Ninja Storm is ending already? It doesn't seem that long ago when it started. The one Ninja Storm power ranger that I'm going to miss is Dustin. He was a cutie. The one thing that bothered me about him was the color that he wore. That yellow color made him seem a bit wussy.

Other than the actor who played Tommy, one of the original rangers, who pops up every so often, what happens to all the former rangers? Do they ever come back to guest star in the succeeding power ranger series? Or do we never hear from them again?

There was a continuity destroying crossover in "Wild Force" called "Forever Red" featuring all the Red rangers of the time. It's on the Ultimate Ranger DVD.

Dino Thunder starts February 14th on ABC Family and February 21st on ABC Kids.

I was talking with a friend about it, how Tommy's been white, red, green and now black and we agreed that at this rate Tommy will have worked his way through all the colors. He added, "Tommy's a one-man rainbow." (Insert your own HoYay! joke here.)

Tom Hern (Ram) is joining the cast. Not a ranger, not a villain, just the jerky stand around I guess. Whatever I'm psyched.

Tribe/Power Ranger synergy makes me oh so happy.

Since they're filming in New Zealand, there's a lot of Tribe people joining the cast.
Doug Sloan promises this one will be more serious than the silly "Ninja Storm". But Katrina Devine still won't read my love letters. ;D

From a while back, but, StevenEastoria:
I thought I remember reading that the Yellow Ranger from the original Japanese program was indeed a man.

Well, I was never really legitimately young enough to watch this show without ridicule. I'm 23 now, and I was in 8th grade when the show first premiered. I took some heat for watching it, that's for sure. I always loved Billy--I have such a thing for "dorky-cute" guys, and at the time I liked Jason. Now, in retrospect, Jason just looked like a frat boy, and I much prefer Tommy. Sweet, sweet, Tommy. They're outright saying it in all the promos and everything, so do we really need to spoiler the fact that he's coming back?

I watched semi-regularly thoughout the MMPR and Zeo years, then didn't watch Turbo (I seem to vaguely recall trying to watch the first ep, and not being able to get into it at all. I think I blamed it on not having seen the movie.) Then I watched the second half of Power Rangers in Space. I certainly figured out pretty quickly that Astronema was really Karone. And I definitely had a huge thing for Zhane. Justin Nimmo had a whole Brad Pitt thing going on, but I think he was cuter. At one time I think he was rumored to be under consideration for a part on Passions, but I can't remember which character. Didn't happen, anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter much.

And now I'm watching Ninja Storm on occasion. If Lothor is Sensei's brother, then whose kids are Marah and Kapri, Lother's nieces? Well, anyway, I'm just totally psyched for Dino Thunder! And I'm a 23 year old college graduate.

I was spoilering it for people who actually want to be surprised, and aren't watching the promos, just going to tune in for the series premiere.
Pretty much, in any source sentai, if there's no skirt, it's a dude. Works out better for us American viewers when the actress in question wears the uniform.
They never covered where Marah and Kapri came from, but in my world, I'm their baby's daddy.
In the source Sentai, Abaranger, the Black Ranger's morpher is broken for the first eight episodes. The White Ranger is a bad-guy named AbareKiller,(of course he turns good later) and there's no Sixth Ranger, just a power-up of the Red Ranger called AbareMax. It remains to be seen if they're going to make a sixth ranger from scratch, like the Titanium Ranger (in the Sentai it was a sexy female Gold Ranger,GoGoV), or make AbareMax a sixth ranger. You never know about these things.)

I will probably be posting short, hilarious recaps. This show isn't too plot intensive, but that's not why we watch it.

Should go well with my short, hilarious commentary.

Hey, the show is all about teamwork!!!! Go,go Snark Power!!

Alright, alright, hold up.

I will shamefully admit to having followed MMPR pretty closely up until about PR In Space. And that was good stuff, I just couldn't do it anymore. Can anyone please explain the other ones to me? Or link me to something or something? Ninja Storm? Time Force? Jigga what? Do it for jase-bot. He love you long time.

I actually would prefer a darker show. I thought they were gravitating towards that with PRIS and I thought that was cool. Could dark have been bad?

