns and says he'll JUST be taking the chips. Thanks for coordinating this nice meal on a beautiful day for me, but I'd rather not eat half of it because I'm afraid of it. I'm afraid of something that is dead and sitting on my plate. That's how deep this goddamn phobia runs.
Kim asks Billy what is it about fish that makes him completely ruin a date with a cute girl. Billy tells her that he's had a humiliating experience with fish in the past, and immediately I'm buckled the fuck in. If Billy thinks it's embarrassing, we're in for a doozy.
We get a flashback to when Billy was a kid, when he and his atrocious haircut were trying to create a makeshift whirlpool in a pond. Hilariously, the young version of Billy is sitting on what appears to be the exact same rock Kim and Billy are sitting at right now. You guys couldn't film this like 40 feet away? But anyway, this is why Baby Billy became scared of fish.
Young Billy only knows how to check the safety of scuba equipment. No T.V. show taught him the importance of fish etiquette.
Kimberly responds the same way I did, by laughing in Billy's face over his deep seated fears. Billy pouts and tells her it isn't funny that a rubber fish bit his finger and made him unable to eat lunch with her. Billy tells Kimberly that due to his traumatic fish biting events, he can no longer feel safe around anything fishy. Kimberly takes this attempt to hurt her vagina's feelings in stride, and offers Billy a fish sandwich which she promises won't bite him. Billy then proceeds to open up the sandwich and look inside of it. Christ almighty Billy. Do you go into convulsions if you have to walk down the tuna aisle in Target? They're dead!
I actually don't mind this scene. Kim may have laughed in Billy's stupid face about being afraid of his sandwich toppings, but she actually attempts to coax him out of his fear. She tries to get him to feel more comfortable with his phobia and suggests that he goes diving with the other Teens next time. It's actually a nice realistic way of handling a person's phobia. Again, please ignore her guffawing at Billy for being afraid of rubber fish. That addition defeats the entire purpose of this scene.
While Billy contemplates dry heaving his fish sandwich, the duo hear some loud boisterous screaming. The voice could absolutely not be anybody but Bulk, but Kim and Billy decide to go check it out anyway. If you hear Bulk screaming bloody murder in the forest, odds are he's just enjoying a nice afternoon with Skull the only way they know how, and you should just leave them alone until they're done.
Bulk's reason for screaming is that he's caught something incredibly heavy, and says he's caught the big one. The scene cuts away from Bulk, and when it cuts back we can very clearly see a big sign caught on the hook at the bottom of the frame. Why do the shot that way when you could just cut to a reel pulling the sign out of the lake? Or hide the sign outside of the camera's line of sight?
Oh by the way, the joke is that Bulk caught a "No Fishing" sign. In case the irony was lost on you, Skull tells Bulk what the sign he caught says on it. Slow down Power Rangers! These egghead gags are too much for me!
That joke is immediately saved though, because Skull takes the sign and tosses it onto the pile of other "cool stuff" he and Bulk have caught. A huge pile of garbage that Bulk is clearly disgusted and ashamed by. It's an easy gag, but it washes the bad taste out of your mouth of how choreographed and lame the last one was.
I think Billy's dignity is somewhere in there.
Billy and Kim get ready to clean up their picnic and plan to meet the other Ranger Teens at the beach. Rita takes note of this and says she doesn't want those two at the beach until her new monster is ready. Goldar says this is an excellent excuse to send down some Putties to overwhelm Blue and Pink, and eat up some time. Baboo says he was about to suggest the same thing, but Squatt tells him that's impossible, because neither of them have had something legitimate to say in the last 30 episodes.
Billy and Kimberly are met by a gang of Putties, who somehow manage to give the two teens trouble. Kim tries to call the others for help, but they're still underwater and don't respond. That or they think Kimberly's joking when she asks for help against Putties. Suddenly Billy says "I've got it!" and flips over to the cooler Kim brought their lunch in. Billy drops the cooler onto a Putties head, knocks the Putty to the ground, and poses triumphantly. Wait what? The problem is there are too many Putties Billy. You didn't solve anything!
Kimberly realizes since Billy isn't offering any solutions, she's going to have to kick her way through the Putties until they all fall over dead. While not as elegant a plan as Billy's brilliant lunchbag routine, it gets the job done and the Putties are vanquished. Kim inexplicably compliments Billy, but he negs her by dismissing her praise and contacting Zordon.
Billy and Kimberly head to the Command Center where Zordon informs them that Rita's Goofish monster is near the ocean where the other Ranger Teens are scuba diving. It's up to them to intercept the monster before it immobilizes the unsuspecting Rangers with its venom. Billy and Kim morph into action and confront the devious Goofish.
Goofish If any fish in the animal kingdom looks like that, we need to nuke the Ocean.
Rita becomes furious her monster has yet to destroy the Rangers in the three seconds since encountering them, and Goldar suggests casting a spell on the Blue Ranger to make him too terrified to fight back. Well done Rita! You've managed to make morphed Billy act exactly like unmorphed Billy. I hope that was worth busting out otherworldly magical powers.
With Rita's spell in effect, the Blue Ranger starts going into the fetal position when Goofish walks towards him. Billy starts using Kimberly as a human shield and begging her to protect him from the big ugly fish. If the word "emasculating" hadn't already been invented, it would have needed to be to describe this scene.
While Billy begs the monster not to hurt him, Trini, Jason, and Zack surface from their diving expedition. Zordon alerts them that their big baby Blue Ranger needs their help, and they should probably bring a pacifier for him too. Jason prompts his friends to morph, knowing that even with their combined might the Ranger may be unable to stop this vicious beast.
Least the Goofish knows when to fold 'em.
The Ranger Teens head back to the Command Center where they inform Zordon they had a lot of trouble with the Goofish, and it was one of Rita's worst monsters ever. Please note that gif above. That's literally all that happened when they fought the monster. What the fuck fight were you guys imagining?
Zordon congratulates them on bravely shooting a fish in the back of the head, but Billy beats himself up for becoming a weeping mess at the sight of the Goofish. Trini says everyone has something that they're afraid of, but then remembers she's not afraid of heights anymore. Sorry Billy, guess this problem's only yours.
Kim asks Zordon how to make Billy stop weeping at the sight of the Goofish, and Zordon says he'll need to face his fear to break her spell. Billy says he'll try not to let the other Rangers down and fight this awful sea monster alongside them. The Ranger Teens morph and head to fight the Goofish. After all five Rangers wail on some Putty Patrollers, Billy comes face to face with the Goofish and realizes he must face his fears. He bravely stands against the monster and challenges it to a duel.
Just Joshin!
Goofish gives Billy one of the best lines a monster's ever gotten when he tells Billy that he's "the weak link of his pathetic team." Holy shit. That is some grade-A monster smack talk. If the Goofish hadn't gotten chumped by a Blade Blaster shot earlier he'd be looking like a beast right now.
Jason realizes his teammate is pissing his pants at the mere sight of this monster, so he'd better bail him out. The Red Ranger leaps into action but gets slashed by the Goofish's swordfish spear. Zack and Trini come to help Jason out, but the Goofish spews its namesake venom at the three. The sludge cements the Rangers feet to the ground, making them unable to fight back. Kim tries to help her friends out but the Goofish hurls a handful of starfish at her, knocking her back in a burst of sparks.
What follows might be the funniest weapon used by any monster in the history of Power Rangers, and that includes the fact that the Goofish just chucked starfish at someone. The monster drops his swordfish lance to bust out a pair of fish and throws them at the Power Rangers. Not dangerous looking fish, just some common everyday fish he happened to have nearby. Nothing dangerous looking about them at all, but he throws them like they're fucking grenades. Every time he whips them out I laugh. It's just incredible.
Who do you think you are? Lew Zealand?
Billy realizes his team is fucked if he doesn't go into battle, so he decides to stop being afraid and take this goddamned Goofish on head to head. For reals this time. This scene is pretty much exactly what I wanted out of Crystal of Nightmares, instead of Jason breaking a crystal ball and solving all the Ranger Teens problems. Billy realizes his fear is holding him back and he has to do something or his team is done for, so he goes into battle. We're seeing a superhero conquer the odds, and I enjoy that.
Billy blitzes the Goofish by leaping around the monster and confusing it. The Goofish tries to fight back but Billy moves too swiftly for him to catch up. Goofish tries spewing some of its venom, but Billy leaps over the monster which somehow causes the venom to redirect and fall back onto the the fiendish flounder. Like anyone else who gets their own goo in their eyes, the Goofish starts hyperventilating and grunting in pain. We've all been there man, it's no fun.
Billy whips out the Power Lance and stabs at the Goofish, knocking the monster back to the ground. The rest of the Rangers rush to Billy's side, somehow now unstuck from the goo, and get ready to finish Goofish off. Rita doesn't want to lose again, so she makes the Goofish grow nice and tall so he can spew more blue jizz all over the city.
The Rangers bring out the Megazord and have a nice fun slugfest with the Goofish and his swordfish trident. We get some more 90's as fuck rock music as the two duke it out, and every bone in my body reverts back to when I was a kid and this shit was the coolest thing around. If loving a fish man stabbing a robot made out of dinosaurs with a swordfish is wrong, then being right was never for me.
The Megazord smashes the Goofish's weapon, sending the monster reeling. Instead of accepting his defeat, the Goofish starts puking more goo on the Megazord. His slime locks down the Megazord's feet and leaves it ready for the monster to attack again. Goofish blasts the Rangers with a laser from his eye, while he cackles at the fact they're getting beaten by the world's ugliest fish.
Zack expresses resentment over the fact they're doing so poorly against a monster that Billy could defeat singlehandedly, so he suggests they burn "Morphing Power" to convert the goo into energy. What does that mean? Nobody knows. Doesn't matter. The Megazord gets back up and is re-energized. Megazord calls on the Power Sword, to which the Goofish rightly responds "YOU CHEATED!" No shit, it's been twenty years and I still don't know what they did to undo that goo. Whatever happened though, it's all worth it for the unarmed Goofish attempting to fight back.
The Goofish species is notorious for refusing to die with dignity.
With the Goofish vanquished and the day saved, Billy meets the rest of the Ranger Teens at the Youth Center, having just returned from a fishing trip with Ernie. Ernie tells the gang that he'll cook up what they just finished catching, and it'll be on the house too! I'm sure that decision won't come back to bite him in the ass next week.
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia: Getting Spunk in Your Eye
Personal Thoughts
Man I really love this episode. The Goofish is such a fun monster with his copious number of weapons, it's hard not to be interested in him. The plot with Billy facing his fears is enjoyable too, and gives him some level of humanity. Instead of just being a nerd who wants to learn karate and is able to make magical science machines, now he's all those things but he's also afraid of fish. The other thing that I like about this episode is it's the first time we got to see some Zyu2 stuff! A topic I'm utterly fascinated by.
So now it's finally time to explain what I meant with all this "Zyu2" nonsense. Well as I've mentioned before, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers was initially made using footage from the Japanese show Kyoryuu Sentai Zyuranger. When the show became a runaway success, the fine folks at Saban decided it would be ludicrous not to keep it going. The problem was that they no longer had any footage to use, so what would they do? Are they just going to keep cutting together more Goldar fights? Jesus I hope not.
Saban got into contact with Toei and cut a deal with them to produce some more footage for Power Rangers to use. Prior to this request, Toei had already let Saban film several scenes of Rita and her henchmen for use in Power Rangers that was referred to as Zyu1.5 by fans. I discussed Zyu1.5 a while back, and it's really interesting stuff!
This time however, Toei sent over footage which is what the fans refer to as Zyu2. There was no official name given to the footage by Toei or Saban, and was more likely referred to as "That extra stuff Japan sent us."
The show was given 25 brand new monsters, all with corresponding fight footage. The footage would also typically include a fight with the Putties, as well as a giant fight with the Megazord. Saban also had access to all 25 of these monster costumes to shoot US footage with if they so chose, unlike earlier in the season where they only had about a dozen different monster suits. Toei had given Power Rangers exactly what it needed to continue. A bunch of rubber suit monsters getting the shit kicked out of them. Just as God intended.
What's important to note is this footage wasn't made with some corresponding story behind it. The monster would show up and do its thing while being vaguely threatening. The Rangers would show up, pre-morphed, and fight it. No civilians would be present, so the only actors in these scenes would be stunt actors portraying the Rangers, monster, and Putties.
Without any of these characters, this also means that none of Rita's crew would appear in Zyu2 footage. Any scenes you see of them in Zyu2 episodes are simply scenes of them from Zyuranger or the aforementioned Zyu1.5. Just consider the monsters as free agents doing their own thing when you watch the footage.
There was also no newly shot footage of the Rangers in the Megazord cockpit, as the set had likely been scrapped by the time of production. So any time we see the Rangers react in the cockpit is always footage straight from Zyuranger.
Since there was no pre-established story behind Zyu2, this would often mean the characters would make grand exaggerated gestures to explain to the audience (as well as the show's staff) what was supposed to be happening. It's pretty funny to watch it now knowing the suit actors are very clearly trying to elaborate on things, such as the Blue Ranger's horrified spasms upon seeing the Goofish. Though to be honest, exaggerated gestures are Tokusatsu's bread and butter.
All this basically culminates in what I love about the Zyu2 footage. This is brand new stuff that your imagination can run wild with. If you didn't know why something was happening in an episode before, you could go check out the Zyuranger episode and get a clarification.
Zyu2 offered you the footage to fill in your own blanks and make your own answers. The answers were typically very obvious, but you also got to look at it and ask yourself "What were they going for here?" or "Why did they do it this way?" That's what makes it so much fun for me to watch, and some of my favorite Power Rangers stuff of all time. Some of the Zyu2 footage was shuffled around or cut out, so it's left fans to wonder what Zyu2 footage we never got to see. At least for the most part, but I'll get into that later!
Speaking of things that got cut from Zyu2, the Rangers pose with their weapons before the Zord fight, indicating they were about to use the Power Blaster. This would happen quite a few times in Zyu2 footage where it's clear the Rangers looked as though they were going to use the Power Blaster, but the show would cut to Rita making the monster grow. Was it to save time? Cut out a violent explosion? Who knows.
One final thing I noticed about Zyu2 is that the Zord fights seem to move at a slower pace. It's only noticeable when you directly compare Zyu fights to Zyu2 fights, and it doesn't necessarily indicate a lack of quality. My assumption for this is the Megazord suit had probably been beaten to shit because Toei keep horrible care of its props, and it was on its last legs, so they couldn't risk having it move around very fast. I might just be imagining all this but take a look and maybe you'll see what I mean.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Aug 17, 2015 0:51:57 GMT
Mighty Morphin Power Ranger Episode 46: To Flea Or Not to Flee
Hello my friends. Today we need to discuss a very serious topic that I'm sure none of us are too happy to accept. I'm afraid that Ernie's Youth Center is tragically going out of business.
Wait did I say tragically? The word I was looking for was "understandably."
How is it that it took Ernie this goddamn long to run into financial troubles? He gives the Ranger Teens all their meals for free, and anything they don't eat gets dumped onto Bulk and Skull. Sure Ernie saves money by turning his customers into indentured servants any time some rinky dink party is getting held in his piss awful sweat shop, but the second the IRS caught wind of that, Ernie was up to his throat in lawsuits.
So the Ranger Teens are once again helping out big old sadsack Ernie who's really down in the dumps about his impending poverty. Zack holds up a pint sized can asking for donations like he's a goddamned panhandler, while Kim pecks away at a calculator and pretends to be doing business math. So what, Ernie's just dumping all his tax forms in front of these high schoolers and asking them to get him out of the red? Jesus Christ man, no wonder you're going bankrupt. You're letting a dweeb dressed in comical overalls do your auditing for you.
Trini comes in to do what she does best, ask another character a question and immediately stop speaking for the rest of the scene. She asks Billy, situated at the world's smallest computer, how Ernie's finances are looking. Billy gives a "complicated" explanation that Ernie's "operating expenses exceeded his revenues." Kimberly looks at Trini COMPLETELY dumbfounded, and just can't seem to figure out what kind of riddle Billy's telling with his words. Trini puts it into layman's terms for her, "Ernie's buttfucking broke."
Kimberly looks over at Ernie and says she's never seen him look so bummed out before. Allow me to show you the look he gives that tells the audience this is a man at the end of his rope.
Are you there God? It's me Ernie
While Ernie mulls over wrapping his lips around a carburetor, Jason walks in with an adorable scruffy little dog. The dog followed Jason home after school, having followed the closest thing this town has to an alpha dog. Jason tells his friends that the dog "looked lost", so he brought it with him. Hear that kids at home? If you see a dog just take it with you. Tell yourself it looks lost.
We cut from Jason holding the dog to a poster inside Angel Grove High asking if anyone has seen a "Lost Doggy." Sorry about your crippled finances Ernie, today you're playing second fiddle to a dog. Bulk and Skull are the first to see this poster and we get a nice bland bit with Skull's illiteracy. I'll spare you the details and say Skull now knowing how to spell a word for three minutes did not produce comedy gold. Bulk uses his illustrious ability to read to uncover that whoever finds this scruffy adorable dog will be rewarded handsomely. Boy will they be disappointed when they find out the reward's just money, and not permission to eat the dog.
Rita's got her eyes on this pooch as well. She demands Finster produce her Fighting Flea monster. This creature's motive is to chomp on Jason and give him a severe itch all over his body, and make him unable to fight. Yeah, that's the plot today. Sorry. Goldar informs his queen the monster doesn't need to worry about Jason's groin, as a recent Chlamydia outbreak has done half of Flea's job for it. Finster places a monster mold into his Monstermatic and out pops this dumbass.
Granted I'm not sure how you can make a flea look threatening.
Ernie, clearly not grasping exactly why he's going out of business, gives the lost pup a bowl of chili. You want to know how to ruin a dog's stomach? Put community center chili into its diet. That thing's gonna leave piles of toxic waste on your carpet. Jason sees that the pup is whining a little bit, and presupposes that it needs to go to the bathroom. Maybe you just fed it people food that even the dog knows it shouldn't be eating.
Jason takes the pooch out to the park, and Kim tails along with him. She says it's on her way home, but I think she just wanted to hang with a real man after spending last week with Billy. Meanwhile, Bulk and Skull have realized that the dog they're looking for is hanging out with their best friends the Ranger Teens. The dipshit duo vow to receive that reward no matter what those geeks do. Yeah maybe they'll fall into a cake and you can steal the dog from them. That's what they do right?
Rita uses her magic to zap the lost dog with her wand which plants the Fighting Flea on the pooch. Immediately I take issue with this. What kind of flea monster worth his salt can't shrink of his own accord? What a total schmuck. So his only power is that he can bite people and make them itchy? This guy better start kicking some ass soon Rita, or your giant orange flea is going to start looking pretty silly.
Jason pets the dog while asking why he looks so miserable, ignoring the chili diarrhea that was the harbinger of this walk in the park. Suddenly Jason's bit on the arm while we see some really shitty looking red sparkles travel up his arm. They look like something you'd get in a demo copy of Adobe After Effects '97. It ends up looking more like the dog gave Jason chicken pox on his arm.
While Jason starts itching his arm, Bulk and Skull throw the dog a squeaky toy on a rope to reel it in like it's a fish. The dog chases after the toy because it's sick of Jason and Kimberly feeding it like it's a person, and instead heads over to the two idiots chuckling like Deliverance hillbillies.
Now that Jason's itchy and scratchy, he's left wondering "Where's Poochie?" Apparently not noticing the two mongoloids hiding in the bushes grunting about a little fleabag. Which could either be Bulk and Skull talking about a dog, or Bulk and Skull describing their testicles.
While Jason and Kimberly look for the dog, Goldar sends down a squad of Putties to finish off the Red Ranger. Maybe you should have waited until he was alone and unable to stop itching instead of sending Putties to fight him when he was with Kimberly. She can also fight Putties too Goldar, just like every one of the Power Rangers can. Why is it that you get paid twice as much as Baboo does?
The Putties attack Kim and Jason, and use their typical mediocre fighting skills to embarrass themselves. Suddenly, one of the Putties appears to become coated in the same itch that Jason has, and starts convulsing on the ground. Hey Goldar, maybe before you send in the Putties you can check with Finster and see if they'll work with the monster he just made.
Finster refused to give his Putties vaccines, BECAUSE IT'S HIS RIGHT AS A PARENT GODDAMNIT
Jason tells Kim to lead the Putties near him, where he uses his itch like he's a human Smallpox blanket to infect all the Putties. This Putty fight is actually really short and used almost solely to establish to the characters that Jason's itch isn't natural and is clearly contagious. That's...pretty cool honestly. Goldar gave his typical bullshit of "This will kill them" that nobody is going to believe; but the show was smart enough to use the Putties to advance the plot. I'm actually rather impressed.
In the Command Center, Alpha uses a dime store prop to scan Jason's arm and concludes that he has a "heavy duty rash." Because this show is incompetent, we only see Kim and Jason at first and you assume those two are the only ones in the Command Center. Then we abruptly cut to a shot of Trini, Zack, and Billy and realize the whole team's there now. Leaving Ernie to soak in his encroaching destitution.
Zordon informs his freedom fighters that Rita has unleashed her Fighting Flea monster, and maybe they shouldn't pick up stray dogs when an evil witch is constantly hounding them. Zordon tells Alpha to coat Jason's arm in some spray to make that unbearable itch slightly more bearable; although he warns Jason that if he comes into contact with Rita's monster then the itch will flare up again. Which isn't a warning for Jason as much as it is a promise to the audience.
Billy takes the antidote from Alpha and tells the android that maybe HE can make it better. Now is the point in the show where Billy is so scientifically brilliant that he's able to create things more efficient than the intergalactic space head and his cyborg slave. It's been pretty mundane before, but Billy's intellect is now reaching critical mass.
Jason tells his friends he has to go back to the park and find that dog, or else somebody else might pet it and get infected by the rash. Or they'll leave it alone without stealing it you weirdo. The Ranger Teens tell him that's a ridiculous idea because he's putting himself in danger when there's four perfectly competent Rangers standing in front of him. Oh wait Tommy isn't here anymore, guess it's just three.
Kim heads to the park with Jason, while Zack and Trini head back to the Juice Bar to see if the dog went to go drink more of Ernie's gutter chili. Since Zordon was too lazy to tell the Ranger Teens that those two mentally incompetent bullies have their dog, they go on a wild goose chase to find the pup. Meanwhile, Bulk's found a phone booth in the park to call the dog's owner. While Bulk makes the call, Fighting Flea decides this would be an opportune time to stretch its legs.
Skull encounters the ghost of pubic lice past.
Skull finally gets to have an amusing bit in this episode and tells Bulk to stop looking at that paper and look at the giant monster in front of them. It doesn't work great reading it, but Skull starts pointing one of the dog's paws at the Fighting Flea monster. If it's wrong to laugh at that then crucify me. Bulk notices the monster who asks the two if they want a bite to eat. Bulk ignores the jab at his weight as the bullies haul ass away from the phone booth after dropping the dog. A far better fate than Bulk inevitably petting it so hard its neck was broken.
While two idiots run away from a big high pitched idiot talking about biting people, Billy tries to figure out how to use his magic science to stop the jock's itch. Billy is apparently having trouble inventing a cure for magical flea bites, but that's not what's important about this scene. What is important is the fact that whoever dressed up this set put a full sized model skeleton in the background of Billy's lab.
R.I.P. Bones
Jason and Kim go to some shitty old junkyard to find the dog which they've forgotten to name. Which might make it a little difficult to find it when you're calling out "C'mere doggy!" While they're unable to find the dog, the Fighting Flea appears to greet them instead. The two teens morph, but before the fight can even begin Jason starts convulsing. Might have something to do with that monster he was told not to fight but what do I know?
Kimberly tries to attack the Fighting Flea herself while Jason jumps around and bitches about being so itchy. The monster effortlessly swats her aside and blasts her with missiles from his proboscis. Sorry Kim, this episode doesn't focus on you. You're not allowed to beat a monster.
Zordon tells Billy he needs to hurry up with that magic spray unless he wants his team to have their corpses buried in the junkyard. Billy speeds up the production of the antidote; because while he wouldn't mind Jason getting killed, Kimberly took him on a date last weekend so they're destined to be married.
In the meantime, Zack and Trini have found Dog at the Youth Center. The pup found its way back to Ernie because it couldn't get enough of his chili. Must be all the dog food he uses to cook it. Ernie says to the two he wishes he had more loyal customers like that dog, which is the dumbest line I've ever heard. That dog's not paying you, and you're telling that to two teenagers who essentially live at your dive bar. Why are you taking your passive aggressive garbage out on the only people dumb enough to be your slaves?
Zordon contacts Trini and Zack and tells them to go slap the shit out of that flea before it makes Jason jump around more. They answer the call to action and morph to the scene. Immediately afterwards, Billy grabs the completed antidote and morphs to join his friends.
Yellow, Blue, and Black blast the Flea before it descends on Pink and Red. While Billy uses his spray on Jason, Trini and Zack take on the Fighting Flea and start whaling on him. Not being able to instantly beat the Black and Yellow Ranger in an episode that doesn't focus on them instantly makes this monster the lamest of all time. Congrats.
Billy sprays his magical science goo all over Jason and removes the painful itch from him. The Fighting Flea knocks Zack and Trini aside and starts yelling at them for cheating. Here's an idea Flea, maybe come to a fight with more than one trick in your arsenal. You shot some needles out of your nose and made people itchy. Is that all you got? Step up your fucking game man.
The Flea summons a squadron of Putties to help make him look more impressive, but they get decimated by the Power Rangers. Jason even whips out his Power Sword to cut them down. Putties don't warrant using weapons on, they're total jobbers. Jason must have needed to get some aggression out after all that itching business.
Fighting Flea blasts the Rangers with energy from his antenna, but Jason leaps out of the explosion and slashes into him with the Power Sword. The monster is sent reeling, and Rita whips out her wand to make the flea enormous. Technically this flea was already gigantic, so now he's just overcompensating.
The Rangers bring out the Megazord to combat the Flea, and whoever shot the footage of this fight did something interesting by shooting the start of the Zord fight from a lower angle. This actually looks pretty cool, even if the two giants move slow as shit.
Fighting Flea GIF Now it looks 3 percent less fake!
Unfortunately, we don't see more of this style of filming and it's back to two dudes in suits beating each other up on a soundstage with fake shrubs lining it. Fighting Flea charges the Megazord but gets punched in his big dumb face instead. Since all the monster can do is fire dinky ass lasers from his antenna, it tries blasting the Megazord with them. Nothing happens because this monster sucks, and the Rangers summon the Power Sword.
Fighting Flea realizes that he isn't going to survive this fight, so he brings out his Hail Mary play. He asks if maybe he and the Rangers could talk about this instead of murdering him. The Power Rangers respond to this by killing him with the Power Sword. It's the funniest scene in the whole episode because it sends the best message to kids you could ever hope for. "If someone asks you to talk over whatever issue you're having, fucking kill them with your space sword. Take no prisoners."
Now that her jackass flea is dead, Rita angrily informs Squatt and Baboo that they've fouled up another one of her brilliant plans and she's done with them professionally. I didn't cut out any interaction between her and those morons in this episode, and Squatt and Baboo even react with confusion when she tells them how worthless they've been. This is supposed to be a joke that she's blaming them for her own plan's failure and isn't that hilarious? Personally I'm going to take it more as a confirmation of my theory that Rita's space Alzheimer's is getting worse by the day.
Back in the Youth Center, Ernie lets the gas from his ovens seep into the air as he prepares to flick a lighter and turn his Juice Bar into a sinkhole before the feds shut it down. The Ranger Teens spend their final moments with Ernie petting the only living creature who can stand to stomach his disgusting Mr. and Mrs. Tennerman chili.
Just before Ernie murders all of his patrons, a woman walks into the Juice Bar and reacts with glee that she's found her dog Pierre. Apparently this woman's supposed to be rich, but since this show is so cheap the only way you can tell that is because she gave her dog a French name and she wears high heels.
The woman asks who was so kind as to kidnap her dog and feed it dishwater while it was lost, and the Ranger Teens inform her that Ernie is to thank for such kindness. The woman gives Ernie a check which he assures the audience is for a "lot of money." Jason, Trini, and Zack get a look at the check and think that if that amount's a lot, they aren't getting very much to do this show at all. Oh well, they'll probably get over it.
The woman takes her Dog Ex Machina and tells them she has to go now, as her planet needs her. Ernie is so excited to be out of his crippling financial burden that he offers the Ranger Teens some sodas and pizzas, on the house. Good to see this plotline has only been temporarily stalled and will inevitably happen again due to Ernie's terrible business practices.
Suddenly, Bulk and Skull barge into the Youth Center itching themselves furiously. The Ranger Teens take notice of the bullies predicament and Billy asks if he should give them the antidote. Jason says not even those two deserve to be that miserable.
This moment struck me by surprise in a good way. Obviously the Ranger Teens don't get along well with Bulk and Skull, but they're willing to help them out when it's clearly something as unbearable as the Fighting Flea's itch. Even though the monster never bit them and it's also dead, so none of this really makes any sense.
The Ranger Teens address the understandably irritated Bulk and Skull and ask if they want a surprise. As soon as Billy says he can help them stop itching, they stop being dicks and ask if he can really help them. Billy agrees to help them and busts out a pair of dog collars that get rid of the itching for them. He then tells the bullies they have to wear those collars for another week, much to their chagrin.
Remember all that spray he had and used on Jason? The stuff that let him retain his dignity? Yeah well Billy also whipped up some humiliating dog collars just in case someone else was bitten by the monster and he wanted to completely destroy their self esteem. All that stuff about the Ranger Teens being nice people? Nevermind that, what a bunch of creeps.
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia: Dog Kidnapping
Personal Thoughts
I feel sort of bad about this episode, because it's one that I remembered enjoying when I initially watched it, but on this rewatch I didn't feel very great about it. It's not a bad episode or anything, just kind of mediocre. It's a Zyu2 episode so it has that going for it, but it's got little to hook me in. I wouldn't say don't watch it, since it's a fine episode, but there are better episodes to check out. Also ones that don't end in the Ranger Teens being needlessly cruel.
There's something I want to compliment the script on, which is setting up Kimberly and Jason hanging out together so that it makes sense later in the episode that the Pink Ranger and Red Ranger are the ones who meet up with the Fighting Flea. It's not difficult to make that happen, but the show sets it up as soon as Jason walks in with that dog. Kim is enamored with the little guy more than any of the other Rangers so her hanging with Jason makes total sense. It feels earned that they take on the Flea by themselves while the other three are busy.
Another compliment I want to give is to the Japanese crew who did something a little extra with Zyu2. You'll notice the Blue Ranger whips out a magical science spray in the Zyu2 footage, and that's because the people filming this new stuff were presumably informed ahead of time what the characters in Power Rangers acted like. They took the incentive to give Blue Ranger a whole bunch of gadgets, so it was believable that the Blue Ranger is the smart guy. I really enjoy that tiny bit of characterization that showed the people filming Zyu2 stuff put some thought into what they were doing.
