This probably slipped past many people’s radar as the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers series ended its long run with episode 700.
Last weekend after 700 episodes and 17 seasons, the long-running Power Ranger series came to an end. The karate-miming, putty-patroller-beating group reached massive highs with toy sales and ratings in childrens’ television, and also terrible lows with the tragic and dark crime that involved a past child star.
I never got into the series myself, as giant transforming robots seemed to have already been played out. What did make sense about the initial American series was Amy Jo Johnson.
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Will impure thoughts send me to Hell?
Amy Jo Johnson is 39 years old…so, no, you will not go to Hell. And if you do, you and I can hang out.
Amy Jo Johnson was 22 years old when the show started, so I don’t think going to hell is in anyone’s fate. :)
Whew! That’s good to know. Thanks. :-)
*Keeps On Thinking…*
I was a huge fan of Power Rangers when I was a kid… still have all the toys, even.
And yeah, Amy Jo Johnson… yeah…
Sad to hear this. Not that I watch the show anymore but I was really into it when it started as a kid in the 90s. And Amy Jo Johnson was always haaaawt.
“The karate-miming, putty-patroller-beating group reached massive highs with toy sales and ratings in childrens’ television, and also terrible lows with the tragic and dark crime that involved a past child star.”
I hardley thing a guy that is accused of murder that appeared on ONE EPISODE of the show as the kid the PR’s where help practice soccer (his only television role mind you) should qualify as even being a blip on the screen of this series. I think the death of the Yellow Ranger, Thuy Trang, in 2001 would be more of a “terrible low”.
It was entertaining for the fans, and made a lot of kids happy and parents start drinking.
Giant Tran-forming Robots are *always* cool. Philistines. ;)
But True. The era of Power Rangers is gone, replaced by the era of moronic animated characters (Sponge Bob, Chowder, Flapjack, etc.) Rejoyce. ;)
I didn’t even know the show was still on. I haven’t seen it in more than a decade. What channel was it on??
robbydzwonar@aim.com
It was on ABC Kids. I think they removed it though. If you wanna look, the last iteration of the show was Power Rangers RPM; the Japanese original was Go-Ongers; and the show was okay for a Power Rangers show.
I’ll now go back to watching my sentai thru downloads.
Bummer. Disney didn’t really know what to do with this series, I think. I think they knew that it wasn’t really being watched but that kids were buying the toys (one woman I work with is genuinely surprised how much her son loves the toys even though he’s never seen a single PR episode). And putting it on Saturdays with no cable reruns airing at a timeslot preempted for sports a lot probably didn’t help.
Even when I was a kid and watched it, I thought it was stupid, but there were a few series where they tried putting on a serious face, and they came pretty damn close to the tone of a fun comic series. In fact, I consider a few iterations to be pretty good superhero teams that could’ve been explored more apart from the TV show, but that’ll never happen.
I’ll bet this series was responsible for getting more than a few people into martial arts or Japanese culture, too. So it’s sad to hear that, after all this time, it’s over.
BTW, I’m with Stacy – a terrible low is one of the original main actresses dying on the way to a wedding, not a bit-part actor from one episode arrested for murder. Where’d that press release come from that that’s the worst thing they could find?
Huge fan here. I have almost every Megazord proudly displayed in my basement. Disney ran the franchise into the ground. Everything after Countdown to Destruction was going to be hard to follow anyway.
However, I don’t see this mentioned here but I have heard that they are re-running the original series. Maybe a new generation of kids will get into it.
I count my blessings that this horrible show is finally off the air and no longer making todays children dumber. They took all the best parts of good shows like Voltron and made them cheesey and hokey. If there was ever a show that deserved to rot in the lowest pit of Hades this was it.
What did this show teach a couple of generations?
1. When trouble arrives you can kick and punch your way out.
2. When you cant solve your own problems call in 4 of your friends to fight 1 guy.
3. If that doesnt solve your problem then the 5 of you need to pull out guns and knives.
4. If that doesn’t solve your problem then pull out vehicles, transform into a robot and one shot it with a sword. Problem solved.
I always wondered why they didnt just go right for the robot mode and get it over with, its not like they ever beat the bad guy without throwing out the alpha card.
Joy to the world, rest in peace.
Because Zordon instructed them to only use the megazord when its absolutely necessary in the first episode (don’t ask me why I remember that).
Its funny you should bring up what the show teaches kids, because they used to have PSAs at the end of the show that says the exact opposite of everything you just said.
Seneca, what exactly do GI Joe, Transformers, and Voltron teach kids? Or maybe you’d prefer kids watching Hannah Montana?
Kids were frequently influenced by Power Rangers to take up martial arts. A little bit of learning in the fields self-defense and self-confidence (not to mention fitness!) surely are not bad things.
And yes Angela, Zordon said that they could never escalate a fight, so they only used the Megazords to match the bad guys when they grew.
I think w/Seneca it’s just a case of hating something that’s not aimed at your generation and having the “nostalgia blinders” on – i.e. refusing to admit that the stuff you loved as a child wasn’t good while refusing to see new works as anything but bad. I tried watching Voltron recently, and the animation was so bad it was painful. I will never speak ill of Filmation’s cost-cutting again. But that’s what he grew up with, so that’s his standard of excellence. It’s a sad situation, really, since you wind up shutting yourself out to good new stuff and, as we can see here, come off as a jerk about doing so.
I count my blessings that this horrible show is finally off the air and no longer making todays children dumber.
Feh. Nothing wrong with Power Rangers. It was no dumber than any of the Disney princesses that some seem to highly treasure, for example. Also worth nothing, the show had some decent social lessons onboard and didn’t always hit you over the head with the “PLOT POINT” board the way so many kids shows did. Witness the subtle (for kids TV anyway) transformation of social malcontent Tommy from enemy to friend to valued team member…
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