Episode 128 - Tommy Oliver: The Superman of Power Rangers with Nic Woolfe

Not all superheroes wear capes. Some are teenagers with attitude! Nic Woolfe is back to chat about arguably the greatest Power Ranger of them all, Tommy Oliver!

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Meeting summary:

●      The Discussion / Podcast Recording meeting focused on the history, impact, and evolution of the Power Rangers franchise, specifically highlighting the character of Tommy Oliver. Key points included discussions on Power Rangers introduction, history, Tommy's Green Ranger saga, season changes, comics, and Tommy's legacy. The meeting also touched on the future of the franchise and concluded with recommendations for new viewers.

Notes:

●      🦸 Power Rangers Introduction (00:00 - 09:17)

●      Discussed favorite Power Rangers characters

●      Introduced the podcast and its focus on Power Rangers

●      Mentioned the Superman-like qualities of certain Power Rangers

●      Highlighted the iconic theme song of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

●      🎬 History of Power Rangers (09:18 - 17:39)

●      Explained the origins of Power Rangers as an adaptation of Japanese Super Sentai series

●      Discussed the show's popularity in the 1990s

●      Mentioned the toys and merchandise associated with the franchise

●      Talked about personal experiences watching Power Rangers as children

●      🦹 Tommy Oliver and the Green Ranger Saga (17:39 - 31:15)

●      Introduced Tommy Oliver as the Green Ranger

●      Discussed the impact of the Green Ranger's introduction on the series

●      Explained the storyline of Tommy being mind-controlled by Rita Repulsa

●      Highlighted the popularity of Tommy's character among fans

●      🔄 Power Rangers Seasons and Changes (31:15 - 39:57)

●      Discussed the evolution of Power Rangers seasons

●      Mentioned the transition from Mighty Morphin to Zeo and Turbo

●      Talked about cast changes and new power sets

●      Explained the challenges of adapting Japanese footage for American audiences

●      🌟 Tommy's Evolution and Later Seasons (39:57 - 50:23)

●      Discussed Tommy's role in later seasons, including as the White Ranger

●      Mentioned Tommy's appearance in Dino Thunder as Dr. Tommy Oliver

●      Talked about the 'Forever Red' episode featuring multiple Red Rangers

●      Discussed the concept of the 'Hexagon' season that was never produced

●      📚 Power Rangers Comics and Expanded Universe (50:23 - 59:43)

●      Introduced the Boom Studios Power Rangers comics

●      Discussed the character development of Tommy in the comics

●      Mentioned the alternate universe villain Drakkon

●      Talked about crossovers with other franchises like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

●      🎭 Tommy Oliver's Legacy and Impact (59:43 - 01:11:56)

●      Discussed Tommy's role as a mentor in later seasons

●      Mentioned the 'Master Morpher' concept allowing Tommy to access multiple Ranger powers

●      Talked about Tommy's portrayal in anniversary episodes and specials

●      Discussed the impact of Jason David Frank's passing on the franchise

●      🔮 Future of Power Rangers and Concluding Thoughts (01:11:56 - 01:22:39)

●      Discussed the future of the Power Rangers franchise

●      Mentioned the upcoming reboot and its potential direction

●      Reflected on Tommy Oliver's role as a Superman-like figure in the series

●      Concluded with recommendations for new viewers and favorite seasons

Transcription

00:00
Case
Up until that point, I had been on team Jason as my favorite character. Cause I'm a basic bitch that likes the leader type in most of these series. Like, Leonardo is also my favorite ninja Turtle. Yeah, that's just my thing. I do a Superman podcast. I'm sorry. I understand the type that I am. Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Men of Steel podcast. I'm Case Aiken, and as always, I am joined by my co host, J Mike Falsen.

00:38
Jmike
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show.

00:42
Case
J Mike. Can I ask you a question?

00:44
Jmike
Most certainly.

00:46
Case
Do you know what time it is?

00:48
Jmike
Is it morphin time?

00:49
Case
It's morphin time.

00:50
Jmike
Oh, my God.

00:53
Case
So today we are doing an episode talking about Power Rangers and the sources that brought it. And specifically one Power Ranger that time and time again in the franchise has shown himself to be the superman of the series. But we're going to do a bigger discussion than just focusing on Tommy Oliver. But to have that conversation, we are joined by Nick Wolf. All right, can we just take a pause and just note how good the goddamn theme song to Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is?

01:24
Nic
Oh, yeah.

01:25
Case
That Ron Wasserman score, man. It's so good.

01:28
Nic
Yeah. And in that Superman twang at the end, it just makes me imagine what if they adapted the nineties Superboy in the Superman animate series? I just imagine he'd have very Power Ranger sounding music for his theme.

01:41
Case
Oh, yeah. Like the track that was introduced in the zhu two era of the show, like the second half of season one where they had new footage shot for the show. They introduced this track which is like, go Green Ranger, go. Which had not been in the previous chunk. Cause they didn't think they were gonna need their own theme for a character. And little did they know they would have a breakout success. But that track would be perfect for a Connell Superboy in the nineties track.

02:06
Nic
Also should specify shot new japanese footage for the show.

02:10
Case
Yes. Yes. Shot new japanese footage. Shot new fight and suit footage is the main point. Cause this was a series that. Well, so why don't we talk about the history of this franchise and our history first?

02:22
Nic
The history of Power Rangers, if you will.

02:25
Case
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'll definitely talk about that series because that is a big part for why I'm super on board for any Power Rangers conversation. So why don't I start? Because, like, I love talking about Power Rangers. It's been one of my brands. I'm a kid of the nineties. I was born in 84. By the time the series was coming out. I was nine, so I was like, you know, the prime age for it. Dinosaurs, robots, transforming robots, and people in Spandex are all things that are, like, checkboxes on the, like, these are cases, interests. And so, of course I was into it, and, like, were so into the toys.

03:00
Case
When I was, like, you know, the season one era of this show and season two era of the show, I had the Titanis, which, of course, like, kind of felt like the lame one to have. In retrospect, I regret, like, getting rid of it because it was so. Cause, like, you know, we all go through phases where we kind of, like, lose sight of our things.

03:18
Nic
Shame on you.

03:19
Case
I had lost most of the parts by that point. So we're talking about the Base TitanIS that, like, the Tail guns had already had been lost as well as, like, the giant SauRopod treads. It had, like, these, like, big paws that became, like, the gloves of the Megazord. All those pizzas were gone by this point. Long story short, I was a big fan of the series, but then, you know, adolescent kicks in and you sort of, like, back up somehow.

03:43
Nic
I lost both my TigerZord and my Astro mega ship. I still have the NasAdA shuttle that forms the head for the Astro mega ship, but not the, oh, Cool. It frustrates me. Cause I don't know where that or the Tigerzord is.

03:56
Case
I had the Tigerzord. I actually gave the Tigerzord to my friend who I knew would have a better Display for it at his House. Like, he has, like, big, like, displays of, like, gundams and stuff like that. And I was like, oh, you'll definitely get more use out of this now. This is still when I was in the phase of, like, my twenties where. Cause, like, adolescence kicks in and, you know, you start to feel embarrassed. Like, I stuck through the show through Zeo. It was Turbo where I kind of, like, fell off because I started getting the social pressures to dip out. And that was the season where when it came in, I was like, oh, we new powers again.

04:28
Case
And because I didn't know all the underlying reasons for why the show worked at that point, but it was like, oh, new powers and its cars. Like, that feels like a downgrade from everything we've had so far. All of it just kind of felt off to me before the movie even came out and before the show even came out. And so I was like, all right, you know what? Zeo had a good finale. I'm kind of good with the show as it is. I don't need necessarily more for me. And then years later, I find out about this series online called the History of Power Rangers by Linkara and I'm like, fuck it. I'll check it out.