Now something that has annoyed me for way too long. There's a total nothing of a scene that happens before the Megazord fight that I didn't address earlier or I would have gone on a big dumb tangent. The Megazord is in Tank Mode briefly and shoots at Fighting Flea. Since the show didn't have any shots of giant Fighting Flea getting hit by an attack, they decided to just use part of his death scene from later, and it looks fucking terrible,
Was someone breathing down the editor's neck for more Tank Mode footage?
A bit of non Zyu2 footage, outside of the fun scene of Fighting Flea antagonizing Bulk and Skull, is the scene of Fighting Flea "emerging" from the Monstermatic. They just shot the actor in the costume in front of a bunch of smoke to imply the monster had been created. Like I mentioned with Goofish last week, all of the Zyu2 monster costumes were in possession of the U.S. crew. This would make it easier for them to bridge the gaps in Sentai footage if they so chose. Last week they shot no new footage of Goofish, which might be the writers falling into old habits of letting the Sentai stuff speak for itself. I just find it interesting to see them get a little more creative with the monsters and having them interact with U.S. characters.
The other note I wanted to make was that the script for this episode specified a shot of the Fighting Flea being hit by the Power Blaster. Why this got cut I'm not sure, but I'd have been a lot more happy seeing that than the stupid Tank Mode scene earlier. I noted last week how many Zyu2 monsters seem to be beaten with the Rangers ready to use their weapons, but this is one of the very few times we can confirm them using the Blaster on a monster when the footage dictates otherwise.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Aug 17, 2015 0:56:42 GMT
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Episode 47: Reign of the Jellyfish
Who among you hasn't wondered about the future? What will the people of the future do about the decimated environment we've left them? When will people stop saying "I'm not racist but _____"? Is Biff Tannen still fucking my mom? I have a more general question. "What will the future think about the people of the past?" Well by golly, the Ranger Teens have a class project that will answer that very question.
They're gonna shove a buncha shit into a plastic bubble then bury it for a hundred years.
Miss Applebee informs her class that she still hasn't managed to land a man. In addition, the students will all place an item inside of a class time capsule to tell the future what their singular character traits were. First up is Jason who brings up his addition to the time capsule. Before I inform you what he's brought in, why don't you kids at home take a guess? What do you think Jason brought to show the future what was important to him in the 90's? A letter from his mother? A copy of his favorite novel? Some karate thing?
Congrats to those who guessed correctly. All all of you.
Jason tells the class this is the first karate trophy he ever won, and he's going to leave it for a bunch of future people to ogle. A treasured memento that personifies his determination and fitness, and he's tossing it in a big plastic bowl for the rest of eternity. You'd almost think Jason has more in his life than karate, but we in the audience all know that's a bunch of horseshit.
Speaking of which, why is it that Jason's sole trait is his martial arts skills? Every single Ranger Teen practices some form of martial arts or gymnastics or whatever. Why is that all Jason gets? I mean he's not as ignored as Trini is in terms of establishing who he is, but we don't really see much of him other than "the leader." It's striking me a lot during these reviews how little they give damn near half the cast to do other than dub grunts over Japanese footage.
Kimberly is up next with her item for the time capsule, and she has a pink sweater to show the people of the future that we had our own sense of style. I cannot possibly put enough "or something's" after that so I hope one will suffice. You think the future is going to be a bunch of formless robots that can't dress themselves? You had one chance to communicate with the future and you gave em a fawkin t-shirt.
Trini asks Ms. Applebee if she'll be including anything inside of the time capsule, like a copy of this episode's script which broke new ground by giving Trini a line. Ms. Applebee says she has something in mind, a picture of the Power Rangers. She'll use this to show the future that the city of Angel Grove was protected by a bunch of teenage mercenaries who murdered space aliens for kicks.
Not everyone is so happy with Ms. Applebee's decision though, as Rita throws the mother of all bitch fits when she hears this. She proclaims that she's the one that the future should be remembering. For what? All you do is sit on your witch britches and throw a monster at the planet every week. Not only that, you lived inside of a space dumpster for ten thousand goddamned years. What's a century to you ya' ancient old biddy?
Rita commands Finster to pop a new monster in his oven to make her name infamous for all time. It seems pretty likely history will plan on glossing over an ancient space witch who nearly conquered the planet on multiple occasions. That or Texas will make the textbooks paint her as a misunderstood figure. Finster tells his mistress that he'll be creating the mighty Jellyfish Warrior. Terrifying! Hope the Rangers don't find out his weakness by urinating on him.
Ms. Applebee goes down the list of named characters and asks Zack what he'd like to include in the time capsule. Zack's brought in a CD of contemporary music with some funky fresh beats to get all the future pussies wet. It will also answer the age old question of what Busta Rhymes did before his historic battle with Michael Meyers.
Next up is Billy, who offers up the condom he keeps in his wallet for when a hot babe tries to sleep with him. This will teach the future about hope in the face of insurmountable odds. Ms. Applebee asks if he has anything less depressing to include, and Billy pulls out a dinky calculator that he informs us is a "personal computer" he designed. Billy says in all sincerity he wants to show the future how advanced their technology was. I want every single one of you reading this blog to call your mother and thank them for birthing you when they did. If this piece of shit were the pinnacle of technology, I'd use it to slit my wrists.
Billy uses that bad boy to watch porno, one pixel at a time.
Finally it's Trini's turn to include something in the time capsule. The class waits with baited breath to finally learn something about her outside of her love of dolls. Trini's brought a copy of today's newspaper in so the future can see what was happening during the day a bunch of dumbass kids buried all their stupid garbage. Thank God Trini was able to provide the most generic item, we might have had to invent something for her to care about!
When Miss Applebee asks who wants to go next, Bulk and Skull come barging into the classroom. Apparently they were just skipping class until this but decided to drop in when they saw how they could impact the future. How will these two titans of the 90's influence generations to come? By giving them a comically massive sandwich they call "The Bulkwich." But how do you make a Bulkwich? By throwing everything in the deli section onto a piece of bread as follows.
Behind the scenes at Guy Fieri's restaurant.
Later that afternoon, Kim tells Trini how nifty she finds it that Ms. Applebee included a picture of the Power Rangers inside the time capsule. Why is that such a surprise? You guys are subjugating space aliens every diddly dang day. The fact that every topic of conversation in Angel Grove isn't about how incredible the Power Rangers are is nothing short of a miracle.
Kim and Trini's ego stroking is soon quelled when Jason, Billy and Zack walk down the hallway with the time capsule in tow. Apparently since the Ranger Teens have the highest grades in class (shock) they get to bury the time capsule. Wow what a great reward. "Congrats on your 4.0, now here's a shovel. Start digging assholes."
Goldar sends down a squad of Putties to distract the Rangers while Squatt and Baboo go down and steal the time capsule for Rita. You did not read that wrong. Squatt and Baboo are actually involved in something today. Either Goldar thinks this plan is too simple to foul up, or he's not too committed to this scheme and just wants it to be over with.
Before the Putties show up to interrupt the digging, I just wanted to let you all know that Zack told his friends "I can dig it." Why don't you record that and put it in the time capsule guys? That way they know the 90's are worth erasing from history.
So yeah the Putties drop in and we get another Ron Wasserman rock fight. This time it's the song "Combat." Some more glorious 90's rock to make a bunch of teenagers punching gibbering idiots more exciting. Interspersed with this are scenes of Baboo and Squatt trying to take the time capsule away, but being distracted by the things inside of it. The worst is when Baboo holds up Kimberly's sweater and looks like he's about to try it on. All of this while Squatt, of course, sports a massive erection.
The Ranger Teens clobber the clay-boys and defeat Squatt and Baboo by yelling at them. No seriously. Jason just shouts at them to drop the time capsule and they do exactly that before disappearing. Instead of holding onto it and disappearing, thus fulfilling their mission. You two lost to the unmorphed Power Rangers shouting at you. That may actually be the most pathetic loss in this entire series.
Rita screams at the two morons for not taking her picture with them to put inside the time capsule. Wait that's all she wanted? A goddamned picture in a time capsule nobody is going to see for the next century? How petty of a person is Rita that her entire plan hinged on wanting someone to know she exists in a few decades? What kind of shitty galactic sorceress can't zap a picture of herself inside of a plastic bubble? Thankfully Finster interrupts Rita's dumbass plan by telling her the Jellyfish has been sent to Earth.
Jellyfish Warrior Those are either eyes or Jellyfish is sporting open sores.
Zordon alerts the Rangers that the time capsule plot is now over and it's time to fight a big fish. The Rangers morph to the scene and combat the big jelly himself. Jellyfish laughs at the Power Rangers because he's a loser and doesn't know how to fight. Before the Rangers can attack him, he blast them with incendiary rounds out of his wrist. The Rangers lay on the ground, feeling the pain of his sting. Jellyfish asks if the "puppetheads" are beaten so soon, which is easily the least comprehensible insult towards the Ranger I've ever heard.
The Rangers retreat to the Command Center after being beaten for all of a minute, and Zordon asks them what the fuck they were doing out there. They whine that the Jellyfish nearly burned through their suits, and that it hurts when the enemy attacks them. Zordon has Alpha coat them in his patented "All Purpose Ranger Spray©" to ward off the Jellyfish's toxic blasts. Remember when we negated the monster's power with a spray can last week? Me neither.
The Rangers return to battle the Jellyfish, who has summoned a gaggle of Super Putties. All of whom dance with him in the park while he's awaiting his prey. The Rangers pretty easily defeat the Super Putties, all without those special weapons that were so integral to defeating them the first time around. Must be worn out from all that dancing.
With the Putties down, the Rangers combat the Jellyfish Warrior. Trini and Kim try attacking him with their Power Weapons, but he busts out an umbrella to shield himself from their attacks. Man I take back everything I said about the Jellyfish being lame, that umbrella weapon makes him a total badass.
Jason tries to fight the Jellyfish, but the monster teleports around his sword strikes and smacks the Red Ranger aside with his umbrella. The monster then spins his umbrella around which teleports all of the Rangers into another dimension. By which I mean a room with nothing but black walls and a fog machine going off.
While in the dimension, he appears translucent and is unable to be hit by any of the Rangers attacks. He whips them with his tentacle hand because he's still able to hit them while half invisible. The Jellyfish is just a little kid on a playground making up rules for why his friends can't attack him.
NUH-UH YOU CAN'T HIT ME CAUSE MY UMBRELLA SENT ME TO MY INVISIBLE DIMENSION
Billy tells Zack that the monster is time-phased, whatever that means, and that a blast from the Power Axe will be able to knock him out of his invincible state. Zack blasts the monster, and just as Billy said, the Rangers are all teleported out of his dimension with the monster reeling from the attack. The Jellyfish then shouts out "You've weakened my power!" expositorily. I'd say it makes more sense in context but I don't like lying to you folks.
Zack uses his Power Axe to slash the Jellyfish, and somehow knocks him from the park they were fighting in to a quarry somewhere. Jellyfish wobbles around and talks about how he's not dead yet, because he's too strong a monster to die from being hit twice. The Rangers pose with their weapons, but before they can attack Rita throws her wand to Earth to make the Jellyfish giant.
The Rangers summon their Dinozords to battle the monster, and for once they actually combat Jellyfish with the Dinozords before combining them. The Triceratops and Saber Tooth Tiger Dinozords try firing on the monster, but he brings out his umbrella to deflect the shots. Zack uses his Mastodon's freeze breath to chill the Jellyfish so badly that the monster ends up hurling his umbrella into the air and reeling on the ground while complaining about his ruptured tentacles.
The Rangers combine Zords and bring the Megazord into the fray. Since the Jellyfish doesn't have any weapons, the fight's pretty tepid. Jellyfish just whips at the Megazord with his tentacle hand and tries headbutting the Zord with his spiked hair. The Megazord bashes him in the face a couple times before the monster starts teleporting around again. He whips at the Megazord before the Rangers realize what a shitty monster he is and summon the Power Sword. Megazord slashes the Jellyfish down the middle and sends him to hell. Guess they won't be remembering you in the future huh chump?
Rita becomes upset that her terrible monster lost and Baboo informs her that the moon is in retrograde. Ever since I was a kid I had no fucking clue what he meant by that. Is that supposed to make her feel better? Does that explain her headache? Who gives a shit? What are you even talking about Baboo? You are the worst character on this whole show. Someone please explain this line to me because it annoys me to no end.
The Ranger Teens later meet up at Ernie's where he gives them all a drink for burying a bunch of stuff in the park. Like his tax forms. The Teens congratulate each other on getting the time capsule underground, but mention nothing about beating the Jellyfish. Mostly because he had no lasting impression on the Rangers or the audience. We interrupt this fascinating conversation about digging to see Bulk and Skull have finished the Bulkwich.
The Ranger Teens inform the bullies that the time capsule has already been buried, because nobody gave a shit about their dumbass novelty sized sandwich. Were we supposed to be laughing at the fact they're putting a sandwich in there that would unquestionably rot so badly that it would cause a new virus in a hundred years?
I need some time alone with the bulkwich
When Bulk and Skull realize they wasted their time making this monstrosity of a sandwich, they naturally drop it on themselves and get slightly messy. It's no falling into a cake, but it's serviceable enough. Especially when Skull gives Bulk some of the bread to clean himself off with.
Then everything slows down for the Ranger Teens to tell the audience each other how they hope this time capsule will be opened in a world with no hatred, no prejudice, no crime, and no wars. It's so weirdly maudlin and doesn't fit the tone of this goofy show. It's nice to leave with a blanket message of "Gee whiz I sure hope we have peace.", but this came after a guy just had a fucking sandwich fall on him. You gotta pick your battles carefully Power Rangers.
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia: All Purpose Ranger Spray©
Personal Thoughts:
This episode isn't one of my favorites. The time capsule segments don't serve to tell us anything about the Ranger Teens as characters that we didn't already know, and Bulk and Skull getting covered in mustard can only do so much to alleviate this one from mediocrity. I know these characters are cardboard, but when their existence is predicated on providing one factoid about themselves in different situations, it starts to grow pretty irksome.
Honestly I like the idea of the Ranger Teens planting something for the future, and having the Power Rangers picture in there is a cute touch. Otherwise nothing really happens. They plant the capsule, they hope the future will be better, and Rita wants the future to remember her because the writers need to involve her somehow. It feels like a first draft they didn't care about enough to add to, so they just kept everything intact then shoehorned in a Jellyfish fight.
I might have enjoyed the episode if the monster was a bit more flashy. They give the Jellyfish a nice cockiness to him, but he's mostly just a dud. We've seen almost everything he can do from other, better monsters before. Sending the Rangers to another dimension, teleporting to avoid hits, being voiced by Richard Cansino.
Oh and speaking of things other monsters did, here's a comparison I wanted to make for 30 something episodes. Look at the fight choreography between Jellyfish and Madame Woe. Is this basically the same thing or am I being too picky?
Now without weird warping effects.
Y'know what's embarrassing? I knew that Madame Woe scene looked similar to Jellyfish as I was watching her fight. Go back and look at the gif name from that episode, I named it some Jellyfish related thing however many months ago. Holy moly why do I know any of this shit? I could know real life things. Instead I know how a jellyfish teleports.
I think something that feels so weird in this fight is how immediately the Rangers retreat from Jellyfish. He blasts them and they instantly back down. It's so fast that you don't get a feel for the monster at all. He just shoots them and they run. How exciting! Then his hand blast never does anything that powerful again. Overall adding to him being the monster version of Valium.
Something I wanted to mention was that each of the Zyu2 monsters had a promotional still released of them in a Japanese magazine illustrating all the crazy shit in Power Rangers. The Jellyfish's promotional image had some odd looking umbrella appendages on his horns that weren't seen in any of the footage he appeared in, so I don't know if the company making the monster thought they looked stupid and removed them or what. What do you think? Do they look stupid?
......Yeah
This is the only time we'll be seeing the Jellyfish for a very long time, so I wanted to mention that he shows up in U.S. footage only twice. The first time is in some promotional karate video, where some guy wearing the suit walks by in the background for no reason. They never filmed any scenes of the Jellyfish in U.S. footage in the first three seasons, so I dunno what that guy was doing wearing that costume. Thankfully Youtube has this karate video preserved in pristine quality.
Oh yeah, and just for posterity's sake, the script seems to imply the Rangers were going to use the Power Blaster on Jellyfish.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Aug 17, 2015 0:57:12 GMT
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Episode 48: Plague of the Mantis
Remember Trini? That Ranger who they didn't bother to give characteristics to? The one that hasn't been the main player of an episode in 26 weeks? Well I hope you Trini fans are excited, because today's episode is finally going to give her some time in the spotlight. Will we come away learning absolutely anything about her, or will she remain the same blank canvas the show refuses to paint?
Our story begins with Trini practicing kung-fu inside the Youth Center (natch) with her Master Lee. The guy is essentially a diet Mr. Miyagi with black hair, but to be honest he does some pretty nice looking martial arts. Trini follows his movements while practicing her stance. It's in this scene she actually does something pretty nice, she appears unsure of herself. We don't need her to blurt it out in expository hacky dialogue, she simply looks uncomfortable while she's posing and we know that something is wrong.
This is exactly where Thuy Trang's strength lies. She's a martial artist first and foremost, but it must be a pretty common feeling in martial arts to feel like you're falling behind. You see her being uneasy, you see her try to keep up, and you see her try and adjust her movements accordingly but not quite hit the mark. I don't know kung-fu from karate from bare knuckle boxing, but I know what people look like when they're fucking up. I give the gal guff sometimes, but she absolutely sells her performance here.
I want him to karate chop that punching bad so badly.
Master Lee tells her that her kung-fu is goofin' the floof so she better switch up her moves if she wants to get a scholarship to Stone Canyon University. Lee tells Trini to take a break, but then immediately asks what the most honorable tradition of kung-fu is. Well clearly it's not letting someone cop a squat and towel off is it Master Lee? Trini informs the audience that kung-fu's most honorable principle is having a fair fight, and fighting your opponent with equal numbers. Clearly something the Power Rangers are well known for.
Master Lee tells Trini to observe the namesake of their style, and shows her a mantis he's jammed in a cage. For whatever reason he assumes that seeing a caged bug sit there without moving is the motivation Trini needs to become better at mantis style kung-fu, so he tells her to stop taking a 20 second break and get back to training. Are all martial arts masters huge peckers or is it only this guy?
Trini gets back to her practice, all while Bulk and Skull observe her from the counter and giggle like a couple of hillbillies. They find the fact that Trini is modeling her movements after a bug to be hilarious. Why isn't she following their lead in mirroring the most lethal of animals; the orca or the skunk? This whole scene you're sitting there just waiting for Bulk and Skull to say something racist, but shockingly it never comes. They just say that bugs are "dopey." Good to see the writers are able to maintain character voice for Bulk and Skull as mothers in their mid 40's.
Bulk suddenly comes up with the perfect plan to make he and his cohort rich. They're going to find a bug to mimic and convince people to pay money for it. Skull's going to have a difficult time picking just one of the many insects he lives with to emulate, but I'm sure he'll figure it out. Oh also, Skull has a milkshake in this scene and ends up throwing it in Bulk's face. Just in case you were worried.
This must be the cover page on Paul Schrier's resume.
Rita Repulsa takes notice of Trini's mantis kung-fu and realizes that she conveniently happens to have a Mantis monster of her own. What are the odds?! Shame for Trini she wasn't practicing crane style or Rita might have left the kids alone this week.
The rest of the Ranger Teens watch Trini train, with Jason noting that maybe they should all practice the mantis style if they want to keep up with her. Get stuffed Jason, let your friend have one single thing that's solely her own. You jerks are doing just fine with your magic dinosaur powers.
Trini becomes exasperated again and informs Lee this kung-fu shit is getting too complicated. Master Lee tells her she'll just need to work harder, because he's incapable of giving this girl actual advice. Not his fault though, he's just a wise master stereotype, comes with the territory. Instead, Lee gives Trini his caged mantis to study. The only stipulation is she must not bring up the fact his pet mantis is clearly dead and glued onto a stick inside the cage.
Trini sits with her friends and puts the mantis cage down in front of Zack. Zack's bug-phobia comes into play as he starts cringing at the little creepy crawly in front of him. Wait just a minute here, a Trini episode AND a moment that showcases continuity? You're giving me a treat here Power Rangers.
Jason asks Trini why it is she's studying this kung-fu stuff, and asks if his precious karate just wasn't good enough for her. This is when I start to bite my lip. Is Trini going to express some kind of emotion? Is she going to say something that leads me to believe she's a character? I need to know. Why is she doing this?
She's studying this kung-fu because it emphasizes honor, fair play, and never cheating. She then informs her friends that it's a difficult challenge to live up to.
Faced with all this information, I guess the lesson we're supposed to get is that deep down inside, Trini just really wants to cheat in all of her fights but has to suppress the urge to fight dirty. Maybe she feels willing to fight with the Rangers on her side but has some inner guilt about not fighting fair? You know what, let's just say Trini wants to fight with some vague sense of honor and that's her defining characteristic. Now I'll bet they do plenty with that throughout the rest of Trini's appearances!
Trini's speech on how she's going to live a path of honor from here on out is short-lived, because Bulk and Skull showcase their new business plan. Cockroach kung-fu!
That is so Kafkaesque
What follows is a scene of Skull holding a jar of roaches while doing a bunch of unbelievably shitty kung-fu. This sounds like a pretty standard gag but the show takes a couple steps to make it work well.
First off, Skull is doing this in front of Kimberly. We know he has a big crush on her and it's amusing to think this stupid roachy dicking around is how he intends to show off to her. The other thing I enjoy is that we don't get some blasé joke with the girly girl being grossed out by his roach jar. She knows he's some harmless loser and laughs at his humiliating, almost racist kung-fu noises. It's great.
Alpha 5 informs Zordon that as fun as it is to watch a couple dumbfucks dance around like roaches, there's a surge of energy in the park. Zordon tells Trini go check it out since she's already there, and he doesn't feel like calling his other servants to deal with it. Hopefully it's just a lost dog who ate a black hole, and not a big spooky M-M-MANTIS!
Pay no attention to the monster's apparent hard-on.
Trini spots the monster and immediately morphs. Once we transition to Japanese footage, Yellow Ranger inexplicably starts doing a bunch of backflips through the woods and showing off her martial arts skills. Despite the fact that Trini had the monster right in front of her before morphing. I'll talk about this more at the end, but in the meantime just know they fucked it up.
Mantis walks in on Trini's arbitrary kung-fu display and challenges her to a match. The Mantis showcases her might by cutting down a tree that's clearly already been cut. Watch out Trini! This Mantis looks like bad news. Such bad news that its name is just Mantis. Real creative work there guys. This week we got Mantis, last week we had Jellyfish, don't you guys strain yourselves thinking so hard about those monster names!
The Mantis hacks at Trini with its blade arms and slashes down a few more pre-cut trees in the process. While Trini is on the ropes, the rest of the Power Rangers jump in to defend her from the monster. Mantis screams out "VAT IZ ZIS!?" in her hilarious bug voice upon seeing the other Rangers. The monster soon leaps away while chastising the Yellow Ranger for not letting this be a fair fight. It might have also not been a fair fight when you're fighting against someone who doesn't have sickles for hands.
Rita beams that her monster has shaken Trini's honor and her henchmen sing the monster's praises. Squatt makes a point to say Baboo called her idea stupid, and Baboo stammers out an honest to goodness "homina homina homina." I'm starting to wonder if Squatt isn't quite as stupid as he lets on and is subtly trying to throw his comrades under the bus so he can get promoted over them. Or he really is that stupid and Baboo is just a stammering nervous Nellie. He's like the space simian version of Hugh Grant.
B-B-B-BUT OFFICER SHE WAS DEAD WHEN I GOT HERE
At the Command Center, the Ranger Teens try and cheer up Trini for bitching out of a fight against one of Rita's lamest monsters yet, but she's still quite upset. How can she live with herself after not fighting a giant devil Mantis fair and square? Alpha pulls up some information on the monster to find that it's an expert in preying mantis kung-fu. In case you couldn't gather that from all the blabbering it did about honor.
Trini plans to put in some extra practice with her kung-fu in preparation for the Mantis' next appearance so that, as Jason puts it, they can "nail him." Looks like Jase caught a view of that sweet Mantis dong too!
Rita begins phase two of her brilliant plan by magically teleporting a letter down to the countertop in Ernie's Juice Bar. Ernie ignores the incredibly suspicious magical letter and opens it, a federal offense if I've ever seen one. Though Ernie's confident that he's above the law as his shady business practices have failed to land him in prison yet.
The letter says it's from Master Lee, and tells Trini to come to the quarry for some special training. Trini finds nothing suspicious about this and heads out to look for her sensei. If you want to teach your kids about stranger danger, show them this episode and tell them to not do anything Trini does.
While Trini leaves to never be seen again, Bulk and Skull hone their skills acting like cockroaches. They practice their cockroach kung-fu too. Bulk tells Skull to look at the bugs and do what they do. What follows is a scene of the two acting out what they see the bugs doing, which could be absolutely insufferable, but it provides a genuinely funny gag. Bulk tries acting like a roach by chattering his teeth when we shift focus to Skull posed as such.
Skull expresses his innermost desire
That's a genuinely funny joke. It's also a little more morbid than Power Rangers usually goes for which adds to the surprise of it. Even better is a funeral dirge is played in the soundtrack over the shot of Skull laying dead on the ground. It's a shockingly solid gag for a show as cornball as this.
Trini wanders out into the quarry looking for Master Lee, but is soon greeted by the Mantis instead. The monster challenges her to one on one combat to prove the Yellow Ranger truly has honor, but Trini refuses to believe the monster can be trusted. Immediately after questioning the monster's honor, Mantis weirdly growls and roars at Trini. You want to prove you're a noble warrior? Try not snarling and sputtering at people you big creep.
Mantis gives Trini her word as a kung-fu master that their fight will be an honorable one, and not one where she'll prove to be a lowlife bug piece of shit. Trini chooses to accept this mission and morphs to combat the monster one on one. This leaves the Mantis shocked!
The rest of the Ranger Teens ask Ernie where their new friend Trini went, and he shows them the letter that magically appeared in front of him that led her into a shallow grave. The other Rangers become incredibly dubious, because they actually took two seconds to think about how suspicious this sounded. They head to the quarry to find Trini in the hopes this episode's moral isn't about the buddy system saving lives.
While the Ranger Teens are en route to find Trini, Rita sends a few Putties down to keep them occupied. The Rangers manage to beat some Putty ass without saying a word. I'm astonished they don't inform the audience that the Putties showing up confirms their suspicions that Rita has something evil planned. Instead Zack just shouts and punches one in the gut. Not that I'm complaining, because the latter is hilarious.
Back at the Trini and Mantis match, Trini's been knocked to the ground. The monster is ready to close in on her and hack her to shreds with her mighty claws. Trini refuses to give up and busts out some new moves.
This is some Level 10 kung-fu.
Mantis is irritated at how badly she's losing and calls in a Putty battalion. Trini calls bullshit on the Mantis and her sense of honor, and Mantis tells her in a nice smug tone, "I have no honor." I don't know why but that line really works for me. It gives this monster just a little bit of extra pizzazz that she was sorely lacking. She's just so proud of being a lying little shit that it's great.
The Putties surround Trini and start knocking her around as the Mantis cackles at her prey. All of a sudden Trini leaps into the air and kicks the Mantis in the back. When this happens the Putties are no longer there because somebody fucked up editing the Zyu2 stuff and cut the scenes of the Putties getting beaten. Trini pulls out a Power Dagger and slashes Mantis, knocking the monster to the ground. Shocking both the monster, and the audience who were looking for competently produced television.
While the other Ranger Teens take on the Putties, Zordon alerts them to Trini's predicament. She's surrounded by Putties, wait no they disappeared all of a sudden. Oh but she's also in trouble against the monster. Wait she looks like she already beat the monster with her weapon. So nevermind, she's okay.
The Ranger Teens morph to help out Trini, and when they join her side she informs the monster that it's now a fair fight. What? No it's not. You're going against all that shit your kung-fu is teaching you. What are you on about Trini? That honor shit must not be all that important if you abandon it the second you're losing except not really.
Kimberly tries attacking the monster with her Power Bow but the Mantis slashes her out of the air. The male Rangers then come to her aid and try fending off the monster but get knocked the fuck out by its massive claws. Rita takes this opportunity to make the Mantis grow before the monster has a chance to lose.
The Rangers bring out the big guns and summon the Megazord. Mantis and Megazord square off against each other while gauging their opponents movements. It's paced nice and slow as we wait for the monster to finally leap up and strike the Megazord. Mantis has the upper hand pretty immediately so Jason summons the Power Sword to even things out.
The monster manages to keep the Rangers on their toes until they catch her claws with the Power Sword and knock her to the ground. After a bit of slashing her around, the Rangers charge up the Power Sword and use it to finish the kung-fu master off. Before concluding, we get a recycled scene of Rita clobbering Squatt, Baboo, and Goldar with her wand. Usually I'm not a fan of scenes being used multiple times, but I'll make an exception when it's the Moon Crew getting the shit beat out of 'em.
Back at the Command Center, Zordon congratulates the Rangers for killing a giant bug, and tells Trini she did the honorable thing in trying to be fair. Kim supports her friend by telling her that it's not Trini's fault Rita cheats. So the moral of the story today is try to do things fair, but if someone starts bullshitting you and tries to flip the script, beat em at their own game. That or Trini was unable to suppress her desire to cheat and used the Putties showing up as an excuse to outnumber the Mantis before murdering her. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Later at the Juice Bar, Trini practices her kung-fu with Master Lee once again. This time her movements are much more measured and you can tell she feels more comfortable with it. Slapping a Mantis in the eyeballs will do that for you. Lee compliments Trini's stride at becoming one with the mantis. Now if only we could sic a hoard of mantis monsters on all our karate students they would become unparalleled.
Bulk and Skull continue trying to sell their cockroach kung-fu lessons at the reasonable rate of 50 dollars an hour. Which means that today Bulk and Skull would be asking for 387 thousand dollars an hour. All to learn how to lay on the ground and chatter like roaches. Pretty reasonable investment. The two bullies dumbshit their way around the Youth Center before inevitably falling into the jar of roaches, breaking it open, and spilling the bugs all over Bulk's leg. Lucky for Ernie the health inspector has just stopped coming by the Juice Bar or he'd be shut down for sure!
So to conclude, did we learn something about Trini's character today? Did she move forward in the slightest? Were her lofty morals and sense of honor able to help vanquish Rita's evil plans?
Not really.
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia: Honor
Personal Thoughts:
Well this was a pleasant surprise. I remembered not liking this episode as a kid at all, but going over it again it's a lot more enjoyable. You get some nice 90's kung-fu, good Bulk and Skull gags, and a plot that focuses on everyone's favorite non-entity Trini.
