Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Acting for Two: Jason David Frank has done this twice!
  • Actor Allusion: Rito had a tendency to call Zedd "Ed". The guy who wore the Zedd costume was named Ed Neil.
  • Author Existence Failure: Because of Thuy Trang's death in 2001, we'll most likely never see Trini again.
  • Beam Me Up, Scotty: Johnny Yong Bosch has said that people are always asking him to say "Morphinominal". Adam never said that during the show, that kind of slang was phased out before the end of the first season while Adam didn't show up until the middle of the second season. He would eventually say it years later in the "Once A Ranger" Reunion Show.
  • The Danza: Catherine Sutherland as Katherine Hillard.
    • Arguably Austin St John, who revealed at Power Morphicon that "Austin" is a stage name, and that his real name is Jason.
  • Dawson Casting: Do you honestly know any high schoolers that look that old? Well, out of the original five, Austin St John was 18 and Thuy Trang was 19, but Walter Emanuel Jones and Amy Jo Johnson were 22 and David Yost was 24. It would have been much more believable if they made them in college.
    • Made worse by the fact that the characters were retroactively de-aged from seniors to freshmen after the first season was a success. Originally Austin St. John and Thuy Trang (and Jason David Frank (19 at the time)) were going to be plausibly the same age as their character.
    • The second season wasn't as bad, but still fairly notable. Of the four (including Kat) replacements, Johnny Yong Bosch was 18, Karan Ashley was 19, Steve Cardenas was 20, and Catherine Sutherland was also 20. Add in the remaining 2, and you get another 20-year-old (Jason) and a 25-year-old (David). Before Kat, however, Amy was 23 and still on the show.
  • Directed by Cast Member: A few episodes were directed by Paul Schrier (Bulk).
  • Direct to Video: Alpha's Magical Christmas, Lord Zedd's Monster Heads, and The Good, the Bad and the Stupid: The Misadventures of Bulk & Skull.
  • Executive Meddling: Not of their own choice but parents found Zedd to be too scary at the start (who could blame them, in the introduction in addition to his appearance. The guy had a snake wrapped around his arm.) Thus, the producers had to tone him down later to make him more of a laughable villain. It wasn't too much to dampen his character as he was still a force to be reckoned with however.
  • Fan Nickname: Tommy is "Jeebus".
  • Hey, It's That Voice!!: Robert Axelrod, who plays Lord Zedd, also plays Finster, as well as Armadillomon and Wizardmon in Digimon.
  • Lost Episode: The original Pilot for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was advertised as such on Fox Kids. Notable changes include the casting of the Yellow Ranger as Audri DuBois as opposed to Thuy Trang, Zordon being known as "Zoltar", and the Zords being referred to as "Droids".
    • There's also a second variation on the pilot, which Tony Oliver shows exclusively at conventions.
  • Lying Creator: In a roundabout way. The popular fandom rumor that Lokar appeared in the Bloom of Doom battle via stock footage to use his breath of doom on the Bloom of Doom to create De Bloom was started by Amit Bhaumik, who while he didn't work on MMPR was story editor for Power Rangers Wild Force this rumor was debunked once and for all when Stunt Coordinator and editor Jeff Pruitt revealed uncut Zyu2 footage which revealed not only the Bloom of Doom (not Debloom) fight with Megazord and the lack of Lokar but that the Zyu2 footage didn't even feature stock footage (instead black screens appears to allow Saban to fill in with stock footage).
  • Mean Character, Nice Actor: Bulk and Skull are two terrible bullies, but their actors (Paul Schrier and Jason Narvy, respectively) are said to be some of the nicest and most fun guys you could ever hope to meet. One PSA even did An Aesop rather effectively about this. Of worthy note is that as the show goes on, Bulk and Skull go from being annoying jerks to comic relief, and as time passes even further, they go from okay guys to actual heroes.