05:03
Case
I'm curious about the history of Power Rangers because a friend of the show, Matty Ryan Limerick, had blown my mind at one point by mentioning that it was japanese footage because I just didn't know that. And, you know, like, it wasn't a series I, like, dug deep into, so it wasn't one that was, like, in my, like, wheelhouse. So I was just like, oh, when he mentioned that, I was like, oh, that's. Oh, that's crazy. That's really cool. And I wanted to know more. And so when this series, like, popped up. Cause I was that guy with the glasses fan, you know, I think there's a lot of people who were channel awesome fans at a certain point, particularly around, like, the era. Like, that just was a good time for that fandom.

05:39
Case
But so history of Power Rangers came out and he puts forth this theory about season one being a Wizard of Oz situation. And I'm like, oh, that's actually really goddamn cool. And, like, it, you know, talks a bit about the actual making of the series and, like, you know, how they're putting things together and I start finding out about memes and I go down, you know, I hyper fixate because that's the thing I do. And I went down the giant rabbit hole getting really into it. And, like, I watched this whole series, which at that point, Dino Thunder was the last one that had come out. So, like, I joined the series not like right when it came out, but a little bit longer into the run. And so I, like, watched all of those.

06:14
Case
And at a certain point I was like, well, you know, I'm looking forward to the next one, but, like, in the meantime, I guess I'm just gonna watch Power Rangers SPD because I wanted to, like, get that fix and SPD. While there's some elements of the series that are questionable in light of my thoughts on, like, propaganda and stuff like that, SPD rocks. The soundtrack is awesome. The cast is great. The themes of the series are really good. It's a series where it doesn't feel weird that they have cars because they're cops and it's like, all cop cars that turn into robots, which is, like, pretty cool, frankly. Like, I'm pretty sure there were a bunch of series like that in the eighties that I probably ate the hell out of.

06:53
Nic
SPD is also kind of a good example of a superboy story because they're the b squad, the Rangers we follow, and they have to live up to the standards of the a squad who are missing in action.

07:05
Case
Yeah, that was another thing I really loved about SPD. It's deliberately, like, as Nick said, the B squad. And so the whole time they're supposed to be not the heroes, but they're the rookies who are, like, trying to live up to it. And that was, like, such a good vibe for the season. Like, it was a cool dynamic for them to, like, really go on. So cool series got me into it enough and I had been doing enough research that I was, like, feeling pretty confident. I, like, then went back and watched pretty much the entire run up until that point. I watched most of the season, actually. I watched all the seasons from that point up until Ninja Steel is where I, like, actually, like, fully dropped a season. It's the first time I did not make it through one.

07:41
Case
Still love the series and, like, really got into it all. Like, have really appreciated it all. But it's wild because it's one where I had that base nostalgia and then I had the later life nostalgia. And they are two very different things. Like, one is way more expansive. Like, the later life stuff is way more expansive, but it's still rooted in that childhood passion. So, J Mike, I'm curious for you. What is your history with Power Rangers elementary school drama?

08:08
Jmike
You know, everyone going out to, like, the playgrounds at lunchtime, everything.

08:13
Case
Like, I want to be the Green Ranger.

08:14
Jmike
I want to be the Green Ranger. I want to be the red Ranger. Running around having fun and everything. Coming home from school, watching it. What channel was that? Was it Fox kids?

08:23
Case
It was Fox. Yeah, yeah.

08:26
Jmike
Coming in, like, DC area people.

08:29
Case
We were watching the same, like, fox Five.

08:32
Jmike
I was in Florida, dude.

08:33
Case
Oh, that's right.

08:36
Jmike
Coming home, watching and stuff, being awestruck. How cool it was with those nostalgic glasses on. And then I remember, like, when the first trailers for the movie came out and you're, like, completely blown away.

08:50
Case
Yeah, that teaser for the. For the movie where it's, like, just the helmets. Like, man, I was so primed for that movie.

08:58
Jmike
Oh, my gosh. This is the greatest thing of my life. I think I stopped when I was younger watching it right around the Zeo era. So I was like, this is cool and everything. And everyone got lost their powers and got turned into kids.

09:12
Case
Yep.

09:12
Jmike
And I was like, this is kind of cool. I think I just kind of fell off at that point. But, like, up until then, it was Power Rangers every day, all day, every day with a little mix of, like, Saturday morning cartoons in there. But it was all Power Rangers, dude.

09:28
Case
That's the thing that we also should emphasize. The show was so dominating when it first came out because it was five days a week during the week. It wasn't like a once a week release.

09:37
Jmike
It was like. It was like five days a week right after kids got out of school. So it's like, kids are coming home from school, like, running to the tv, sitting down, like, throwing on Power Rangers.

09:44
Case
Yeah. It released in, like, blocks. And so, like, it would put out a bunch of episodes, and you would watch those ones every single day until block came out. So, like, when green with evil came out, introducing Tommy. It was that week. Every day were, like, getting updates and coming into school and being like, can you believe this stuff? Can you believe it? Oh, my gosh.

10:01
Jmike
Oh, my gosh.

10:02
Case
This is so cool. So, like, you faded out, like, around the same time I did. Although I stuck with it just a little bit longer. Did you have a moment where you kind of came back to it all, like, Power Rangers has had a resurgence in pop culture recently.

10:17
Jmike
Yeah, I think I would see things, like, on YouTube. People were talking about, okay, yeah, I remember those days. Those are great days, looking back. Oh, man, those were fun times. And I think right around the reboot movie, was it 2017?

10:29
Nic
Yes.

10:30
Case
Yeah.

10:30
Jmike
When they had, like, the really big, fancy multi million dollar movie reboot, and I was like, oh, this is kind of cool. And I watched it and I was like, it's cool, but it doesn't hit the same, you know, the same things that the other movies did. It's not giving me that. It's not scratching that itch. It was a cool movie, but it didn't have the same pull as the originals did. I think there was a new one coming out, and I think I watched a little bit of the show they did on Netflix, like, the big revival thing.

10:56
Case
Oh, once and always.

10:57
Jmike
Yeah. Tears coming down and face like, oh, man.

11:01
Nic
I remember these days, I think once and always made me cry, like, four times when I first saw it, like.

11:09
Jmike
Oh, man, this is my shit back in the day.

11:13
Case
That's just nostalgia and a needle. Netflix, I don't know how you did it, but you made a thing that just is like, oh, yeah. It's designed specifically for fans of the show from that time. Take it into the vein right now. Go for it. Tap, tap.

11:28
Jmike
It's like, oh, gosh, this is. Inject this directly into my veins. I miss this so much during the Zeo arc and right before that ended, and I think it was turbo. After that, I was like, I think I'm kind of done. I think I'm kind of down with this one for a while.

11:45
Case
Yeah, I feel like that was pretty consistent for fans in general during that. Around that era.

11:49
Jmike
It was. I thought it was just me because I was like, all right, cool. This is.

11:53
Case
Well, I mean, yeah, I think I've.

11:54
Jmike
Grown out of this.

11:54
Case
The show had its peak during its first and second season and then each season after that, like, there was a little bit of a drop off. There have been, like, efforts to, like, capture the lightning again that have been more successful, such as the end of in space. And then I was it lost Galaxy.

12:09
Jmike
And some other stuff there was.

12:10
Case
Right, yeah, lost Galaxy is the first one that came out where I'm like, oh, they're still going good on them.

12:16
Jmike
I remember I was. I think I turned on tv and I think I heard a trailer for it and I remember specifically, like, theme song for that. That season, the lost galaxy season. I was like, oh, shoot, this is. It's not bad. I think that I was like, I. Maybe I should watch this stuff again some other day. I'll come back to it.

12:38
Case
Nick, how about you? What's your history with the show?

12:41
Nic
So I remember always having Power Rangers. I remember when I first was aware, I was like, oh, they're Power Rangers toys and they have the Power Rangers VHS. Like, I still got my vhs for the entire green with evil saga in my bedroom. I remember them being recorded from the tv as well. I remember being confused because I kept thinking, wait, has Tommy lost his powers or hasn't he? Because he loses them twice. His Green Ranger powers. Which. Missing Green is probably one of my favorite episodes because it deals with the fallout of that and everything. But we can probably talk about that later in relation to another Ranger character. But, yeah, I saw all three seasons of mighty Morphin alien Rangers miniseries Zeo Turbo in space.