There was one thing that likely held the episode back for me as a kid and that's the Mantis herself. She's one of the most generic monsters you could ask for, and easily my least favorite Zyu2 design. She just looks so basic to me. I couldn't get past that as a kid so I'm glad it only took me twenty years to enjoy this episode of Power Rangers. I'm really coming up in the world.
Master Lee was portrayed by a real life martial artist named Richard Rabago who also did some acting in the Power Rangers sister show VR Troopers. I only bring that up to mention his name on that show was Tao Chong. Ew.
The material I mentioned earlier of the Yellow Ranger doing martial arts out in the woods is a byproduct of the editors not knowing what to do with Zyu2 footage. Since Zyu2 material has to establish without dialogue or unmorphed Rangers what it's trying to do, this was their method of showing us that the Yellow Ranger is proficient in martial arts. This sets up her fight with the Mantis being one of kung-fu superiority and to try and explain to the audience, as well as the show's producers, what the fuck is going on.
Whoever was cutting together this episode must have wanted to use that brief scene regardless and kept it in. The problem is you can't really make that scene work when Trini was just looking at the Mantis 10 feet in front of her. Either have Zordon tell her to morph and be on her guard, or cut this scene from your episode.
Oh right, speaking of the Mantis meeting Trini, we get a few scenes of the Mantis in U.S. footage antagonizing her. By no means is it necessary, but it helps build a little bit of tension with the monster. That's one of the things that makes Zyu2 so much fun, seeing the staff finally have everything at their fingertips to make an enjoyable episode regardless of what the Sentai footage may dictate.
I imagine itching your eye in that body would prove challenging.
For all you other Zyu2 freaks out there, the Mantis monster is the only Zyu2 monster who's shown growing without being somehow incapacitated. Either via the Power Blaster or being struck by one of the Rangers weapons.
After going over the footage again I've come up with a theory that the scene of Trini slashing Mantis with her Power Dagger was supposed to be the end of the fight. They simply cut whatever fight the other Rangers had with the Putties, and put the scene of Trini slashing Mantis in earlier for some reason. As it stands now, the Putties show up, antagonize Yellow Ranger, and disappear when the other four show up.
Something is definitely missing and the best part about Zyu2 is that you get to try and fill in these blanks yourself. Maybe the Mantis footage will get released and we'll know for sure! In the meantime please just assume I'm right. My fragile ego needs that.
One final thing to note before wrapping up. I went back to get a screengrab from this episode and noticed the Mantis wasn't looking so hot.
Mantis Zyu2
Mantis Power Rangers
Oops! Man I love monster suits on camera clearly ripping and tearing. If you fans out there have any shots like that please send them to me. They're one of my favorite things. Now I just wonder if the Zyu2 production team sent Mantis' costume over like that. Might explain why we only see her one more time.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Aug 17, 2015 0:57:59 GMT
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Episode 49: Return of an Old Friend Part 1
Okay guys I've got to drop an honest to goodness bombshell. Something big is happening today and I'm not quite sure how to explain it. This episode is going to reveal something so goddamned stunning that you'll think Rod Serling wrote it. I'd ask if you're ready to find out the big twist, but nobody ever could be, so let's get it out of the way.
The Ranger Teens have PARENTS!
Yeah, I know. I'm left pretty astonished too. Only twice in this series has anyone's parent been mentioned. Coincidentally both times it was Trini's mother, leading to my pet theory that the Ranger Teens refused to let her do anything significant because she was a freak who wasn't born in a genetics lab accident like the rest of them.
Well now my world's turned upside down, all these karate kids have parents? You bet your ass they do, because it's Parents Day at the Youth Center and all the Ranger Teens are so excited to hang out with their folks. Man say what you want about Power Rangers, but this show nails how it feels to be a teenager.
Trini's dad engages in a friendly arm wrestling match with Jason's dad, while their wives sit off to the side and gently chuckle at their husbands embarrassing display of masculinity. Oh sorry you probably want to see what the Ranger Teen's parents look like. Well basically they all have Van Houten Syndrome and have to look exactly like their kids so the audience doesn't get lost in the complex narrative at work.
Billy's dad begs Jason to give him a chance to humiliate himself.
Oh and I wasn't just being snarky up there. That is Billy's dad observing the arm wrasslin. He informs Jason that his douchebag son is testing some new invention before the big Parents Day celebration gets underway. Just as Billy Sr. tries to talk up his embarrassing son a little more, Skull comes into the Youth Center and insults Billy right in front of the kid's dad. The best part is Billy Sr. just quietly bites his lip and accepts his son will always be worthy of mockery and ridicule. Like father like son!
Skull's brought in a camera to film the festivities, and to shoot some b-roll of Kimberly hugging her mom for 'batin purposes. He spies Zack and his family hanging out by the punch bowl, and zips over to get some footage of the only black family in attendance.
Skull barely hides his disdain for anyone without anglo saxon superiority.
Skull continues to shoot some more footage and adorably gets happy to see his parents schmoozing with Principle Caplan. It's sweet to see Skull, who by all accounts is a total shit, really have a lot of love and admiration for his parents. All they're doing is talking to the Principal and he's filming them with pride.
I like that the show didn't take the easy route with Skull and have him treat his parents like a total dick. He's all giddy to show them all the dumb shit he does, and where he and his friend Bulk get up to all sorts of hoodrat shit. I can't blame 'em, I'd be pretty stoked if my dad was Diet Macho Man Randy Savage.
Along with his beautiful wife Elizabeth Skullovitch.
Principal Caplan suddenly becomes frustrated at Skull filming the festivities, because he doesn't want these high school students to have a record of their beloved family memories later in life. Caplan then starts interrogating Skull about where Bulk and his stupid parents are. Is this event mandatory? Christ Caplan you're a real stickler for making your students show up to arbitrary shit. Hope all the kids with dead parents take their failing grade in stride.
Skull informs the principal that Bulk's big dumb family is on their big dumb way in their big dumb car. Suddenly, the walls of the Youth Center start to shake as we hear a tire screeching sound effect. Debris falls from the ceiling as many of the Parent's Day patrons poorly act like they've been shaken around. I honestly wonder how much restraint it took the writers to not make this scene a joke about Bulk and his family being big fat people. Because just like the rest of the families, Bulk's parents lo-
Holy shit WHAT?! This show actually fucking got me! All that set up with the identical parents and Bulk's dad is just a scrawny dude in a business suit. Holy shit that is honestly a really good punchline. It's not exactly the hardest joke in the world to pull off, but it makes all the casting of parents who look like their children play out as part of a gag. It's significantly smarter than half the stuff Power Rangers does, and might be the first time we see a joke revolving around Bulk that isn't inspiring you to point and laugh at him. Juxtapositional humor in MY 90's karate children's programming? What a time to be alive.
On top of that, we get a pretty impressive scene of a cake being catapulted into the Bulk family's faces. I know this sounds like standard Bulk shtick, but it's actually a joke that's told with some competence. When the car crashes into the Youth Center (off-screen of course) and everything starts shaking, we see Ernie land near a table where the cake remains sitting stagnant.
Ernie breathes a sigh of relief as we cut to a shot of the cake sitting there safe and sound. There's a beat, and suddenly the table gives way underneath Ernie and the cake launches itself forward. That single second of peace before inexplicable cake related chaos is absolutely essential to making this joke work.
Bulk's mom gets smattered in white goo for the second time in 20 years before Bulk Sr. swabs some of the frosting off her. He tells his wife she's even sweeter than ever before giving her a jovial smile. Guys I'm serious here this is the best gag. Bulk's parents are some adorably loving middle class 90's couple who somehow managed to birth an asshole greaser. We're not even two minutes in and this episode has me enamored.
Okay enough about Bulk's adorable family unit, because Kimberly's mom and dad just showed up. How do I know it's them? Because the mom's dressed in pink. Duh.
Why's her husband wearing a tie with planets on it?
Kim's mom asks Trini where her daughter is, and note that Kim's father has already arrived. The show spells it out pretty clearly that Kim's parents are no longer together. Kim Sr. is now hanging out with this dude and his embarrassing planet tie, and Kim's dad is the only parent not clinging to a significant other. We'll talk about all that shit later though, in the meantime just know Kim's new dad looks like a total dud.
You'll never guess who isn't too excited about Parents Day. Rita's watching the event unfold as she moans out a miserable "PAPA!!" It doesn't really play in writing, but the delivery is so odd that it makes me laugh every time. Nothing but Rita yearning for her dad, who I assume is some monster man made out of snakes.
Squatt and Baboo take notice that humans attach a lot of importance to their parents, and then congratulate themselves for coming to such a brilliant realization 11 episodes before the season is over. Rita requests Finster whip up a monster for her to kidnap the Ranger's parents, and he suggests the wicked Dramole monster. A creature who will spew out hypnotic gas to....kidnap all of the parents? Hypnosis doesn't seem like it's that necessary if you're going to kidnap someone, but far be it from me to question this overgrown rat monster.
If I looked like that I'd be hiding underground too.
Scorpina tussles Goldar's dog fur hair while giggling over the Dramole's virtual invisibility underground. Also to remind the audience she didn't die offscreen after Crystal of Nightmares. Rita and her crew plot out the details of the Rangers surrender, which consists of holding their parents hostage and offering their safety in exchange for the Power Rangers unconditional surrender. It's not as brilliant as her "Make Red Ranger Itchy" plan, but it'll suffice.
Trini wanders outside to find Kim sulking alone. She looks incredibly forlorn and as soon as Trini sits with her she lets it all out. Kimberly is terrified that her mom and dad are going to be in the same room together since they've hardly spoken with one another since they got divorced. Kim then tells her friend she sometimes thinks this divorce is all her fault and her dad probably won't even show up to see her.
I know this probably seems incredibly on the nose and hammy, but I honestly like it quite a bit. I know this episode was the first time I'd ever heard anything about parents splitting up, and I think it's because kids shows were finally done sweeping it under the rug. For every painfully embarrassing 90's attempt at handling a serious issue, we get a scene like this that hits home.
The writers were clearly using their noggins making Kimberly the character with divorced parents. As much as I focus on the other actors, Amy Jo Johnson is almost positively the strongest of the cast. She manages to make this scene land without it becoming far sappier than it needs to be. Her character is focusing on a realistic tension that children do after their parents split up. Every time they try and humanize one of these chunks of cardboard I appreciate it, so I hope you don't mind a step away from the physics of flying cakes.
Trini tells Kim this divorce has nothing to do with her and her dad is inside waiting for her now. Also that doofus her mom is banging with his dumbass tie is there too. When she hears her parents are cordial with each other, Kimberly gets excited again and prepares to head inside with Trini. Before the girls can go meet up with their parents, a group of Putties leap in to confront them.
Alpha takes notice of the fight and says the girls look to be in trouble. Zordon stifles a laugh and asks if Alpha realizes they're just fighting some dipshit Putties, but the cyborg insists the girl Ranger Teens need help. Alpha 5 contacts Jason and Zack, and tells them to bail the girls out while he tries to get a hold of Billy. Wait a second, They can't get into contact with Billy and Billy Sr. said his son is busy with his "invention." Sounds like Billy just got his new fleshlight in the mail!
While the Ranger Teens are kept busy outside, the Dramole digs underground right into the Youth Center. As the monster digs it starts spewing smoke to hypnotize everyone inside, as well as distract us from what terrible actors the parents are. Jason Sr. asks what's going on and then mugs for the camera like he's an extra in a MAD TV sketch. Kimberly's step-dad and his awful tie very gingerly walks with his wife while ignoring the chaos going on in the Youth Center. Everyone inside soon disappears while we hear the Dramole gurgling underneath the surface.
After everyone has vanished, Billy rushes in and notes that he's late. He also wipes sweat from his brow and checks his hand to make sure no tissue bits are stuck to his palms. He also seems to have missed the fact that his friends were fighting Putties right in front of the Youth Center that he just entered, and he's ignored all of Alpha's attempts at contacting him. Glad you're on the team dickhead.
While Billy is perplexed to see the Youth Center empty, Rita realizes she can put the Blue Ranger under the Dramole's spell and use it to gain access to the Dragon Dagger. In addition, she can live out her fantasies of being a sexually frustrated teenage boy.
While the Putties are being defeated, the Dramole's smoke billows over Billy's face, causing him to fall under the Space Alien's spell. Rita informs Billy she is now his evil mistress, and demands he teleport into the Command Center to get her that Dagger. Now that he's under Rita's spell, Billy is sporting some kind of electric halo. In case we couldn't tell he was evil from his constantly furrowed brow and blank stare.
Every 90's Horror Movie Poster.jpg
EVIL Billy starts manhandling Alpha 5 and calls him a poor excuse for a transistor radio. Hey Rita, does that Dramole have any magic smoke that can provoke good one liners? Billy shuts down Alpha and starts shit talking Zordon for being a big inflated windbag, to which Zordon says he didn't give Billy superpowers to hurt people's feelings. Since Zordon is incapable of doing anything but blathering, Billy summons the Dragon Dagger and vanishes.
The rest of the Ranger Teens head inside the Youth Center to see there isn't a soul left inside. Kimberly spots her mother's scarf left discarded on the floor, and knows something is up since she gave that to her mom for her birthday. Maybe she was wearing it to spare your feelings and threw it off when she realized how ugly it was. Or her husband yanked it off before the two of them got sweaty in the Juice Bar bathroom.
The Ranger Teens teleport into the Command Center where they ask what happened to their parents. Zordon tells them their weird ass inbred parents are safe for now, despite their genetic material being tainted for the next few generations. Zordon tells his slaves that Billy stole the Dragon Dagger and beat the shit out of Alpha 5, so they need to stop him from letting the Dragonzord fall into the wrong hands even if that means murdering Billy in cold blood. Jason says they won't need to go that far, but Zordon gives him a wide eyed glare and says "That was an order Red Ranger."
Trini somehow manages to reactivate Alpha, having retained a handful of the gobbledygook Billy spewed at her about technology. Once the robot is back online, the Ranger Teens morph to try and stop Billy who is en route to Rita's Dark Dimension. They then use their mighty powers as efficiently as possible.
Well we did all we could do.
Goldar summons a few Putty Patrollers to keep the morphed Rangers busy after he shoves Billy to the ground for no particular reason. Just in case we forgot Goldar is the bad guy in this scene. While the Rangers fend off the Putties, EVIL Billy looks confused as he sits on the ground and rubs his sore ass. Is he not under the spell anymore? Cause he still has that electric halo, so looks like the editor didn't know what was going on and fucked it up.
The four Rangers then start taking on Goldar to keep him away from Billy, but Rita's second in command is too quick for them and nabs the Dragon Dagger. Billy starts throwing a fit as Goldar cackles about his new toy. Even if it is out of the box and has lost all value. Goldar tells them their only option remaining is to give up their Power Coins in exchange for their parents lives. Zack asks why they should listen to his bullshit and Goldar rather astutely tells them "Because you really have no other choice." What a perfect asshole. I love him.
Billy morphs to accompany his friends and make up for how bad he's ruined Parents Day, only to see Goldar using the Dragon Dagger to summon the Dragonzord. The Zord becomes furious over how ignored it's been for the past 9 episodes and goes on a rampage, demolishing everything in sight. The Rangers call on their Dinozords to stop their lumbering ally in the hopes that they can head off Goldar.
It's Megazord VS. Dragonzord with the Rangers parents at stake. Before you get excited, just know that this fight is roughly 30 seconds long and ends faster than it began. With the Rangers unable to subdue the Dragonzord, they bail out of the Megazord and land in front of Goldar. Looking at this now I still don't know what the Rangers were trying to accomplish. Goldar has your parents lives in his hands and you start antagonizing him by fighting the Dragonzord? What's that accomplishing? Oh right we needed to use some Sentai footage. My mistake.
Goldar tells the Rangers their time is up. There's no out anymore, it's either their Power Coins or their parents. Given this Sophie's Choice, the Rangers realize there's only one thing they can do. They can't fight back anymore, they can't get their parents back without complying, and even Zordon tells the Rangers that this decision is completely theirs to make as it involves their civilian lives.
The Rangers make up their minds. They'll trade their Power Coins for the safety of their parents. Each Ranger walks up, one by one, and places their Power Coin into a small black box Goldar summons. As they give him their coin, their Ranger costume dissolves away from them as they lose the powers they held so dear. Kimberly tries telling Goldar he had better not hurt her parents, but he tells her to be silent. It's so perfect. He holds all the cards and the Rangers can't even trash talk him anymore.
Zack and Trini give up their coins next, with only Billy remaining. He apologizes for being the cause of all this after giving Goldar the Dragon Dagger, but there's no heroics for him now. All he can do is give Goldar the final Power Coin and complete their trade. Now that he has what he wants, the Rangers demand their parents safe return. Goldar responds to their pleas as follows.
Whoops!
Sorry kids, guess you trusted the wrong dog monster. Goldar tells them he never had any intention of returning their parents and they can suck his big gold balls because the world's going to be over soon. The Ranger Teens are near tears as Goldar cackles at them once more before he vanishes with their Power Coins in tow. Well maybe next year's Parents Day won't be such a bust.
Back in the Command Center, the Ranger Teens lick their wounds while Zordon politely tells them to get out of his goddamned Command Center if they don't have a Power Coin. The Ranger Teens see a vision of their parents on the Viewing Globe and are happy that despite how bad they botched everything today, at least their parents are safe. Well for another hour or so, then when Squatt gets a hold of them all the Ranger Teens will have new siblings.
Kimberly says there's nothing left for them to do, because Goldar's taken all their Power Coins. Jason solemnly says they still have one more Power Coin left, and pulls it from his pocket. We then cut back to the Youth Center where someone walks inside. All we can see are the person's feet as they walk past the mess that Dramole caused. The camera pans up and as we see our mystery man, we also get to hear Wasserman give his two cents lyrically.
GO GREEN RANGER!
Oh SHIT.
TO BE CONTINUED
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia: Planetary Ties
Personal Thoughts
What an incredibly awesome surprise. I didn't remember much about this episode in terms liking it or not, but I would almost definitely put it in the top 10 of Season 1. As much as I love Bulk and his goofy parents, the stand out scene for me is Goldar taking the Ranger's Power Coins. It's a really fantastic moment where we see the heroes at their lowest point. It's so good man. Seriously. It shows you how big of a scumbag Goldar is and makes him the perfect loathsome cocksucker of a villain that you want to see beaten down.
I mentioned Zyu2 earlier, and while you could technically call this episode a "Zyu2 episode" it uses very little new footage. Dramole is only seen incredibly briefly in Finster's explanation of the monster, but is otherwise hidden underground for the entirety of the episode. It's almost like they forgot they had the monster's costume and felt the need to cheat shots with him. Old habits die hard I suppose.
Speaking of Zyu2, there is one nifty little scene the folks in Japan shot for Power Rangers to use. It's an alternative formation of the Megazord! It's not as fancy as the Zyuranger footage but it still looks pretty cool. Check it out.
I don't want to discuss too much more but I'd like to briefly mention the fight the Rangers have in the Dark Dimension with Goldar and the Putties. This is the first time that Power Rangers would film a U.S. exclusive fight scene with the morphed Rangers. Usually we would only get Sentai footage of the morphed heroes, and unmorphed Putty fights in U.S. footage. Now that the show is starting to get some moxie, they're mixing and matching styles. It actually looks relatively good for a first effort, and sets the stage for what's to come later. So stay tuned!
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Aug 17, 2015 0:59:03 GMT
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Episode 50: Return Of An Old Friend Part 2
Last week on Power Rangers: Rita was mad that her archenemies got to have loving parents, so she sent a mole to kidnap all of them during the annual Parent's Day celebration. Rita then took control of Billy and used him to steal the Dragon Dagger and tell Zordon he's a big pussy. The other Power Rangers were too late to stop Billy from giving the Dragon Dagger to Goldar who offered the Rangers an ultimatum; they give up their Power Coins or their parents get turned into dog food. The Rangers surrendered their coins only for Goldar to tell them to go eat a bowl of fuck because their parents are all gonna die anyway. Jason realizes the team has one more chance. The Green Ranger's Power Coin is still in their possession. Now here's hoping Tommy isn't pissed you guys haven't returned his calls.
Kimberly reminds the audience that the Green Power Coin isn't going to be much good since Rita used a magical candle to drain Tommy of his powers. Zordon tells her to put a sock in it unless she wants her parents turned into clay chicken monsters. Speaking of their parents, Alpha has pulled up an image of all the people Rita's captured on the Viewing Globe.
Terrifying
Zordon teleports the unsuspecting Tommy into the Command Center where the commercial break cuts off the Ranger Teens explaining the situation. All we get is Jason giving Tommy his coin back before saying "Welcome back old friend." Nice Jason, but would you say that this Old Friend is Returning?
Tommy tells his friends he's willing to help as long as he can bust out some sweet karate kicks on a bunch of nerds, but without his powers he's going to be as useless as Billy. Zordon informs the teens that in order to get Tommy in his green spandex again, he needs to use some of his magical floating head energy to supercharge Tommy's coin.
Before you can call bullshit on why Zordon didn't do this when Tommy lost his powers the first time, Billy says this energy transference could be very dangerous for both Tommy and Zordon. Zordon tells them it's worth the risk, but only because he's a head in a glass jar. He's looking for any opportunity to kill himself that presents itself.
Since Tommy's a goodie two shoes puritan, he has no qualms about putting himself in potential life threatening danger to save his friends toy coins. He also wants to be a Power Ranger because it was the only thing in his stupid shitty life that allowed him to have friends and get some poontang on the side.
During Tommy's re-energizing, Goldar appears near the city with the Dragon Dagger and summons forth the Dragonzord. Maybe it's just me but there's something particularly amusing about Goldar holding a flute up to his big dumb dog jowls. What do you think?
Goldar Dragon Dagger Thanks to Frank's Halloween Shop for providing Goldar's teeth.
As Zordon zaps Tommy's coin with some cheap looking electric effects, Billy pleads with the giant head not to use too much energy or he'll cease to exist. Alpha echoes Billy's sentiment and begs his lover not to drain himself too much or else who will bark orders at him and treat him like a slave?
As the energy surges through Tommy's coin, the audience is left unsure of how successful Zordon's operation is. Thankfully the editor put in a helpful cut to a gadget inside the Command Center to illustrate what's happening.
The Atari Lynx was a hell of a system.
Tommy becomes resurged with energy and once again becomes the Green Ranger. Thousands of children around the country cheer that the toy their grandmother bought them for Christmas is now relevant again. Now that Tommy's back in action, there's work to be done. Zordon instantly teleports Green Ranger to the same place that Goldar stole the Power Coins, and tells him it's time to kick some ass.
Goldar greets Tommy and starts talking the mother lode of shit about how Green Ranger is eternally powerless and doesn't stand a chance against him. Goldar sets the Dragon Dagger down next to the box of Power Coins and summons a group of Putties to finish off Tommy. For some weird reason Squatt and Baboo also show up with the Putties. Not to fight of course, but to watch the fight with Tommy unfold. Glad we've reduced these two to a glorified cheering section instead of giving them any reason to still be hanging around with Rita.
Tommy starts wailing on the Putties and sets his sights on Goldar. The dog man knocks Tommy to the dirt and starts beckoning Green Ranger to fight back. It's clear that at this point Tommy doesn't have much grasp over his powers. He's unable to put up a decent fight and is just going through the motions against Goldar. So much so that he ends up in this unfortunate position.
GOLD DICK. IS BETTER THAN GREEN DICK.
The Ranger Teens become nervous as they watch their buddy get punked by Goldar. Jason says they need to boost Zordon's output to Tommy to help him out, and hopefully murder Zordon. Alpha presses a few more buttons which charges Tommy with more of Zordon's energy. With this new influx of power, the fight is back on. Tommy starts going toe to toe with Goldar, the interplanetary jobber. Who knows how this fight will turn out?!
As Tommy's powers begin to waver, Goldar tosses him closer to the pedestal with the Power Coins and Dragon Dagger. Either Goldar is incredibly cocky, or the absolute dumbest tactician the world has ever seen. Tommy grabs the Dragon Dagger, but a surge of energy knocks him backwards with his weapon.
It probably sounds really repetitive to hear that Tommy's powers fuck up repeatedly, but the way it plays out works well. Every other Ranger fight is about the enemy's strength and whatever tricks they use. This time around we see this fight is very obviously putting a strain on Tommy with even the most minimal amount of effort on his part. Goldar doesn't have to do anything but slap him around. It's showing that all that talk about Zordon's energy being dangerous for him wasn't just Billy being a nervous Nellie.
Tommy starts playing a tune on the Dragon Dagger to regain control of his Zord, which prompts Squatt and Baboo to teleport back to the Moon Palace because they're insufferable cowards who will flee at the first inkling of danger. Now that I think about it, if this Power Rangers reboot ever gets made I think Paul Giamatti would be the perfect Baboo. Just have him reprise his character from Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes.
With Dragonzord under Tommy's control, Rita decides to pull out all the stops. She sends giant sized Goldar and Scorpina down to combat the mighty Dinozord and hopefully take it out of commission. It's Rita's top two generals against the revitalized Dragonzord, and every kid at home gets pumped beyond belief (fact or fiction). This is the Green Ranger's homecoming fight, and he's ready to kick some dick.
We get a new song from Ron Wasserman aptly entitled "Go Green Ranger" which only cements the fact that shit has gotten realer than ever before. Dragonzord blasts Goldar and Scorpina with missiles, tosses the pair around, and just generally trashes them both. It's exactly what you'd want from a Green Ranger return.
Dragonzord doesn't give a fuck.
The rest of the Rangers beg Alpha to bring Tommy back because his powers are fading, and the last thing an unmorphed Tommy needs to deal with is a giant scorpion lady and dog monster breathing down his neck. Zordon, who was all about this power swap plan, starts sputtering out a plea to bring Tommy back right away. It's supposed to seem like Zordon is worried for Tommy's safety but I'm reading it more as Zordon seeing how bad it sucks balls to drain your own life energy to power some shitheel kid.
Goldar abruptly stops the battle with the Dragonzord because he realizes he's left the Power Coins unguarded. He and his waifu disappear in one of the few intelligent tactical retreats this series has ever portrayed. Good on you Goldar, you're thinking with your noggin now. Without a giant fight to distract him, Tommy gingerly waltzes over to the Power Coins and nabs them. No seriously.
Remember when Goldar ditched the Dragonzord fight to go guard the coins again? About FOUR SECONDS AGO. Well whoever wrote this script didn't recall that and just wanted an excuse for Goldar and Scorpina to vanish for no reason. Why didn't they have Tommy grab the coins during the fight with Dragonzord while the two villains were distracted? Why would you have a character make a salient point and then not follow up on it? You don't have Zordon say "Recruit a team of teenagers with attitudes." and follow it up with him ordering Chinese food.
Whatever. Tommy's back in the Command Center with the Power Coins and a wave of surging energy demorphs him, leaving his unconscious body laying on the floor. Alpha tells the Ranger Teens that Tommy's "readings are very low", which is kids show talk for "say your goodbyes." Don't worry, Tommy's just going to a nice farm out of town where he can do lots of spin kicks.
Great. Now Kim needs a new plus one for Parents Day.
The Ranger Teens mull over what they can do now, as Zordon's energy force-feeding has blanked him out of his tube. While I try to be lenient to the actors in this show, I don't buy any concern they have in this scene. It feels like everyone on set was tired and this was the last scene they had to shoot in the day. Zack mentions how frustrating it is they've lost both their parents and Zordon, and Billy comes back with the most humdrum "Don't say that Zack." If you read that out loud in a hushed tone, it had more enthusiasm than it was delivered with here.
This is the problem that Return of an Old Friend Part 2 has over its predecessor. Last week the actors brought it to the best of their abilities. They actually seemed really upset and afraid that they were going to lose their parents. This week they just seem melancholy and ready to go home. I might be digging too deep, but comparing the performances from last week to now shows a pretty clear divide. It's also entirely possible there isn't much material to work with this week since half the episode has been Tommy having power aneurisms while everyone else watches in the Command Center with clasped hands and pouty lips.
Alpha 5 proposes that they can revive Zordon by combining the energy from their Power Coins. Essentially the inverse of what Zordon did for Tommy. It's a logical extension of what we've been informed the Power Coins can do which is significantly less better than in Green With Evil where we had to wait for Alpha to find the right hoobajoob frequency to bring Zordon back to life.
The Ranger Teens bust out their Power Coins to infuse Zordon with energy which successfully brings him back online. Zordon thanks them for rescuing him from the sweet loving embrace of death that has eluded him once more. Alpha 5 starts to cry because of how emotional all of this is for him. Spare me your crocodile tears Alpha, you wanted him dead more than any of us.
There's no time for emotion though, because Rita's Dramole monster has shown up again! The one who hasn't factored into the plot of this week's episode until now and was likely forgotten by most everyone at home. Zordon warns the Rangers of Dramole's mind control gas before telling them they could all end up under Rita's control like that loser Billy. Billy silently wipes a tear away as the Rangers morph to inspect the monster's location and come face to face with one ugly looking mole.
Dramole Monster Dramole was hotboxing before they showed up.
The basement dwelling creep starts spraying mist out from underneath his armpits. Judging from his unshaven whiskers and long yellow fingernails, that must be the stench of Axe he's spewing. The fumes start to take control of four of the Rangers while Kim begs them not to breathe it in. Why's she unaffected? Because dating Tommy gave her an immunity to stanky ass pits.
For some reason the skies go dark as Dramole gurgles and growls. All of the Rangers aside from Kim are soon put under his control and start looming towards the Pink Ranger threateningly. My God! The Dramole's turned the Rangers into an army of C.H.U.D's!
Zordon and Alpha watch the fight and get ready to see Kimberly torn limb from limb, but all of a sudden Tommy starts levitating in an aura of green electricity. Zordon notes that the forcefield that was surrounding the Power Coins must have been absorbed into his body, not only leaving him sterile, but restoring his Green Ranger powers! Tommy wakes up and uses his plot convenience magic to know his friends are in danger. Alpha hands him his Power Coin and Tommy morphs into battle once more.
Just as the Dramole prepares to feast upon Kimberly, Tommy shows up and blasts the monster with rays of light that comes from him like he's supposed to be Jesus or something. The light dissolves Dramole's darkness as well as the spell over the other four Rangers. Being as he lives underground, Dramole is clearly unenthused with all this light and starts guarding his eyes from the sunlight. He also asks his mom if she picked up some Baja Blast at the store.
Now that all six Rangers are back together, Rita's not taking any more chances. She makes the Dramole grow to get his revenge on those assholes for turning on the lights.
So is he stomping in front of them or are they dodging him at lightning speed?
The Rangers, Tommy included, summon the Dinozord fleet to take on Dramole. Once the Megazord and Dragonzord arrive, the monster sprays its armpit gas into the air, causing the skies to darken. Going to go on record here and say this is the grossest power a monster has utilized so far. Though thankfully it hasn't inspired a bunch of weirdos to devote a fetish to armpit nozzles. Yet.
