Missing the 90′s – Giant Monster Shows

I think it’s appropriate that on a Wednesday (new comic day for those of you not in the know) to NOT write about comic books today. Since I’m going to be reading comics tonight, I’m going to change things up today by taking you into the wayback machine to a much simpler time. We’re going to a time when television was better than it is today (I know what you’re thinking – “so . . . any time that isn’t today?”). We’re going back to when KDEB Fox 27 had a dream team of programming that made every kid foam at the mouth for its wonderfulness. We’re going back to the exotic time of the 1990’s to look at a very specific genre of television that has largely been forgotten today. In Japan, they are known as the “Sentai” series, but America has no name for the phenomenon that burned up TV screens in the 90’s, so I will just have to name this genre and so, I dub it “Teenagers fighting giant monsters by transforming into heroes and using footage from 70’s Japanese TV shows.” That name might change as this article goes on. First, some history.

History

The very first “giant monster” TV show has to be Ultraman. It began in 1966 and featured a pilot who transformed into the space hero Ultraman (who could apparently grow to the size of a building in order to destroy monsters). It’s a little difficult to watch today due to the poor special effects, and even worse film quality, but if you’re really wanting to see where it all started, you can pick up some of the episodes for $5 at Borders. Yes, that’s right, Borders is selling a collection of Ultraman episodes for $5.

At one point, a Spider-man series was developed that was in the same vein as Ultraman. Spider-man was an alien who had his own Spider-man megazord and a car or something. I’ve never personally watched it, but I’ve heard it’s really messed up. Maybe one day.

In the mid 70’s, the Japanese evolved the idea of a transforming hero into a team of transforming heroes.  It wasn’t just one series, but nearly 30 different series featuring transforming robots and teenagers becoming super powered to battle aliens. Was it formulaic? Sure, but it worked and kids ate it up, so naturally, 20 years later, America decides to jump on the band wagon and milk it for all its worth.

America gets in on the act

Haim Saban was a genius. When he discovered the Sentai series of television shows, he decided to purchase the rights to distribute them to America and to repackage them in order to appeal to the American market. By purchasing episodes of TV shows where all of the major production issues were already resolved (fight scenes, robots, designs, etc.) all Saban had to do was film some American teenagers for the story, and the money would start rolling in. And that’s just what he did . . . with four different TV series. One would have been enough, but Saban decided to saturate the market with as much Sentai as he could and kids ate it up.

Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers

Obviously, this is the show that started everything. Power Rangers was THE show to watch when you got home from school every day. Sure, kids might have picked on you for liking them, but ultimately, you didn’t care because Power Rangers was fun, and the action was amazing. The Rangers had their own individual weapons, but they all also had blasters. Their Megazords were giant dinosaur robots that transformed into a more giant robot! WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT FROM A TV SHOW?!!?!?!?!

The TV show we know as Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers was actually the 16^th series in the Super Sentai series, so it’s sort of funny to think about how American parents thought the show was too violent when the Japanese had been airing the series for quite some time. Thinking about the actual translation itself, even though kids didn’t really know anything about Japanese television at the time (anime was still just those weird VHS tapes at the local video store) everyone could tell there was something a little off. Rita Repulsa was the villain of Power Rangers and she had a team of strange monsters that were there to help her, but other than Goldar and Finster, none of them really did much of anything. Going back and rewatching the show, there are a few early episodes where Baboo seems to be riding a bike in the sky, but it really never made much sense. I’m sure that the original episodes probably did, but Saban probably changed some things in the translation.

Power Rangers was all about transformation. Five ordinary teenagers (no, I won’t count Tommy because everyone freakin’ loved Tommy and wanted to be the Green Ranger, but I didn’t. I liked Jason the Red Ranger, but Jared Lee, Justin Stanek, and Jason Poole all wanted to be the Green Ranger on the playground, so it was the Red Ranger and three Green Rangers protecting the playground together and it used to PISS me off) transformed into powerful heroes that apparently have sparks fly from their bodies when they are hit. They all had cool individual weapons that transformed into a mega weapon that could fire a cannon and turn a villain into dust (after the appropriate amount of fighting before, of course) and their giant dinosaur robots were all formidable on their own, but together, they made a giant robot that summoned a sword and could turn a villain into dust (after the appropriate amount of fighting before, of course).

