Close your eyes and imagine if you will that you’re all the way back in the 1990s, in California, wearing a brightly colored costume that was supposedly given to you by some alien ghost. Across from you are a dozen other people in costumes. Some of them are dressed as robots taking orders from a pimped out monkey with wings who, in turn, takes orders from some evil space witch who lives on the moon. This is an American production but you’ve also gotta match it up with preexisting Japanese footage so that the studio can save money. Meanwhile you’re doing all this for a salary that’s barely better than what you could get from working at your local McDonalds. So you take a deep breath, put on your helmet, and you and the gold-flying-monkey and his robots all get on your markers and…
Well, it’s time to act.
It’s time to be a Power Ranger.
When I was a kid “actors” didn’t exist to me. To me, there was no Michael Keaton. There was only Batman. There was no Christopher Reaves. There was only Superman. When the movie ended, these men would keep on being Batman and Superman and I’d figure out what they were up to whenever the next movie came out. And whenever I came home from school I’d turn on the TV and there’d they be: five (and then six) teenagers with attitude who beat the crap out of monsters while riding robot dinosaurs that combined into an even bigger robot with a sword. A SWORD, GUYS!
For twenty-two or more minutes a day, they became my best friends and I wanted nothing more than to be like them. A Power Ranger! I got the action figures and I watched all the seasons up to Dino Thunder. I inevitably realized that these characters weren’t actually real, but they were still real to me. Each new team of Power Rangers was a new batch of best friends I couldn’t wait to get to know. They were always there.
But then, one day, I wasn’t.
I know I stuck around for all of Dino Thunder, mostly to see my boy Tommy (though the rest of the cast for that season is super solid), and I caught a smattering of episodes for the next season, SPD. But I then did what most teenage boys tend to do: convinced myself that I was too cool for this kiddy shit-
(No, I wasn’t))
-and that Power Rangers was cheap and silly-
(Yes and yes)
-and I needed to move on to more grown up stuff!
And so my love for all things PR was eaten away and turned into a memory by unearned teenage hubris…
Until Netflix. Near every single season of Power Rangers is streaming on Netflix. Now in my twenties, my taste in television’s…better? But when I spotted Power Rangers the starved ghost of my inner child whispered in the back of my mind, “Dooooooooooo iiiiiiiiit. DOOOOOO IIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!” So I grabbed some Pop-Tarts (because what adult doesn’t have Pop-Tarts?), plopped down on the couch, and watched an episode. And another. And another. And, guys, this is the silliest shit EVAH! And yet the more I watched the more respect I gained for the actors on screen.
“It’s for kids,” is an excuse I loathe mostly because creators tend to use it to try to escape criticism. Talking down to a kid is just an all-around shitty thing to do. And yeah, sure, kid-me wasn’t developed enough to follow intricate plotlines or even notice the seams on the monster costumes. But you know what kids do respond to? Sincerity. Effort. Now I’m not gonna stand on this hill and call Power Rangers an unrecognized masterpiece. There were too many things going against it, especially back in the day. This was still the 90s and back then Power Rangers was more of an experiment than anything. Recycling footage from a Sentai show (back when Sentai was a purely eastern thing) into a western superhero show was done, first and foremost, to save money. The action set pieces were already shot so the creators just needed new faces to fill the extra time. It’s sad to think that these actors were basically an afterthought. But good-even great-things can come from nothing.
Even to this day, nearly every Power Rangers team is made up of relatively unknown actors, with more than few just hired cause they know martial arts. Imagine (DO IT!) that this is your first real acting job…
Actually that’d be fucking AWESOME!
…….Where was I?
Right. Acting. I can’t comprehend how hard acting must be when the world, and even the writers of the actual show, are already writing you off. Don’t get me wrong. Some of the later seasons definitely feel more like commercials to sell toys and Halloween costume. But-in those seasons in particular-I admire when an actor is noticeably trying. Again, sincerity is a big part of Power Ranger’s appeal. Power Rangers is goofy as hell, but when the actors go along with it, spouting some of the dumbest dialogue with a straight face, tears running down their faces because their space-ghost-dad is dying…Respect.
It’s that level of sincerity in the face of ulterior motives, ridicule, and outright indifference that revived the little kid in me. And for a couple of hours a day, while munching on Pop-Tarts, I have my old friends back.
The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers are real again.
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