The Dramole fires some lasers out of his eyes to blast the Zords and knock them to the ground. Dramole claps his big goofy claw hands together as Kimberly calls for Tommy to help her out. It isn't the first time she does so and I can promise you it won't be the last. Tommy commands the Dragonzord to tumble with Dramole while the Megazord reboots.
After slapping the monster around a little, the Dragonzord is joined by the Megazord once more. At this point, the editors completely lose track of what's happening.
Just for a quick recap, the Ultrazord is formed by a combination of the Megadragonzord and Titanus. There's another formation referred to as the Dragonzord in Battle Mode that is made of only the Dragonzord, Triceratops, Saber Tooth Tiger, and Mastodon Dinozords. This was erroneously referred to as the Megadragonzord a handful of times in the past.
Well when the Megazord and Dragonzord stand side by side, the Rangers call for Megadragonzord, but the scene cuts to the formation of the Dragonzord in Battle Mode. Then all of a sudden, Titanus bursts through some rocks onto the scene. As soon as this happens, the Rangers call for Ultrazord power. Suddenly the Megadragonzord slides into place with Titanus and forms the Ultrazord. It's pretty simple in terms of what they messed up, but seeing it play out it looks incredibly half-assed and shitty.
So the UltraBattleDraMega Gonzord blasts Dramole and send him straight to Hell. Hope you like burnt hot pockets you goober. Rita curses the Power Rangers for murdering her mole and upsetting one of the few plans she had that didn't totally suck eggs. Goldar shirks all responsibility for his earlier blunder and says that next time they'll beat those dang dirty Rangers. Go sit on it Goldar, this is all your fault for not guarding those coins. You just had to go get a quickie from Scorpina didn't you?
Back at the Command Center, Alpha tells the Ranger Teens that with the Dramole dead, all of their parents have been returned safely to the Youth Center. He also informs them their parents will remember nothing from this experience. Is that just an effect of the spell wearing off or did Zordon do that? Personally I'd be pretty fucking skeeved out if some giant gasbag head told me he wiped my parents memories clean.
Can you imagine if this episode ended with the Ranger Teens going to the Youth Center to greet their parents, but they don't recognize them as their children? Then they do the Invasion of the Body Snatchers point and scream and we fade to black. Holy shit someone make this happen.
Billy says the safe return of their parents is the best news that he's heard all day, while Jason says the second best news is that Tommy got his powers back. Thanks for saving us from that big douchebag mole Tommy, but you're still second compared to the people who we never talk to and only get to see once a year.
Zordon brings the room down by telling Tommy his powers could fail him at any point, and this energy charge could only be temporary. Tommy says that he's still happy to be back fighting with his friends again, and if anything happens to him they'll be sure to bail him out. The rest of the Ranger Teens politely whistle while darting their eyes away from him and muttering under their breath.
Back at Parents Day, the Ranger Teens meet up with the people who spewed them out of their genitals and thank them for being such great parents. Trini tells her father how proud she is to be his daughter, to which he asks who the hell she's supposed to be. Zack tells his mom she looks really pretty today, to which she compliments young Oedipus.
Then Kimberly meets up with all three of her parents. Since her OG dad couldn't get his shit together and get a wife. She says she was worried they'd be uncomfortable being in the same room together, but her parents assure her that's not true since they love her just a hair more than they hate each other. Tommy shows up and since he doesn't have any parents Kimberly introduces him to all three of hers.
There's only one problem with today's celebration, Bulk and Skull are bored as hell with it. If only a big ugly rat would dig underground and spray them with mind control gas and liven it up. Since that'll never happen the duo initiate a food fight by throwing a pie at Jason's dad. The look on his face says it all.
Though that might be roid rage.
What follows is the mother of all food fights. Bulk's dad gets sandwiched by a pair of pies, Jason's dad throws a pie at Bulk's mom, and the absolute highlight is when Ms. Applebee stops giving a shit and takes Mr. Caplan's wig off, puts a pie on his head, and then puts his wig back on. It's basically the only thing I've wanted to do to someone wearing a wig ever since I saw this episode more than 20 years ago. And someday I will. Someday...
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia: C.H.U.D's
Personal Thoughts
I don't like this episode quite as much as I did last week's, but it's still damn good. You get Tommy back, you get a smooth fight with Goldar and Scorpina, we get to see what's up with the Dramole after building him up last week, and the final scene with the pie fight is distilled Power Rangers goofery. It almost feels like the show is telling you that the show is going to get into full swing with Tommy back with a big goofy ass pie fight. You can't really go wrong with this one.
It's also nice that the show clearly underlines that Tommy's powers are likely only temporary. It's Power Rangers so they can't end on a dour note, but this is the closest the show can get to a bittersweet ending. Some possibly bad news followed by a bunch of adults throwing pies at each other and giggling like ninnies.
I mentioned quite a while ago that in Zyuranger, the Dragonzord had an introductory fight against Scorpina and Goldar that went unused. Well the show's staff must have realized it fit perfectly in today's episode so that's exactly what we got to see. That explains why Dragonzord got such a shitty introduction in his first episode. The fight where he seemed impressive was cut out and used here instead.
But forget that nonsense because I had to go a whole week without talking about my precious Zyu2! I've been scratching like a heroin addict waiting to talk about more footage of rubber monsters fighting dweebs in spandex. Dramole's not a whole lot to write home about, and the most important thing to mention is that he's the first monster in Zyu2 to feature the Green Ranger. Certainly not the last though.
Speaking of "first", we really have no clue if there was any real order to the Zyu2 monsters. It's entirely possible this wasn't the episode that Green Ranger was meant to return in, but that seems unlikely as his arrival from the sky seems dynamic enough to signify his grand return as a Ranger. Though it's also possible that no Zyu2 block was meant to re-introduce Green and his presence would be left to the U.S. crew to explain. I dunno. Do you know? No you don't, stop lying to me.
There has been a release of some raw Zyu2 footage and each of the monsters was holding up a small piece of paper with a number on it. I theorize this was supposed to be an order for the monsters to go in, but that's just my guess. All of the raw Zyu2 footage that has been released is of monsters I've yet to cover, but if and when the footage of these previous Zyu2 monsters gets released I'll probably go back and cover what we missed.
Last thing I want to cover is the Ultrazord killing Dramole. Take a look at what happens when he gets hit by the Ultrazord finishing move. Keep in mind the attack is supposed to be a barrage of energy blasts.
Dramole
Weird, that sure is a slice effect over him. Almost like Dramole was hit by the Power Sword instead. Probably because he was definitely supposed to be, but the writers spiced this fight up by shoehorning in the Ultrazord. Most likely someone decided that the big episode to reintroduce Tommy would be kind of lame if they finished the monster only using the Megazord's finishing move, and I can agree. Just interesting to see the decisions made with this footage. It's also interesting to see a mole monster do a backflip and explode. If you disagree then you must have found this blog by accident and I'd like to kindly ask you to leave.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Aug 17, 2015 0:59:32 GMT
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Episode 51: Grumble Bee
Buckle your seat belts kids, because today's adventure isn't for the faint of heart. For all the harrowing battles our heroes have undertaken, this is the moment that is going to prove their courage and mettle. Brace yourselves.
Directed By Alfred Hitchcock
Yeah. It's this episode. Sorry.
Ms. Applebee tells her students that only the highest grades in the class will get accepted into the "Young Scientists of America Club." So right off the Bat we're supposed to Be concerned that Billy won't get to hang out with a Bunch of other losers Because he got a B on one test. If only he got to hang out with a gang of superheroes on the weekend it might make him feel Better.
The rest of the Ranger Teens ask Billy what's got his overalls in an uproar. When he tells them the reason he's contemplating suicide is Because he got an 88 percent on a science test, his friends look at him like a total chucklefuck. They tell him in no uncertain terms that getting a B isn't Bad at all and he's worrying himself stupid over nothing.
This is the point this week's plot could diverge. The episode could Be about Billy's weird ass insecurities over not Being absolutely perfect every single time he pursues something academically, or it could Be about Billy realizing he isn't always perfect and that's okay. Sometimes he might make mistakes, and that doesn't make him unintelligent, it only makes him human. Take a wild guess which of these morals a ham-handed karate sitcom for infants is more inclined to promote.
Kimberly lets Billy know she gets B's all the time, and that it's not a Big deal. Billy pulls the standard asshole dweeb tactic of responding "Perhaps Kimberly, But I never do." Jesus Billy. Your friend reaches out to you and all you can say is "Well it makes sense for an idiot like you to get B's, But I hold myself to a higher standard you DOLT." This show was making characters out of insufferable nerds years Before The Big Bang Theory did.
Thankfully Bulk and Skull show up to Bring the I.Q. of the room down and tell Billy that B stands for Bad. The other Ranger Teens tell them to go fuck each other somewhere else and leave their friend alone. Before the Bullies can leave, Bulk drops this ice Burn on Billy.
"See ya. Wouldn't wanna.....B ya!"
We then cut to a dramatic zoom in on Billy who has Been deeply shaken By this 90's insult. Are you shitting me? Billy's getting anxiety over that? I mean it's a sick Burn don't get me wrong, But why is he upset over the words of two losers who live in the sewers? Don't play dramatic music over Billy making frowny faces just Because he got a pretty good grade.
The problem I have with this episode is Becoming more and more apparent. The show is justifying Billy's obsessive perfectionism as though he's Being completely reasonable. All of his friends are Being realistic and telling him he did his Best and it's not a Big deal, But then we have to see him get all frumpy and think he's in the right for holding himself up to ludicrously high standards. If ever there was a time this show should have taken the piss out of itself for portraying its characters as impossibly perfect, then it should have Been in the episode where Billy is struck with PBSD.
Rita Repulsa laughs at Billy's petulant whining and demands Finster make her a monster for the occasion. See kids at home? If you get a B on your next spelling test then an evil space witch is going to summon clay monsters to murder you and all of your friends. Finster tells Rita he'll whip up a Grumble Bee monster with a powerful sting to it. There's some truly masterful symbolism at play here. Billy is upset his grade was a B, so the monster he must combat is a Bee! If you missed it this time don't worry, they'll make sure to Bee-at you over the head with it for the next 20 minutes.
Back at Angel Grove High School, Billy is putting his Books away and giving us a peek inside of his locker. I only mention this Because he appears to Be hiding some explosives to take the school down if he gets a B one more time.
Just call Billy the Blue Bomber.
The rest of the Ranger Teens meet up with Billy and tell him, once again, to not sweat the fact he got a good grade on his test. They give him the moral this show should Be providing By letting him know he did his Best and that's all that can Be asked of him. Jason asks Billy if he'd like to take his mind off of things By playing some Basketball out in the park. Man Jason you are one tone-deaf friend. Asking a nerd if he wants to play sports with some jocks to feel Better? You might as well ask Trini if she'd like to come with you and have a conversation.
Billy tells his friends to take their kind offering and cram it right up their dicks, Because he needs to study more and more until he can get into the Young American Scientist Cabal. If this episode had even the slightest amount of self awareness maybe we'd start to see Billy's friends Breaking him out of his self destructive shell and help him fucking relax once in a while. Don't forget everyone, this B is apparently the first one Billy has received in his entire life. The show wants us to think his concerns for his grades are accurate after getting a B one single solitary time. Hope you can live up to those standards kids at home!
Trini agrees to stay Behind and help quiz Billy, while Jason wipes the sweat from his Brow now that he doesn't have to tell her she wasn't invited. The Yellow and Blue Ranger Teens head to the Juice Bar where Trini starts talking about some type of Bee Breed. Billy then spells everything out for the audience By clarifying that he got a B Because of a Bee question. Yeah I can hardly BEElieve it Billy. Now let me take this Bee Bee gun and go BBBBBBlow my BBBBBBrains out.
While Billy's plot already seems to have wrapped up 4 minutes into the episode, Kim, Jason, and Zack enjoy a nice day of shooting hoops in the park. Kimberly reminds her dude friends why she isn't putting out for them and mentions Tommy is away at a karate match where Kim informs us he's Blowing the competition away. Unfortunately Amy Jo Johnson put a Bit too long of a space in Between the last two words, so what's meant to sound like confidence in her Boy toy sounds more like a tacit admission of his latent homosexuality. Oh well, I'm sure they'll fix it in editing.
Rita Bitches at Goldar to go keep the Ranger Teens in the park Busy while the Grumble Bee monster is Beeing prepared. Goldar promises he'll Bring his empress victory with his Putty Patrollers, and the audience does all they can not to laugh in Goldar's stupid face. Before the scene ends, Rita saunters over to Squatt and Baboo and asks them to go do something nasty. The pair giggle and clap like the mongoloids they are as the show proves to me I'm not reaching when I assume they're degenerate sex goofballs.
The Putties swarm the Ranger Teens on the Basketball court But their fundamentals are unable to compensate for a lack of dunking prowess. The Ranger Teen trio shithouse the Putties using a mix of karate and throwing a Basketball at Blubbering dunces. The ultimate skill in any martial arts class.
Goldar shows up, ignoring the fact that the majority of his Putty squadron are dead, and starts trash talking the Ranger Teens. The dog faced moron then pulls out a magical yellow rope that he commands his remaining Putties to tie around the Ranger Teens. As soon as the rope circles around them, the three are completely helpless. Remember last week when Goldar was summoning the Dragonzord and Blowing shit up? Now his master plan is Snidely Whiplashing the Rangers.
A weary prop department seeks out Goldar's method of attack this week.
Meanwhile, Rita's sent her Grumble Bee to Earth and Alpha tries desperately to get into contact with Jason, Kim, and Zack. Since those three are poorly pretending to Be tied up, they're unable to answer Zordon's call about the monster. Zordon locates them in the park and tells Alpha he doesn't feel like using his magic head Balloon powers to free them, so he should send Trini and Billy to go try and fix the problem. Here's hoping Billy got an A on his test about dismantling magical ropes.
Billy abandons his crucial 98th study session to answer Zordon's call about saving his loser friends from their G-Rated Bondage experience. He and Trini are about to teleport to the park to Bail their loser friends out, But Zordon alerts them to the presence of Rita's Grumble Bee monster. Zordon starts talking up the monster and claiming it can destroy mankind if left unchecked, so long as all of humanity is allergic to Bees which Zordon's research is inconclusive on.
What is up with that colored codpiece?
Trini and Billy morph to take on the Grumble Bee monster. Billy makes a Bunch of weird dizzy motions around his head like he's about to sneeze, probably Because the editors didn't know what was going on in the Sentai footage and forgot to cut around it. The monster then tells the Rangers their threats towards him aren't very neighborly of them, But Trini tells the Bee they don't want him in their town. Probably not the only type of B people you want kept out of Angel Grove if you catch my drift. If you want a place in Angel Grove you need to Be a WASP like everyone else.
Grumble Bee launches some stingers from his hand which Blast the Yellow and Blue Rangers with sparks. Trini manages to steady herself after the onslaught But Billy slides around like he's Been Bathing in honey. I guess we're supposed to assume Billy is still upset about that B fiasco from earlier. I don't need the show to hold my hand and vomit out exposition, But Billy hasn't given a shit about that grade for half the episode. Why would it Be Bothering him now?
Well y'know what's Bothering me? This.
How much of any of that was necessary?
Now that Grumble Bee has Been kicked from the treetops Because Trini's a show-off, the Yellow Ranger asks Billy to help her finish the Beast off. She offers her hands to Boost him up for a high kick, But Billy is running like he's Been hittin' the Booze again. The Blue Ranger slip slides all around while we see his dizzy POV. Billy finally leaps into Trini's hand to get Boosted up only to fall flat on his ass like the chump he is. Y'know what B stands for Billy? Bottle. Stop hitting it.
Billy complains that the Bee's venom is making him weak and how he can't hang on. Yeah my dad had a real problem with "Bee Venom" too Billy, shit eats right through your liver. The Grumble Bee then pops Back up and starts Blasting yellow sonic waves at the Rangers. The waves start Bugging the shit out of the two as they hold their heads like they're fighting off the mother of all hangovers. As the Grumble Bee Buzzes at the Rangers, they decide the Best course of action is to retreat. Their mistake though, they needed to Be aggressive, B-E- aggressive.
Billy and Trini go whine to Zordon that the Bee monster yelled really loud at them and scared them. Zordon informs the Teens that maybe if they would Bring a goddamn can of Raid to these fights they wouldn't have to come Back with their tails Between their legs, But he'll have Alpha whip up some magic weapon to save their hides. While Alpha 5 tries to invent some worthless piece of junk, Billy and Trini teleport to the park to meet up with Jason, Zack, and Kim. They say they want to check up on their friends, But it seems more likely they know how Badly that Bee is whipping their asses.
The hogtied Teens Beg Billy and Trini to help as though the rope is hurting them, But since the director didn't tell all three actors the same thing we just get varied performances. Kim seems to Be acting as though she's in pain, Jason is frustrated he can't Break out, and Zack seems annoyed he's tied up with two total chumps.
Billy and Trini do absolutely nothing to attempt Breaking the rope. They don't touch it, they don't morph and use their weapons on it, they just look at it. Billy then calls Zordon and tells him there's nothing they can do to Break the rope. Thanks a fucking Bunch Billy, your friend's are getting the life squeezed out of them and all you do is look at it and give up? I'm sure their grieving parents will appreciate your Bountiful effort in saving their children you selfish twat.
Zordon tells Billy and Trini to leave those dead meat losers Behind and go take on the Grumble Bee again Before he starts wrecking shit again. The tied up Rangers tell them to not worry about their impending death and to go fight that Big scary Bee who shoots its nails at people instead.
The Blue and Yellow Rangers jump Back into the fight and sucker punch Grumble Bee right in his Big dumb kisser. They tell the monster this time they're ready for him, But he informs them that they had Better BEEWARE! Man you guys remember the Dramole monster last week? You know what was awesome about him? He didn't fucking talk.
Grumble Bee knocks Billy to the ground and Busts out his secret move. Spewing silly string out of his mouth.
Grumble Bee gif Grumble Bee only gets to hang out with friends around Halloween.
Since Billy's doing worse against Bees than Macaulay Culkin in My Girl, Alpha focuses his efforts on freeing the other Ranger Teens from that magic rope nobody cares about. By focusing on one small segment of the rope, Alpha's magical Beam allows the other three Rangers to escape. We don't actually see any of that though, Zordon just tells Alpha to do all this and suddenly Jason tosses the rope aside. Good on Power Rangers for utilizing the "Tell don't Show" rule so effectively.
The three freed Ranger Teens morph to the scene of the Grumble Bee Battle where they kick the monster in the face and knock it away from Billy and Trini. The frustrated Grumble Bee Buzzes his Putty friends to protect him from the Rangers. The Yellow, Black, Pink, and Red Rangers engage the Putties in combat while Billy lays drowning in yellow jizz.
Good news for fans of 90's rock, Because you're getting some more Wasserman rock today. "I Will Win" is the song this time, and if you needed something to amp you up while a Bunch of B-students knock around Blithering idiots, this is the song for you.
Once the Putties are disposed of, Grumble Bee Blasts the four Blue-less Rangers with some more ultrasonic waves. The monster laughs at the ailing Rangers and tells them they won't Be passing this test. So does Grumble Bee know the only reason he was Brought to life is Because Rita wanted to mock a Bunch of teenagers for their grades? What an empty existence he has to lead.
Billy comes to his friends aid and tells them the Bee's sonic waves will wear off just like the venom did. Oh so the venom just disappeared from Billy during the Putty fight? Are we missing a reel here? Billy was getting all goo sprayed and to solve the problem he just sat in the gunk and stewed in it for a little Bit. Now he's hunky dory. Whatever. It doesn't make sense.
Alpha 5 completes his new gadget just in time to Bail Billy out and defend against the Grumble Bee. What is it? A Super Soaker with a dildo glued on top of it.
I'm pretty sure I Bought one of those on Bad Dragon
The Nameless Device sprays foam at the Grumble Bee as the monster prepares an attack. The goo completely locks up the Grumble Bee who starts screaming Bloody murder as the foam coats him in Blue goo. Just so we're all clear, a phallic gun is spraying white goo all over a Bee monster. We get it Japan.
The monster starts covering its ears as though its own powers are Being used against it, But he's just coated in some slime. What's he gassin on about now? Jason Busts out his Power Sword and slashes the wounded Grumble Bee to take all the focus away from Billy and humiliate him in front of their friends. Next time maybe you'll come play Basketball with us dickhead.
Rita uses her wand to make the Grumble Bee into a Grumble Bee Plus, and the Rangers counter the monster with the Megazord. The two giants clash as the Grumble Bee manages to sputter out awful Bee puns repeatedly. The Megazord fulfills my deepest desires By punching him in his Big doofy face and slapping him around. The Grumble Bee tries spewing out a Bunch more sonic waves to disorient the Megazord,But all it does is make the robot stumble around a little Bit. Try Barfing some silly string on them, maybe that'll do it Grumble Bee.
The Rangers summon the Power Sword and start slashing at the Grumble Bee, where else, in his massive face. Finster, when you give a monster a face like Rocky Dennis what do you expect is going to happen when you send it into a fight? The Megazord finishes off the Grumble Bee using the Power Sword as Rita Bitches at all of her loser lackeys for not knowing how to tie ropes more effectively.
Later that day at the Youth Center, Tommy shows up and tells him he Blew all the competition at his karate match. Kim chuckles and tells her friends that Tommy keeps forgetting to say away, to which he responds By tilting his head like a confused dog. Trini asks Tommy where his green ass was while she and Billy were getting Blasted By Bee fingernails, and Kim reminds the audience that Tommy's powers could give out and they can't risk using him in non essential fights. Oh well, that probably won't Be important later.
Then Billy comes in and tells us he got an A+ on the latest test and gets to Be part of the Huge Losers of America Foundation. Wow guys I was on the edge of my seat, I almost thought Billy wouldn't get to join that club I already forgot about 15 minutes ago that we'll never hear about again. Guess Billy discovered the one secret trick to studying that teachers HATE. Spoilers: It's getting drenched in Bee cum.
So Billy gets a perfect score Because he's a perfect human Being and this show is a Bunch of saccharine hooey. Then the show pulls a hail Mary play. Enter Bulk and Skull.
The Ranger Teens notice the bullies studying really hard, as Miss Applebee has given the two clods an ultimatum. If they don't get C's on their next test, they'll have to spend their summer Being tutored By the six top students in the class. Zack stops everything as he audibly counts out the six of the Ranger Teens. Our heroes then stop their jovial ribbing and immediately start Being extra helpful in assisting the two in their studying efforts. Holy shit I love this gag.
This might actually Be the most self aware the writing on this show has ever Been. We don't pretend for a second that the Ranger Teens aren't the Best students in the class, Because they're perfect goodie two shoes so of course they would Be. It sincerely feels like the show winking at you in spite of the fact this whole episode was about the whitest white person problem ever invented By the white race. Overall I guess I'd give this episode a B. GET IT? Kill me.
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia:
Personal Thoughts
Before I get started with all my usual palaver, I wanted to let you fine folks know I'm going to be on vacation this coming week. I won't be posting the usual episode review but there might be a little something else instead by a friend of the site. Stay tuned for it! Meanwhile I'll be getting my jollies on the beach.
Ooh yeah
So yeah Grumble Bee. I dunno. The episode was alright I guess? I feel like someone was standing over this script while dismissing any attempt at humor. Having Billy take his B grade so harshly is fine, but do something responsible with it. The other characters tell him to not take it so harsh, but all Billy does is piss and moan before getting an A plus on his next test. He doesn't learn anything or change. He just fights a big dumb wasp before being as smart as he ever was. What a revelation.
Grumble Bee is a monster I enjoy for a variety of reasons. He's this close to just being a bland hornet monster, but he has a lot of fun little flourishes. His silly floppy little wings, the stinger spurs on his heels, the goofy buzzy voice that he has, and his ridiculous little teeth you can see when he's spewing his venom. All of it make a far more interesting Zyu2 monster than something as bland as the Jellyfish.
With regards to all the shots of Billy covering his mask and falling over around the Grumble Bee, I get the feeling the Zyu2 crew were intending to make the episode about Billy being allergic to bees. I honestly don't know how else to explain his weird clumsiness and stumbling during the first fight with the monster. We can't really say for sure, and we may never know until the Grumble Bee footage is released. Just my best guess. Let me know what you guys think!
Last thing to mention is Tommy. I think it's kind of ballsy of the show to follow up the episode where Tommy returned as the Green Ranger with an episode that didn't feature him fighting at all. In hindsight though this is a damn good idea because it solves two issues. 1) We need to showcase that Tommy needs to conserve his powers as much as possible. 2) We need an excuse for Tommy not showing up in the Zyu2 fights without Green Ranger in them. By giving Tommy limited powers we can save the writers from writing in a new excuse for him being absent every goddamn week.
So that's all for now, see you guys in a couple weeks. In the meantime, make sure to eat a nice fresh pamango ripe from the trees.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Aug 17, 2015 1:00:48 GMT
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Episode 52: Two Heads Are Better Than One
A devoted fan like myself knows that the Power Rangers keep Angel Grove safe from ridiculous looking monsters, but something's been bothering me lately. How do the middle aged women of Angel Grove fend off muggers? Today, this burning question will finally be put to rest.
Jason and Tommy are teaching a women's self defense course in the Youth Center. Here they teach a bunch of mothers how to yell really loud if someone tries to get in their business. So that's all women can do to protect themselves thanks to the new sweeping legislation banning all guns huh? Thanks Obummer.
After demonstrating 20 seconds of safety measures, some weirdo mom starts moistening her thighs and thanks Jason and Tommy for taking the time to teach a bunch of nobody soccer moms how to not get beaten to death by a member of the Cobra Kai. The rest of the female extras nod their heads, because Saban wasn't going to pay them for saying lines, as the camera pans across a handful of homely looking women in tracksuits. If this is a sample of the gene pool in Angel Grove, then the Ranger Teens should thank their lucky stars they came out as handsome as they did.
Jason and Tommy continue their lesson by teaching the class about sticking in pairs and using the buddy system. Kim and Trini come in to illustrate their point and stand in as victims for Tommy and Jason. As Trini shows the audience how to fend off Jason, Tommy points out that the mistake Trini is making is that she isn't yelling or making any noise. It's like the show is actively mocking me by refusing to let Trini say a goddamned thing.
Tommy points out that Trini and Kimberly were able to combine their efforts to fend off their attackers. So please keep in mind everyone, !!!TWO HEADS ARE BETTER THAN ONE!!! You hear that ladies? Don't leave the house unless one of your friends is with you. Also if you come across a man asking for help loading his couch into a van, keep on walking. Honestly for all this advice Tommy and Jason are giving they sure are missing the most critical weapon in all of women's self defense.
I DON'T KNOW YOU!
Unfortunately for our heroes, another decrepit old woman is taking their advice. Rita comes to the conclusion that the reason all of Finster's monsters have failed her is because they only have one head so they're stupid. No joke, that's her actual reasoning. It's great. Finster informs his queen that he's created a lovely parrot monster with one head as normal and another "down there." Finster you saucy little minx. What kind of debauchery do you get up to in that workshop of yours?
After the karate lesson, Tommy and Jason are given a drink of one of Ernie's newest fruit smoothies. He says he's combining all sorts of exotic fruits into one drink, because he found a basket of rotting fruit in the garbage and he's not letting hygiene stop his business from flourishing.
Just before the Ranger Teens can vomit up their innards from the year old papaya Ernie fed them, Bulk and Skull rush into the Youth Center and demand to be inducted into Jason and Tommy's karate class. Trini pipes up to remind the bullies that it's a woman's self defense class, though Bulk's illustrious titty meat may fool the other classmates.
Bulk tells his dear friends they only want to join this women's self defense course to get some foxy babes all up on their dicks. Skull uses Kimberly as an example of a babe he'd like to ride his bone pony, and illustrates it in the most disgusting way possible.
Tropertales.gif
Tommy leaves his girlfriend with some total freak job who wants to add her to his collection so he can go practice some moves on Jason. Goldar sees the Red and Green Rangers are alone in the park and distracted with hugging each other, so it's the perfect time to send down the new monster.
The Two Headed Parrot monster blasts some feathers from its wing which Jason and Tommy narrowly avoid. Attacking the unmorphed Ranger Teens? You really did make a smarter monster this time Finster! The boys morph and are met face to face with the newest monster of the week.
No head for a dick? Throw this one in the trash and start over.
Yeesh, what a doofy looking fucker. This is the Two Headed Parrot, which is actually his name. Someone in the writing room forgot that descriptions don't always denote interesting names. Oh well, Red Karate Man and Green Karate Man soon fight Space Witch's Clay Monster who gives them a tough time. Makes sense this guy packs such a punch, Rita's never used a monster with two heads before.
The Parrot leaps into action and attempts to garrote Green and Red with his big feathery claws. The boys try their best to fight back but can't hold a candle against the new monster. Tommy and Jason start trying to counterattack but Two Headed Parrot keeps them away with feather darts and incendiary blasts fired from its nostrils. This monster's powerhouse mind truly can't be stopped.
Seriously though, we're supposed to buy that what makes this monster so powerful is the unlimited brainpower it gets from having two heads? It's a big pink bird that has a conjoined fetus sticking out of its stomach. The idea that Jason and Tommy taught the women in that self defense class was, " With two people you can divide threats in half"; it wasn't supposed to be "Have two people and you'll be smarter." I think this episode got its wires crossed when it was told to justify the monster being a two faced parrot.
Jason stands strong and demands that he and Tommy go and smack the shit out of that goofy ass bird. Tommy responds to his lover that they need to back off and get the whole team together if they want to stand a chance. So there's the conflict: Jason doesn't want to look like a quitter and Tommy wants to have Kimberly there when he eventually wins the fight all by himself. What a conundrum! Tommy drags Jason away from the fight as the Two Headed Parrot cackles at the retreating Rangers.
Or rubs his tummy. I'm not sure which.
Zordon demands an explanation for why two of his top assassins ran away from a flamingo injected with HGH, and orders Alpha to teleport the Ranger Teens to the Command Center. Once there he informs them that this monster is incredibly dangerous, or stupid, he can't quite make out the readings on this one.
Billy proposes that the Ranger Teens could defeat the monster by distracting it with its favorite fruit. He could easily have created some magic gadget to weaken the monster, but he was feeling lazy this week and threw out a half-assed scheme that everyone implicitly trusted in. Alpha tells the Teens the monster has a fondness for pamango fruits, though it enjoys a variety of other made up fruits as well.
Tommy tells his teammates he'll go find some bullshit fruit in the park, but Zordon interrupts him to remind the audience that his powers are temporary so he must be careful. Be careful of what Zordon? He's going to pluck a fruit from a tree. Do you stop the guy every time he has to take a piss because his powers might fail him in there and get it all over the seat? Leave the guy alone you old balloon faced creep.