13:24
Nic
I watched a bit of Lost Galaxy and I think I fell off right as the lights of Orion arc was ending because that was kind of a mess of an arc.

13:32
Case
That's a slog. Yeah. Like, you have to fight through that one to watch the whole season then.

13:37
Nic
Because for some reason, McDonald's released the Lost Galaxy Lightspeed rescue crossover. Like, all right, I'll watch Lightspeed rescue then. Lightspeed rescue seems cool. A team of, like, first responder Rangers. I dig it.

13:51
Case
Yeah.

13:51
Nic
And then I fell off again with Time Force. I think I quit right before the quantum powers were introduced and Eric was there a. Yeah, I know.

13:59
Case
Because Time Force is like, usually like held up as one of the best.

14:03
Nic
You also have to keep in mind that time Ranger the Sentinel is based on was a merchandise failure because they only had so few megazords. That's why when they went to Galranger Wild Forest, it was like, throw in all the zords. We got 100 zords. You got to find them all.

14:20
Case
That makes sense.

14:21
Nic
So, yeah, I stopped after time Forest and then I think in high school my friend said, hey, you got to watch Power Rangers RPM. It's totally dope. And I did. It was dope. And then there was backlash to it, like, oh, they do that thing that was like, oh, why are we posing? We're self aware about our tropes. And it's like, oh, am I gonna still like the show? Rewatch it last year or in 2022? It's like, no, I think this still mostly holds up.

14:47
Case
Yeah, no, I need to chime in here. RPM is dope. It is like, it is such a great self contained season. That is shocking that it is a Power Ranger season. And the moments where it's self aware is fine because it's also a very hardcore series. So the humor is juxtaposed between the much more serious themes that are going on throughout the whole thing. Long story short, RPM is one of the high watermarks of the series as a whole.

15:14
Nic
I think after watching RPM I also discovered history of Power Rangers from the beginning. I actually discovered Link R in his early days when I think his first reveal of his I saw was his Secret Defenders number nine, number ten issue. Like, I've been there. I'm an old head when it comes to those channel awesome days.

15:34
Case
Yeah.

15:35
Nic
And then I tried and failed to watch the neo Saban series. I think I almost finished. The first season of Samurai is like, eh, fell off. But I did watch the Clash of Red Ranger movie. I think I watched like five episodes of Megaforce and it's like, mmm, this is throwing back to MMPR in a bad way that I'm not really digging. Yeah, but maybe the legendary battle would be good when it gets around to it.

16:02
Case
It was not.

16:03
Nic
And then Dino Charge was the one series that I watched the most. I finished the complete season and I started the second season, but then I fell off when the Aqua Ranger was introduced. We finally found out who the Aqua Ranger was. Not going to spoil it, but I. I don't know. It's probably an issue of time and then I never really fully watched any series again. But I kept up with history of Power Rangers, so I was always in the loop.

16:27
Case
Yeah.

16:27
Nic
I have not seen anything of Hyperforce.

16:30
Case
Yeah. Dino Charge, I will also say, is one I really like as well. Good series abound for it. But like I said, oh, man, the fact that you didn't make it through Dino charge saved you from ninja Steel is the thing I say there. Ninja Steel is a rough season of Power Rangers.

16:48
Jmike
They did ninjas again.

16:50
Case
They've done dinosaurs like four times, man.

16:52
Jmike
Well, yeah, well, I mean, the primary one was the dinosaur one, but like, how many times can you go back to ninjas?

16:57
Nic
Apparently at least three, like four or five times.

17:00
Case
Yeah, because you had the Alien Rangers, which were a ninja themed series in Japan, the Ninjetty. Well, yeah, the ninjeti stuff was part of the same season as the Alien Rangers stuff. But then you had Ninja Storm and then you had Ninja Steel, but you also had samurai, which is like, obviously not the same thing, but the western understanding of it is.

17:16
Nic
I just imagine Bandai, after Power Rangers was cancelled being like, Power Rangers was cancelled. We can finally move away from shooting things that are supposed to be translated easily to a western audience. Let's go fool into the japanese iconography and then get bought back.

17:33
Case
That's definitely what happened with samurai. They were like, oh, we can finally, like, lean into it. It's the same reason why they, like, leaned into, like, trains thing that, like, the western audience are just not going to understand and why they, like, totally skipped it here.

17:46
Nic
I'm going to say because of that Clash of the Red Ranger show where you can travel between dimension through trains, I want a Trangers adaptation that's a sequel to RPM.

17:57
Case
All right? So for listeners at home who are not familiar with this franchise and are like, why the hell are they talking about Power Rangers or whatever this thing is on our Superman show? The history of Power Rangers is deeply tied into western comics love. I don't think it's a big jump to say that you could draw a lineage from Superman to the Power Rangers series as a whole. The reason why is Spider man. So for the listeners at home who may not know this, Marvel Comics used to be heavily involved in making japanese live action tv shows. They were producers on a whole bunch of weird stuff, including a japanese Spider man tv show where he had a giant robot leopardon.

18:39
Nic
That's also where the I am an emissary from hell meme comes up. If that's not in beyond the Spider verse. I will riot.

18:46
Case
Oh, it's gotta be. Because they used it in the comic story that beyond is more, like, based on. So Spider man was a Marvel joint production that, when you think about it was about a spandex clad superhero, had a giant robot, and the next series that was supposed to be adapting for Marvel Comics was Captain America. But for a variety of reasons, that kind of fell through as a result. The series sort of gets recontextualized as this un themed super team, battle Fever J with a Miss America, and then this whole roster. And that's the birth of Super Sentai as a thing. It was a combination of Sentai where you would have, like, a team of heroes that were, like, kind of color coordinated, and then this robot concept and the powers that were part of it.

19:33
Case
Because, like, when you think about, like, what the Power Rangers do, they got big jumps and flips and they're really strong. It's pretty Spider man ish when you get down to it, or pretty 1930 Superman ish if you really want to get down to it.

19:44
Nic
Yeah.

19:46
Case
And so that became the foundation for this, like, team of heroes who would slowly, over their iterations, have all kinds of concepts in terms of, like, what the season theme was about, because each season would have its own cast with its own, like, gimmick to it all. So you would end up with color theory going into, like, well, what types of characters are consistently these colors? The robots would get more complicated, eventually getting to the point where they'd have combining robots, which was a big deal, getting to eventually the Zord concept where it's like these robot animal avatars, which actually came around with Jew Ranger. Before that, it was all, like, vessels. Like, the closest you would get was the previous season with Jet man. But even that, they were still in jets, even if they were bird themed jets.

20:27
Nic
I know, but if I mentioned all the other animal themed vehicles, we'd be here all night.

20:33
Case
Oh, yeah, no, I know. But what I'm saying is, like, the first time where we actually, like the saber tooth Tiger Zord is unique from anything prior to it. They were all more vehicle like in form because each season was an evolution of the concepts of they could play with. That's going on in Japan and eventually marvel dips out. I think it's after Sun Vulcan is their last one that they do. Don't quote me on that one. But they were a producer on Super Sentai for a number of seasons.

20:59
Case
Sun Vulcan I will throw out there as being the one that I wanted to use as the basis for a comedy Power Rangers situation that I was going to create with some friends where were going to record us as a group of just stoners or really were supposed to be drunks because it was going to be. Dionysus was empowering us to become these heroes. Like, we would keep on getting called into situations where we would transform and we would just use the footage from Sun Vulcan that never really got off the ground. But I did, like, start working on, like, scripts for it.

21:28
Nic
How very USA dub of dynaman of you. Yeah, so this is a wide rabbit hole, listeners.