I still want to know how the fuck Tommy Oliver became an academic. He was hot and he was a favorite of mine, but we all know Tommy was a simple-ass fool. He gave up Kim for Kat!

WEHT to Jason, anyway? Red Ranger/Gold Ranger? Why did they ditch him right after bringing him back?

I actually thought that little Justin bastard got a raw deal. Him and, uh, the other black girl. The one from Africa. Tanya? I loved her. She felt those kicks and punches!

Oh, I forgot to mention. Do you all know that Cerina Vincent (Lost Galaxy Yellow Ranger) played Areola, the always-naked foreign exchange student in Not Another Teen Movie? It was a great way to showcase her overwhelming acting abilities.

No idea who she played on the later PRs, but Cerina Vincent was pretty good in Cabin Fever.

I remember in the Time Force movie, that when littl' ol' Justin morphed into the Blue Ranger, he actually grew up in size, and then looked down at himself, saw how big he had grown, and jumped up and down and cheered and stuff, and then ran off to help fight.
Of course, this was all with his helmet on, so it could be some inane body double who was just told to get excited. But it comes off looking so, so stupid.

Do I know about Cerina Vincent? Do I? Do I?? I have screen captures of her Oscar-winning scenes. :) Katherine Sutherland (Kat) was naked in "The Cell" Sasha Williams (LightSpeed Yellow/Kelsey Winslow) was naked in a bad werewolf B-movie called "Darkwolf", Amy Jo Johnson had a nude scene in "Pursuit of Happiness", and R.I.P, Thuy Trang was naked in one of those "Crow" movies. "City of Angels", IIRC.
The Justin thing is debated to no end,(in other circles) and he was the most hated Ranger. No doubt. The purists (God, there are purists!!;)) must've touched a nerve at Saban, 'cause li'l Justin was history as soon as Power Rangers in Space started. Justin came back, once, in the series, and then we never saw him or his li'l bowlcut hairdo ever again.
If you can't see their face, it's a stuntman. (During Zeo's American-filmed battle scenes it was stuntmen in bad falsies filming Kat's and Tayna's battle scenes)
In Ninja Storm, the kids opened their visors quite a bit (so the actors were in Ranger Costume alot) so we could have the illusion it was always Sally Martin and other fighting in costume.

Ninja Storm? Timeforce? Lightspeed? My head aches.

Holy crap, I tried to get the boyfriend to rent this last night.
We went with Freddy vs. Jason instead.

I was in a play when I was 20, and there was an 8 year old in the show, and since I have a younger brother, I was able to talk PR with him. By then, though, I had missed a few seasons, and as Jase said, Ninja Storm? Turbo? Timeforce? Lightspeed? Sweet little David was happy to make a friend in me and vice versa, but really? I couldn't keep up with him.
How in god's name do these seasons stay interesting?
I wish there was a site that clearly and with good punctuation lists what each American season was a bout and who was in it.

I got away from PR before that Justin abomimation came to light! I saw clips of it and thought it was the worst idea imagine. Who would've thought reality series would come and knocked that from its #1 spot!
Somebody was clearly smoking some bad stuff.

Visit my links up near the first page of the thread, it should help you out. Power Rangers Time Capsule, especially. The series, in this order were:
Mighty Morphin'
Zeo
Turbo
In Space
Lost Galaxy
Lightspeed rescue
Timeforce
Wildforce
Ninja Storm

ETA:Mighty Morphin' had several sub-seasons, The Rangers being turned into little kids, Ninja-Rangers (not to be confused with Ninja Storm), and Mighty Morphin' Alien Rangers. Mostly had to do with ZyuRanger footage running out. Sentai Time Capsule (first post) shows all the good stuff.

DoctorNeon, I didn't see a link that was to what I was looking for.
Your links seemed to be from a Japanese page, maybe? Or maybe I missed it completely. I saw two links in your first post.
I was looking more for a page that has the American seasons and their airings, with their plots and characters and actors.
The two pages I found from you had seasons going back to 1977, unless I'm really mistaken.