Tommy hightails it to the park, and Billy prints off some statistics about the Two Headed Parrot. He begins explaining why Rita's monster is so dangerous with his space age technobabble, but the Command Center's alarm cuts him off mid sentence. It's so satisfying for the show's editor to realize nobody gives a hot gay fuck about what Billy has to say, so they shut him down as soon as he tries to flaunt his brainy bullshit.
The Two Headed Parrot reappears in the park, this time with a battalion of Putties to back him up. The Ranger Teens morph to fight the monster, but know deep in their hearts they can't succeed against him. How can they without any fruit to use as a weapon? The Parrot taunts our heroes as they have a brief fight with the Putty Patrol, and the intelligent monster hides elsewhere because it's a total schmuck.
While his friends face off against a giant freak show of a bird, Tommy finally spies a pamango out in the park. With this mighty fruit he'll surely be able to best the ferocious Parrot monster that has offered the Power Rangers a moderate amount of challenge. Of course we all know what a pamango tastes like, but for those of you who are curious here's what a ripe pamango actually looks like.
Looks like the Incredible Melting Man
Goldar spots Tommy picking pamangos in the woods, so he summons another squadron of Putties to keep their old friend from exploiting the Parrot's weak spot. For as smart as this new monster is, even Goldar realizes it will turn into a drooling simpleton the minute it sees some fruit.
The Putties gang up on Tommy to keep him away from the one pamango in the park, all while he beats the piss out of all of them. After a bit of fighting, they start to remember why they were summoned in the first place and hold Tommy down while taking the fruit away. Congrats Rita! The Putties actually accomplished something you asked them to do. Finster's getting laid tonight!
Zordon contacts Tommy and asks him to join the others with the bountiful cornucopia of pamangos he must have gathered by now. Tommy informs him the Putties just jumped him and stole all his fruit. Zordon replies in his big booming apathetic voice "How unfortunate." It's one of the best line readings you could ask for because it's impossible to make Zordon sound like he gives a shit. He just sounds like he's mocking Tommy for failing to do anything substantial with his ineffective karate skills. Guess you should have used the buddy system huh? Asshole.
Tommy tells Zordon he has an idea and heads to the Juice Bar. As soon as he gets there he asks Ernie if he has any of the rare and exotic pamango fruit hanging around his rinky dink shack of a Juice Bar. Ernie has one left, but he's planning on using it to fix up another one of his diarrhea shakes. Tommy tells him that this pamango is really important, not to fight a mutant chicken or anything, but because Kimberly has a sick parrot that needs more pamango fruit in its diet. Ernie immediately forks over his moldy rotten fruit, and tells Tommy he better be getting some pussy out of this.
While Tommy haggles with a fat man to steal his source of income, the Power Rangers have cleared out all the Putties and combat the Two Headed Parrot five on one. Unfortunately since Jason didn't have any inspirational lessons on how to beat one guy who's way stronger than you and all your friends, they get the shit beat out of them. Jason gets frustrated with the monster and tries to charge in to attack. Zack holds him back and tells him they had better wait for Tommy, but Jason isn't hearing it and tries leaping at the Parrot. It goes how you might expect.
For those who can't tell who's winning, it's the one standing up.
The monster accurately calls out Jason for teaching all this hogwash about teamwork and immediately breaking his own rules. It's a surprisingly nice line that the show would benefit from using more. A giant parakeet shit talking one of your heroes for being a hypocrite and only sticking by their puritanical beliefs when it's convenient for them. Though this episode doesn't really have a theme of breaking your own rules, it sure would have been preferable to watching Tommy plucking fruit in the woods for a quarter of the episode's runtime.
Speaking of Tommy, the Green wonder leaps into battle and saves Jason by tackling the big bird off of him. With the Parrot distracted, Tommy hurls the pamango at the monster and beans it in the shoulder. The creature then begins bickering with itself over which head deserves to eat the delicious treat, all while looking utterly ridiculous.
This is why Two-Face flips a coin guys.
Jason thanks Tommy for saving his skin and apologizes for acting like a total asshole. Glad to see all that attitude from Jason got solved in a 45 second time frame. The Rangers then assault the distracted Two Headed Parrot by kicking and punching it back. The five primary Rangers then put their hands together to boost Tommy in the air where he blasts the monster with energy from his Dragon Dagger. Remember guys, teamwork is important but only when it's to promote your friend with the coolest toys.
Rita becomes furious that her chickenhawk is losing so she makes him grow. Megazord and Dragonzord show up to combat the feathered idiot. The Zord duo tries to keep up with the double parrot, but they get knocked back as soon as they show up. The Parrot eventually knocks the Megazord off its feet with some more of its feather blades, so Tommy has Dragonzord go on the offensive to knock the monster away from its ally. Jeez, for an episode that's supposed to be all about teamwork this sure does focus on Tommy an awful lot. This will be a definite rarity for the series though I assure you.
After slapping the Two Headed Parrot with its tail, Dragonzord meets up with the Megazord as Jason summons Titanus. As the Ultrazord is formed, Jason tells the Two Headed Parrot to give it up or they'll open fire. The monster then cowers before them and makes fearful noises. Jason then says the Rangers have no choice and blow the monster to Hell. Holy shit. If you're going to have the Rangers say something about surrender, maybe don't use the shot of the monster physically trembling in terror. Cut in a scene of the monster charging or something!
Back at the Youth Center, the Rangers enjoy a nice relaxing smoothie to celebrate their most recent cold blooded murder. Ernie asks Kimberly how her pet parrot is doing to which she responds with complete bewilderment. Instead of reacting with suspicion like his character has been known to do in the past, Ernie simply stands there dumbly and gives Kimberly another pamango as she laughs to Trini about having no idea what he's talking about.
Bulk and Skull then show up to take part in Tommy and Jason's karate class about women's self defense. Instead of taking the gentleman's route and leering at the women from afar, the bullies bluster in and start whining about how these women are just a bunch of moms and not babes at all. There goes my head canon about Bulk and Skull being MILF Hunters.
To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the episode ends with Bulk and Skull getting beaten up by two hot moms in leotards. Then the two bullies are informed by the women that "Two moms are better than one."
Go fuck yourself Power Rangers.
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia: Lying to People to Steal Fruit From Them
Personal Thoughts
Mediocre. That's the big word to describe this episode. It's mediocre from minute one and keeps that going the rest of the way through. Whenever the episode accidentally stumbles upon a worthwhile idea, it just ignores that and barrels on through until the runtime has been hit. What a snore. It's not a bad episode but in terms of Zyu2 material this is some of the weakest in the pack. In a few weeks there's going to be an episode that does what this one seems to want to with much more success.
The Two Headed Parrot is just a really silly monster. It feels like the designer wasn't happy with how the suit was coming out so they added a second head on the monster to spice it up. It just doesn't do anything for me at all. Maybe you like the design though! Let me know if I'm just being an old grump. If nothing else I did enjoy how the monster's two mouths both had different voices, even if they were both played by the same person. Fun Fact: Two Headed Parrot was portrayed by Robert Axelrod, or Finster for those of you keeping track at home.
Oh yeah, and a toy informed us the Parrot's heads were named "Pete and Repete." Now you have to die knowing that information just like I do.
We don't get any scenes of the Two Headed Parrot in U.S. footage, but there was a promotional shot of the monster that was given to a Japanese magazine to explain the Zyu2 monsters. Let me show you the image and then ask you how you can tell it wasn't used in the actual episode. Ready? Go!
Give up? It's because Trini's doing something. Clearly this is doctored footage.
Something cool about Zyu2 is that they didn't just make a new Megazord formation sequence for Power Rangers, but also a new Ultrazord formation sequence as well!
The point they become toys is so seamless!
Not only that, but the Zyu2 producers also created a new sequence of the Ultrazord's attack. I don't like this one nearly as much as I do the original, but it still looks nice. This is the only time this scene is used so I'll let ya check it out.
One other Zyu2 tidbit is that a few monsters would appear to duck into a ball after they were defeated by the Power Rangers. Most of the Zyu2 monsters would be writhing in pain or backing away from the Rangers or what have you, but some would be hit by an attack and then duck down before growing. Recently released Zyu2 footage proves this for a fact as a few of the monsters would duck down to indicate to the show's editors this is when they were supposed to grow. I can't say for sure how many times this happened, but I know of three definite examples.
The reason I bring up the ducking and growing thing now is because Two Headed Parrot appears to gear up to crouch down as soon as it gets up after Tommy blasts it. It's incredibly brief, but knowing for sure that a handful of Zyu2 monsters did this duck and grow thing, it's safe to assume the editors just cut the whole movement. I dunno...I find it interesting. Leave me alone.
Well I just hope wherever the Two Headed Parrot is now, he found his peace.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Sept 6, 2015 13:48:58 GMT
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Episode 53: Fowl Play
Superhero Inadequately Utilizes Teleportation Technology News Reporter Uses Death of Innocents To Describe Farm Politics
After reading the title of this episode, I kept thinking that Power Rangers was trying to pull a fast one on me and was airing last week's episode under a different name in the hopes nobody would notice. Thankfully that's not the case, because today's episode isn't about Tommy and Jason hanging out together for the umpteenth time, it's about Zack trying to get bone deep in Angela.
Honestly I'm kind of torn. Whatever it takes in this show to give us more Zack themed episodes I'm happy to see. The problem is Angela as a character was introduced solely to inform the audience Zack wanted a piece of pussy pie. It's pretty shitty to introduce a character in your show whose only notable trait is "fuckable." We've seen Angela about half a dozen times by now and I still can't tell you anything about her other than the fact Zack wants to wear her thighs as earmuffs. Keep this in mind now, because it will mean a lot more later on in the season.
So anyways, Angela is watching some kids in the Youth Center today. Zack is helping her keep the kids engaged by doing some magic tricks for them. While I'm sure some of you nitpicky assholes out there (me) would like to call fowl on Zack suddenly being a fan of magic, you're wrong. This trait actually has precedence in previous episodes. I went back to check and it just so happens that the writer of today's episode, Peggy Nicoll, wrote the previous two that involve Zack's love for the dark arts.
Zack informs the kids that magic teaches great hand-eye coordination, and is also a shoe-in for getting ladies to pay attention to you. That's true, they see you doing magic and immediately know exactly who not to fuck. Speaking of people to never have intercourse with, Bulk and Skull jump on the magic bandwagon and tell all the kids they can do way better magic than Zack can. Skull's even managed to make all his mom's boyfriends disappear!
So Bulk shoves a twinkie in his mouth because the stage direction wanted to call him fat, and the two bullies start really badly trying to juggle eggs. It culminates in the two slipping in yolk and falling into each other while a bunch of children laugh at them. The bullies try charging Zack, but accidentally slide into each other due to the Flinstones sound effects that play in the background.
Zack asks the children if they want to see him make Bulk and Skull disappear, to which the children all gleefully cheer. You ever want to question your self esteem? Listen to a bunch of children who have known you for all of 20 seconds cheer at the concept of you vanishing from the planet.
Zack produces a pair of rubber snakes from underneath his cloak, which terrifies the bullies into submission. Zack uses this opportunity to impart an Aesop to the young onlookers: If you're in trouble, always use your head. It's a good lesson for the little goofballs watching, though it would have been more appropriate to teach the kids at home the benefits of carrying rubber snakes at all times.
Angela compliments Zack's abuse of mentally handicapped bullies to which he follows up by producing a bouquet of flowers for her from underneath his cloak. This is her response.
The closest a magician has ever come to getting laid.
All the other Ranger Teens come up to Zack and rib him for the fact the girl he likes just kissed him. Jason asks Zack when the wedding is, knowing that the love they shared in the past is slowly eroding as time goes on. Nothing Jason can do for Zack will bring back the passion the two shared now that their lives are going in different directions. Though both Zack and Jason know that their final day on this planet will be wondering what could have been.
Zack gives a playful reaction about how it's no big deal and was just a peck on the cheek. He concludes by pumping his arms with a big smile on his face. It's a great moment that gets ruined by bitchy old Rita coming on screen to say she's going to show Zack what a real peck on the cheek feels like. Though if you blink you'll miss the fact that she showed up at all.
Without being even sort of sarcastic, Rita's scene lasts exactly six seconds. We cut to her, she makes a terrible pun about the monster she'll be making, and we fade to black. It's the funniest thing that the writer and the editor cared so little about Rita that they just crammed in a halfassed explanation as to why she's going to use a woodpecker monster today. It's interesting to see the writers clearly no longer caring about Rita or her stupid machinations and rushing to get to the fun part of writing the episode instead.
Kimberly tells her friends they had better go meet up with Tommy at the mall, which is where he has to stay comfortably off screen because Saban didn't feel like paying him to show up this week. Zack tells his friends he'd love to come hang out with his good pal Tommy
but he's going to be busy ogling Angela all day. Kimberly says Zack had better watch out because Angela is talking to a real hunk of a guy right now! Zack gets all panicked only to see Angela talking to a little boy, while Kimberly continues airing her suspicion about Zack's beloved being a secret pedophile.
The non-Black Ranger Teens head through the park to go meet up with Tommy, when Jason continues laughing at how Zack was enjoying heterosexual attraction to a human female a few minutes ago. He informs his friends that she was putty in his hand, and because Jason said the secret word, a bunch of Putties swarm on the Ranger Teens. Just in case you in the audience didn't catch the irony, Kimberly makes sure to blatantly exclaim "SPEAKING OF PUTTIES!" Thanks guys, I wouldn't have caught that masterful symbolism if you hadn't elaborated on it.
While his friends throw stuntmen in pajamas into jungle gyms, Zack tries to show Angela his newest magic trick: making her virginity disappear. Because Angela's a female character in the 90's, she's most impressed with how Zack is so good with kids and that really gets her fireworks factory popping.
As the conversation continues, Zack tells Angela he'd hate to brag about how good he is. As soon as this happens we hear a choking noise in the background. We pan out from the scene to see Ernie sitting behind them at the counter who was clearly astonished by what Zack said and informs the two "Sorry, must have been something caught in my throat."
Put another one up there on the board for "legitimate laughs."
We also get a really great bit of dialogue that means so goddamn much for the story they're trying to tell with these two. Zack and Angela both try to say something at the same time, and both abruptly stop. Nice human moment there, but the best part is what Zack does. He stops what he was saying and asks Angela to say her piece first. The whole point of why Angela has been iffy about Zack is that he's supposed to be a narcissist and doesn't care about anyone else. This little moment illustrates so perfectly WHY Angela would be warming up to Zack. He is changing, ever so slightly, into someone she can actually see herself caring about. It's subtly done for a show about giant chickens destroying cities.
Angela is cut off before she can ask Zack out as Ernie alerts the two about a news report on T.V. The T.V. shows footage of a giant crow monster known as the Peckster demolishing buildings downtown. He's very clearly already giant sized, but since the editors didn't have any footage of him destroying things in small size to look threatening, they had to cheat.
Zack offers to do some more magic tricks to keep the kids calm and forget about the monster murdering their parents. The Great Zackini finds Bulk and Skull hiding under a table while making sure not to ask them what they were doing under there. We are in front of children after all. Zack loans his magic wand to Bulk and says to make him disappear in front of all the kids. He tells Bulk all he needs to do to bring him back is say "Zack." However, to make Zack disappear Bulk will need to repeat the magic words, "Aya Mag Oon." Classic. Surprised he didn't ask Bulk to call himself the sofa king while mentioning Zack's wee friends Todd and Ed.
Bulk begins waving the wand while chanting the pseudo spell at the curtain Zack's closed on himself. As Bulk starts saying the spell faster and more fiercely, he suddenly stops himself when he realizes he's been calling himself a goon. It's funny only because of how disappointed Paul Schrier becomes as he finally catches what he's been saying. It's a total 180 and it makes a pretty silly joke actually work out. Skull laughs at his burly buddy which prompts Bulk to whack him in the face with the wand. This prompts Skull to make this face
He made that same face under the table too.
Bulk opens the curtains to find that Zack has actually disappeared from behind the curtain. You might think he did the most logical thing and teleported from behind the curtain into the Command Center, but not so fast. We see Zack briskly walking into the hallway of the Juice Bar, which is about 20 feet from where he just was. So what, he teleported a couple steps away and then ran into the hallway?
Does anyone else see how much more sense this would make if he teleported out of the building and not barely into a corridor of the same building? If Bulk turned his head he would be able to see Zack on his Communicator contacting Zordon. Thankfully Bulk's neck doesn't work quite like it used to.
Zordon informs Zack to morph and take on the Peckster before he demolishes every building in the city. When Zack shows up in the slums, the monster leaps down and starts talking in its goofy high pitched birdy voice. Verifying how little of a threat you should find this doofy ass crow.
Truly the face of unspeakable terror.
Though the Peckster does little but giggle and laugh at Zack while acting silly, the Black Ranger is unable to keep up with the monster. Zack tries using the Power Axe but it is completely ineffective against the monster. After getting smacked around by the big beaky bitch, the monster decides that fighting Zack is a waste of his time. Peckster reverses the footage leaps atop a building and bids Zack adieu.
Zordon buzzes Zack and asks why he just got his ass smacked around by a buzzard with no eyes. Zack tries to explain that he wasn't able to find the other Rangers but Zordon tells him to shove it and get back to the Youth Center before everyone notices he's been gone for three hours. Makes sense, we know what happened the last time Zack left Angela alone while he was off fighting a monster.
Oh you want to know what the other Ranger Teens have been doing this entire time? Fighting the Putties. For half of an episode. Riveting stuff. Zordon calls them and tells them to knock this shit off and go fight the Peckster while Zack puts the moves on Angela. Oh I forgot to mention Zordon's fourth rule of being a Power Ranger; fight monsters without your friends if you would otherwise be cockblocking them.
Since Tommy needs to conserve his powers and forgot to show up on set, the other four Rangers must morph to fight without him. Red, Blue, Yellow, and Pink confront the dreaded Peckster downtown. Only he isn't doing all that building destroying Finster was talking about earlier at all, just flying around being a nuisance. He sweeps past the Rangers and causes them to spark with his wings. After he lands, Peckster informs the Rangers they had better watch out. Then this happens.
Ew. I almost stepped in Putty.
Back in the Youth Center, a little boy Angela's been watching named Mikey bounces a black kickball while telling Bulk he better bring Zack back. Bulk ignores the child's pleas and steals his kickball just to show the world he's still able to outwit children.
Bulk then uses Zack's wand to tap on Angela's shoulder, and asks her if she'd like to go out and catch the submarine races. A euphemism that was used previously in the episode A Bad Reflection On You. For whatever reason, the phrase hadn't caught on between that episode's airing and this one, so Angela tells him she'd rather clean a hippo in a mudbath. Bulk chuckles silently to pretend this clear jab at his weight doesn't tear him apart inside.
Angela demands Bulk stop being fat and also bring Zack back right now. I get that the kids are buying this magic bullshit but what does Angela think happened? She's a fully functioning adult, so why does she believe in any of this garbage? Maybe living in a world with giant woodpecker monsters demolishing the Chrysler Building melts away your cynicism.
Bulk says he'll never bring Zack back, and the camera zooms in on his face as he realizes he just said the magic word to summon Zack. It's a surprisingly funny moment that emulates the style of a horror movie just to spice up the episode a little bit. The reaction Bulk has is golden.
Bulk forgot to say Klaatu Barada Nikto.
Bulk slowly approaches the curtain and pulls it back to reveal Zack inside who terrifies the poor moron with his apparent magic powers. You'd think when you have superpowers and intergalactic technology you shouldn't be using them to draw attention to yourself, but Angel Grove is a town full of dumbfucks so Zack's secret is safe for another day.
Zack sees another report about the Peckster on T.V. that announces the Power Rangers have yet to gain the upper hand against the monster. Probably because they're fighting the Putties right now you moron. No shit they haven't beaten up the monster yet, this is how it always goes!
Zack goes to ask Mikey if he's down with the chronic, also if he's okay with this whole Peckster business. Mikey tells the Ranger Teen he's sure the Power Rangers will pull out some magic way to beat this stupid monster. Maybe the Blue Ranger will pull a new gadget out of his ass to defeather the bird, maybe the Green Ranger will come in and hog the spotlight, maybe the writers will throw the female Rangers a bone and let them win a fight. All sorts of things could happen!
Oh yeah and Zack sees Mikey's kickball and then looks over at a bunch of balloons. Yeah that's actually important to the plot. Sorry.
By the way, the news reporter also makes sure to inform us after mentioning the Power Rangers struggle that there's some other news to discuss. The headline he reads off is: The chickens have flown the coop today. Get it? Because the Power Rangers are fighting a bird based monster. I'm sure the civilians who have had their family members murdered are ecstatic to hear your jokey garbage you clownshoe. Get bent.
Back at the battle, the Rangers are trashing the Putty Patrol. This Putty fight actually feels rather enjoyable because the editor isn't constantly cutting away and distracting us from the battle. It's nothing spectacular but Putty fights never really are.
Peckster leaps into the fight and slashes at the Rangers with his claws. He then bombards Trini and Kim with red darts he fires from his throat before blowing Jason and Billy away with tornados from his wings. Peckster goes back on the offensive before knocking all four Rangers down with his pecker. Just before he can gouge out the Red Ranger's eyes, the Peckster gets kicked away by Zack who appears holding five different colored balloons. Curious what color each of the balloons are? Take a wild guess.
Zack challenges Peckster to pop the balloons he brought to the battle to which the monster gleefully attacks. As you might have guessed, things don't go as planned.
Zack used his magical powers to completely change that balloon's physical properties!
The Peckster desperately tries to remove the ball from his beak, but while he's distracted Zack unloads a few shots from his Blade Blaster into the monster. Peckster is knocked back and a furious Rita makes him grow. I don't blame her for being mad, that dumbass bird just got beaten by a kickball.
The Rangers call forth the Megazord to defend against the rampaging peckerwood. Megazord summons the Mammoth Shield for the second time in the entire series to try and block the monster's beak. They smack the monster around a little bit before asking if he's ready to give up. Peckstr responds by unfurling his wings and blowing the Megazord away before bombarding it with more throat darts.
The Rangers then come to the realization that the Peckster is a total doofus of a monster and they're actually losing to him. Zack gives his pals a pep talk and informs them that they can't give up because they're the Power Rangers! Who's going to sell toys to children if they get murdered by a crow with a phallic name? Inspired by Zack, Jason summons the Power Sword and the Power Rangers make quick work of the Peckster who does a silly little pecking motion with his head before exploding. Thank you for having a personality you goofy ass bird, it will be sorely missed.
Back at the Youth Center, Mikey comments on how the Black Ranger used his brains before using his fists when he tricked the Peckster with the balloons. I have to laugh at this attempt at a moral because it's clearly not saying "fighting is bad." It's more along the lines of "Be smart and cripple your opponent before mercilessly killing them." It's no "always carry rubber snakes with you" but I suppose it will have to suffice.
Angela asks where Zack has gone, to which Bulk asks what she sees in that total loser. Skull earnestly answers that she might like him for his good looks and his intelligence, which Bulk responds to by shoving Skull's face in a bowl of popcorn. Usually when he gets cuckolded, Bulk shoves his own face in food. Good to see him breaking the habit!
Later in the afternoon, Zack shows up dressed in a suit looking fly as can be. He tells his friends he's going out on a hot date with Angela tonight. After that saucy peck on the cheek earlier, she might even give him a really tight hug! After laying out his plans for the evening, Angela walks in with the kids from earlier and asks him why he got all dressed up to take the kids to go see a cartoon festival. If you didn't already mentally make the "wah-wah-waaaaah" noise don't worry! The show did it for you.
What cartoon is going to be showing at the festival by the way? A five hour retrospective on Woody Woodpecker. WHILE THIS MAY SEEM LIKE AN ARBITRARY JOKE, YOU MIGHT RECALL THE FEROCIOUS FOE THE RANGERS FOUGHT THIS WEEK WAS ALSO
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia: Someone Who Gives A Shit About Woody Woodpecker
Personal Thoughts
Y'know something? Outside of the abysmally corny jokes, this episode was pretty fun. Zack is always enjoyable to watch and observing Walter Jones do his thing really showcases how underutilized he is as a cast member. The Bulk and Skull bits were fun, Angela is almost given something to do, and the Peckster is a genuinely enjoyable monster to watch. He's a goofy silly twit, but there's something fun about him being that way instead of a generic growling monster with no substance to it.
This was another episode that I never got to see as a kid, which is unfortunate because I'm sure I would have enjoyed it. I knew an episode with Peckster obviously had to exist, because the monster would show up later on in the series in another role. We'll cover that more in the future, but when I was a kid I was always hoping I would see the Peckster episode and see what kind of moves he had to offer.
I even remember asking some kid at my friend's tenth birthday party if he knew who Peckster was. The kid told me he did and when I asked if the Ultrazord finished him off, the kid assured me that it did. If I ever meet that fucking liar again I will ring his neck for his filthy deceit.
That gif earlier of the Putties leaping up to punch the Rangers would make a lot more sense if we were all watching Zyuranger. It was a common occurrence there for the Putties to attack the unmorphed Rangers by leaping up from beneath them and sucker punching them. Since this footage was only Japanese actors getting punched and had no purpose in the U.S. production, it was obviously never used stateside. Since the Zyu2 producers probably weren't taking delicate details on what footage was and wasn't used for Power Rangers, they were just falling back on old habits by having the Putties emerge like this.
The last thing I'll mention is that Peckster's raw Zyu2 footage has yet to be released, but we will likely see it sometime in the not too distant future. Power Rangers stunt coordinator Jeff Pruitt posted a comment on one of his Zyu2 videos what Peckster's footage was labeled as on one of his tapes. So any of the questions you Zyu2 visionaries might have, get pumped! Maybe we'll even get to see more footage of Peckster with a rubber ball stuck on his beak!
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Sept 6, 2015 13:49:51 GMT
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Episode 54: Trick Or Treat
Prisoner Deceives Vampire With Help From Mummy Teenagers Threaten Pumpkin Through Rap
Boo! Sorry everyone, hope I didn't scare ya. I just had to get into the Halloween spirit! At least I would if this were dropping anywhere remotely near the month of October. Forget all that though, set your pumpkins out boils and ghouls, because we're going trick or treating in the hot as hell month of June!
Kimberly takes a break from doing erotic gymnastics on a balance beam to go shove her good news in Trini and Tommy's faces. She's been selected to be a contestant on the game show Trick Or Treat. Tommy asks if that's the same show that is, and I quote, "The most popular game show in America." Yeah, the most popular game show in America is a show that can only possibly air one month out of the year. That's what's pummeling Jeopardy in the ratings. This show has expected me to swallow some dumbass shit before, but this is some of the dumbest assest shit they've said in a long time.
Kimberly basks in the glory of being on a gimmicky holiday themed game show, before informing her boyfriend and that girl who won't leave them alone that she could win a brand new car. Sounds like Kim's sick of needing Billy to haul her around everywhere in the RADBUG. Can't blame her though, Billy has a real problem keeping his hands at 10 and 2. One of those nerdy little palms always seems to find its way in her lap.
Kim asks Trini and Tommy if they can make it to the taping. Trini says she wouldn't miss it for the world and Kim tells her to shut the fuck up and let Tommy speak. Sadly, Tommy won't be able to watch his girlfriend answer a bunch of pumpkin themed trivia questions because he's got a prior engagement that day. Just in case anyone was on the edge of their seat wondering what Tommy "I enjoy karate" Oliver had to do that day, it was a karate tournament. For those of you surprised by this revelation, welcome to the website! I hope you'll enjoy your stay.
Just as Kimberly contemplates dumping Tommy, Bulk and Skull come in and announce Skull will be Kim's opponent on Trick Or Treat. For no particular reason this deeply upsets Kimberly. If my opponent on a game show was someone who had incredible difficulty reading, I would already be smelling victory. Though it seems like Skull is too.
Bulk and Skull gross Bulk finds this delicious.
What piques my curiosity is the fact that it's Skull who's on the show and not Bulk. Skull has not once had a plot to himself on this show, so it's interesting that they decided to put him in the front seat over Bulk. Maybe Jason Narvy wanted to get some screen time to himself for an episode, or maybe the script writer thought Skull would fit better in a Halloween episode because his name is more spooooooky. Who am I kidding that's exactly why.
Rita takes notice of the game show being about Halloween and commands her lackeys to plant her evil Pumpkin Rapper monster. Oh wonderful, remember how great it was the last time Rita planted a monster? Well Goldar assures the audience that the Rangers doom is at hand as Squatt and Baboo have already planted the rotten pumpkin seeds to produce the creature. To make a Pumpkin Rapper you don't use magical space seeds. No you just leave some regular seeds out to rot and eventually they work well enough to make a devious pumpkin creature. Whatever you say Goldar.
After all that exposition's out of the way, we cut straight to the set of Trick Or Treat. Points to this week's episode, we aren't dicking around before getting straight to the plot. Even if the plot is just a hacky game show. Speaking of, let's see what the number one game show in America looks like behind the scenes.
It looks like a kindergarten classroom.
While the studio audience of 25 extras take their places, Bulk and Skull discuss their game plan through distractingly bad ADR. Bulk informs Skull the only way to win is to cheat, to which Skull mutters something unintelligible to him.
No seriously, for a show that uses ADR in half of its footage you would think they would know how to do it so that it didn't sound like two actors recording lines in two different states. It doesn't help that we see the bullies walking towards the camera so you can see their lips not matching up to anything they're saying. It's like watching a goddamn silent film. If I wanted to watch Abbot and Costello Meet the Pumpkin Rapper, we wouldn't be here right now.
Oh let's not forget this is a Halloween episode, so that means everybody is dressed up in costume. Kimberly's a princess, Trini's dressed like Jeannie, and the boys are dressed up as the three musketeers. What lazy shit. The writers didn't feel like coming up with three individual costumes so they just thought of a famous trio to have the guys dress as. At the very least we get to see Skull dressed as a prisoner and Bulk dressed as a mummy who will be buried with all his worldly hamburgers. These costumes clearly represent the fact that both boys have been bound by the constructs their society has built around them. This is deep stuff everyone, try to keep up.
The host of Trick Or Treat, some clown named Monty in a vampire getup, calls Kim and Skull on stage. Skull mugs to the camera and gives an honest to goodness "Hi mom" joke. He then asks Monty if he would be willing to take his wife, please.
Monty explains to the contestants the object of the game: They must ask him questions that he's unable to answer to get a pumpkin point. Questions like "Why are you dressing up as a vampire when you got a bachelors degree in broadcasting?" The person with the most points at the end of the game wins the car. Monty informs Skull he gets to ask the first question, and Skull blows it by asking him "I do?" A joke that might work if anyone at all committed to it. Instead, we cut to the audience looking like this.
If you can tell me what that woman with the mohawk is dressed as, I'll give you all the pumpkin points.
Maybe if you want to make Skull look silly for answering incorrectly you could have the audience laughing at him. Why do you have them looking horrendously bored on the set of the most popular game show of all time? The only person looking even remotely interested is Trini, because Thuy Trang is excited they didn't cut her character out of the episode this week.