Some things to consider when watching this show:

1)    

  What is Rita Repulsa’s obsession with attacking Angel Grove? It sounds like a suburb in Southern California with very little political or cultural significance, so what’s the purpose? Why not just attack Washington D.C.? It’s all the way across the country, and the Power Rangers don’t live there, so it would take some time for them to go and save the day.

2)      Want a job in Angel Grove? Then you should go work in construction because 12 story high rise buildings are always being destroyed there, so work is always in demand there! Be careful though, because the mortality rate is surprisingly high.

3)      Where do all of those giant robots hide when the Rangers aren’t using them?

These are questions that shouldn’t be asked, however. The point of MMPR is to have fun and enjoy some great action. I could go on and on about Power Rangers, and maybe I will someday (if enough people comment on this blog and tell me they like it . . . hint hint), but we have at least five more series to explore, but none of them were nearly as popular or had as much lasting power as the Rangers. So, let’s get going.

 

VR Troopers

This show was based on a separate Super Sentai series known as the Metal Hero Series. Fox 27 aired this show at 6:00 a.m. if they ever aired it at all, so I never got to watch it, but since it was about Virtual Reality, and that was the FUTURE, I really wanted to watch it bad. It wasn’t even remotely as popular as Power Rangers, so it lasted for two years and quietly disappeared.

 

Masked Rider

Developed from the Kamen Rider series of Sentai TV shows, Masked Rider was an odd show that never really resonated with me. Before his series began, the Masked Rider was in three part crossover episode with the Power Rangers to kick off his own show. While this was a great way to get kids excited about the Masked Rider, his own series failed to deliver.

First off, the main character, Dex was an alien who was trying to act like a normal teenager in order to protect the Earth. Since he’s an alien, however, he had a hard time fitting in. The thought behind a character like Dex is that “kids are awkward so they will relate to his struggles.” Kids don’t want to be reminded of how awkward they are, though. Kids want to look up to someone who is stronger, more confident, and more powerful than them and that’s why Power Rangers succeeded where Masked Rider failed. Also, the Rangers had diversity in their cast so that everyone could relate to someone while the one hero of Masked Rider just wasn’t enough.

Also, while we’re on why Masked Rider failed in comparison to Power Rangers, let’s talk sidekicks. The Power Rangers had Alpha 5 and every kid wants a talking robot no matter how annoying he is. Alpha was freaking sweet because he looked like a robot that everyone would want. He didn’t have a creepy face, he had a visor like Geordi LaForge. Also, there were times (not many) where Alpha had to defend himself using his robot gadgets, and that was great also.

Masked Rider had Ferbus – the bastard child of Howard the Duck and his Ewok concubine. Ferbus wasn’t only ugly to look at, he was utterly useless and annoying because he mostly said “DEX! DEX! MOOMY NOOMY!!!”

He made Snarf from the Thundercats seem like Horatio from Hamlet.

I wish I could talk about the Masked Rider’s villains or his supporting cast further, but this was another show that didn’t last long and didn’t make an impression on me like Power Rangers did. The effects were just okay and after going back and researching the show for this article, I see that there was a guy who looked like Santa Claus who played the Zordon role for the show. Honestly, the less said, the better.

 

Big Bad Beetleborgs

Another show that lifted footage from the Metal Heroes series of Japanese Sentai, Big Bad Beetleborgs might be the worst thing that Saban put together. For all of Masked Rider’s faults, BBB was even worse. Three kids are given the power of the Beetleborgs (essentially Megazords from Power Rangers with a Beetle theme) and they also have one superpower in real life. The leader, Drew, had telekinesis, his friend Roland had superspeed, and his little sister Jo had super strength (see how funny they are? A little girl is the strongest!). It wasn’t the protagonists that made this show awful, however. In fact, the idea of kids being the powerful ones is fine because they are relatable. The problem with that show and what still makes me cringe was the supporting cast; a haunted house of lovable monsters.