21:38
Case
Yeah, yeah. Since we're taking this a little bit from a historical standpoint, this is the time to talk about the attempts. So, yeah, there was a previous adaptation before we get to mighty Morphin Power Rangers that USA did doing Dynaman, which was a previous season, I want to.

21:53
Nic
Say it was going to be like baseball theme, but like, no, we can't do baseball. Let's just do explosions. And that's why there's explosions in Super Sentai, because Dynaman did so many explosions.

22:05
Case
It just became a thing. And, like, that's a thing about the series, which is that each season having its own cast, its own setups, and, like, all that stuff, like, they're allowed to iterate really well. Now, it does mean that there's a scenario where there's recurring season themes. There are many car seasons, for example. There have been many, like, here's our family dynamic kind of seasons that are in there. There have been many where you have your main three and then you get, like, let extra ones pop in afterwards kind of seasons. There's a lot of, like, structural ones that have popped in. Also. The show has been allowed to, like every now and then, like, go back to pre existing formulas in an effort to, like, stay fresh and dynamic in this whole thing.

22:45
Case
So it's a rapidly iterating and interesting kind of property as a whole. And then you get this whole, like, element of that I want to talk about for a minute, which is just the color theory for the characters, that you typically have the red as a leader, or at least as the protagonist, because sometimes you'll have, like, the black or the white or whatever other member of the team as the quote unquote leader. But the lead of the show is generally speaking, the red Ranger. And that's usually like the red Oni kind of personality. It's like a little bit of a hothead, relatively speaking, in the Sentai. And then in America, like, our concept of who the bit, the most heroic type would be often is the stoic leader. And so it kind of gets like jumbled around that way.

23:26
Case
But then you've got blue, which is oftentimes like a friend Lancer and or sometimes like the kid in the group. It sometimes can be the woman with like a cyan kind of blue in the design. In those seasons, typically yellow is then going to be male in those seasons. Not that it is required that yellow is ever female. As we all know, in Zhu Ranger, the thing that was adapted into Power Rangers, the yellow Ranger was a boy who was named boy that they were like, there's too many men on this team. We need to have like at least a second female character. And so they gender flipped it weirdly. Scenario where the Power Rangers is more progressive than the japanese roots, but they play around with some of the colors can be like, whichever.

24:07
Case
But for example, it was a big deal to have like the Red Ranger in Shinkenger which became Power Rangers samurai, for example. Like, there are certain ones that have typically been locked into male roles with, you know, weird exceptions that have been put in there. Pink is usually a female character. Obviously it's the girl. If we're going to do like the five man band kind of breakdown of Power Rangers team, like Pink is the girl, quote unquote, or sometimes white. And sometimes teams have both a white and a pink Ranger. But the white Ranger always has pink highlights and the Pink Ranger always has white highlights. It's just this, like, weird thing that they used to do and still sometimes do.

24:42
Case
If you have a character who is a white Ranger who is male, it's going to be the 6th Ranger, which we'll talk about in a second. Black is usually a mentor or Lancer type. So it can sometimes be a rival to the Red Ranger, can sometimes be a leader type, but is also, generally speaking, a male character. Green is typically sort of like another dude in the group, like, which whatever isn't already filled.

25:04
Nic
Like the funny guy.

25:05
Case
Yeah, it might be the funny guy, might be the big guy, you know, like might be the smart guy. It's whatever is an already, like kind of occupied and alternates with black in terms of which seasons that they're in. This is why when we get to the 6th Ranger concept, which was actually introduced in shoe Ranger officially because they had like prototype six Rangers, but where you actually have a new Ranger show up later in the season, that concept right there is first on a shoe Ranger and thus in Power Rangers is the first representation of that. So when you think of the Green Ranger, like, that's where it comes from. But the reason why the Green Ranger is the 6th Ranger is because green is the color that they were missing that season.

25:40
Case
Typically, the most frequent thing that they would have is either black or green. So that season happened to have a black mastodon Ranger or black mammoth Ranger in the Sentai. And so the 6th Ranger was green because, oh, that's what we're missing. That's why then when you get to Zeo, the Gold Ranger in Japan was actually considered a black Ranger. And that's the thing that they were missing in that season. So like I said, the first male white Ranger is the white Ranger that we got in the second season of Power Rangers. It's also the second 6th Ranger that they ever did. So it's its own thing. And then the following season didn't actually have a proper six Ranger. So that's why Tommy and Kimberly oftentimes had to, like, share a cockpit in scenes because they just didn't actually have another Zord.

26:21
Nic
So, fun fact, I remember having the Shogun Zord as like a Christmas present, but I also remember, like, taking the Pink Shogun Zordae and trying to color it white with crayon to try and make it show accurate.

26:36
Case
Yeah, because it was actually the White Ranger Zord in that series and the Falcon was in that season. It was like a Titanus type thing. So that actually was like a weird area where it kind of synced up. Anyway, long story short, after that, they would start branching out and have new kind of colors as the six Rangers silver and gold became really popular ones. But it's all over the place. You know, time Ranger. Time Force actually has a second red Ranger as their six Rangers.

26:59
Jmike
Breaking the rules.

27:00
Case
Well, it, like, the six Ranger is designed to break the rules. Like, each one is supposed to be kind of like a shift in it. Like it's consistent in design and theme to the season but has, like, specific elements to reflect that they are different, oftentimes more powerful, but usually a wild card. And so, like, well, what is kind of going on with this character? Like, sometimes they show up and they're evil to begin with. In the case of Dye Ranger, for example, the white Ranger from season two, that's a Captain Marvel type situation where it's a kid who transforms into an.

27:32
Nic
Adult superhero, which makes it really awkward when the white Ranger in America has to make a whole bunch of exaggerated movements. Like he is a ten year old boy because he was a ten year old boy in the Japanese, right?

27:45
Case
So the 6th Ranger is always supposed to be kind of a deviation from the team in some way and that gets into the other sort of thing, which is the Ranger like allies, which are the characters like the ninja from season three of Power Rangers where they have elements that are related to that season of Power Rangers but are generally speaking, like more built out, kind of monstrous looking. And by monstrous, I mean the way that the monsters in the show look not necessarily monstrous and like a actually, like, terrifying thing. Oftentimes they look like knights or things like that and are oftentimes more like mentor types or like begrudging allies of the team.

28:21
Case
I just think it's really cool that we are getting to this sort of, like, refinement of storytelling where you know what the archetypes of the team are and you just like, lean into it and just color code them. Like, that's the thing I find really cool about power Rangers. It's a thing, I've mentioned this before. I've worked on scripts that are kind of Power Rangers inspired. And that's the thing that I find really, like, compelling about it all. It frees you up to sort of think about the broader world that you're existing in. Like, each theme has its own theme, whether it's dinosaurs or ninjas or chinese mythological beasts or whatever we're talking about, each season has a theme to it.

28:53
Case
And that is a thing you can kind of delve into because you already know what the basic framework is going to be, which is that it's going to be a bunch of teenagers with attitude and they're going to be in color coded spandex with giant robots that correspond to that color coded spandex. And Doctor Kay would be so mad at me right now because she would.

29:10
Nic
Say, it's not spandex, it's a self assembling nanofiber.

29:15
Case
So USA tries to do an adaptation of dynaman and then Heimsa Bond, who is notable for doing a bunch of tv shows prior to then becoming a producer, gets this idea of trying to adapt Bioman initially, but then when they finally sell it and, like, get some money going for it, by that point, Jetman was out and had gotten critical acclaim and they, the studio wanted them to use the next season that was coming out, which was Zhu Ranger, which, like I said, is a dinosaur themed series that is like cutting edge in a bunch of ways, although it's not as well received as the season that precedes it. Just because Jetman, which is a g force or battle of the Planets type series, is just so goddamn good but everyone remembers Power Rangers. The series adapted from it because it was a hit.

30:06
Case
It was huge here.

30:07
Jmike
Huge.

