Awesome Award #2

I know. It's been AGES since I last dished out an Awesome Award. But here we go, after a long time on the sidelines, the awesome award goes to.....THE POWER RANGERS - of the Mighty Morphin' variety.

I mean seriously, as a kid, how freaking awesome were they! I was flicking through the channels for Maria when I caught a glimpse of them on Jetix...formally Fox Kids. Looking back on it now, they suffered from severe overacting and cheesy dialogue, but as a kid you don't notice these things!

It got me thinking about it though - the whole Power Rangers thing I mean - and there are SO many flaws with it. I know this is supposed to be about how great they are but I can't let myself get on with that until I've addressed the problems. Firstly, the villains are so bad. And I don't mean evil bad, I mean lame. They always send one monster, to the same city every freaking episode. Not to mention that every episode is the same. They're in school, a monster arrives, they fight Putties, morph, blow up the monster with their combi-weapon thing, monster gets bigger, they kill it with a megazord. Of course I never noticed this as a kid, nor did I notice how they never seemed to take part in school classes despite the fact they spent all their time not fighting monster there. Also, the yellow ranger got it pretty bad, she only got daggers while everyone else got vastly superior weapons. Or notice how the Green rangers shield never offered him any extra protection?

ANYWAY, ranting now over. Power Rangers had everything as a kid, action, good triumphing over evil, cool robots (as everyone knows called Zords), magic (how their powers existed), diverse monsters and anything else you could want. It had the comedy relief in the characters of Bulk and Skull and it has recently come to my attention that the Red Ranger was the heart throb of many a young girl (sources available on request). What made Mighty Morphin (MM) stand head and shoulders above all the iterations that have followed it is that it was one continous story. I stopped watching it when it changed its name to Power Rangers Zeo, mainly due to the changing of peoples colours and what not. I can't comment on the standard of modern Power Rangers - I don't watch them - but to see that MM were still on Jetix this many years later is a testament to how good it was (and still is). The character of Lord Zedd was pretty terrifying when Season 2 came about, and while some things did change, it still retained its appeal to the mass audience of kids. At that time I didn't even know shows came in "seasons". To me the transition was just like another episode.

Everyone I knew watched MMPR. I can even remember getting the original Megazord for a birthday present. It's somewhere up in the attic now, but I can assure you it's in mint condition. Not that I would've kept that in mind when I was smaller, but the toys were quite robust and I've recently learned that the American toys were actually used for certain scenes in the show! Also, looking back on it, I can appreciate the use of stock footage. It's always great to see stock footage, but again, it's not something you notice when your 4 years old!

I guess the fact that Power Rangers receives a new iteration every year is a sign of how good the brand name is, but kids nowadays might not even realise that it all started with MM. It wouldn't surprise me if some actually thought MM was just another version of the show like the one's they've become familiar with. And don't forget, MM was good enough to get a feature length movie, which quite simply rocked! Even today the Theme Tune is pretty rockin, and who can forget the opening credits beginning with Zordan saying "Recruit a team of teenagers with attitude". VERY cheesy, but so cheesy it's cool!

I'm sure you can find episodes online on Youtube or something if you feel like reliving your childhood, I know I have...woops, shouldn't have said that.

~The Damo