Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was the cheesy, high-kicking, 90s phenomenon that changed kids’ TV for ever. Now, it’s back. Its team talk death, controversy – and fighting a giant purse
In the mid 1980s, the Israeli-American media mogul Haim Saban was stuck in a Tokyo hotel with nothing to watch on TV. Until, that is, he came across five spandex-wearing masked superheroes battling outlandish rubber monsters – and decided to adapt Japanese show, Super Sentai, for US TV, as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
When its pilot made it to air in 1993, viewers were treated to an evil space witch escaping moon imprisonment to battle an android-assisted character who was simultaneously a wizard and a big head in a jar. There were giant mech robots known as Zords, plus the martial arts and acrobatic skills of their operators – “five teenagers with attitude”. Their grandiose hope? To save the Earth from the forces of evil – and hopefully keep the actors playing them away from the breadline.