30:08
Case
I believe I'm the oldest person on the call. And I remember the giant fanfare and the articles written about it and, like, I would just see it and, like, the grown up magazines would be like, what's up with this Power Ranger craze? Like, what's going on? And I would, like, just devour it all. And, like, the toys were so popular. I remember that Christmas that the dinosaur figure came out. Jesus Christ. Just goddamn huge. And no moment in that series was bigger than when they introduced the Green Ranger.

30:33
Jmike
Yeah. Yeah.

30:35
Nic
That was then everything changed.

30:37
Jmike
Peak.

30:38
Case
Yeah. And so it was interesting here because they introduced, like, this rival character who is a match for Jason and is just as cool and Kimberly and he vibe with each other. And so all of a sudden you're like, oh, yeah. This is like, if central casting was just putting out who are we going to put out as the red Ranger? Both of these actors would be up for the parts which may have actually happened behind the scenes. I'm not entirely sure. We're talking about two very similar type actors who in the world of the show because they're all, like, giant goody goodies. They're both really good guys who are square jawed leadership types.

31:15
Case
And this one's set up to then be mind controlled into being a villain and is allowed to be all evil with these moments of where things almost are done for. The Zords are destroyed and we have that crazy battle with Goldar and Scorpina and the Giant Green Ranger against a deep powered Megazord. Wild stuff. Zordon is cut off. It's a tense five parter. Five parter. It was a goddamn Movie.

31:41
Nic
That was primetime two, right?

31:43
Case
No, it was not primetime. The. The primetime stuff that they would do would be the Lord Zedd introduction.

31:48
Nic
Yeah, season two.

31:49
Case
Yeah. No, season one. This was still just after, like, after School. And that's what felt so exciting about it. You came home after School to catch the new episodes and go into School and be like, can you guys believe the shit that just happened? Like, did you see what happened when the Dragonzord shows up? And the Dragonzord, which is, for the record, Mechagodzilla, full stop. Like Finger rockets, like a buzzsaw blade at the tip of a tail. It's Mechagodzilla. It makes the Godzilla roar. And that gets a Power Ranger. And it's a cool Power Ranger. The Green Ranger, like I was saying, the six Rangers always have changes in design. So the Green Ranger has the basic design of the season one Power Rangers except instead of diamonds on his wrists and ankles they're triangles and they've got gold trim on them.

32:33
Case
And then he's got this chet's plate, which they call a shield and functions as a shield when he plays the song to reflect stuff. Very much casting shield in dungeons and dragons right there. It's this very cool chess piece that at least in the japanese footage is this carved foam stuff. And then the american footage is infamously this big baggy fabric thing that they have on him.

32:55
Nic
Don't quote me on this, but I think some guidebook or something may have retconned that to be, like, the first battalizer.

33:03
Case
Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. So in, like, the japanese series, the character steals this extra armor which is the thing that he's got and then later on transfers it over permanently to the red Ranger who then uses it throughout the remainder of the series because he doesn't lose his powers. He dies in the japanese thing. And I'm not gonna go into. Actually, it is really cool. So he's already dead before the series starts but he had lost some time. And so he's given a candle that burns the last of his time and that's where the green candle comes from in the show. That's actually, like a really cool thing. Pure eye. The Green Ranger in the japanese series is so fucking cool. I love all that stuff going on with him. Also, I believe the actor was, like, a previous Red Ranger.

33:44
Case
And so, like, that was like a nod for fans of the series. Like, the Green Ranger is the match for the red Ranger of the season because he's a previous Red Ranger. Yeah. So this introduces Tommy, who is, like, this rival character who has a zord that's just as powerful. Like, powerful enough to, like, stand up to the megazord by itself. Like, how cool is that?

34:04
Jmike
And you get the flute.

34:05
Case
Yes. He had the dragon Dagger. This flute dagger that was really powerful as a weapon relative to everyone else's individual weapons. It was such a dynamic introduction. He had all this extra ability. He does a Kamehameha and blasts them and does all these things. It's obvious that he's being empowered by Rita at that point. But afterwards he still seems to be the most powerful Ranger. That's kind of interesting. It's a way of assembling your team and then all of a sudden introducing the Superman to the team.

34:36
Nic
It's more of a hadouken. But yeah, that's right. And he never uses it again. But to be fair, neither does the Sentai.

34:46
Case
Right? And like I said, I think you could argue that at least in the american series it's like, oh, he's being charged up by Rita. You know, it makes enough sense. He also never grows again. That's not true. He actually does.

34:59
Nic
That's right. The finale.

35:00
Case
Yeah. So this introduces Tommy, and then all of a sudden we've got two big, square jawed leader types on the team, not to mention Zack and Billy, who are also both, like, square jawed. Like Billy. I don't know how the hell they sold us on him being a nerd that gets picked on because, Jesus Christ, the guy's arms are the size of.

35:20
Nic
Most people's heads, glasses and sleeves, I guess.

35:23
Case
Yeah.

35:24
Jmike
What, did he have overalls for a second?

35:25
Case
A lot. Yeah. In season one. Yeah.

35:27
Jmike
I guess that's where they could try to, like, pitch it that way.

35:31
Nic
I'll talk about the comics when it's pertinent to, but I do love that after, like, the first big arc in the comics, Tommy and Billy start bonding. And the way they do that is like, they start, like, working out together, like, putting on more muscle, and people start commenting on Billy's increased muscle mass.

35:48
Case
Oh, good. Because by the time you get to Zeo, it's. It's weird. Like, not. Not weird. I. That it exists. It's just weird that he's still like, oh, it's the nerd. And not like, oh, it's everyone's giant big brother.

36:04
Nic
Everyone's dead. He graduates early, and then he marries a fishwoman. And then he becomes the Ted court of Power Rangers by once and always.

36:13
Jmike
Yep.

36:14
Case
Yeah. This show is so wild, man. Like, the continuity that has remained. You get a couple seasons where they, like, try to, like, shoehorn the new gimmicks into the existing team. And first they do it by way of the Zords being, like, damaged, but can then, like, turn into these more powerful forms. But they keep the same base costumes for everyone. Season three is where it gets really interesting in terms of, like, how they structure it because they basically do the season in reverse. The Zords that they start off with are actually, like, the in season Zords from the japanese and vice versa. So, like, they work their way backwards. And by the time they get to the backwards point, that's when they insert the actual footage, like the suit footage from the japanese series, which is the Alien Rangers, and that's the miniseries.

36:55
Case
Like, it's a series told in reverse, which I find incredible that they figured out a way to edit that series. To work that way. Like, that is just mind blowing to me.

37:04
Jmike
It was the nineties, man.

37:06
Nic
My other white whale are the Alien Rangers Battleborgs, even if they didn't combine into a giant robot, still wanted them.

37:13
Case
Yeah, because those Battleborgs are clearly the Shogun swords, just without, like, a piece of their art.

37:17
Nic
Without. Yeah.

37:19
Case
It's so wild that they, like, somehow work their way in reverse to that point because it goes the Battleborgs actually, then the Shogun Zords, then the ninja Zords in the japanese series. But by this point, we had Tommy. They had this issue because in the original japanese series, the Green Ranger dies midway through the season and is just dead from that point on. But because he was a huge hit, like, oh, my God. Remember when the show would air, you wouldn't know what episode was playing. You know, it was decent chance it was a rerun. You still wanted it to be a Tommy episode. And so, like, they would go through the roster and, like, they would hit the note and they would have the footage of Tommy in the lineup. It'd be like, god damn it. Yes.

37:59
Case
This is one of those, like, I'm so happy for it to be one of those episodes right now. I don't need it to be the goddamn pig episode again.

38:06
Nic
Aw, don't say bad things about pudgy pig.

38:09
Case
I mean, Pudgy Pig is fine, but it just, it felt like after, like, that was in that first block that I watched a lot of those episodes, and it took a while for them to get the next block out. Yeah.

38:19
Nic
And then they brought him back.