So, Mighty Morphin' is the one I remember, with all the subseasons and actors. Those actors stopped after Turbo, right?
Did every season after that have new actors, with footage recycled from Japan?
Was there anything that tied all the seasons together? Or were each season kinda stand alone?
And am I the only one who thought that Rocky from Morphin', while a tad cute, was a terrible actor?

You can find at least some information here, but it's still not quite as complete as what you're looking for.

My bad. I reference the source "Super Sentai" since that's where the costumes, mecha (Zords) and monsters come from. American TV started translating Sentai into Power Rangers starting with 1992's "ZyuRanger" ,(They also used "DaiRanger" (for Thunderzords and Tommy's White Ranger costume, "KakuRanger" (some Zords and Alien Rangers costumes), Zeo was "OhRanger", Turbo was "Carranger", PR:In Space was "MegaRanger", Lightspeed rescue was "GoGoV", Timeforce was "TimeRanger", Wildforce was "GaoRanger", Ninja Storm was "HurricaRanger", and Dino Thunder is based on "AbaRanger". I've found a lot of crappy, useless websites about the American shows, I'll post one if I find a good one, or if somebody beats me to it, I appreciate the help.


And that's right, this delightful dumb fun has been going since the 1970's. Also, Masked Rider was Kamen Rider, Big Bad Beetleborgs was B-fighter and B-fighter Kabuto, and VR Troopers was piecemeal from a lot of different "Metal Heroes" shows like "Space Sheriff".
ETA: Each season was at least tenatively linked to the other ones until Disney bought the franchise and in the first episode of "Ninja Storm" the line of doom was spoken: "Power Rangers? They're only in comic books!" (paraphrased),previous to receiving Ninja Ranger Powers.
Zordon mentored the team through the middle of Turbo, and then left for "Eltar", and "Demetria" took over. Zordon was destroyed by Andros at his request, as shattering his energy tube would "cleanse the galaxy of evil" (not quite.) In "Lost Galaxy", after the kids pulled the "Quasar Sabers" out of the stone on Miranoi, Damon had to steal the Astro Megaship (the Space Rangers ship) from a museum to help the new Rangers. And the Psycho Rangers from "In Space" attacked them, the Space Rangers showed up to help. Each year had a team-up between that year's team and the previous year's team, and in a good but made-no-sense episode, all ten Red Rangers teamed up to stop some villains from the Zeo Season's Machine Empire from reviving Lord Zedd's "Serpentera" Zord. And no, it didn't make sense when some of them lost their powers forever, only to show up as Red Rangers. Just laugh, already.

I'll check those links out...what I want to know is, what are all these shows, what connection do they have to the people from PRIS and before that, etc. I have a lot of respect for the sentai shows, but I'm curious about the bastardized American shit.

Ranger Central doesn't suck, Schroeder

Thanks for that link, roy. Really helped. I actually remember Lost Galaxy, v. good stuff. Likewise, I oddly have a memory of Time Force, which I think I would've liked had I not been totally ashamed to even look at. What is the deal with Wild Force? What are they supposed to be?

And Zeo was the shit. Seriously, people. Just the shit.

So what's the story on these Dino people, then? What's their premise?

Whoah. I'm watching the MMPR Episode "Mighty Morphin' Mutants," and Billy just invented the PDA!

And on Ninja Storm, I absolutely love Tori for recognizing that she's either having a dream or in a parallel dimension. Because if you've ever watched any science fiction, you know that it's usually one of the two. And if it's a dream, it's usually been deliberately induced as a psychic trap of some sort.

Awesome!

I have to ask, though. Who decided that there should be a Red Ranger and a Crimson Ranger, and a Blue Ranger and a Navy Ranger? Was Sensei an interior decorator in a past life?