That’s right.

The Beetleborgs also hung out with a vampire, a mummy, a wolfman, and a ghost in their haunted mansion.

The main supporting cast member was a ghost (?) named Flabber who looked like an undead Elvis if Elvis moonlighted as Jay Leno. The haunted house aspect was strange, but mostly, it was really annoying and unnecessary. Sure, they tried to make it different than Power Rangers, but crossing genres was a strange choice. The show lasted for two agonizing years and in that time, they tried to recreate the excitement that came with the Green Ranger storyline in Power Rangers by introducing their own “bad boy” of the Beetleborgs (who technically, were already “bad”  in their name, so I guess that makes him the baddest of the big bad beetleborgs). The story was a clear rip off of MMPR and it wasn’t enough to generate interest in the show probably because it was weird seeing an 11 year old try and be tough.

Knock-offs

As with any successful venture, there had to be cheap knock-offs to capitalize on the fad. I can only think of two such shows, but there were probably more.

Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad

This show was worth mentioning because Joey Lawrence’s (Mr. Whoa himself) brother Matthew was the star of the show. Based on the Japanese show Denkou Chojin Gridman, SSSS was another show about cyberspace and the internet. I personally really liked this show because it really showed what computers were going to be in the future . . . riddled with giant monsters that must be destroyed by superheroes that can enter into the computer world through magic or something.

Thinking back over SSSS, it was really was as low budget as you could get. For the most part, it was four kids hanging out in a basement and never leaving that set. Then, they would go into the cyber world (or is that “syber world”?) to battle it out with villains. When you think about production costs, it was relatively cheap to make; four people, footage from the 80’s, and one set. Not much to it. The action was excellent within the syber world itself, but the heroes never fought outside of it because they were powerless outside of the computer.

Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills

No, I didn’t make this one up. It existed and it was as awful as its title. All of the other giant monster TV shows had somewhat cool names that made you wonder what was going on with that show, but Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills told you everything you needed to know in one generic title. No one who saw that title would think, “Gee, I wonder what that’s about.”

Of all of the giant monster TV shows, this one was the absolute worst. First off, it didn’t steal scenes from 80’s Sentai TV, so they had to film everything. This put the show at a disadvantage because that means that they would have to put some production time into designing vehicles, costumes and weapons for the show. Instead of doing that, production company Dic decided to go the easy route and just say that the heroes of our show can grow to enormous size. Therefore, there is nothing to transform and production costs could be cut. Also, without transformations of giant robots, this show sucked. It was something that I could have made in my apartment and for that, I spit on the memory of this horrible show.

Theme music

Have you noticed how almost all of these shows have the EXACT same theme music as well? Power guitar with singers repeating the name of the show was the order of the day. So, here are the Youtube links to their respective TV shows

Conclusion

Giant monster television was excellent definitive 90’s TV and there is truly nothing like it today, and nothing that could be like it today. It was one of those phenomena that can never be recreated because it was just the right idea at the right time. To even try and revive something like that just doesn’t work today. Technically, most kids cartoons aren’t the same as they used to be. I know that may make me sound like an old man, but think about it; 90’s children’s programming was where it was at. With Batman, X-men, Spider-man, and giant monster shows, 90’s TV was a cacophony of violent TV that just doesn’t exist anymore. In fact, are there ANY good cartoons on anymore other than Batman: Brave and the Bold (and I wouldn’t consider it good for the same reasons that the 90’s Batman animated series was good)? No. Children’s programming seems to have died out and it’s sad.

There is so much more that could be explored on this topic and I want to hear from you. Some things you could answer:

-          Any favorite memories from any of these shows?

-          Any show you’d like to defend?

-          Any character that stood out as cool or annoying?

Post your answers to the comments and let’s relive the 90’s together!