Power Ranger Rip-Offs And Bits Of Expensive Plastic
Hey guys! There is a trailer for the new Power Rangers movie! Have you seen it?
WOWWEE! Didn’t that just straight up suck! The trailer that is, can’t really judge the film as that trailer showed absolutely nothing. Even The Force Awakens trailer gave us the Falcon at the end! Maybe they are planning on waiting a little bit longer for the big reveal except they are totally not.
Doesn’t matter too much, they have my ticket already. Nostalgia is a powerful marketing tool my friends.
With all this talk of a Hasbro shared universe featuring G.I Joe, M.A.S.K and Micronaughts one can’t help but wonder if Saban’s other properties are up for a joyless, gritty reboot after Power Rangers makes all the coin.
When I was a boy, like most children I used to enjoy smacking two over-priced pieces of carved humanoid shaped plastic together. Not sure how it works nowadays. Last I heard kids are into the Segways and Oculus Rifts and trainer/roller-skate hybrids that make it impossible to visit the shops without returning with at least one injury.
Kids are a lot smarter today too. They are born with a magical video speaker box in their pocket which tells them everything they ever need to know. Us thickos were easier to amuse back in the day, and what a disgustingly brilliant money spinner The Power Rangers were for Saban!
Saban were an Israeli/American company which specialised in dubbing and producing Japanese shows for North American audiences.
Japanese shows, especially children's ones, tend to be as mad as a bag of kangaroo bollocks being slapped on the belly of a break dancing Donald Trump. Super Sentai, a program about masked warriors, was one of these shows. Saban had scenes added with american actors who portrayed the heroes without their helmets on and quicker than you can yell “SABRE-TOOTHED-TIGER!”, The Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers were born.
The Power Rangers had everything a boy could want. Ninjas! Weapons! Robots! Dinosaurs! Robot dinosaurs which could join together to form a giant robot ninja which rode upon a giant robot dinosaur! Amy Jo Johnson in pink spandex! EVERYTHING A BOY COULD WANT!
I owned quite a few of the smaller toys when I was younger. I had the action man sized red, green, black and white ranger (the latter of which screamed “RANGERS! POWER UP!” when you pushed his belt buckle. Kink.) I owned the Megazord! Which spilt up into smaller dinozords! Sorry about all the exclamation points but one feels it is needed after the word zord! I had some of the weapons and of course, the morpher. It’s only now as I am older I truly understand how much money Power Rangers robbed off my poor old parents. They were good toys though! Quality goods, my white ranger still screams to this day so at least they didn’t hand over their hard earned money for a cup of piss.
After the popularity of Power Rangers, Saban searched different Japanese shows to Americanfy and exploit. Today we are looking at three of the best, and by best I mean bizarre, loud, confusing crap.
V.R Troopers
Virtual reality has been the next big thing for about thirty years now, and with the Oculus Rift finally available, the Virtual reality dream has now become a virtual reality reality.
In 1994 we were introduced to the V.R Troopers. Ryan Steele, Kaitlin Starr and J.B Reese were three pals who taught karate when one day, after trying to discover what happened to Ryan’s missing father, they discover a top-secret lab full of V.R Technology! Naturally they become superheroes.
Like Power Rangers the american actors had the costumes but all the action scenes were taken from Japanese shows. Unlike Power Rangers all the action scenes were taken from a mish mash of many, many different japanese shows and the resulting children's TV action adventure was an amazingly beautiful cluster fuck.
Because Ryan’s character was originally from a different show to Kaitlin and J.B there were no action shots of the three fighting together, so each week would centre around a story of why the three were fighting separately.
The only time the trio would ruck together is when they entered “BATTLEGRID” mode. These would be the only action scenes shot in America and it would be done so on the cheap (what else would you expect). Nowadays V.R means endless possibilities with the only limit being your imagination. Back then it meant a room with a curtain and three repainted red ranger costumes.
As if this series, who if I didn’t know any better I would say was produced by Albert Steptoe, wasn’t laughably embarrassing enough Saban underestimated how much Japanese footage they would use each episode and ran out extremely quick. So not only did you have pretty much the same story being told each week of Ryan being split up from the others, it looked exactly the same too as footage was reused countless time. If you press repeat on episode one of the dvd you would have to have the eyes of a hawk to tell the difference from the long play.
The biggest joke was that V.R Troopers was somehow a hit. As I mentioned earlier children back then were idiots. They don’t mind repetition. This fact is proven by the Tellytubbies lazy producers and that “AGAIN AGAIN” bullshit. There were a shit ton of gadgets, villains and vehicles which lead to a shit ton of toys which lead to a shit ton of money. Saban started work on their next show immediately.
Oh yeah, there was also a talking dog sidekick.
Masked Rider
Saban’s next “Lets throw mad shit together and see what the fuck happens” show was the Masked Rider.
The over-complicated plot to the bugged helmet ones origins can really be simplified with one over-used meme.
Prince Dex is sent to earth from an alien world to protect it from his evil uncle Count Dregon (it’s like dragon you see, but with an e instead of an a. A bit like how Eragon is like dragon, but with an e instead of a d. Do you see).
Dex’s powers include super strength, super speed, telekinesis and the ability to materialize a rather fabulous crystal onto his forehead.
When Dex shouts out the words “ECTOPHASE ACTIVATE!” he transforms into the Masked Rider!
One of the cool things about Masked Rider…wait that sounds wrong. The only cool thing about Masked Rider…no, that’s still not right.
The thing about Masked Rider is he actually debuted on the Power Rangers before spinning off into his own TV show, outdoing Marvel/Netflix by almost 20 years!
In fact, the Riders grandfather is the one who created Alpha-5. You may think that makes his elder the true villain for having a hand in the construction of the universe’s most annoying fuck-bot, but A-5 is as cool as young Sean Connery drinking a slush puppy and kicking a polar bear in the dick compared to MR’s side chum, Ferbus
Just to clarify, that is Ferbus, not Furby. Furby wasn’t created for another three years. Besides, Furbys are designed to be companions for loser children, not to sit in bushes and spy on them.
Big Bad Beetleborgs
If you have made it this far then I thank you, It must have been hard, not to snap, as I am a guy, who tends to overuse, commas. So you can imagine how much of a headache I get every time I read the title “Big Bad Beetleborgs”
The BBB’s were three children who discovered a haunted mansion. Inside they freed a wacky wanker named Flabber from an old organ. Flabber is a phantasm who was birthed by Jay Leno after the devil came to collect his due. He decides to grant the children one wish for freeing him. They ask to become their favourite comic-book heroes, the Beetleborgs!
As we all know, you should never trust the devil, and you ESPECIALLY never trust Jay Leno. So when he gave our heroes their fantabulous powers he also created the Beetleborgs arch-villians the Magnavores!!! No it’s up to our heroes to protect the world and yada yada yada, using their special powers yada yada yada They have many gadgets and veicles and yada yada yada and stupid sidekicks yada.
Actually in all fairness the Beetleborgs had the best sidekicks in the Saban extended universe.
Mums, Frankenbeans, Count Fangula and Wolfie are as close to the Universal Monsters as you can get without a court case. Lets call them the Galaxian Creatures.
Another monster was little Ghoul, who lived in the basement. She was the niece of Death and a Grim Reaper in training who loved collecting things. I find Little Ghouls backstory a lot more compelling than anything else in Big Bad Beetleborgs and I think that concept would have lent itself to a far superior show. Unfortunately there are no known batshit crazy Japanese children’s TV programs about giant robot karate grim reapers, but since typing this sentence it has become my lifelong mission to find one.
Thanks for reading!
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