Meanwhile, Tommy heads to his karate match while taking a detour through the park. Maybe he should be the one winning a new car so he doesn't need to hike through the friggin' woods every time he has a karate match. Tommy notices a bunch of stank ass pumpkins and wonders why they smell so bad. You know who tend not to win karate matches Tommy? Lookeeloos who waste their time sniffing pumpkins in the park. Get it together.
Rita notices Tommy is sniffing her pumpkins and demands Goldar do something about it. I'm sure she would love to command her own forces, but she's a confused old space woman and she doesn't have the time to be relevant.
A troop of Putties assault Tommy in the park to protect the secret that he really wasn't in any danger of uncovering. All Tommy did was comment to himself that the pumpkins smelled bad and Rita shit a brick over it. Just what I always wanted, Putty fights as the result of misunderstandings.
Back at Trick Or Treat, it's Kimberly's turn. She asks Monty "Can you tell me the identity of the Power Rangers?" Monty is stumped because it doesn't occur to him that it could be those five teenagers that are hanging out together all the time in multi-colored outfits. He also doesn't think to respond to Kim's question with "No I can't." Since Kim is the good guy, she gets a pumpkin point. Your show is the biggest thing on cable and you can't see through these holes Monty?
Life has not been kind to Butch Patrick.
Monty inexplicably becomes exasperated with the fact one of the contestants on his dumb show managed to succeed. He offers Kimberly the chance to get three more pumpkin points by playing the Wheel of Misfortune game. Wow! What a clever pun! They must have been sitting on that all season waiting to use it. Shame it never got a chance to be used before.
So Kimberly's strapped to a big spinning wheel that whirls her around, and because whoever wrote this episode doesn't know how game shows work, we just cut away from the show. As soon as we cut back, Kimberly has gotten three pumpkin points for whatever she did on the Wheel of Misfortune game. I see why this show's so popular now, people tune in every week to try and figure out what the fuck is going on.
Tommy finishes cleaning up the Putties and calls Zordon to tell him something strange is going on in the park. At least he assumes it is, because some Putties got all feisty with him when he stopped to smell the pumpkins. Zordon tells him his razor sharp intuition has proven him right and Rita is up to no good, but he can go on to his karate match. Zordon says he'll alert Tommy if the other Rangers need him, and the two share a brief chuckle at the concept of the other Rangers not needing Tommy to bail them out.
Monty gives Skull another chance to ask him a question he can't answer, and Skull looks over to see Bulk mouthing a question. The incredibly difficult question it took two people's minds to think up was "What is my best friend's name?" Surprisingly we don't have to hear Monty shocked that Skull has a friend because he's a big loser who should kill himself, Monty just doesn't have an answer and Skull gets a point.
Skull then gets the opportunity to play the game "Web of Disaster". Though it sounds more like a description of what Skull was born out of, it's more just an excuse to do this.
Spiders shoot webs out of their mouths right?
Rita gets pissed it's been half the episode and her dumbass monster hasn't woken up yet. She directly asks Goldar to explain what's going on, so the editors don't have to spend time dubbing her over. Goldar says a bunch of expositional nonsense that means nothing but to tell the audience the monster is almost ready to appear. RIGHT AFTER THESE MESSAGES!
In the Command Center, Alpha 5 watches Kimberly outsmart an illiterate Neanderthal. His joy is short-lived however, as the alarm goes off to alert him to some pumpkins shaking around in the woods. Alpha buzzes the rest of the Ranger Teens who silently gesture to Kimberly that they need to go. Sorry about your dreams Kim, some pumpkins are stankin' up the park and we need to use our superpowers to pick them up. Also it's definitely gonna take all five of us to clean up some old moldy vegetables.
Kim fakes a dizzy spell to fool Monty into thinking she's fainted. Her friends come to help her up and tell him they need to get her some assistance. Because the production team behind Trick Or Treat never planned for this, Skull is automatically announced the winner of the new car. Thanks for watching this fake game show for the past 12 minutes everyone, now we get to some of that karate action stuff you tune in for.
The Ranger Teens are informed that Rita's wicked plan today is that she planted some pumpkins they need to go and observe. Sorry Kimberly, that was completely worth you losing out on a car. When the biggest pumpkin in the patch ripens fully, it will evolve into Rita's Pumpkin Rapper monster. Trini intelligently asks what this ludacris monster can actually do, and Zordon responds that it will use its clever raps and rhymes to distract them. S-stop laughing Zack. He's being serious.
The Teens morph to figure out what's going on with all this pumpkin junk, and pick a few of them up to investigate. Kimberly goes behind some bushes to blow off some steam over losing the car while her friends try and decipher the mystery of the evil pumpkins. Though it doesn't go quite as planned.
Oh my god Jason's karate chop. I'm dying.
Kim notices her idiot friends are being suffocated by pumpkins so she jumps into action to rescue them. Using her Blade Blaster, she cuts the pumpkins off her friends faces; although she takes a little bit of time to let them choke until their faces are the same shade of blue that new car would have been.
The Rangers look around the woods to see what the hell just caused some pumpkins to glue themselves to their faces only to notice some of the pumpkins hovering and glowing with orange energy. Soon enough, a new batch of Putties materializes!
That's what Putties were missing, an inability to see.
Hahahaha. Yeah. Terrifying. Is this footage supposed to be hilarious? Because so far this is the funniest goddamned thing I've seen in my entire life.
The Rangers start Smashing Pumpkin Putties and knock a bunch of them to the ground. After a handful are beaten, they dissolve into a regular pumpkin once more. Noticing that the Pumpkin Putties don't seem to stop showing up, the Rangers look around for the source of their problems. Off in the distance they see a massive pumpkin and surmise that's the culprit behind these pumpkin shenanigans.
The Rangers leap forward and corner the giant pumpkin before, and I'm not making this up, reciting a horrible five person rap to the pumpkin to I guess mock it? Defeat it? I don't fucking know. It's the worst thing I've ever heard. It's so terrible that it manages to make Pumpkin Rapper wake up from his eternal pumpkin slumber and start strutting his stuff.
It's the Pumpkin Posse!
We're then introduced to the conceit of this monster, everything he says is a rap. By rap I of course mean he rhymes very complicated words such as "mad" and "bad", or "do" and "you." In other words, he's the absolute most ridiculous monster this season has ever seen and his very existence makes me laugh. It's something that's so goddamned stupid it wraps around to being hysterical. Then right back around to being stupid. The Pumpkin Rapper is a Möbius strip of terrible ideas.
Pumpkin Rapper sics some more Pumpkin Putties on the Rangers, before they're easily cut down by the Rangers Blade Blasters. Why they aren't coming back in droves now that he's awake? Who cares, that wasn't a boring fake game show so we're not going to explain it.
The monster taunts our heroes with another abhorrent attempt at rapping before using a vine whip to slap their Blade Blasters out of their hands. He then launches a leafy vine at the Rangers which ties them up and electrocutes them. Damnit Zordon! You didn't tell us how fresh his beats would be!
Alpha informs Zordon that the Rangers are being beaten by a giant Halloween decoration that learned 1st grade level rhyming abilities. Zordon contacts Tommy and tells him to forget this stupid karate shit for one day and go save his lame friends. Tommy loses the match by forfeit before morphing to go fight the monster.
Tommy hacks apart Pumpkin Rapper's vine and releases his friends from the rapping vegetable. The Green Ranger tells his friends to get their weapons ready while he keeps the monster busy. Tommy then charges Rapper and holds him down as the other Rangers form the Mega Blaster. Oh sorry, you must mean Power Blaster. No wonder you guys forgot the name, you haven't used it in 16 episodes.
After his friends combine their weapons, Tommy kicks away Pumpkin Rapper and says "Hasta La Pumpkin, Squashbrain." After I finish throwing up all over my computer, I look up to see the Pumpkin Rapper getting Power Blasted. Only thing is he doesn't dissolve or burst into sparks or anything. Instead this is what happens.
Pumpkin Rapper's spitting some hot fire.
By the way, that's the end of the fight. Pumpkin Rapper got killed by the Power Blaster. I can't imagine why a pumpkin with sub-par freestyling abilities didn't stand a chance against the Power Rangers. One of history's greatest mysteries I guess.
The next day, Tommy and Kimberly loudly talk about how they made a pie out of that monster. Right in front of some extras walking into the Juice Bar. No attempt at whispering, just loudly discussing their secret identities in front of a bunch of Randy's. Who knows, maybe they were talking about some other giant pumpkin that was befouling their city.
Kim and Tommy deal with the shared tragedy of losing the new car and the karate match, but find solace in spending time with each other. The toll of being a superhero interfering with your civilian life is a theme that's rarely explored in Power Rangers, so I'm always excited to see it pop up. So there's...what four good things so far?
Bulk and Skull drive up to the Youth Center in their fancy new car and start trying to cuck Tommy by begging Kim to ride with them. Before Bulk and Skull can Thelma and Louise themselves, a woman comes up to the car and demands they get out of it. She starts bitching at them saying she's a member of network standards and practices. She reviewed the tape and saw that Bulk and Skull were cheating during Skull's episode of Trick Or Treat, and will be taking the car back as retribution.
Since the episode only has a minute left, Bulk and Skull don't ask this woman for credentials or why she was watching tapes of the audience to see Bulk's cheating, or why nobody noticed Skull was clearly stuttering out a question someone was feeding him during the show, or why they didn't have Monty come back and take the car instead of some lady we never saw before, or why Kimberly didn't get the car by default and it instead went back to the network, or how this lady knew Bulk's name to accuse him of cheating, or why a fucking pumpkin was rapping.
Speaking of raps, I just thought of one guys. Check it out.
Oh shucks. This episode sucks.
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia: Orange People Rapping
Personal Thoughts
I don't think I've been more disappointed with disliking an episode in quite a long time. Pumpkin Rapper is absolutely one of my favorite monsters in all of Season 1 solely for being such a stupid idea, but the rest of the episode was such a slog. I didn't give one iota of a shit about the game show plot, and I can barely force myself to care about Tommy going to some karate match that absolutely doesn't matter. Not to mention how lame this is compared to the last Halloween episode Power Rangers had. Which also had Kimberly dressing as a princess because it was the 90's. What else could women be?
Another problem was Kimberly and Skull being the contestants on Trick Or Treat. There's no banter between the two of them and no playing off of each other the entire time. Not once does Skull flirt with Kimberly who he has a big weird crush on, not once does Kim roll her eyes at Skull for being stupid. Nothing happens that is in character for either of the two of them. You could replace Kim with any other Ranger and it wouldn't matter whatsoever. The only actual reason you have Kim as the focal point of this episode is to tie into her saving the other Rangers in the Zyu2 footage. That's it.
They try to tie Kimberly and Tommy together by bookending the episode with the two of them being all cutesy, but it amounts to nothing. She's kind of upset he can't see her on the show, and then they're both upset they had to give up something they wanted to save the day from Pumpkin Rapper. Sorry. Had to choke back a laugh typing up that sentence.
Yeah, Pumpkin Rapper. Man I love Pumpkin Rapper. He's such a ridiculous concept for a monster. A giant pumpkin is dumb enough, but making him a rapper? It's like the script writers were trying to top themselves with who could come up with the stupidest concept for a monster. Sorry to spoil the rest of the season for you guys, but nothing is going to top Pumpkin Rapper.
I do heavily enjoy a lot of the fight against Pumpkin Rapper, specifically the part where Tommy holds him off while the other Rangers summon the Power Blaster. It's a really unique strategy for this show which usually expects the monster to be somewhat incapacitated before getting blasted. Part of why I love Zyu2 is how the fights would branch off in interesting ways unlike what we had seen earlier in the season. It manages to keep you really invested to see what they come up with next.
Oh I should probably explain that Power Blaster death. Well I mentioned back in the Goofish write-up that quite a few Zyu2 monsters looked like they were about to get the Power Blaster, or definitively did get hit by the Blaster. We can assume a few earlier monsters got hit by the Blaster because the scripts indicated they did (Jellyfish, Fighting Flea), but this is the first time a Zyu2 monster's defeat by the Power Blaster was retained. Unfortunately it seems like the only reason they kept this scene in was to completely cut out the Pumpkin Rapper Zord battle.
Yes Pumpkin Rapper, beyond a shadow of a doubt, had a Zord fight. We'll discuss it in the future, but it was trimmed from this episode to give more time to the game show aspect I guess? They might have also wanted to keep extra Pumpkin Rapper footage for another Halloween episode the following season, but I'm not sure one way or the other.
The last thing I want to discuss is flipping footage. Power Rangers will flip Sentai shots all the time to either make the scene look more organic, or to use a scene more than once but make it look different to the audience. The only reason I bring that up today is because almost all the shots of Goldar talking to the camera were reversed and ended up looking like this.
Jesus. He looks like he's got the mumps. Moral of the story is: Sometimes flipping the shot works, sometimes it doesn't.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Sept 6, 2015 13:50:08 GMT
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Episode 55: Second Chance
Immortal Space Head Pocket Dialed Aspiring Soccer Player Turns To Lucrative Career in Murder
Ugh, time for Power Rangers liberal pinko commie bullshit agenda to come out in full force today. Ernie is posting a roster for the new kid's soccer club he's selected. Instead of teaching kids how to play a man's sport like football or foxy boxing, Ernie has to teach them about that Euro trash soccer? It's gonna be one of THOSE episodes guys.
Well it turns out not everyone made the cut for the soccer team, because some little snot named Roger didn't get picked. He very clearly explains why with his expository line of "Gee Ernie. I sure do love soccer, but I guess I'm not any good at it." Has this show ever actually spoken to a child before? They don't talk like orphans from the 20's.
Ernie feels really bad about having to crush a bunch of children's dreams because they all tried really hard. Well yeah, it sucks to have to tell kids they weren't as good as their friends, but that's what sports teach you. Sometimes people fit better than you do in a certain field. That doesn't mean you're hopeless, it just means you might not have been the right pick. So practice at it and try again next season. Or you can just give up and write a blog. Either way you'll drink yourself to sleep while you wonder what could have been.
Jason and Zack convince Ernie to give the kids who didn't make it onto the team another shot at a try-out. Okay cool, that's nice and everything, but think about that for half of a second. You already announced the team and all the kids who are going to be on it. If you give the kids who didn't make it another shot, they might be able to make it on the team, but it's going to mean another kid will lose their spot.
So Ernie, who pained himself to select a kid to be on that team, is willing to do it all over again just to make the sad kids happy and some of the happy kids sad? What kind of shitty resolution is that? Maybe some of the kids you did choose to be on the team had an off-day, are you giving them a third chance when you replace them? At some point not everyone can play on this soccer team Ernie. They aren't losers who can never have a meaningful day in their lives, they just might not all be soccer superstars.
Goldar tells Rita she should help teach that kid to play soccer with some equipment of their own. The evil witch decides she'll send down a ball that will be kicking ass up and down the field. Finster suggests his Soccadillo monster that's being fed energy as they speak. What a great coincidence! Finster is clearly just making monsters while praying that he can somehow segue whatever the Ranger Teens are doing that day into a pun that makes his monster choices seem logical.
Soccadillo ball Soccadillo stop hiding! Mommy's friends want to meet you.
The next day at school, all of the Ranger Teens discuss Ernie's half-assed attempt at not hurting a bunch of kid's feelings. Zack assures his friends that Roger will make the team as long as two grown ass men are telling him what to do. Sure hope none of the other kids have older siblings or parents who can teach them how to play a sport that Jason and Zack have shown no interest in.
Suddenly, Bulk snatches Zack's soccer ball from him. He starts spewing a whole bunch of trash talk about how the Ranger Teens don't know shit about shit when it comes to teaching kids sports so they should just shove off. Bulk tries to prove his soccer prowess by kicking the ball inside the school, but Trini informs him they shouldn't be doing this inside the hallway. Glad the writers took the time to turn you into an absolute buzzkill Trini.
Bulk kicks the ball straight into Ms. Applebee who drops all of the tests he just failed. The ball then ricochets into Tommy who dives out of the way and bashes his Communicator on the wall. Ms. Applebee then tells Bulk and Skull they've got detention for being negligent comic relief. Thankfully this not so great scene culminates in the best scene of the episode.
Tommy gets a buzz from his Communicator and asks Zordon why he needed to talk. Zordon responds in his big booming voice "No Tommy. You contacted me." Tommy realizes there's some kind of problem with his Communicator and tells Zordon he'll get it fixed. Zordon very uncomfortably says "Acknowledged. Zordon out." This scene? Seriously goddamn funny.
Zordon is an intergalactic magical floating head in a jar and he just had to awkwardly end a phone call he didn't want to get from some karate loving dipshit. It was like watching Curb Your Enthusiasm with Power Rangers characters. It's a condensed moment of uncomfortability and it's significantly funnier than I'm sure anyone on the production side intended it to be.
Then Tommy goes into class where Ms. Applebee is teaching about survival of the fittest. Because this episode is about soccer tryouts. You know what I'm sick of? Every time a character in some form of media goes into class and the lesson plan is tangentially related to what the plot of the episode is about. Fuck off with this shit Power Rangers. I'm here to see a soccer ball armadillo and you are teasing me up a wall.
Tommy's Communicator begins beeping during class multiple times and Ms. Applebee tells him to turn off his "pager." For all you kids out there who don't know what she's talking about, make sure to go kiss Steve Job's grave. Eventually the Communicator buzzes one time too many and she demands Tommy give it to her and stop disrupting class. He then thanks her for giving him a convenient excuse to not be present during the fight later.
Meanwhile, we get to see how competent Roger is at soccer.
Keep moving those goalposts boys.
So Roger keeps on sucking wind and Rita says she wants to send the Soccadillo down right away. Goldar informs her that the monster is still charging so they'll need to wait, or else he won't be at full capacity. I've mentioned it before, but it's becoming abundantly clear that Rita Repulsa doesn't have a goddamn clue what she's doing.
She wants this super tough monster, but gets tired of waiting for it to charge after 5 minutes. She wants to throw some half-powered soccer ball at the Rangers when success is a near guarantee if she holds her horses. Goldar has to talk her out of her profoundly terrible idea by suggesting they open with some Putties instead. Rita is becoming less competent than Squatt and Baboo. Please allow that to sink in.
The Putties show up in the park ready to take on the Ranger Teens and show them how soccer is played up in space. Then Rita says she doesn't care if the Soccadillo is charged all the way or not, she wants it on Earth this instant. It has been an entire minute since Goldar explained to her exactly why this was a terrible idea and she's already ignoring his advice. No reason, she just doesn't want to wait for her armadillo to finish cooking. Just telling you folks so know who to blame when this plan goes tits up.
The Soccadillo ball rolls down to Earth and the Putties begin knocking it back and forth. Since Jason and Zack are complete dolts, all they can do is chuckle as they see this happen. Though realistically, I can't really blame them.
Tryouts were yesterday guys.
Jason and Zack become less amused when the Soccadillo ball flies past them and they have to duck before it slams into them. The boys try and figure a way to slow the ball down while they tell Roger to hide behind a tree. Maybe if he were better at soccer he could help, but instead he has to watch his only two friends get murdered. That's why you practice trapping Roger.
While their comrades are being beaten to death by a giant prop in the woods, Trini, Kimberly, and Billy enjoy a nice chocolate frosty milkshake inside the Juice Bar. They belittle Ernie for his stupid soccer idea and how it's going to make him miserable to keep putting himself through this. Ernie responds by telling them to get out of his shitty dive bar and go to hell. Luckily Zordon buzzes them and informs them they need to go save their friends so they have an excuse to leave.
The other Ranger Teens teleport to the park and start helping their friends hold off the Soccadillo ball while clobbering the Putties. Unfortunately the Ranger Teens didn't realize the Soccadillo had support from magical space wires holding him afloat.
Held in place the same way I held up tennis balls posing as planets in my 5th grade science project.
The Soccadillo ball runs out of energy and lands on the ground before disappearing. The Putties follow suit and vanish before the Ranger Teens can score some goals in their b-holes. The Ranger Teens escort Roger away, presumably coming up with a perfectly valid explanation for why they just beat the shit out of a giant soccer ball and some clay goobers.
Zordon brings his team back to home base to discuss how to murder Rita's soccer ball. When he shows the Rangers an image of the monster on the Viewing Globe, it appears in a different form that's more armadillo and less soccer. Zordon explains that's because nobody would watch an episode with an actual soccer ball as a monster, so the producers needed to jazz it up by giving it another form.
Alpha informs the Rangers that with another hour, the monster may be unstoppable. So long as Rita keeps it plugged in anyway. Zordon says they'll need the Green Ranger to defeat the monster, but only because his toys are selling better than theirs are. Alpha responds that he's been trying to get into contact with Tommy for quite a while, but he hasn't gotten a response back yet. It could potentially have something to do with that broken Communicator he was talking about earlier, but right now the episode is about soccer so who cares?
After school in the detention hall, Tommy comes in to get his Communicator back from Ms. Applebee. When he arrives, we see Bulk and Skull doing...this.
If you wanted racist gong music playing during this scene, you're in luck!
The bullies tell Tommy he's never getting his pager back and that thing's probably lodged inside Ms. Applebee by now. This is the moment Tommy realizes he needs to stop being a goody-goody and break some rules if he wants to keep being a Power Ranger. He does the unthinkable and begins scouring through Ms. Applebee's contraband drawer to find his Communicator. It will take him a while though. Ms. Applebee has confiscated an awful lot of Skull's cyanide capsules.
Sick of waiting a few seconds for Tommy to show up, the rest of the Rangers morph to confront the new uncurled Soccadillo monster.
Soccadillo Call him the ROCKadillo.
Soccadillo charges at the Power Rangers and claws straight through them. He tells the Rangers their weapons will pose no match for his unstoppable armor. That's why they could slap him around unmorphed in the park earlier.
We get a brief fight between the monster and all five Rangers accompanied by some lovely Wasserman rock. This time it's a song entitled "I Know A Place." This is the only time they play this song in the show, probably because it's not one of his best tracks. So all you 90's rock fans out there better get your fix now.
As Tommy scours the drawer, Ms. Applebee barges in on him and sees the most model of model students stealing from her. What's this? Conflict?! Without involving a soccer ball armadillo? Well that's a first for this show. Let's see how it plays out.
Tommy asks Ms. Applebee nicely if she would consider returning his "pager." When she says nothing, he adds a "please" and gives her a nice toothy grin. We cut away, and in the next scene with Tommy he's already gotten it back. What the shit was all that about then? Man, sure am glad we waste time building up Ms. Applebee taking the Communicator only for her to relent off screen without saying a word. Granted nobody could say no to this face.
Especially not Kim.
Back at the battle, Soccadillo taunts the Power Rangers for not managing to land a single hit on him. Billy claims the monster is rapidly getting stronger, because he's the smart one so he can make shit up and everyone will believe it.
Jason commands the team to leap into the Tower Formation to blast the creature and teach him a lesson for trying to bring foreign sports onto our soil. Soccadillo sees the attack coming and morphs into his ball form to let the attack hit him harmlessly. What a shocker, the attack that has only worked successfully twice didn't prove effective against a powerful new monster.
Soccadillo rolls through the Rangers in his ball form and knocks them flat on their asses. Soccadillo then changes back into his beast form and summons some Putties to humiliate the Rangers even further. The Putties bust out some rocks and kick them at the Rangers like soccer balls. Soccadillo then turns himself into his ball form and has the Putties lob him through the Rangers causing them to burst with sparks. No wonder Roger still sucks at soccer, his teachers can't stop the ball for shit.
Tommy, with his Communicator back, begins complaining out loud that his magic watch is beeping and he can't contact Zordon or Alpha. Thankfully there are plenty of extras wandering by him who can't hear any of this identity revealing meltdown. Either Angel Grove is full of idiots, or Zordon is wiping their memory every week. Choose your own headcanon.
Alpha 5 gets a hold of Tommy just in the nick of time and explains the situation. Tommy laughs when he learns the monster is a soccer ball armadillo, but Alpha tells him he was the one fighting a goddamned rapping pumpkin last week so he better get to the quarry and bail those losers out pronto. Tommy morphs inside the hallway, just to clarify that he's an idiot who doesn't care if someone sees his top secret identity.
Green Ranger arrives in the quarry and kicks the Soccadillo ball so hard that the monster reverts back to its animal form. By the way, remember when Soccadillo summoned Putty Patrollers? Well they're not there anymore so stop thinking about that you egghead.
With Tommy here to help, the Rangers go on the offensive and bring our their Power Weapons. The Rangers leap up and strike the Soccadillo with their weapons and chump the big rodent like nobody's business.
It's been too long since we got a good old fashioned dagger throwing.
Soccadillo wobbles around all dizzy as the Rangers hold their weapons again and look ready to summon the Power Blaster. Unfortunately for the Rangers, an old space witch has a say in the matter. Rita becomes furious that the monster she arbitrarily sent down before it was fully energized is losing. She tosses her wand to Earth to make him grow, and the Rangers do their Dinozord thing. You know the drill.
Megazord and Dragonzord take their stances against the Soccadillo but the monster proves too fast for them. Tommy commands the Dragonzord to knock the monster back with its tail, but when Dragonzord tries firing its missiles at the monster, Soccadillo turns into its ball form again and is unharmed. Zack suggests to Jason that their only chance is to use the Power Sword when the monster isn't in ball form. Which he has been for the majority of this fight, but Zack didn't think of it until just now so get off his dick.
Soccadillo bounces past the two Zords and uncurls himself to taunt the Rangers. As they try and close in on the monster, he blasts them with energy beams from his eyes while cackling. The Rangers take this moment to summon the Power Sword and finish off Soccadillo with it. Hey Zordon what was that about needing all six Rangers to defeat Soccadillo? Get fucked you old loser, nobody needs your advice.
Back in the Youth Center, Ernie posts the new list of soccer players for all the dumb kids to flip out over. Roger looks bummed out at first, but soon changes his look when he tells the Ranger Teens he made it on the team. All thanks to their lessons involving punching armadillo monsters.
However Roger didn't really make it on the team, Ernie decided to create a second team of all the kids who he didn't want on the original team so that nobody had to feel bad or something like that. I'm all for not bumming people out, but this is the absolute only way the premise of this episode could have ended without being total bullshit.
If Ernie had just made a second team right off the bat, we wouldn't have needed all the drama of Roger practicing and believing in himself or whatever he was supposed to be doing. I don't even know what his lesson was supposed to be. All I remember was Tommy yelling at his communicator and Bulk and Skull's racist thumb wrestling jamboree. So the episode had to bend over backwards to make it look like there was a risk of Roger not being able to play soccer, even though the steps taken to get there didn't really make any sense.
Whatever, everyone wins. Don't think about it. The End. Fuck you.
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia: Pagers
Personal Thoughts
I want to love this episode for really superficial reasons I'll talk about in a second, but it doesn't really do a lot for me. It's kind of fun, I guess. It's just really middle of the road. I enjoyed the Putty fight with the Soccadillo ball in the park. That was pretty neat. I'm sure there's more than that I just wasn't really feeling it. Who knows? Maybe I'd love this episode if I watched it another day.
Like the Minotaur episode, I had an obsession with trying to find this episode on T.V. when I was a kid. The reason I wanted to see this episode so badly is because I really love armadillos. They're one of my all time favorite animals so I was super stoked to see a monster based on one. I also used to play soccer very briefly when I was a kid, which I gave up for the rockstar life of a blogger. Basically when I saw Soccadillo show up in later episodes, I needed to see his original showing.
As it stands, Soccadillo is one of my favorite Season 1 monsters just because I really enjoy his design and I can't repress my armadillo lust. He's a pretty rad Zyu2 monster and I like that they put in the extra effort to make two separate costumes for him. His ball form and his animal form. Though I am under the impression the Zyu2 crew might have gotten a little lazy when making the Soccadillo ball, because it looks like a recycled prop from the previous Sentai series Chojin Sentai Jetman. Compare the images for yourselves and tell me what you think!
Also, all that Soccadillo getting killed by the Power Sword? Hogwash I say! This monster was meant to be destroyed by the Ultrazord. I know that in my heart of hearts. How can I know that you say? Very simple. All of the Zyu2 monsters who became giant were defeated either by the Power Sword or the Ultrazord. The monsters who were meant to be defeated by the Power Sword had a slash effect overlaid on them like so.
While the monsters who were meant to be defeated by the Ultrazord had an explosion effect overlaid on them like this.
Since the Zord attacks were meant to be stock footage, that meant the editor could plug in whatever finishing Zord move they wanted to. The Ultrazord formation might have eaten up too much time so that could explain why they opted for the Power Sword in this instance. It just bugged me because Soccadillo was one of my favorite monsters and they had to beat him like a putz. What a buncha crap.
Oh yeah, some kid extra in the background of the soccer tryout scene went on to murder people. It was a story a while back that kept popping up with titillating headlines like "POWER RANGER MURDERER?!" Then you open the article hoping to see Billy finally took out his aggression on someone, just to see it's some nobody in the background of a scene who went uncredited. Basically what I'm saying is never click on a news article because they're always full of shit.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Sept 6, 2015 13:51:44 GMT
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Episode 56: On Fins and Needles
Boomerang Inflicts Psychological Trauma Bickering Teenage Couple Settle Differences By Catching Shark
Hey were you guys interested in an episode exploring members of the Power Rangers not acting like Mormons? Then boy howdy you tuned in on the right week!
Before we get to that though, we have to watch Tommy and Jason teaching some kids martial arts in the Youth Center. Why's that? Because kids are stupid and need to learn how to defend themselves from incompetent bullies who engage in comic mischief. The boys conclude their class by informing their students that karate should only be used in self defense as a last resort, or if it would look totally awesome to bust it out on some fool talking trash.
Thankfully the episode doesn't take too much time out of its schedule to take us by the wrist and inform us that martial arts will keep you goddamn kids off the streets pumping horse into your veins. Zack gets one line off about karate being good for kids, but the drops it to discuss how Jason and Tommy sure do work great together. Billy then asks Zack why he's silently weeping, but Zack offers no explanation.
Rita becomes disgusted at Jason and Tommy and figures the best course of action is to turn them into enemies instead of friends. Why she wouldn't do this to the entire team I'm not sure, but she is targeting the two most powerful members so I'll cut Rita some slack.
Goldar says the best way to carry out this mission is to summon the Slippery Shark monster. Slippery Shark will be able to cast a rivalry spell on Tommy and Jason and turn them into total dickbags. Goldar says this plan will be sure to work and Rita responds in kind with "It might! Yes!" Yeesh. Looks like even Rita knows how shitty her Win-Loss record is.
As Jason and Tommy wander through the park and discuss the virtues of karate, Rita sends a batch of Putties to their location. Just before the fight begins, the boys pump themselves up to take on these mighty adversaries. The only way they know how!
GO TEAM VENTURE!