38:22
Case
But anyways, they went back to do the new footage for the suit actors.

38:27
Nic
It was like, Toei, please shoot more fight scene footage for our show.

38:32
Case
Yeah. Which is interesting to think about. It's like this whole epilogue, effectively, because there are still some continuity to zoo Rangers in there, even though it's technically over at that point because they're still, like, acting out the way that the characters would act out because they didn't know better. Like, there's some elements that are integrated in from the show. Like, there's like, the Blue Ranger being the tech guy, for example, is, like, integrated in. That was not in the suit stuff before because the japanese blue Ranger was actually, like, the class clown character.

39:00
Nic
That, and the Pink and the Green Ranger were more friendly in their suits. You two footage.

39:06
Case
Exactly. Exactly. They got them to shoot this, but then for season two, they're like, all right. We're going to use the next season of Super Sentai and use that footage instead. And so they decide that they're going to use the Zord footage from that but actually shoot original american footage. There's original american suit footage. They use some of the Zhu two footage. They use some of the Zhou footage to hack together this weird bastard season. But the thing is, they really don't have any footage to use of the Green Ranger. In fact, all the Dragonzord fighting the monster of the week stuff, if it wasn't you two footage was like just shots of the Dragonzord firing and then cut to the monster blowing up. There's no interaction.

39:48
Nic
Oh, we should mention that Tommy lost his powers, but then he got like an upgrade so that he can kind of use them again for season one and the start of season two.

39:57
Case
Right? Yeah.

39:57
Nic
Just want to throw that out real quick.

39:59
Case
Yeah. For people who have no idea what we're talking about, I'm assuming that we're all like 40 year old men who are vaguely aware of Power Rangers at this point. That's what this episode is. Mandev. We're 50 minutes in. Like, if you don't kind of know what we're talking about, like, what are you doing here?

40:13
Nic
Again, I was confused as a child thinking, wait, does Tommy have his powers or not? What's going on?

40:18
Case
Right? And they made it convenient because his powers would wax and wane and so he could come back or come in, but they were just running out of footage for him. And so ultimately it was decided, well, there's a six Ranger in the new season. We'll bring that character over. And that six Rangers design looked close enough to the previous season's design in a way that the main team didn't like. The main team does not look very similar to the Zhuo Ranger team. But the white Ranger looked close enough. It made sense that he was, like, missing the Harlequin design. Like, he's all white. So like the. The flip of season one of Power Rangers, season two of Power Rangers is that the main team were real animals. And then the Dragonzord is a mythological creature as the six Ranger sword.

40:58
Case
And then in season two, the main team are all mythological things. It's a dragon, it's a Griffin unicorn. Yet all that, and then it's a. A tiger spirit is the six Ranger one. So it's actually, like, kind of more consistent in design with them in its own way.

41:13
Jmike
Wait for the White Ranger. Wasn't his sword sentient?

41:16
Case
Yes. So he had Saba, the sentient longsword, which was great in that season and then, like, forgotten about the next season because the next season had the same exact problem which they had to shoot american footage for this character that didn't have an equivalent in the season. But after getting through three seasons of it's decided that they're going to move away from trying to, like, fit theme of the season in but keep it mighty morphin Power Rangers. And they decide to at least adopt it where each season is going to be adopting fully the gimmick of the season so that they can at least use the suit footage from Japan, which they were not able to do for two seasons at that point, which kind of was the whole point of the show.

41:54
Case
And so that's where we get to Zia where it's like fully new powers, so it's new costumes and everything. And the decision is made to make Tommy the Red Ranger in that scene.

42:00
Nic
Season, which good move until they retconned his backstory middle of Zeo.

42:08
Case
So what he's referring to is that there's the whole issue in the first season of Power Rangers where the Black Ranger is a black guy and the yellow Ranger is an asian woman. And in Zeo they reveal that Tommy actually has native american ancestry. And this happens to be the season where he has made the Red Ranger.

42:24
Nic
Yeah, the yellow Ranger. Black Ranger stuff is like five episodes in when the implications hit. The production team is like, oh, right. And then they course corrected when they introduced the Stone Canyon trio to replace the actors who were fired for wanting more money.

42:39
Case
Power Rangers contains multitudes. They sometimes are on the right side of history and sometimes the wrong and sometimes they are both. But, yeah. So it makes sense to make Tommy the red Ranger at that point. Like we said, the red Ranger is supposed to be the leader type. Traditionally, the 6th Ranger is not the leader. And so it was already something that they were kind of like shoehorning in because the decision had been made to make Tommy the leader win. At the same time they fired the original trio. When they fired Jason, they had to.

43:07
Nic
Use stock footage of Jason saying, oh, yeah, this is great.

43:12
Case
Yep.

43:13
Nic
When Zordon's like, Tommy's the leader now.

43:15
Case
Yep. It was some weird butchery of editing that they had to do starting with season one, of course, where they had to somehow make the whole concept of the show work. But season two, it's incredible. Season three, like I said, it's fascinating that they do the season in reverse but they got tired of doing that for Zeo. So that's why we return to them using the Sentai footage. We roll with whatever the weird contrivances of the season are to a certain degree. They don't do the time travel thing or whatever it is with like, the two princes are actually the same character just at different points in their life. They just have them as two separate characters, which makes plenty of sense.

43:49
Nic
Yeah. Prince Sprocket and Prince Gasket where in the Sentai, the robot baby character is murdered and then rebuilt into the tall, princely character.

43:59
Case
Thank you for explaining it better than me. I was trying to remember the details on that one.

44:03
Nic
Listen, when O'Ranger goes hard, it goes hard.

44:07
Case
Yeah. But then we get another cast flip after we get into the next season, which is Turbo, which is, like you said before where I dropped off, Turbo actually is a comedy season in Japan and thus, like, it's one of those where it's like, yeah, no better in the Sentai.

44:22
Nic
It's specifically a parody of an older sentai season, I believe, which is actually Turbo Ranger. They're parroting. Yeah, their pair car Ranger is parroting their turbo Ranger.

44:32
Case
Right. So, yeah, when I actually, like, sat down and watched Turbo, it was nice just to be like, oh, yeah, it's more stuff with the Rangers that I like. So it is more stuff with Tommy, which is like, nice to see. It is rough up until they do the cast switch and then once the cast switch happens, it's actually a really, like, good season, which is like, frustrating to look at. But if you're just here for that original cast, it is really weird just to like, leave them in the middle of it. But that's what happens. And at this point, Power Rangers has been doing that for a while and that's the big reason why it felt like for me, I needed to jump ship because I didn't understand that the japanese series was a new concept every single season.

45:09
Case
So each season starts to, like, have some amount of small change until we get through the end of in space. During this period, for example, we have Andros, who is brought in as the new red Ranger in that season who I think there's a strong case to be made for being a Superman analog. He's an alien with psychic powers and he's the one who gets the first true battleizer. The first, like, what they call a battleizer which includes a jetpack that allows him to engage with Zordon because he's able to separately travel through space in a way that the others are not.

45:40
Nic
Battle Azer gives a massive muscles.

45:42
Case
Yes.

45:42
Nic
It also get.

45:43
Jmike
Yep.

45:44
Case
Yeah. So Andrews has a strong case for being a Superman type. But at the end of the season, they basically rid the world of all evil and sort of wipe the slate clean so that the next season is a new cast, new gimmick. And then each season after that would be a new cast, new gimmick up until we get to the neo Saban era where they would split up the seasons to split up the production time, I guess would be the best way to describe it. Are there any Rangers you want to bring up? Like I brought up Andros, but are there any Rangers you want to bring up in the interim? I think Carter Grayson has a strong claim to.

46:18
Nic
Carter Grayson. Definitely that square jaw. And he's a firefighter. Excellent.

46:22
Case
Yeah. Lightspeed rescue as a season that is about a rescue squad for Power Rangers was a really cool idea and really good for that. Kind of like everyone's a goddamn hero here.