In the source Sentai, and in the American series, the Red,Blue, and Yellow Rangers were from the one Ninja Academy, and the Navy and Crimson were from another. In Ninja Storm, it started out with the Wind Rangers. Later on, the Thunders were convinced by Lothor that Sensei had destroyed their parents, but they found out from their parents' spirits that was not so. The Thunders started out by attacking the Wind Ninjas, and kicking their ass. Later on, the Thunders joined up, and Cam (Green Samauri and Sensei's son) discovered their mecha were very compatible , as if the Thunder Ninja sensei wanted them to work together all along. And, remember, Lothor kidnapped all the other Wind and Thunder ninja students, and only by being late did Tori and friends survive to battle Lothor. By the end of the series it was shown that it was meant to be all along that they would be Rangers. And that Tori would rock a bikini. Whoo!

Is it wrong of me at the age of 6 to have demanded to be the Pink Ranger when my friends would play, but want to bash Kimberly's head in because of her and Tommy? This show may have sent me on a passive-agressive spiral people.

I stopped watching after the Mighty Morphin seasons, my young self could not handle watching all those original actors replaced. Back then I couldn't deal with actor replacement on soaps either so whatever.

Do they show the MM seasons on tv?

ABC kids has a sporadic "Best of Power Rangers" schedule on their channel. February 8th there's a "
Tommy-thon" celebrating his (Jason David Frank) return to the Ranger series. It appeared on a commercial on the channel so it's not spoiler material anymore.
MM seasons are available cheap at Amazon.com, and Ebay. Tapes and there's new DVDs of the newer seasons.

OK, for fun.. anyone got any back stories or dirty secrets on any of the actors?
Like they were arrested for drugs or stared in porn or anything?
Some of these actors haven't done anything sense, and it's kinda fun for me to see how they've turned out.

Other than the aforementioned nudity, almost all soft-core, I'm not sure. There are always rumors of the male actors doing softcore gay porn.
Archie Kao (Kai:Lost Galaxy) is in pictures above the (IIRC) electronics department in "Target" and he's in a Best Buy commercials. Selwyn Ward (T.J. in Turbo's second half, and In Space) was in a beer commercial.

Yeah, I'd heard some of this too, suspected it for a while, as well. Some of these guys are too crappy to get jobs doing anything else.
Wolves of Wall Street, anyone?

Dino Thunder link.

Melody Perkins (Astronema/Karone from PRL:In Space, and Kendrix's replacement when she died, temporarily, fighting the Pink Psycho Ranger) did some modeling work, and appeared in a li'l episode of Malcolm in the Middle.

I'm sorry, but the picture of Tommy in lab coat and tie at the above link is just hysterical. I can't get over the mammoth stretch of Tommy as scientist.

That Red Ranger looks hella young. Have they been youthifying in the later years or what?

Archie's also a semi-regular on CSI. Usually doing computer analysis of surveillance footage.

Casting news!!!Actor Latham Gaines, see appearing in USA network's "Murder in Greenwich Village", with Ninja Storm hottie Sally Martin, and various episodes of "Hercules" and "Xena", has been cast as "Dr. Anton Mercer", the main villain for "Dino Thunder".Don't click if you don't want to know.
Scroll way down to see the news.
Also, on that page, you can see Grant McFarland, who played both Lothor and Sensei Guinea Pig on Ninja Storm.
Looks like New Zealand is a fountain of good actors for this show.

I taped the eps this morning and just watched them.

Oh, man. I must watch too much Days of our Lives. Billy said “According to my calculations...” in this morning’s MMPR ep (The first of the two-parter where Zedd first shows up!), and all I could think of was Rex.

And on PRNS, I’m a bit stymied by the Shane plot. How old is he supposed to be? Because I thought the kids were, like, high school age. His brother appears to be ten years older than him, and I’m not clear on why he’s lecturing him about his future. Also, do their friends and family not know that they were ninja students?

Yeah, I kind of figured that Shane’s greatest fear would involve his brother being disappointed in him. I just wasn’t counting on all that BroYay! And, I’m sorry, Tori’s greatest fear is a haircut?! How much more insulting could they be to women? And did anyone else notice that their nightmares take place on the Holodeck?