During the fight, the Putties summon a blue shark fin boomerang that they throw at Tommy. When he catches it, his body starts surging with blue electricity and he flops to the ground. A Putty then finds the discarded boomerang and hurls it at Jason, prompting the same results. Maybe instead of spending so much time on karate, you boys could try taking some classes in pattern recognition.
After the Putties are cleared out, Jason and Tommy start giving each other death glares. The boys start copping mad amounts of attitude and talking enough shit to bury Biff Tannen. As soon as the boys start smack talking, you get to lose yourself in a couple of teenagers acting like teens really do. It's glorious. Jason even tells Tommy that the Power Rangers were doing just fine before he showed up so maybe he should get lost. Tommy says to Jason he's sick of taking orders from him and being treated like he's helpless. I'm not going to say this is master level acting or anything, but it's seriously fun to watch and feels almost natural. Wonder why that is?
The following is all hearsay, but I've heard bits and pieces of information regarding Jason David Frank (Tommy) and Austin St. John (Jason) not getting along very well behind the scenes. I'm not some gossip rag so I can't confirm a lick of that, but it would help to explain why seeing these two at each other's throats comes across a little more natural than them high fiving and broing each other all the time. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not; but if it is true it certainly helps explain why this episode brought both these guys onto their A-game.
We're so close to a Tommy nipple slip.
When Tommy and Jason run into each other at school the next day, they continue trashing each other in front of Trini and Kimberly. The girls are left stumped why these two charming lovers would be at each other's throats. Kimberly brings up karate to distract these simpletons, much like waving a bone in front of a dog. Tommy says he's quitting the karate class because he's tired of watching Jason show off. Also because he's not getting paid.
Bulk and Skull show up to see Jason and Tommy bickering at each other. The bullies smell blood in the water and start telling Tommy and Jason that talking their problems out is for pussies and they need to settle this like men. I'll be sure to bookmark this episode for use in my upcoming documentary "The Misandrist Agenda of Power Rangers."
Jason and Tommy get ready to pound the piss out of each other in the hallway when Miss Applebee shows up and asks them whats gotten up their asses. Bulk and Skull amusingly try to play the role of peacekeeper and tell Applebee that they were trying to break the fight up before things got a little too wet and wild. Applebee tells them to save that shit for drama club because she ain't buyin it.
Kimberly diffuses the situation by telling Applebee that Tommy and Jason were just practicing their karate class moves. Applebee buys this because Kimberly could never tell a lie in her pretty pink life and Bulk and Skull are shit mongers born to breed fabrications. Kim and Trini then ask each other what could possibly be causing Tommy and Jason to act like this. Outside of the pressures of being a space alien murdering vigilante of course.
Rita sees that her plan is actually doing pretty well and it's about high time to finish the Ranger Teens off. Finster decides his Slippery Shark monster should be ready by now and starts turning on the Monstermatic. I'm not entirely sure why Sharkie's boomerang was available for the Putties to use before the monster himself had been created, but I'm having fun. It doesn't really matter. In the mean time, here's the Slick Shark himself.
With that mouth can Slippery Shark be happy?
While the Shark is zipping around the Earth at lightning fast speeds (off screen, natch) Bulk and Skull are selling tickets to a long line of people in the Youth Center promising the fight of the century. Tommy V. Jason, no holds barred, in a cage match, no items, Fox only, Final Destination. I bring this scene up mostly to mention what has to be an ad-lib by Paul Schrier. As he's tearing off the last ticket for a girl in line, he says to her "What's happenin mama? You come here often?" So if you need any proof that he's the best actor on the show, there you go.
Tommy and Jason face off against each other on a blue gym mat inside the Youth Center ready to tear each other apart. Skull rings the fight bell as Jason and Tommy get ready to go wild in front of a crowd of cheering onlookers. The other four Ranger Teens show up to witness the unfolding fight which Billy says could have disastrous results. Yeah they could use their martial arts to hurt each other!
Zack tries to butt in and stop the two from fighting, but Bulk tells him to buy a ticket or get his freeloading ass out of there. Thankfully, Zordon buzzes the Ranger Teens just in time for Zack to tell the two they have something they all need to take care of. Tommy and Jason depart with the other Ranger Teens as the group of fight fans demand to know what's going on. Bulk says the fight has only been delayed before realizing he has a bunch of bloodthirsty fight fans gunning for his head.
Sometimes my pause button works wonders for me.
When the Ranger Teens morph into the Command Center, Jason and Tommy hilariously shove Alpha 5 out of the way to talk to Zordon. Alpha tells the boys there's no need to push him, because he's a beta male and doesn't know how to defend himself. Zordon tells everyone to stop beating the shit out of his robot slave and look at the Viewing Globe to see Rita's new monster.
Zordon shows the Rangers the Slippery Shark monster and its multitude of abilities. Sharkie moves fast, can leap through the air, and can dive underground to rip through anything with his fin. Upon seeing the monster Billy comments he's happy that he was able to get over his fear of fish. What's this? Inter-episode continuity? You're spoiling me today Power Rangers.
Tommy tells Jason this one is too much for him to handle so he had better avoid a fight where he'll break his pretty pink nails. Jason tells Tommy he's too goddamned slow to fight that monster and he doesn't have a chance. Zordon informs the boys they're both a couple of pussies and can't do shit against that Shark, also they're under a spell or whatever.
In order to undo this spell, Tommy and Jason must put aside their differences and work together to defeat the Slippery Shark monster. Before I get a chance to be a dick about things and ask why the other Rangers can't help fight the monster, Trini asks my question for me. Zordon says the spell isn't going to wear off unless Tommy and Jason do this themselves. So Tommy and Jason both morph, while Billy gets a chub on that if this goes tits up he gets to be second in command.
Jason and Tommy decide to make this fish hunt a little more exciting and come up with a competition. If Tommy can catch Slippery Shark first, then he becomes the leader of the Power Rangers. If Jason catches the Shark first, Tommy must give up his Power Coin. Wait, Tommy isn't the leader of the Power Rangers? I figured he was with all the times he comes in and saves them from certain death. While they bicker, the Slippery Shark zeroes in on them.
Coming this Summer: You will believe a shark can run.
The monster then fights the bickering boys one at a time, starting with Jason. Using his speed to disorient Red, Slippery Shark hides underground until he leaps at Jason and slashes him with his claws. Definitely the most deadly weapon in any shark's arsenal! Sharkie goes back underground as Jason tries firing on his exposed fin with his Blade Blaster. The weapon bounces harmlessly off the monster's fin as it tears right through Jason.
Shark then zips away and locates Tommy further out in the woods. He assaults the Green Ranger with the boomerang fin weapon the Putties used to hypnotize Tommy and Jason earlier. Tommy puts up a mediocre fight before the Slippery Shark hightails it back underground and escapes.
Jason and Tommy meet back up in the woods and start bickering again over how bad the other got chomped by that shark. Both Tommy and Jason pitch their idea for the smartest way to capture the monster. Tommy believes they need to lay a low ground attack to catch him when he pops up. Jason thinks they need to wait for him to fly through the sky before capturing him. Power Rangers is the one show that can teach children the various ways to capture a flying shark.
Slippery Shark utilizes his sharksenal once more and claws both Tommy and Jason before diving back underground. Jason and Tommy realize they're about to be chum if they're not chums, so they decide to combine both the plans to stop Sharkie.
Whose plan involved the net?
Slippery Shark begs for mercy now that he's been captured, but Tommy and Jason prepare to tuna can him. Tommy says this is just his penance for trying to "break me and my partner up." A line I'm certain will age with dignity.
While the other Ranger Teens react with joy that Tommy and Jason have broken the spell, the Slippery Shark manages to free himself from the net by cutting it with his boomerang fin. He uses his weapon to slash at Red and Green. The other four Ranger Teens morph to help out Tommy and Jason by backing Sharkie off of them. Black, Blue, Yellow and Pink try to parry Shark with their Blade Blasters but the monster manages to fend all four of them off. Red and Green respond by punching him in the face, causing him to retreat underground.
Slippery Shark rushes through the ground and knocks the six Rangers onto their asses. Zack busts out his Power Axe and uses it in cannon mode to blow Slippery Shark out of the ground. Once Slippery Shark is incapacitated, the Rangers prepare to form the Mega Blaster. Just like against Pumpkin Rapper, the Rangers appear to have forgotten what the Power Blaster is called.
Before the Rangers can land the deathblow on Sharkie, Rita tosses her wand at the Earth to make him grow. When he grows, the Power Blaster beam is really awkwardly superimposed over him and the monster informs the Rangers that it "missed him."
How the fuck did you guys miss a GIANT GODDAMNED SHARK?
The Rangers summon forth Dragonzord and the Megazord to take on Sharkie who is now equipped with his boomerang fin once more. The monster blitzes past both Zords and slashes at them fiercely. His movements are so spastic that neither Megazord nor Dragonzord can land a single hit on the monster.
Jason calls for the Power Sword and we actually get a really fun sword duel between Slippery Shark and Megazord. Eventually Billy informs Jason they should try and live up to that teamwork moral this episode has been espousing and have Dragonzord help out. The Megazord clashes the Power Sword against Shark's fin and holds it down. While Sharkie is occupied, Dragonzord tail whips the monster and knocks him backwards.
Slippery Shark uses his boomerang to slash at Megazord again before the Rangers use the Power Sword to cleave his boomerang in half. Slippery Shark gets off a funny line as he informs them "You're gonna pay for that!" and as we see the Megazord charging up the Power Sword he responds with "Or...maybe not." Megazord's Power Sword slices through Slippery Shark and finishes off the jittery fish once and for all.
Back at the Youth Center, Tommy and Jason continue their karate lessons from earlier in the episode as Billy gives a good old fashioned "Sure is great things are back to normal!" Unfortunately things aren't so normal for Bulk and Skull, who have been beaten to shit and look disheveled. For some reason both of their clothes have been ripped up really badly too, which translates less that they were chased by fight seekers and more that someone really wanted to bang Bulk. Outside of myself of course.
Bulk and Skull then comically harm themselves in front of a bunch of children to teach them that there's always a better solution to problems than fighting. Unless your opponent is intelligent in which case you have to murder them. Stay woke fam.
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia: Land Sharks
Personal Thoughts:
Man oh man oh man I really like this episode. I mentioned a few weeks back in the write-up of Two Heads Are Better Than One that there was an episode that did its premise leagues better. That would be this weeks. Both episodes begin with Tommy and Jason teaching a karate class and teach a moral about teamwork, but only this episode has any real conflict. Two Heads Are Better Than One just had Tommy throwing fruit at a parrot. Seeing Tommy and Jason acting as foils to one another made things a lot more fun and let us see the characters differently for once. Also a shark man got punched in his face.
Another episode you could compare to this one would be Gung Ho. The whole idea of Jason and Tommy not getting along runs through that episode as well, but mostly focuses on their teamwork being out of sync. This episode has the guts to take that premise to a more dramatic conclusion and have the two butting heads. I like that a whole bunch man!
Now's about when I usually talk about the monster of the week, so let's talk about Sharkie. No not that ancillary character nobody remembers that was played by this beautiful woman. The Slippery Shark! He's a lot of fun! His running around looks super goofy and he's got a really nice gurgley voice. I enjoy seeing a monster that emphasizes speed every once in a while since most of them move slow as dick. Likely because the costumes will tear to shreds if the people inside them move at a reasonable pace.
Slippery Shark's boomerang weapon also looks like a repainted version of Scorpina's boomerang stinger weapon. Can't say for sure if that's 100% accurate, but take a look and decide for yourselves.
When the Rangers watch Slippery Shark fighting Tommy and Jason on the Viewing Globe, there's an editing fuck-up I find amusing. Inside the Viewing Globe, Shark turns and looks off screen to react to something, and then the Rangers morph to fight him. It's very obvious Sharkie is looking to notice the other Power Rangers showing up in the footage, but whoever was editing this one forgot to cut the last few seconds of him reacting.
I fondly remember this episode as one I watched when I was a kid because it was airing a day I was in the hospital. Being in the hospital while you're in the first grade really sucks dick, and it's kinda scary when you're not sure how long you're going to be there. Well seeing Power Rangers helped soften the blow a little bit. Granted if For Whom the Bell Trolls came on I would have unplugged my I.V. and let the loving embrace of death take me away.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Sept 6, 2015 13:51:50 GMT
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Episode 57: Enter the Lizzinator
20 Year Old Pop Culture Reference Manages to Remain Relevant Alien Monsters Subdued By Movement
Was anyone in the mood for an episode where a Ranger Teen teaches a kid how to be confident enough to pursue some form of athletics? How about an episode with Kimberly at the forefront? Well hope you didn't watch the series two weeks ago. Or three weeks ago.
Kimberly is watching her ginger cousin Kelly practice cheerleading in a group of middle schoolers. Unfortunately Kelly's unable to keep up with the rest of the girls because she has braces and that means she can't hang out with a bunch of conventionally attractive 14 year olds.
This girl came from the same gene pool as Kimberly?
Kelly's upset she can't be a good cheerleader like her cousin Kimberly was, and comes to the conclusion she should just give up. Kimberly tries slowing down the cheers to give her stupid cousin time to see how they're done, but Kelly gives up because this cheerleading shit is too hard. Kelly tells Kim the people at Angel Grove Jr. High are still talking about what a great cheerleader she was and there's no way she can live up to that reputation. Kelly forgot to mention the only people still talking about Kimberly being great at cheerleading were some of the science teachers and one of the janitors who was recently placed on mandatory retirement.
Rita gets real testy that the Earthlings aren't cheering for her and tells Finster it's time to make a monster. Goldar's plan is for Finster's new monster, the Lizzinator, to destroy the world after Kelly is kidnapped. Squatt and Baboo are eerily excited for the prospect of kidnapping a young woman to "teach them cheers." Yeah and to help you tend the rabbits too you fucking creeps.
By the way, the monster is a super powerful lizard creature and not a cactus with pom-poms that we need to justify with a cheerleading subplot. Sorry if you lost a bet on that.
Ernie catches up with Jason at the Juice Bar and asks if he'd be willing to pick up some supplies for the Juice Bar. Jason says he'd be happy to help and then inquires if Ernie's willing to pay him for it. Ernie laughs and slaps Jason on the shoulder while telling him what a funny kid he is, then heads to the back of his cafe to drink some more horse grease.
Trini, Zack, and Billy come by to see Tommy and Kimberly trying to help Kelly figure out this cheerleading business. Kelly is awful though, not because she's bad at cheers, but because her actress doesn't know how to sell being bad at something. Cheerleading isn't exactly the easiest thing to do, but Kelly isn't being asked to do anything taxing. All Kimberly is showing her is how to very loosely put her pom-poms up in the air and say generic "let's go fight" jargon. It just makes Kelly look like repeating someone's words confounds her.
Kelly says she'll never be as good as Kimberly and throws her pom-poms to the ground. Kelly runs out of the Youth Center to join a circus where all the other freaks go to live when they can't arouse a bunch of perverts at junior varsity football games.
Tommy and Kimberly catch up to Kelly in a park somewhere to try and raise her deflated spirits. Kimberly informs the audience that she had to practice a lot before she was any good at cheerleading. That means Kelly isn't bad at cheerleading, she just needs to practice and then she'll be amazing at it. Hear that kids? It's impossible to be bad at something as long as you devote time to it. Power Rangers is here to prove the sunk cost fallacy is a bunch of horseshit.
Squatt and Baboo are soon commanded by Rita and Goldar to go down and capture Kelly to be Rita's personal cheerleader. An idea Goldar got from a real saucy video he found on Kazaa. My only question is why are you kidnapping the shitty one Rita? You had your pick of the litter and you got the girl who couldn't B-E aggressive if her life depended on it. Baboo bumbles out a plea for Rita to send someone else down to kidnap a defenseless child, because he was busy enjoying the luxury of being a completely worthless and forgettable character.
Kimberly then gives Kelly a more useful bit of advice when she tells her cousin not to compare herself to Kimberly's record. She just needs to be herself and do the things that she's best at. You know what? This is actually an awesome moral to be giving kids. Just because you can't do what your older siblings or friends can do doesn't make you some little trashbag. I appreciate this premise more than a generic "never give up and always try your best" lesson.
The Putties show up to ruin Kimberly's lesson, while Tommy and Kim go on the offensive. It's a fun Putty fight mostly because it takes place near a playground, allowing for some more creative choreography. Things like this.
Imagine the wedgie that Putty has right about now.
Squatt and Baboo arrive shortly after the Putties are defeated, because they're too stupid to appear while Kimberly and Tommy are occupied. The two morons kidnap Kelly with Squatt saying "Come on little girl." For those of you who thought I was joking that Squatt is clearly a degenerate Predator, here's exhibit A through Z. The prosecution rests.
Kimberly shouts for her cousin but it's too late. Squatt and Baboo vanish before Kimberly is able to stop them. Kimberly panics while Tommy tries to find the easiest possible way to tell Kim she's going to have to buy a new cousin. Kelly, Squatt, and Baboo all appear inside of a cave in the middle of nowhere, because Saban didn't have a set for Rita's palace so they couldn't film her there.
Kim rushes to alert the rest of the Ranger Teens while Jason goes to pick up Ernie's boxes of discount rat penises ingredients. While he's there, Jason witnesses Finster's Lizzinator monster rampaging. A monster who sounds exactly like a bad impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Lizzinator immediately spots a car and starts beating the shit out of it and causing all sorts of Collateral Damage. Jason morphs and demand he knock off what he's doing before he gets his ass stomped. Lizzinator mulls over his options before deciding the best course of action.
Let off some steam Jason.
Jason starts talking tough and whips out his Blade Blaster to take on the monster. Lizzinator responds by promptly mocking Jason with an incredibly sarcastic "I am so scared!" As Jason tries slashing the monster, Lizzinator willingly lets the Red Ranger hit him while laughing at how ineffective his attacks are. It's so fucking boss and I love it. God bless the Lizzinator.
Lizzy tells Junior to back off before he gets himself hurt, but Jason keeps trying to stand back up. Lizzinator puts the Heat back on Red by lifting him up, doing a fireman's carry with his body, and hurling him into a bunch of boxes. Jason gets embarrassed by the fact that monster just fondled his junk and could tell he was going Commando, so he tries assaulting the Lizzinator again. The Villain lifts Red up by his neck and tosses him away like a pile of goddamn garbage. This monster is so dominant he makes you feel like you're getting cuckolded by proxy. This dude's so strong he's like Hercules.
In New York
Lizzinator tells Jason to his chickenshit face that he's nothing, and fighting all of the Power Rangers is the only challenge suitable for him. The monster vanishes in the speed it would take to go Around the World in 80 Days with Jason left completely vanquished. You guys know how Jason is one of the strongest fighters on the Power Rangers team? Well he got left laying amongst a pile of discarded boxes. Forget all this cheerleader shit, I want an episode of the Lizzinator humiliating fools and talking all sorts of smack to them while beating the fuck out of them.
At the Command Center, Kimberly tells Jason and Zordon that her cousin got kidnapped by a couple of Predator 2 in the park. Jason Recalls being Totally eviscerated by Rita's newest monster and tells his team how bad a dude the Lizzinator is. Tommy pleads with the team to forget about his having limited powers, because this is a fight he needs to be a part of. That's nice and all, but Zordon says to the Ranger Teens that all six of them together may not be able to defeat the Lizzinator.
Holy shit. Guys I love this buildup so much. Lizzinator is getting my little heart a flutter.
Billy looks at an analysis of the Lizzinator's body in the hopes that he can find a weakspot. It turns out that not only was Billy unable to do so, but he's revealed that the Lizzinator's entire body is made out of supermetals from distant galaxies. Not only are supermetals now apparently a thing, but the Lizzinator is made out of nothing but. Does the Megazord have a formation to make imminent buttfucking less painful? You guys might need it.
While Alpha goes on a Scavenger Hunt to find Kelly, the Ranger Teens morph to combat Lizzinator in a desolate quarry. Before they show up, Lizzy finds an abandoned car he gets a big raging reptile 'rection for destroying, but the Rangers pop in to spoil his fun. Lizzinator blasts them with eye lasers and summons a pack of Putties to take on the Power Rangers while he goes back to banging that car.
Jason breaks away from the Putty fight to stop Lizzinator's attempted vandalism of a car that belongs to someone who abandoned it out by the mountainside. That's just poor car practice Rangers, the Lizzinator is doing a public service by junking that thing. Jason kicks past the Lizzinator and tries to get inside the car for no particular reason. When Jason opens the car door he's meant with a Putty's fist in his face that knocks him back onto the dirt. Afterwards we get one of the most unforgettable moments of all Season 1.
Sometimes when things in life are rough, you just need to remember this scene
The Lizzinator blasts Jason and the car with more eyebeams, which end up dumping the Red Ranger in the bottom of the quarry. The monster challenges Jason to a rematch. The Expendable Rangers continue fighting Putties while Jason goes toe to toe with the main lizard. My heart starts pounding as Jason tells the Lizzinator he'll play any game the monster wants. Lizzinator suggests soccer and kicks a massive boulder at Jason. How do you think it feels when a monster won't even fight with you for real? When he throws shit at you to mess with you? Pretty humiliating I'd imagine.
Jason lays defeated on the ground like a total baby, and Lizzy gets ready to slaughter him. Lizzinator pulls up a massive Styrofoam boulder and tosses it at Jason, but the Green Ranger leaps into action and kicks it right back at the monster. I'd also feel remiss if I didn't show you how fake that boulder is, so here you go.
Most rocks have a split down the middle right?
Tommy asks Jason if he's okay, and why he's losing so badly to a ferret with a mullet. Jason tries to retain dignity by telling Tommy he can't take on this monster alone. Lizzinator, because he's a total badass, gets excited to fight Twin opponents and starts Running. Man I love this guy. Jason nearly collapses after getting spanked so bad by the Lizzinator, so Tommy takes on the vicious monster mano y mano. One of the best monsters we've had in months VS. the future Turbo Man. Who will come out on top? I'm on the edge of my seat.
Then we cut back to Squatt and Baboo, which is exactly what I wanted to see in the middle of a pulse pounding fight against one of Rita's best godamned monsters ever. Baboo sincerely informs Squatt that they're bound to be rewarded because they finally did something right. His words, not mine. Squatt hopes its food, because he's fat. You clowns are sucking up some perfectly good Lizzinator time right now and I am not happy about it.
Kelly realizes she's going to get eaten twice if she doesn't escape the clutches of these goons, so she comes up with a foolproof plan to get away from Squatt and Baboo. No it isn't "Tell them to turn around and then run away." It's also not "Walk past them while they cartoonishly fall over trying to stop you." It's not even "exhaust them by showing them how to do cheers of their own." Oh wait. Yes it is. Sorry.
Back at the fight, Tommy lands a critical blow on the Lizzinator with a well timed punch. The other Rangers show up and congratulate him on finishing a fight they were too ineffectual to do anything about. The Lizzinator becomes furious, before amazingly referring to his nemeses as "chowder rangers." Rita then makes her monster grow, and Tommy summons the Dragonzord to take on the behemoth.
Tommy, wanting to prove he's the Last Action Hero and doesn't need the Megazord's help to conquer Lizzinator, takes him on alone. Unfortunately for him the monster just toys with the Dragonzord and slaps it around without getting harmed once. The Dragonzord tries using its trusty tail whip, before disaster strikes.
WHAT KILLED THE DINOZORDS?!
While Tommy humiliates himself, Kelly teaches Squatt and Baboo some dumbass cheers about how the Power Rangers always beat Rita. Yeah good idea guys, I bet Rita would love for you to sing her a bunch of cheers about how she sucks and always loses. Since Squatt and Baboo are hideously out of shape they immediately start collapsing over themselves and are subdued. Awesome subplot guys. A+.
The other Rangers realize how dumb it was for Tommy to go in alone so they summon the Megazord to help Dragonzord out. Lizzinator isn't dissuaded and starts slashing the shit out of both of them. He just laughs at both of the Zords and then blasts him with a blast of gas from his mouth which he calls his "super stink breath." Jesus Christ Power Rangers would you get it together? Your city's about to be destroyed and this lizardman's onion breath nearly killed you.
The Rangers realize how bad they're getting railed so they summon Titanus to charge up the Ultrazord. Lizzinator then has a great line where he says "Hey wait no fair! I was just about to win!" Regardless, the Ultrazord blasts Lizzy and brings him to the End of his Days. Pasta la pizza bitch.
With the monster dead, Kimberly whines that her stupid cousin is still missing and presumed dead. Zordon tells her to take a chill pill because Alpha 5 found most of her carcass in some cave somewhere. Baboo and Squatt start whining that doing cheers is too hard for members of the most notoriously powerful evil empire in the galaxy, so they teleport away and leave Kelly alone. Just in time for the Power Rangers to show up and congratulate her on managing to subdue two total losers.
Back at the Youth Center, Kelly thanks Kimberly for teaching her to believe in herself and for buying her a new outfit after getting Squatt's saliva over her last one. Sadly for Kelly, another pair of incompetent bumblers have shown up to ruin her self-esteem today. None other than Fat Batman and Robin themselves: Bulk and Skull.
Even though they haven't been in the episode at all today, Bulk and Skull trash talk Kelly because she's going to blow her cheerleading tryouts. To which Kelly responds "Why don't you two go pick on someone with your own I.Q." OOOOOOH BURN! Maybe you shouldn't talk back to people who have souls you little snot.
Bulk tries to save face by performing an impromptu cheer about how he's amazing and everyone loves him. This culminates in Bulk ripping his pants and humiliating himself in front of a bunch of people who hate him. But it doesn't matter, because we start to pan down and I know what's coming next. Let's set those piggies free and unlea-
WHAT?! WHAT IS THIS? WHERE ARE MY FUCKING PIGS!? BULLSHIT, THIS EPISODE SUCKS, BETTER LUCK NEXT WEEK ASSHOLES
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia: Arnold Schwarzenegger Impersonations Being Considered Amusing
Personal Thoughts
No seriously I like this episode a lot. I'm sure I hid it very well but the Lizzinator stuff rocks my world. The subplot with Kelly wanting to be a cheerleader I can give or take, but it also has a good enough heart that it manages not to annoy me like the most cloying of Power Rangers aesops. I was worried I would end up really disliking the episode because of the Kelly storyline, but it surprised me in a good way.
The only thing that strikes me as bizarre is how dissimilar the fight footage is with the civilian plot. Kim teaches a kid to believe in herself and Jason loses horribly to a buff ass lizard creature while Tommy helps him out. Granted we covered Tommy and Jason's friendship last week, and also sort of touched on it during the Two Headed Parrot episode. We didn't need another episode of Tommy and Jason remembering they're friends and high fiving while Bulk and Skull fall into a bunch of pies.
Don't get me wrong, diverting from the Sentai footage is totally fine and pretty much mandatory if you want to focus on any of your characters in any detail. My problem is that you could do absolutely any other plot in this episode so long as you write in an excuse for Jason to run into the Lizzinator. If you want me to care about any of your protagonists, what are you doing shoehorning in Kimberly's cousin we'll never see again? The Ranger Teens are such cardboard that you don't take the time to flesh them out and instead take the time to introduce new characters I'll never give a damn about only to dump them in the garbage next week. Enough of that shit.
Now for the meat and potatoes of this episode for me. The Lizzinator. He's such a hardass I can't help but love him. He's a lot like the Frankenstein monster in a lot of ways. He's introduced taking little to no damage in the ground battle and proceeds to completely manhandle the Zords when he grows. The biggest difference from Frankie is the Lizzinator gets a lot more shit talking in and that's always a plus for me.
I mentioned in the Two Headed Parrot write-up that that monster appeared to be doing a maneuver where it ducked down and curled into a ball before growing. It was just for a few frames and you all laughed at me! You said I was a crazy man! Well look upon the Lizzinator's pre-growth scene and be awed as I am proven correct.
With another cardboard rock behind him.
Yeah I unno. This was probably supposed to have been cut by the editors since Rita was still around to make monsters grow, and has no meaning whatsoever if Rita's the one making them giant. Maybe the Zyu2 producers assumed Rita wasn't going to be around in Power Rangers anymore since they had filmed scenes of the Ranger Teens sealing up Rita for Doomsday. Who knows?
There was a bit of cut footage of Lizzinator's car antics indicated in the script. During the initial vandalism, Lizzinator was supposed to break one of the car's windows and shatter the glass everywhere. Much more interesting was the ending to Jason on top of the car with the Putty. After Lizzinator blasts the car with his eye-beams, the car was supposed to go careening off a cliff! Sure explains why Jason was separated from the other Rangers after his joyride with the Putty. Now I'm just hoping the Lizzinator footage gets released so I can see a Putty driving off a cliff. it's the simple things in life.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Sept 6, 2015 13:52:47 GMT
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Episode 58: Football Season
Emasculated Nerd Reveals Rippling Physique Teenager Gains Confidence By Choking Rhinoceros
Nothing quite like the middle of summer. Temperatures spiking, fat men taking the opportunity not to wear shirts, and everyone gets out to play some sports. Not stupid boring sports like karate, sports that all Americans love like football. It's like karate but you get paid more and there's less chance of meeting Steven Seagal and getting kicked in the nuts.
If nothing else, I have to praise this week's episode for being concise. In Football Season's first 30 seconds, Jason tells Tommy that he's excited for football tryouts, and Tommy informs Jason he's worried about making the team. Boom. Conflict. Tommy's concerned he won't be able to play some sport he's never cared about previous and only survive on being a karate prodigy. Sorry Tommy, this is America. Nobody here gives two shits about no martial artistry. You play football and put your body through hell for a sweet paycheck and a coffin at 40.
Speaking of people who will die at 40, Bulk's trying out for the football team too! Not because of any particular character based reason, but the script wanted to have scenes of a clumsy fat man practicing football.
Bulk starts jawing off about how he's going to be the MVP of Angel Grove High's football team. He charges forward but accidentally runs into Principal Caplan. For those of you at home playing the Power Rangers drinking game, Principal Caplan's wig fell off in this scene. And to families of those who played the Power Rangers drinking game, I'm sorry for your loss.
Bulk flying in the air is far more magical than Peter Pan.
Tommy pouts that even the comic relief bully has more experience at football than he does. Why's Tommy getting beaten down over this? He was laughing at Bulk for falling on top of the principal and then used that as an excuse to get bummed out. You can't be laughing at the comic relief one second and then bring the room down about it the next. Why not have Tommy concerned that's how he's going to look while trying out for the football team? Either don't have Tommy laugh in this scene or cut his mopey monologue about how he needs to be good at football for no explored reason.
Squatt and Baboo start yelling about touchdowns and field goals and other things vaguely related to football and how it looks fun. Rita comes in, fresh from one of her boozy headaches and demands to know who in their right mind would enjoy something as stupid as fun. Baboo zings his boss by telling her she certainly wouldn't enjoy having fun. The same way she wouldn't go out for drinks and dancing with a coworker who has been nothing but loyal to her for the past 3 millennia.