46:32
Nic
Yeah. So other characters I want to bring up Jason from Mighty Morphin. He's got the square jaw look and he got the guilt over Tommy. Like the missing Green episode where right after Tommy loses the powers again and then Zed captures the rest of his friends and Jason's worrying and Zordon gives him a pep talk like, it's your duty. You can do this. And then he saves everyone and beats Godar in the dark dimension. Like, that's great. And then Tommy becomes the leader and gets the white Ranger powers. So like, oh, well, Billy, we already said he's the Ted quarter of the series. Trini's probably more of a flash type because she's, I argue she's the heart of the team and gets along with everyone. And the comics established that all the charity events done in Angel Grove are mainly her brainchild.

47:16
Nic
And also we can't forget the part where shellshocked Zapper with the go function and then she had to run up a mountain to deal the problem of the day. Like, she's running fast.

47:29
Case
Yeah.

47:30
Nic
Ooh. Zach. One good thing about the g two footage is that he gets to wear the dragon shield in like, the finale episode.

47:37
Case
Yeah, it's a really cool season one final.

47:39
Nic
And it's made better by the comics because they established that Rita originally went to Zack for the Green Ranger powers and that creates a kind of tension in there. And then he's eventually be able to get over that with Tommy. I start being real friends with him. So now that becomes a set off to the payoff of the season one finale. And also, and once and always they say that Zack became a congressman.

48:04
Jmike
Wait, what? Really?

48:05
Nic
Yeah. And I like to think that's a reference to, like, a special the comics did. Like, what I did on my summer vacation where we get to explore all the rangers when they have, like, spring break. And what Zack does in spring break is that he goes to his brother's office in DC and he works with his brother to help, like, the congresswoman in there. Like, help pass legislation that will protect people whose homes were destroyed by the giant monster fights caused by the Rangers and Rita. It's fascinating.

48:37
Jmike
Yeah, it's kind of cool.

48:38
Case
Yeah. Like, for all the characters who are showing up from being off screen for a couple seasons they always have, like, the most insane backstories for what happened in the interim as which will happen with Tommy, for example, when we catch up with him next in Forever Red where he now owns a juice bar that skull and bulk work for him at.

48:57
Nic
Oh, Bulk and Skull. When the Rangers lose their memories temporarily and they find out that they are the Rangers but it's like, oh, but we got to sacrifice our memories to give the Rangers back theirs. But we're going to do it because we are heroes secretly deep down as well.

49:12
Case
Oh, yeah. I mean, Bulk and Skull, like, are arguably the main characters. This is the stance of history of Power Rangers. So I don't want to say that I'm the one creating it but Bulk and Skull are arguably the main character of the first five seasons. They have the biggest arcs for sure because they are the characters who stick around that whole time and thus we get to see their most heroic moments. I mean, it's a show about superheroes. There's going to be a bunch of good superheroes in the show about superheroes.

49:37
Nic
My opinion of Cat Hillary has really grown in years because when Tommy gets brainwashed again in Zeo Kat has to depower and give him a big hug to try and get a member. And it works because this is Power Rangers. And also the part where they first try to paint a Zeo crystal. Part of that is Tommy going to the catacombs of Zedd's Castle. And Cat trying to buy time is like, all right, I will offer you my immortal soul just to buy Tommy some time to get the crystal. Which, like, okay, let's get some respect from me. Who else is there? TJ fought off the first Megazord they had when it was under control by the bad guys. Fought him off single handedly to try and gain control back of it.

50:17
Nic
He was the one who said, okay, we lost our Turbo powers but we still got to go into space to find Zordon. Right. If not us, then who we got to do that?

50:25
Case
TJ should be reminded is the first black red Ranger and the Red Ranger after Tommy. So, like, it sucks that he gets demoted to blue in the next season. But that's only if you see it as a demotion which some seasons put that forth, but other seasons do not. Other seasons, it's just like, oh, yeah, well, that's the color you are. But it doesn't really matter.

50:47
Nic
Also from Turbo and in space, I have Cassie the pink Ranger down there. She's kind of a Superman analog in the sense that she has her own comet, the super horse. There is an episode where her dog gets turned into a human and she gets to know him and he's like, no, this is bad. Power Rangers Turbo is weird.

51:09
Case
Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, I want us to. I want to caution us from going too far into every act of heroism, well, into every act of heroism that we have in here because, like, it's a show about superheroes who are really good people. Like, it's not a very complicated show typically. And the complications still usually doesn't, like, have those, like, moral gray areas for everyone or if they do, there's a big redemption arc for them. So let's talk about forever Red is what I was saying. So, J Mike, did you ever watch this episode forever Red? Do you know what we're talking about?

51:41
Jmike
I've heard about it, but I've never sat and watched it before. But feel free to spoil it for me.

51:45
Case
I mean, the assembly of Red Rangers, all the red Rangers that have shown up in the show up until that point, win. Spoiler it's a mid season episode that is a crossover in Power Rangers Wild Forest, which is a middling season. Like, it's got its strengths and it's got its weaknesses but it has two of the best crossovers ever and in it they've got forever red, which this was the ten year anniversary, I think.

52:08
Nic
Yes.

52:09
Case
Yeah. So it's the ten year anniversary season and they do a crossover where every single red Ranger shows up and fights a bunch of bad guys. They have unmor fights, they have more fights. They all get together and then they win because it's Power Rangers. Of course they win. Particularly the Red Ranger from that season gets like the kill shot because, like, of course he does. He's the red Ranger of that season.

52:30
Nic
Do you agree with Linkar and that they should have swapped out Orko and gotten Rocky in the ninjeti outfit.

52:35
Case
I would have rather had both in that scenario. I did want the actual costume of the Alien Ranger. But yeah, it would have been nice to have gotten Rocky in there as well.

52:45
Nic
Also, in that case, we probably would have had to cut out Eric the Quantum Ranger out of there.

52:50
Case
I mean, that's the thing. Would I cut someone for Rocky? It's hard to say because I really like that the Quantum Ranger is there. It's a great team up with some really cool things. And the Quantum Ranger in particular is one I like because it's the season coming right after time Force. So having the red time Force Ranger and the Quantum Ranger as this like, buddy cops duo that keeps on showing up, I really enjoy in this season. And so I would really not want to lose the Quantum Ranger for that reason.

53:14
Nic
Yeah, and he was in the first crossover, so new audiences are already familiar with Wes and Eric being a thing.

53:21
Case
Exactly. So long story short, it is a baller team up that we get like all the morphing sequences. It's just really cool. Now is it perfect? No. Like instead of having like basically reuse big bag beetleborg costumes, like it should have been the Psycho Red as like the main villain for the piece because then that way Psycho Red makes sense for why it's all the red Rangers as opposed to all the teams. But even though you have a couple of, like, logic leaps to be like, oh, what? They assemble all the red Rangers to stop a really big threat. But it's still great. It's really cool and it's really fun to check in with all these, like, Red Rangers and see where they're at and they're all just being heroes at this point.

53:57
Nic
That could be psycho Red leading the big bad Beetleborg's repurpose as the machine Empire.

54:03
Case
I'm totally fine on that front too. It would be great regardless. They just should have had psycho Red there. So you had yet another Red Ranger and it would explain why it's all Red Rangers coming for him.

54:12
Nic
Like people always do the. If I could erase my memory of watching this the first time and rewatch it, I would. I would do that again with forever Red because my shock at seeing the Beetleborg costumes show up again is like, what's going on?

54:26
Case
Yeah. And I should note that there are other, like, Easter eggs in there for fans of the show. There's a lot of, like, details in it. It's a lot in just one episode. It's not a two part episode. It is 22 minutes. It is a blitz of a Power Ranger story. But that Blitz is a really cool blitz and it shows off all these characters and reminds us who Tommy is after he'd been gone for a couple seasons.

54:47
Nic
Do we want to talk about the writer of forever read emit Baumik and his plans for season eleven?