Over in the more fanboy circles, they rip "Ninja Storm" a new one. I liked it because it was so light hearted. It cleanses the palate for a more serious season, which Dino Thunder is bound to be. As serious as these shows get, anyways. Probably close to being as dark as Timeforce or WildForce, if Doug Sloan took people's complaints seriously.
Shane looks quite old. Tori looks fourteen, and Dustin looks just about right. He sure is "Purty" isn't he? The Ninja Academy is protected by one of Cam's holographic portals, whatever the hell that is. It's not clear whether it's behind the holographic waterfall, or that's just the entryway. If some plot point isn't fleshed out, it probably never will be. And apparently it's a secret that there is one. At the end of the series, it was revealed that the Academy was placed there because of the focal point of evil nearby. We never, ever saw Tori, Dustin, or Shane's parents. Obviously we saw that Hunter and Blake's parents are dead, and of course Sensei is Cam's father, he wasn't always a guinea pig. We met Cam's (dead) mother during "Samaurai's Journey", parts one through three, she was the one who gave him the Samaurai Amulet.(Since Disney owns this show now, they have something against parents. See:Every damn cartoon they've made.Practically.)
In the Sentai, the Green Ranger didn't have a human form for the most part.

I know Tommy has his fans but

Is it necessary to keep bringing him back? I'd prefers some of the old school PR to make an apearance. And I'm sorry Tommy as a scientist is a stretch. Sure the PR were all supposedly smart but you knew deep down some of those Rangers were saving lives and getting paid. lol

I don't understand the Tommy coming back thing myself. I saw that he hadn't aged too much during Wildforce's "Forever Red" special episode. Christopher Khayman Lee (Andros) hadn't aged as well himself. He must've started hitting the pie after "Safe Harbor" was cancelled. A huge head, like Ernest Borgnine huge. I'd like to see some of the girls back. Patricia Ja Lee, etc. Forever Red.

Next Saturday, Valentine's Day, 8:30 am EST, Power Rangers Dino Thunder premieres, on ABC family. A week later on the regular ABC channel. It also begins the "Jetix" branding of the action cartoons.
From Zap2it:
Doug Sloan (can't find the original quote) promises this season will be more mature and a bit like "Smallville", so I'm guessing they're bringing the Hoyay! into the forefront, and have the lead male in a romantic relationship with a actress he has no chemistry with, and she can't act.
We're starting off with three Rangers: Connor, the Red Ranger, Ethan, the Blue Ranger, and Kira, the Yellow Ranger. Each kid has a easily identifiable hobby, Connor: The soccer player. Ethan, the computer whiz. Kira, wants to be Avril Lavigne. (So I take from the promos) (Punk rock chick at any rate.) Standard sentai teams end up at five Rangers, and usually a sixth somewhere along the way, but not always.
Expect more of the same though, eye candy for the girls and boys, people in spandex fighting rubber monsters, giant robots, and explosions. And a catchy phrase shouted before Morphing, but definitely not, "Spoon!!"
You know you love it.

Oh wow. I stayed up all night because I'm an insomniac, I turn on my TV and start channel-surfing, and what do I see but the original 'Mighty Morphin Power Rangers'. Oh...Wow.

I was probably about 7 or something when I started watching this show. I dressed up as the Pink Ranger for Halloween in fourth grade and everything. Man, does this take me back. What horrible special effects! And WHY do they POSE in the middle of fighting? Like, when they're not all ranger-ed out, and in the normal clothes (if you could call that normal...who actually dresses all in one color?).

Another show that I liked along the same lines of MMPR is VR Troopers. Did anyone else watch that? I think I might've liked that more than MMPR, which is, like, sacrilige (I can't spell, can I?).

I was watching MMPR this morning, too. It's a Tommy Marathon or something. In all honesty, it wasn't as bad as I had remembered it to be. Slightly cheesy, yes, but I got a good laugh out of it. The episode where they clone an evil Tommy just killed me though, for two reasons: 1, you could tell the Evil!Tommy was truly evil because he wore a bandanna and chewed on a toothpick, and 2, the other rangers are sent back in time to *snort* Colonial California, complete with British soldiers, who all spoke with New Zealand/Irish accents. I still have such a girl crush on Kimberly, though.