  • The Other Darrin: Rita and Scorpina became unusable for awhile after Season 1, once all the Zyuranger footage with Machiko Soga and Ami Kawai ran out. Rita would became a regular character again after Carla Perez was cast for the role (with Barbara Goodson still providing her voice), whereas Scorpina only returned once since the producers were unable to get a hold of her replacement actress (Sabrina Lu) for more than one episode ("Goldar's Vice-Versa").
  • The Other Marty: Audri DuBois was originally cast as Trini in the original pilot. Also Skull was originally played by an actor other then Jason Narvy; while he was not named in the pilot, his biker attire and crush in Kimberly identify him as the same character. However, Bulk and Skull's personalities were reversed in the pilot.
  • The Pete Best: Brad Hawkins was originally set to play the White Ranger, who was originally intended to be a new character separate from Tommy the Green Ranger. Due to Tommy's immense popularity on Power Rangers, Tommy was instead written back on the show as the White Ranger, while Hawkins was given the lead role on VR Troopers, which was originally intended to be a vehicle for Jason David Frank.
  • Post Script Season: Season 1 after "Doomsday". It was supposed to end with a shot of the Rangers sealing Rita away again, and is why Tommy makes a cameo appearance at the end. The rest of the season was new footage created by Toei specifically for Power Rangers.
  • Prop Recycling: Old monster suits were often reused and altered in some fashion to create new monsters.
    • Mr. Ticklesneezer was painted blue and dressed in a Santa Claus-like outfit to become Grumble the Elf (who was more of a friendly elf creature rather than an evil monster - but then, so was Mr. Ticklesneezer).
    • Snizard was painted gray and given a cobra hood to become the Cobra Monster in Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue.
    • Chunky Chicken had his feathers plucked and had armor and a helmet added to become Turkey Jerk.
    • Grumble Bee had his red sections painted silver and was given buck teeth to become Waspicable (a peaceful monster who didn't want to harm anybody) in Power Rangers in Space.
    • Pirantishead, RoboGoat and Turbanshell were repainted and had a bunch of crap added to them to become random alien monsters in an episode of Power Rangers Turbo.
    • Primator was painted whitish and had extra fur added to him to become the yeti-like Snow Monster.
    • Salaguana was chopped into little bits and used as reptilian armor for Triter, a heroic alien warrior from Power Rangers Zeo.
    • Silver Horns was painted green and had a tongue added (which was odd, as Silver Horns didn't really have a mouth) to become Repellator.
    • The Wizard of Deception's rat monsters were actually leftover, unused suits from the movie (they were replaced by the Oozemen).
    • Inciserator was made up from the head of an unused Kakuranger monster and the body from Merrick the Barbaric (whose own episode hadn't even aired yet).
    • Tube Monster was Pipebrain repainted white and blue, but that is actually from Gosei Sentai Dairanger to show the cycle starting all over again with an almost identical type of monster.
  • Schedule Slip: Because sports always preempted the show (in some time zones at least), the "Green with Evil" airing inserted long hiatuses between episodes - the five-episode miniseries lasted over two months. And then the FIFA World Cup put the show on hiatus for yet another month.
    • The last four episodes were preempted on the West Coast for Little League. They can't be shown at a later date, because Nickelodeon took over the broadcast rights before the episodes could be re-scheduled.
  • Science Marches On: The Tyrannosaurus Dinozord has an outdated "kangaroo" upright stance.
  • Unintentional Period Piece: It's a product of the 1990s and it shows.
  • Urban Legend of Zelda: The long-persisting rumors of Lokar appearing during the unaired Bloom of Doom Zord battle were finally put to rest when stunt coordinator Jeff Pruitt released the unaired Zyu2 footage in February 2014.
  • What Could Have Been: At some point before Season 2, there were plans to introduce new versions of the Dinozords, as well as various different takes on the White Tigerzord (as can be seen by these pieces of concept art [dead link] from a Super Sentai Giant Robot artbook). These plans were aborted when it turned out that adapting mecha footage from another Sentai proved to be more economical for Saban than commissioning Toei to make more new footage for them
    • A redesigned version of Titanus the Carrier Zord was also planned to be introduced for Season 3. Various concept arts were drawn, but Titanus was left mostly unchanged in Season 3 (aside for the addition of the Dragonzord's chest plate, since the Dragonzord was absent during Season 3). Some of those designs were made for Power Rangers in Space, and indeed a "Space Titanus" toy was in fact released, though it was never used in the show.