Squatt squashes the romantic tension by suggesting they beat the Power Rangers at their own game. Goldar agrees because he's too lazy to come up with his own plan, and suggests sending down the Rhinoblaster monster with a squad of Putties to help finish off the Rangers. Rita praises her minions for thinking of an inventive scheme that brilliantly utilizes sending a monster to Earth with Putties to fight the Power Rangers.
Tommy drinks away his football woes in the Youth Center when Kimberly and Trini arrive to cheer him up. Tommy bitches and moans that he's barely ever played football, so how can he possibly hope to be instantaneously good at it like he is everything else? Trini tells him everything he's pulled off in karate is an accomplishment all on its own. In response, Tommy projectile vomits on her for suggesting he doesn't humiliate everyone else with his bizarre extroversion.
Has anyone on this show ever accepted they aren't great at something? Christ on the cross why are we getting inundated with all these episodes based on how people need to immediately become good at things? Tommy doesn't even say why he wants to play football, he just arbitrarily needs to be good at it and get on this team because he felt like it.
At least the last few times this has happened, we either had someone who enjoyed what they were trying to learn, or someone who realized it was going to take practice to be good at their activity of choice. Tommy is just upset that he's never played football before so that means he's not going to be good at it. Well no fucking shit you won't be good at something you've never done before you doofus.
Ernie pops up while forging health department documents to tell Tommy he used to be a fullback in his college days. Tommy's eyes go wider than Ernie's full back when he realizes this schmuck could teach him everything he needs to know to about football. Like when it's acceptable for him to pat fellow players on the ass.
While Tommy plans to murder Ernie and wear his skin to football tryouts, Skull trains Bulk in the wackiest goddamn way he can.
The Tooth Fairy 3 Starring Paul Schrier
Skull reads from a book entitled "Football For Cartoon Characters" and informs Bulk that many pro football players practiced ballot to learn grace. Football players we can't actually name without getting the tutu sued off of us so we'll just be vague about it. Beats naming famous athletes like "Leon Sanders" and "Jerry Nice."
Bulk is embarrassed about wearing a tutu, because his life has been nothing but glorious moments of splendor and triumph so far. He spends every waking minute of his godawful life awaiting the split second he trips over a stray roller skate and falls face first into a brand new ice cream cake for Billy's birthday.
Bulk says if he hears Skull make one remark about being a twinkletoes he's going to "cream him." New episode idea: Bulk and Skull go into a gay club and through a series of comic mishaps they end up indicating they're a couple. Then Bulk and Skull have to have sex with each other. The Rhinoblaster plot may not fit with this episode.
The girls head off to play some flag football with the rest of the Ranger Teens while Tommy needles an obese shopkeep about the secrets of America's pastime. Ernie shows Tommy some steps to teach him how to move quickly, something that karate certainly doesn't teach you. Tommy is unable to keep up with the complicated instructions of "left three steps, right two." Tommy busts into a karate pose because that's the only thing occupying his thick skull and he can't be bothered not to show off to an audience of one. THAT'S OUR TOMMY!
Well at least we get to see the rest of the Ranger Teens playing some football. My fingers become tented as I await the moment we get to see Billy try to forward a pass with his awkward nerdy hands. Then, everything I once knew becomes a lie.
Those overalls were holding back some fine guns.
Billy has been the sexiest man on the Power Rangers team all along. He's a goddamned beefcake! What have we been missing? I could just butter him up and roll my tongue up an
Later that day in detention, Skull coaches Bulk in elegance while the meaty bully balances a book on his head. Is he trying to learn how to play football or become a proper English gentleman? We're treated to a montage of Bulk messing around in a tutu, and more evidence of the fact that Paul Schrier and Jason Narvy can elevate some of the silliest material just by committing to its rampaging goofery. Though there's one shot I can't quite grasp.
He's giving birth to a healthy 9 pound steak.
The Ranger Teens keep up their 90's as hell flag football game while some of the shittiest rap of all time plays. It sounds like it was rejected Vanilla Ice b-sides. It's hard to explain without hearing it, but it actually makes me feel whiter as it plays.
Thankfully a batch of Putty Patrollers jump into the game and intercept the ball. The Ranger Teens struggle with how to defeat them at first as the Putties aren't wearing any flags. Even though there's a lot of dumb shots of the Rangers catching the football during the fight, we get some pretty solid choreography throughout. Nice hard kicks to the chest, simultaneous backflips culminating in a hard punch to the Putties gut(ty). Pretty bitchin' stuff.
Zordon contacts the Ranger Teens and commends them for wasting time playing football while Rita's sent a big ass rhino monster to Earth. The Rhinoblaster is set to act as quarterback for Rita's Putties with his powerful agility and intelligence. Traits that rhinos are well known for in nature as well. The Teens morph to combat Rhinoblaster and come face to face with his team of Football Putties. What's the difference between Football Putties and Regular Putties? Glad you asked.
Rhinoblaster Suits designed by David Byrne
Since Japan doesn't know how football is played, the Putties just charge into the Power Rangers and push them backwards for a bit. Then the Putties summon blade hands, whisk past the Rangers and knock them to the ground. All it took for the Putties to be a viable threat was to give them some extra padding? Who knew?
Rhinoblaster tells the Rangers they've been side-lined and need to hit the showers. Because this is a football episode and those are things related to football. The Rhinoblaster spews mist from his mouth that captures the Power Rangers and transports them into another dimension. That was how the Seahawks beat the Broncos wasn't it?
Lost inside some dumbass rhino vortex, Zordon realizes the Rangers Communicators aren't working. Unable to teleport or get into contact with Alpha, Zordon wishes he had brought that green kid back from retirement. Oh wait he did? Call him then, he can fix this!
Alpha contacts Tommy during his training session just in time for the Green Ranger to escape Ernie's beefy clutches. The moment Tommy shows up in the Command Center, Zordon kills his buzz by telling him every fight he gets in is going to weaken his powers more. How about some bedside manner you floating gasbag? Tommy's your last hope to stop a football playing rhino and all you can tell him is how weak he's going to be after the fight.
Tommy morphs and as soon as he shows up he demolishes all five of the Football Putties that effortlessly vanquished his friends. Do you guys not like the growing trend of Tommy being superior to all five of the other Rangers? Boy this episode is not for you!
Rhinoblaster engages Tommy and says he's going to knock his lights out like it's a Ravens/49ers Super Bowl. In no time flat, Green Ranger kicks the monster backwards to subdue him. Rhinoblaster starts getting salty that he's getting beaten by one chucklefuck who doesn't even know how to play football, and Rita promptly makes him grow. Usually you can wait for the monster to lose before making it giant Rita. Slow your roll for once.
Tommy summons the Dragonzord and the battle begins. Rhinoblaster actually puts up a pretty good fight against the Dinozord and it looks quite nice. Probably because whoever was in the Rhinoblaster costume could actually move.
Rhinoblaster sure goes out of his way not to attack with his horn.
Alpha 5 prints up an analysis of the Rhinoblaster's innards and comes to the conclusion that Tommy must use his Dragon Dagger to free the other Rangers from the monster's dimension. That or they could come out the Rhinoblaster's back end Ace Ventura style. Alpha specifically infers that Tommy could fail at this task, so that means Tommy has to be incredibly accurate at somehow using his dagger to plug up an overflowing rhino.
Zordon contacts Tommy and informs him if he ever wants to get some action from Kimberly again, he's gonna need to use his Dragon Dagger to enter the Rhinoblaster's dimension and reach the other Rangers. Tommy asks him how he's supposed to do that, then Zordon starts laughing and hangs up.
Tommy begins pseudo surrendering to the Rhinoblaster and informs the monster that he and his Zord are no match for the monster and that his stunning rhino bod even puts Billy's to shame. Rhinoblaster thanks the Green Ranger for being so humble, and then blasts him because he's a huge dick.
Tommy begs the monster to use its unrelenting mercy to allow him to spend his last moments alive with his friends. Rhinoblaster gets a pretty fun line by responding "Since I'm such a nice guy....NO!" Unfortunately the monster starts spewing his dimensional mist to suck up Tommy, which is exactly what he asked the monster to do in the first place. So that enjoyable line? Doesn't make sense at all. Way to go Power Rangers.
Tommy takes this opportunity to chuck his Dragon Dagger inside of the monster's mouth, ceasing its mist spewing. Tommy reflects on this Dagger throwing and tells himself that maybe this means he really CAN play football. Which could potentially go down as the absolute shittiest resolution of a conflict in the history of fiction.
Without the Dragon Dagger to control his Zord, Tommy leaps aboard the Dragonzord to engage Rhinoblaster in combat. What seems like it would be a strong showing from the Green Ranger actually doesn't last too long before Rhinoblaster blasts the shit out of the Dragonzord and knocks Tommy right out of it. That's what happens when you've only piloted your Zord once before ya dick.
Rhinoblaster tries stomping on the defenseless Tommy who rolls out of the way before realizing how bad he sucks at fighting all alone. Just before Tommy becomes rhino chow, the Megazord suddenly emerges from an interdimensional mist with an important message for the Rhinoblaster.
Falling against a blue background is the same thing as jumping.
Tommy's Dragon Dagger suddenly emerges from the mist and lands back in the Green Ranger's hand. I guess that thing he was supposed to be doing he accomplished perfectly. Congrats Tommy! On whatever you did. The Rangers promptly form the Megadragonzord and finish off the Rhinoblaster. Unfortunately we don't get a cool dissolving effect like the Megadragonzord usually has, just your standard explosion. What a buncha junk. Thanks for nothing RhinoSNOREs.
Back at the Youth Center, Mr. Caplan prepares to announce the new starting lineup of Angel Grove High School's football team. He very clearly drops a sheet of paper before starting that the camera makes sure to dwell on long enough for us to see Tommy's name written on it. Thanks, I didn't feel like waiting a whole minute for this to get resolved.
The first three members of the football team are revealed to be Jason, Billy, and Zack. Then a bunch of people nobody cares about that aren't real characters with generic names like "Bob" and "Paul." Though the best part about this scene is when Principal Caplan calls out two names and only one person comes out. Top notch directing everyone. Applause all around.
Principal Caplan says this is the new football team in its entirety and Kimberly gets upset that her boy toy doesn't get to take pictures of all the dudes showering for her. Zack notices the dropped piece of paper and hands it to Caplan who realizes he was missing a few people from the roster. Which may also explain why Angel Grove's football team only had 9 players on it.
Caplan apologizes for his clerical error and reads off the rest of the team he had forgotten before. Principal Caplan clears his throat and announces the new football star...BULK! Okay, you got me. That's actually a funny turnaround. We also get a moment I sincerely enjoy which is Trini and Kim not exactly sure how to react to Bulk's inclusion, but they still applaud him and cheer him on. It's sweet.
As a matter of fact I would actually give this episode 3000 stars if it ended here. Bulk was the only person missing from the team and it turned out Tommy didn't make it on. It would be the biggest swerve this show has ever had and it could teach the kids at home that just because you're a superhero doesn't mean you'll always be great at everything.
But no, of course Tommy is announced next as the new quarterback. Because if there's one thing a fullback can teach someone it's how to be a great quarterback. A quarterback? Fuck off with that. Seriously. Not only does Tommy get on the team, which should be plenty, he gets to be in charge of everyone because he spent half an hour training at it.
This is the epitome of what annoys me in Power Rangers. When the characters are sitting high on their horses and look down at the peasants below them while talking about how great it is to be amazing at everything and be completely flawless. Could just one of these goddamned losers have some flaw that isn't magically fixed by the end of the episode?
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia: Sexually Attractive Nerds
Personal Thoughts
As much as the ending sours me, I really do enjoy this episode. It fits into a sweet spot between Second Chance and Enter the Lizzinator in the trifecta of Power Rangers episodes dealing with someone upset they aren't great at sports. Not middling, not amazing, but good enough to stand on its own two feet. The Tommy subplot occupies a lot less time than I remembered it taking and the Bulk and Skull scenes managed to elevate a scene of a chubby gentlemen wearing a skirt further than I would have imagined. And y'wanna know something? I'll be goddamned if Paul Schrier doesn't pull off those dainty moves. Good on him.
Reading through the script for this episode introduced something to me that annoyed me. Y'know all that bitching I was doing about Tommy arbitrarily caring about football for no reason? There's an explanation in the first draft of the script. Originally Tommy talked about how his dad used to be a great football player and he wanted to live up to that. Out of anything you could cut, why the fuck would you cut that? It's one line, it gives the plot a reason to make sense, and it makes Tommy a human being instead of some perfection obsessed karate robot.
Also in the script, it's noted to use Japanese footage of "Rhino #17" for this episode's plot. What does that mean? We'll get there soon!
The Zyu2 footage in this episode takes a fun twist to the concept of the Green Ranger bailing them out. Usually the Rangers just lose and are getting beaten down until Tommy comes to save them. This time they were out and out kaput. Trapped in another dimension. The closest a Power Ranger can come to being dead. It's fun stuff! It actually raises the stakes and makes Rhinoblaster look like a much more credible threat.
When Zordon calls Tommy in the Japanese footage, you actually see the Green Ranger talking into his Communicator. The Communicators are a device that only existed in Power Rangers so it's pretty cool to see Zyu2 footage utilizing a conceit only introduced in the American counterpart. Just makes me wonder what other little touches they were asked to include.
By the way, Rhinoblaster getting hit by the Megadragonzord? Bollocks I say! Rhinoblaster was intended to be destroyed by the Ultrazord in the original footage. It was probably an issue that the Megadragonzord formation took much less time and the episode was running too long to justify an Ultrazord sequence. Though the Megadragonzord is much better than the script's suggestion of the Megazord summoning the Power Sword and "blasting the monster to bits." When the fuck has it ever done that?
Honestly I don't mind the Megadragonzord inclusion too much, this gave a rarely used Zord formation a chance to shine and it fit an episode focusing on Tommy pretty well. It also made it so the Dragonzord in Battle Mode and Megadragonzord both got the same number of kills, three each. Does that matter? Of course not. Just something I noticed as a kid and will never forget.
Before we conclude, just want to show you good people the editing goof from this battle's finale. Take a look at the Rhinoblaster's death, and you can see the moment they have to cut away from footage of Weaveworm getting hit by the Z sphere.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Sept 6, 2015 13:53:39 GMT
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Episode 59: Mighty Morphin' Mutants
High School Students Faced With Soul Crushing Reality Lobster Mutant Achieves Naval Rank
I've been waiting a long time to get to this episode. Why? No time to explain. Tommy's running late!
The opening scene consists of Tommy rushing to his locker, forgetting to get his notebook out of said locker, and forgetting to close the locker door. No prize to whoever guesses what this plot is going to revolve around.
So Tommy is really forgetful and because this show is for children, the only way we can illustrate that is by turning him into a non-functioning mess of a human being. I get my lips wet ready to spew all sorts of whiny nitpicky bile about how this totally doesn't make sense. Tommy's NEVER been forgetful before. That's when I have to stop and think back to what we've seen of Tommy.
In order to keep Tommy out of fights the Green Ranger wasn't supposed to show up in, Power Rangers has had to pull every trick in the book to keep him away. He's been kidnapped, attacked by Putties, knocked unconscious, but most importantly he's been distracted. Every once in a while Tommy is unable to answer his Communicator because he isn't paying attention to it. It's not too far of a stretch to say the moments where Tommy leaves his Communicator just off camera so he can't show up to the fight at the same time as the other Rangers could be part of his forgetfulness.
Essentially what this boils down to is that Power Rangers is actually playing with a character's personality. Not just the blatantly obvious character traits we get like "Kimberly enjoys shopping", "Billy's a nerd who knows words from a thesaurus", "Trini." This episode's civilian plot is a character coming to terms with something that has been only implied before. Sure Tommy is in your face forgetful this week, but he's still the same putz who nearly let his team die while he was rearranging a parade float for Kimberly.
Alright Mighty Morphin Mutants. You've got me hooked. Show me what you've got.
Ms. Applebee calls Tommy out for arriving late to class, but Tommy apologizes that he forgot to set his alarm. Bulk and Skull give Tommy the business by asking if he's late for today or early for tomorrow. Shame Tommy forgot the ice at home for a burn that bad.
The face you make when you just got burned by a 30 year old high school bully.
Ms. Applebee assigns the class their latest homework; each student has to ask their friends for something that they feel could use some improvement. Finally we can confirm that Tommy is enrolled in "Sitcom Plots 101." But seriously this is a really awful idea for high school students. You're telling a bunch of the shittiest most hormonal groups on the planet to ask their nearest and dearest friends what they can't fucking stand about each other. Think of the consequences of this ridiculous assignment.
Lily is informed she snacks too much and immediately starts vomiting in the bathroom while sobbing. Derek gets told he's a total wimp, so he starts taking steroids and becomes sterile. Then that one kid in the back gets told to stop talking about Power Rangers so much or else nobody's going to talk to me.
Bulk also takes umbrage with this ludicrous assignment because he has no faults to speak of. He asks if he and Skull are exempt from the because they're beacons of the community. Applebee tells them if they can't find friends to inform them of what's wrong with them, she'd be happy to offer suggestions. Question for you teachers out there; how many years do you have to be teaching in order to insult students to their faces and get away with it?
Rita becomes ecstatic to learn that Tommy has a weakness for her to exploit and commands her minions to bring her the patented Badges of Darkness. These badges have the ability to turn a group of Putties into the lethal Mutant Rangers. Also they let you use Cut outside of battle. So for those of you who were hoping the title of this episode was a reference to the Power Rangers teaming up with the Ninja Turtles, keep dreaming.
As Tommy and Jason hang out in the Youth Center and spar, we're treated to a few more moments of Tommy forgetting various things such as towels and pamphlets about Karate Jesus. Jason asks what's gotten up Tommy's ass, outside of his penis, and Tommy explains about Applebee's assignment. Tommy pleads with Jason to tell him what needs fixing in his life, and Jason hesitantly informs Tommy that he's forgetful.
As soon as Tommy hears this, we cut to him bummed out at the Juice Bar in disbelief over his forgetful nature. It's really silly, but I also genuinely love it. It's completely realistic for someone to have a hard time accepting something wrong with themselves when an outsider tells them about it. I'd be hard pressed to ever describe Power Rangers as a down to Earth show, but this reaction from Tommy is actually pretty intelligent.
Tommy asks Kimberly and Trini if he really is as forgetful as Jason says he is, and Kimberly can't help but mention it's true. Though nobody seems to mention that Trini has the same issue, as she seems to be forgetting how to talk. Tommy's response to never noticing how forgetful he's been is "I must have forgotten all those times I was forgetful too." I don't care what anyone says, that line is adorable.
In the meantime, Goldar starts training a batch of six Putties to take on the onus of becoming Mutant Rangers. While five of the Putties appear to be up to the task, one Putty just can't seem to hack it. He's referred to as Number 6, and he's having a bit of trouble keeping up.
And the award for best reaction all season goes to: That Confused Looking Putty
Goldar finishes up the training exercises and informs Number 6 he is unqualified to be anything but a mug on Rita's coffee table, and condemns him to spend the rest of his days in Finster's clay jar. The five remaining Putties are each given a Badge of Darkness before transforming into the aforementioned Mutant Rangers. Goldar comments that no Putty was worth becoming the Red Mutant, and crushes the sixth badge in his claw. Rita trusts you with priceless artifacts she kept hidden away in her palace and within five minutes you resort to breaking one.
Back at the Juice Bar, Bulk notes the appearance of "Tommy-come-lately." Tommy then looks ashamed and asks what Kimberly told them. Bulk and Skull gloat about the fact they don't even have to do this dumbass assignment because bitch they're flawless. Trini and Kimberly suggest that for once in their jackass punk rock abortion of a life they try to act like gentlemen instead of James Dean's groupies.
Tommy teases the bullies that without anything to change, they're sure to fail the assignment and Principal Caplan will be excited to hear that. Why in the hell is Mr. Caplan involved in a failing student's grades? Has anyone ever been to a school where the principal discussed your grades with you? Do the writers of Power Rangers know what a school is?
Kimberly and Tommy then head home, but are intercepted by two of Rita's new Mutant Rangers. Which ones? Take a guess.
The Badges of Darkness don't work on Putty gloves.
Kim asks Tommy if they should morph, but he shuts her down by saying they shouldn't just yet so they can "see what these guys are all about." Seems like Tommy forgot how fighting works too. But you wanna know something? The fight between Tommy and Mutant Green/Kimberly and Mutant Pink is really goddamn cool. It's the closest thing we get to a Putty fight this week but is such an undeniably cool concept. A mirror match between unmorphed Ranger Teens and a version of their Ranger counterpart? I'm onboard, keep going Mighty Morphin Mutants I'm almost there.
The mirror match ends with the mutants slapping the Ranger Teens around before saying this is just a taste of what's to come. Usually I write that off as an excuse for a villain to leave without killing the protagonist, but these Mutant Rangers come across so cocky I'm charmed into accepting it. What's also fun is that the Ranger Teens actors are voicing the Mutants. We don't get a bunch of garbling Putty noises, we get Tommy trash talking Tommy. Which is exactly how Jason David Frank psyches himself up before an MMA match.
After the Mutants vanish, Kimberly responds that Rita's created her own evil Rangers again. God bless this fucking show for remembering its own continuity. Most of Power Rangers feels so episodic and disconnected that it feels unnecessary to watch it in order. I greatly appreciate when the show rewards you for paying attention and nips your quips in the bud by addressing them. Look at all this praise I'm heaping on the episode and we haven't even seen a monster yet.
The Ranger Teens reconvene in the Command Center to figure out what those nasty ass faker Power Rangers are up to. Zordon lays it all out for them that these are just some Putties all dressed up like it's Halloween, so the Rangers should have no trouble shithousing them. Zordon then becomes deathly serious and informs the Ranger Teens if they're unable to beat those Putties they're not welcome back inside his Command Center.
Unfortunately it isn't JUST Putties anymore. Rita has created a monster to act as the leader of her Mutant Rangers. Enter: Commander Crayfish.
Commander Crayfish Was it in his contract he had to be red?
Taking a brief break from all the twin shenanigans going on, the episode slows down for a bit of comic goofery involving Tommy's wack ass memory. The other Ranger Teens offer solutions to help him remember things. Well Billy and Kimberly do, the rest don't matter. Kim ties ribbons around Tommy's wrist to help him remember things, like testicular cancer. Billy programs a malfunctioning piece of garbage that doesn't work, because that's all he has ever done in his dumbass nerd life. Maybe the Blue Mutant Ranger isn't a complete shitheel like you Billy.
Tommy heads off to pick up some homework he forgot to do and the rest of the Rangers discuss how petrified they are to fight Rita's evil Rangers. This is something else I really like, the Ranger Teens are truly concerned for their own safety.
The episode hasn't built up to it very much, but the idea of the Ranger Teens being concerned about a potential threat is actually really cool. Usually they're pretty cavalier about whatever monster is on the loose, but being at least cautiously unsure of their new foe is fantastic. They're not acting like cocky superheroes, they're acting like teenagers faced with a crisis. Sort of like how human beings might behave.
Zordon alerts the Rangers that Commander Crayfish has summoned the Mutant Rangers on the beach shore and is ready to blow a bunch of shit up. Since Tommy is forgetting to answer his Communicator, the rest of the Ranger Teens have to morph and head Crayfish off at the pass. As soon as they show up, the Putties morph in response.
Crayfish couldn't fit that head inside a helmet.
The brawl between Mutants and Rangers begin as we get some of the most goddamn satisfying evil clone fighting you could ask for. I referred to A Bad Reflection On You earlier and this episode trumps that one quite handily. A big reason for that is you can actually tell which Ranger is which. The Mutant Rangers are distinguishable by the pentagrams on their belt buckles and their gray gloves. They also wield the unmorphed Power Weapons we saw briefly once before. Just trust me when I say this fighting is some of the most satisfying stuff Power Rangers has offered yet.
Back at Angel Grove High, Tommy finds that he left his Communicator inside his locker and answers Zordon's call. He's informed his friends are getting eaten by a big ass lobster and he had better go clean up the mess. Tommy morphs and gives Crayfish a swift kick to the whiskers.
C.C. refuses to be beaten and summons the Green Mutant to take on Tommy. The Green Mutant is introduced wielding the Sword of Darkness, and that is such a cool detail I can't stand it. You guys remember that weapon we had Tommy use like three times when he was evil like 40 episodes ago? Now his evil twin's using it too. You kids paying attention must be vibrating off of the fucking chairs right now.
The Rangers and Mutants battle each other to a standstill when Crayfish reveals the Mutants secret weapon. They can combine their Power Weapons into a Power Blaster as well! Not surprisingly, getting hit with a dose of their own medicine completely decimates the Power Rangers who teleport away from the Mutant Rangers onslaught.
When the Rangers arrive at the Command Center, Zordon informs them the only way to triumph over this monster is by giving them new and more powerful weapons. Weapons that will put their old weapons to shame. Prepare yourself everyone, as you feast your eyes upon Zordon's new arsenal for the Power Rangers!
Gee whiz. You shouldn't have.
Yeah, this was Zordon's ace in the hole. Identical weapons that he promises are totally WAY stronger than before. This is the only moment in the episode that I can't stand. What a dumbass copout that means absolutely nothing. Just tell the Rangers you're infusing their weapons with more power, or just tell them to actually use their weapons since they didn't at all in the last fight. Don't cocktease us with this new weapons garbage and then dump a bunch of old stuff on us. It's insultingly dumb.
However I'm willing to ignore it because immediately afterwards we get some of my all-time favorite Power Rangers fighting ever. No hyperbole. The Mutant Rangers and the Power Rangers battle each other with their weapons and it's just so fucking glorious. It's everything you could ever want from a mirror match with Aaron Waters' music playing the whole time to get your pulse pounding. This fight is everything that the 90's burned into my brain. I'm furious I can't just GIF the whole thing and show it to you, so I'll just post one of my favorite portions for you folks to enjoy.
Green Ranger Gif Bet you won't forget how a kick to the gut feels BITCH!
All six Rangers battle their doppelgangers to a standstill with both groups showing battle damage from the others weapons. Crayfish commands his mutant militia to assemble their Power Blaster, the Rangers follow suit and assemble the OG Power Blaster. Oh wait it's made out of "new weapons" now. It's certainly invincible now.
The Rangers and the Mutants have an old fashioned western showdown while aiming their Blasters at each other. Who could win this devastating battle?!
The Tommy's have been relegated to standing around.
The Power Blaster coincidentally kills the Pink and Yellow Mutants, but not because they're women or anything like that. Crayfish and the remaining Mutants are left writhing on the ground before Rita makes not only Commander Crayfish grow, but the Blue, Green, and Black Mutants. Ho-lee shit YES! Giant Rangers are always the best choice. God bless this episode.
The Rangers board their Zords where Kim refers to Commander Crayfish as a bug. Where do you get your biology knowledge from Kim? Steve Brule?
The Megazord is formed and Tommy calls out the Dragonzord. While the Zord fight isn't quite as impressive as the previous battle was, we do get some really rad fighting between the Megazord and Crayfish, with Dragonzord tackling all three Mutant Rangers. Unfortunately without the ladies helping out the team they get manhandled by the Zord duo pretty badly. Commander Crayfish is sick of he and his team getting beaten down, so he commands the Mutants to get into their unbeatable formation. Prepare yourselves!
My God, he's a tactical genius.
The Rangers make a big deal over how the monster has been lifted above the Megazord's range and is now unstoppable because we need to make this look less ridiculous. Unfortunately for Commander Crayfish, he and his mutant buddies are no match for a big motherfucker of a Brachiosaurus. The Power Rangers form the Ultrazord and blow all four of their foes to shit. I'm holding a candlelight vigil for them tonight for all the joy they've brought us over the years.
Rita sobs that Commander Crayfish's failure is a complete disappointment and from here on out she refuses any more seafood. Yeah Rita the giant lobster monster is the reason you lost. Not the fact you had Goldar training Putties on the beach for three minutes like Rocky and Apollo Creed and assumed that would be enough to win. Keep shifting that blame you old space hag.
Back at Angel Grove High, Tommy bemoans the fact he was unable to fix his forgetfulness and then Billy comes in with a magical super science laser that cures Tommy's memory problem and also gives everyone ice cream! Wait no hold on they're doing something else. Kimberly and Trini tell Tommy that it's okay to have a fault and...that he's not perfect? That it's okay to be flawed because nobody's perfect? Power Rangers why are you doing all this for me? Am I going to die? Are you just trying to make this a beautiful final day for me? Bless you you beautiful show.
The show even sends us off with a wonderfully dumb scene of Bulk and Skull trying to act like gentlemen. They're dressed up in suits and talk in a foppish manner towards Ms. Applebee. They present her with a gift that she demands they open for her, causing them to be sprayed with a bunch of silly string because they couldn't help but be asshole idiots. It's a really nonsensical goofball moment, but I've had so much fun and I got to see Bulk wear a fake soul patch. What else could I possibly need in life?
Well maybe ONE thing.
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia: Identical Twin Golems
Personal Thoughts
This episode is just...MWAH. It's exactly what I need. Action, silliness, and some actual heart for good measure. Mighty Morphin Mutants may just be my favorite episode of Season 1. Other than that dumbass Power Weapons replacement scene there isn't anything that sticks out in my mind that I would want changed. Maybe give Trini a few more lines, but now I'm just being unreasonable.
The amount this episode surpasses A Bad Reflection On You by is indescribable. While that episode was by no means bad, this episode completely demolishes it on every level. The fights are better, the action is actually able to be followed, the music is better, the choreography is superior, and even the monster leading the fake Rangers is more interesting. Twin Man was a glitter mouthed chump. Commander Crayfish actually put up a decent fight all while mocking the shit out of the Power Rangers. Now he's burning in hell for being a dirty shellfish. C'est la vie.
As for notes of the Zyu2 portion, I've covered most of what I wanted to say already. Using the Sword of Darkness/Unmorphed Weapons for the Mutant Rangers was a complete masterstroke, and they managed to make a Power Blaster out of those unrelated props actually look pretty sharp too.
In the GIF of the Putties morphing, I get a kick out of the fact they're doing the Zyuranger morphing poses. It's very similar to how the Power Rangers morph, just with an extra bit of flourish in flipping the Morpher around. Also kind of interesting is how the Putties Morphers are supposed to be shaped like pentagrams, but the close up of the Morpher used in the morphing sequence is digitally altered to make it a flat gray like surface instead. Because Japan doesn't know how pissy American's get about religious stuff.
Reading over the script for this episode there's a note to cut a shot of Green Ranger reacting to his Mutant counterpart in the Sentai footage. Obviously because he had already encountered it during the unmorphed fight in the park earlier. This little bit of attention to detail is when Power Rangers works best to me. Using the Sentai footage to suit your storytelling needs and trimming stuff out that doesn't. It's clever utilization of the footage without just leaning on it and letting it do all the work for you. Really this episode is all I could ever ask for in Power Rangers. This gets my highest rating of all time, five bags of popcorn. Give it a look-see!
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