I do remember VR Troopers, and that I didn't like it as much as MMPR. I think it was because there were only 3 people, and that wasn't nearly as exciting. Also, the main blonde guy would yell in a really scary voice when he 'morphed' and that scared the crap outta my 7-year-old self. My memories of that show are somewhat mixed with Super Human Samurai Cyber Squad. Now THAT was a crappy show. Didn't it star Joey Laurence's younger brother? I think I remember Tim Curry as the bad guy, too. Oddness.

I just had an embarrassing realization that I used to play Power Rangers on the playground with my friends at church when I was a kid, when my dad taught Bible Study and I was stuck there after most of the other kids had left. I think it might have been more fitting to play VR Troopers, since there were only three of us. At any rate, I always pretended to be the Pink Ranger...Although looking back it might have been funnier if I had been the Yellow Ranger, since I'm Asian...Although Trini was replaced with...Was her name Aisha? For some reason that rings a bell.

Colonial California? Oh, my. That's just...Strange.

I have a girl crush on Kimberly, too. Although I was a Tommy/Kim shipper...Man, I was a shipper even back in those days! Not really a recent development for me, I guess.

Evil!Tommy was cooler than GoodGuyTommy. Haha.

Edited because I'm a Loyal Viewer now! Huzzah!

The Zeo episodes this morning were a big flashback , huh?? Kat would Morph, and then it was a beanpole guy in a costume with bad falsies. Then Kat would have her helmet off in the Command Center and suddenly have a womanly figure. The Gold Ranger did rock and it was my favorite costume out of all the series, in case anybody wants to know the symbol on the helmet roughly translates to "King", because he was the KingRanger in OhRangers, the source sentai.
Slightly off the wall: Working at "Publix", I threatened to call the floor machine like a Zord and the guy at the desk said, if I shouted "I need floor machine power, now!!" and the damn thing came out, he was quitting.

Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad was indeed bad..but it did not compared to the crappyness of Tattooed teenage Alien Fighters from beverly Hills. God that was such a crappy show..cheap looking too.

I didn't actually see "Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills", but the legends of its crappiness reverberate to this day.

I loved MMPR cheese. I'm sorry I missed the marathon this morning. Meant to get up for it but.. feh. I loved that episode in particular because evil Tommy was hott. Green was a good color for him.

I loved Puritan-witch-hunting California. Followed later by Wild West California. All of which feature citizens who look exactly like modern day people. Even have the same hair. Rockin'!

Can we start a Kimberly girl crush club or something? I loved her. I really lost interest when she stopped being on the show. Too bad they can't bring her back for DinoThunder too, have them be married or something. (Let's forget that stupid Zeo "future" episode where Tommy's married to Kat, k?)

Amy Jo Johnson is on "The Division" now. That Lifetime series about female cops. I haven't watched it yet, mostly because Lifetime scares me, but I might have to brave it just to feed my Kim addiction.

ETA: I actually watched Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills. Complete rip off. I loved how instead of zords they became really large people (girls with big boobs and boys with big muscles, natch). Superhuman Samurai Cybersquad was weird too. They fought to save the cyberverse?

Yeah, in Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad they used to go inside computers,air conditioners,Microwaves ect. Anything that was electronic to fight the forces of eviilll!!

I was away last weekend (Las Vegas!), so I asked a friend to tape the Tommy Trio marathon (Because even with 2 VCRs and the new 8 hour VHS tapes, I didn't have enough space for four days worth of TV.), but her VCR went on the fritz. Ah, well. I'm definitely looking forward to Dino Thunder in a mere two days, though.

BitchySmurf:
What's really funny (read, sad/scary/pathetic) is that I read, "Have [Kim and Tommy] be married or something..." and immediately thought to myself, "No, they can't do that. Tommy and Kat were shown to be married in the future." And then I read the rest of your post.

Yes, I have a spoiler. Sort of. Rumor has it that Billy Cranston (you know, the smart guy) is coming back, but not the actor David Yost. (He's going to help with the Zords, if I hear correctly.) He's been recast. Stay tuned.
The roaring helmets during the Dino Thunder Morphing sequence look really cool. I gotta work on Saturday, 11 am but I'll definitely get up early and watch.