    • A Samuraizord (shown in the same image above with the Titanus redesigns) was considered for the second season as well. The Samuraizord would've been very similar to the Red Dragon Thunderzord, in which it could transform between a Tyrannosaurus and a humanoid robot. Another reject concept art shows a robot that was formed from three bikes.
    • Dan Southworth (Eric Myers on Power Rangers Time Force) stated at Power Morphicon that he had auditioned for the role of Adam back during production of the second season.
    • Saban originally considered adapting other Sentai seasons prior to Zyuranger into Power Rangers, as early as Choudenshi Bioman (source). Other Sentai seasons, such as Kousoku Sentai Turboranger and Choujin Sentai Jetman are rumored to had been considered as well.
    • At one point, the writers actually considered having Goldar eventually overthrow Rita instead of creating Lord Zedd
    • Producer Johnathan Tzachor originally wanted Tommy to die in Jason's arms at the end of The Green Candle part 2 to match Zyuranger. He was overuled and this idea never made it to scripting

With regards to the 1995 movie:

  • Deleted Scene: Actors at Conventions have commented on various scenes filmed that didn't make it into the movie, such as the Rangers doing some preliminary training between being given the ninja robes by Dulcea and traversing into the forest. In particular, Tommy's was apparently seen practicing some superhuman kicks similar to the corkscrew kick he used to finish off the last gargoyle.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: Ivan Ooze is Rene Belloq!
  • The Other Darrin: Rita is portrayed by a different actress, though, thanks to her voice already being redubbed, she sounds just the same as she does on the show.
  • The Other Marty: Mariska Hargitay (Yes, that one) was cast as Dulcea, after the original actress had to back out to remove a cyst, then she returned when filming ran longer than expected.
  • Throw It In: The Take That to The Brady Bunch Reunion was made up on the spot by Paul Freeman. Obviously, the directors decided to keep it in. It turned into one of the funniest moments in the franchise's history.
  • Troubled Production: Budget issues, time constraints, and creative conflicts abounded.
  • What Could Have Been: The producers originally intended for the Rangers' masks to not have their visors and mouth pieces, feeling that it removed any sense of personality. They realized that their changes were counter-intuitive to the point of wearing a helmet because they were supposed to be an elite, faceless fighting force. They went overbudget and over schedule to refilm the necessary scenes. This actually resulted in the second season of the show overlapping with the film production (they were supposed to finish filming it when they returned home to America), the last few episodes were filmed in Australia.
    • Austin St. John (Jason), Walter Jones (Zack), and Thuy Trang (Trini) were originally slated to appear in the film, but due to their contract dispute halfway through Season 2, they were dropped.
    • After Ivan blew up his Tengu Warriors for failing, he created a colorful-feathered "Queen Tengu" out of their feathers.
    • Catherine Sutherland (Katherine Hillard, the second Pink Ranger) auditioned to play Dulcea. Evidently they liked her enough to bring her to America for a role. Sutherland has lived in America since.
    • Mariska Hargitay was cast to play Dulcea after the original actress, Gabrielle Fitzpatrick, had to back out due to a scheduled surgery. The producers didn't feel that Hargitay was working out and was replaced with Fitzpatrick after she recovered. Due to budget issues, she wasn't able to refilm an extended sequence where Dulcea trained the Rangers in their ninja outfits at her home. As such in the movie the Rangers seem to just sit and stare at the monument for a time before deciding to go.
    • Ooze originally created a team of rat-men to battle the Rangers at the construction yard. The director and producers felt they looked horrible and very low-budget (their goal was to create a high-budget looking movie) and such convinced Saban Entertainment to replace them with the more creepy looking Ooze-men. The rat-men costumes were later used in the "Return of the Green Ranger" three-parter on the TV series.
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