54:54
Jmike
How many Power Ranger seasons are there? American Power Ranger seasons are there?

54:59
Case
I mean, we're what, at the 30th anniversary?

55:02
Jmike
Well, that could mean, like, regular tv things are like, one season consists of like 40 episodes in the beginning and that could last.

55:09
Case
The first couple seasons are like that. And then I, most of them after that are like one season, one year kind of thing. And even then, the first couple seasons, that was still, in a year that those seasons came out, it would be like a fall to spring kind of year cycle. So it was what, 93 when Power Rangers first came out? So we're at 31 years right now and there's a few years where we're missing it. So I think it's like 25 seasons.

55:32
Nic
Do the super seasons count as separate season?

55:35
Case
I was about to say something. I could see your face and I was like, oh, I think we're about to talk about the super season.

55:39
Nic
Does the Disney recut of mighty morphin season one count as a separate season?

55:45
Case
I would say that definitely does not. And the super seasons technically do, mostly because at least one of them is actually covering two sentai seasons for me, which is megaforce and super megaforce.

55:57
Nic
Yeah.

55:58
Case
And that makes it just kind of messy. And I think you just kind of have to call them two seasons because they are called two seasons and there's like, quality differences between some of them. Anyway. Even though I kind of roll my eyes at that part of it all, I'm just like, yeah, no, Dino charge is Dino charge. You don't need it to be Dino supercharged. It did need to be a separate season. There's not a big thing that is different between them. So let's skip ninja Storm. I like ninja Storm. But it and its relationship with, what was it? The Helix Hexagon. The Hexagon. The idea was to have Tommy leading a network of Power Ranger teams kind of thing. I don't know enough to really go too far into it and we never got it.

56:38
Nic
I want to say that they would be operating out of a building called the Hexagon, which is a direct reference to the Pentagon and is basically being like ranger cleanup of Tommy sending his Ranger teams to go after all the loose ends that the shows couldn't really get into because stock footage ran out. And I believe that Tommy was going to be revealed to have gone mad with power in his attempts to be the new Zordon and trying to help protect the world. And he donned the Shinken Green outfit as like his final suit. And then he starts over and then he's shown the air of his ways and the Hexagon is disbanded. I would honestly love for Boom studios to adapt that as a storyline for.

57:23
Case
The books, but that would be effectively an Elseworlds kind of thing. And I thought it's a cool idea. It's not what we got. And we did get something cool with Tommy in the season right after that. So it was a cool idea that got leaked that never really had any sort of real traction to it, but cool idea nonetheless. However, the following season we got Dino Thunder where Tommy gets to be the mentor. J Mike, have you seen anything about this one?

57:50
Jmike
No.

57:52
Nic
He gets to complain about the music the kids are listening to these days.

57:56
Case
Yep.

57:57
Jmike
Oh my gosh.

57:58
Case
He's doctor Oliver at this point. And he's a paleontologist who also builds robots.

58:04
Jmike
He's a paleontologist. Oh, my God.

58:06
Nic
He got his PhD in eight years. That's how that works.

58:09
Case
Complete pivot from being the juice bar, don.

58:13
Jmike
Hey, man, you know, people switch up careers earlier in their lives.

58:16
Nic
It's a complete pivot from when he was a race car driver.

58:19
Case
Yeah. Yeah. This is a man who contains multitudes. Anyway, so this is the next dinosaur themed season. It's a big nod to the original. And so he becomes the mentor and then midway through the season because there's only three of them on the team.

58:33
Nic
Initially, not even midway into the season, five episodes into the season.

58:37
Case
Okay, well, so anyway, so Tommy gets new powers in this season and becomes the black ranger on the team, which is what? Like a brachiosaur, I think is his design.

58:51
Nic
Yes.

58:52
Case
That becomes like this whole thing for this new iteration of the character. And they do the Green Ranger plot but this time with a white Ranger who also gets split into an evil clone later on in the season. And so Tommy is basically watching exactly what happened to him as a teenager play out in this whole situation. And he's now the mentor trying to.

59:11
Nic
Guide them through it when he's not stuck in Amber.

59:13
Jmike
Right.

59:13
Case
Yes. They have a whole chunk where like, Jason David Frank wanted to like, come home to America because they were filming in New Zealand at that point. And so they had him like stuck in Amber and then trapped inside his suit for a while. And then you get the really cool episode where when he's like trying to break free of this whole situation. He, like, battles himself. Like he battles the Green Ranger version of himself. The Zeo Ranger version of himself. And then the Turbo Ranger. No, the white.

59:38
Nic
He battles the Zeo Ranger version. The White Ranger and then the Green Ranger.

59:41
Case
I was like, not too red. That doesn't make sense.

59:44
Nic
Well, it does make sense because it.

59:45
Case
Was Turbo red too would make sense. But I'm saying that they only do three. It's a rule of three situation there. So that's a cool episode with it all. But the character had come around to being the mentor by that point and that would have been sort of a fun place to sort of leave it off. But then more recently, they've decided to canonize the weird shit that people have put in all the comics and stuff.

01:00:06
Nic
I do think some version of Hexagon did still happen because in the first episode of Dino Thunder they do establish that Tommy basically built the foot soldiers of the season. The pteranodrones.

01:00:19
Case
Yeah, yeah. Also that.

01:00:20
Nic
And they never really get into it or deal with it ethically.

01:00:23
Case
Paleontologist, geneticist, roboticist. Like Tommy Oliver's a man who contains multitudes. And so if he contained also a secret government project, I guess that makes enough sense. I mean, again, like, we see that the Power Rangers in the background have sort of like become networks of people who are connected and share in this burden of being superheroes behind the scenes of each new team that shows up in the interim. It's been an interesting journey. Next time he shows up, though, would be in Super Megaforce when they do the legendary battle. And that sucks.

01:00:58
Nic
I do love how he gets to be both White Ranger and Green Ranger. And then when they're panning to all the different Ranger teams like hes not there for Zeo and hes not there for Dino Thunder in their attempts to try and keep things straight. And yet theres still duplicates of Turbo and in space there.

01:01:17
Case
Yep, its a weird situation.

01:01:19
Nic
But, you know, maybe those were the robot Rangers from Turbo that they did in that one episode.

01:01:23
Case
Yeah. So theres this whole thing in it where because its a team up of all these Rangers and they get so many of them but because theyre using japanese footage wherein that team up is of just totally separate teams. It doesn't work with the number of seasons that were actually the same people just with power swaps and so forth. It's one of the reasons it's not the reason it wouldn't even be a reason by itself but because there's all these other things that are going on. But it's one of the reasons why the legendary battle is not good. Like, it's not a good episode. It's cool to see all the teams there, but the threat doesn't make any sense because like the fight was supposed to be the opening of the season in the japanese series.

01:02:02
Case
Like the battle is the start and they win but they win at what cost? Their powers are lost all throughout space. That's why it works stakes wise there as the finale where they're just fighting fucking mooks the whole time. It's not interesting. All the main villains are down at that point in the season.

01:02:19
Nic
Well, if you watch the extended cut, they do fight the big bad guy that they introduced at the very last minute.

01:02:26
Case
But that's my point. The whole thing is just fucking boring and there's no like real stakes to the whole thing. It doesn't make any sense. The cameos are nice, but like, it sounds like it was like kind of shitty for people in terms of like who got the cameos and whatnot. The whole thing was like kind of exciting to be like following up to it. But they had really dropped the ball in terms of the actual finished project. And that makes sense because like Megaforce and Super Megaforce are not good seasons. They are rough seasons of the show.

01:02:55
Nic
But then we got Dino charge and beast morphers saying like, we can do a good season. We can do a good anniversary season.

01:03:00
Case
Yeah, yeah. That's the thing. Like, Dino Charge would have been a great anniversary season. It would have been another dinosaur season. But yeah, Megaforce and Super Megaforce are not great and the cameos are thus also not that great. And Jason David Frank really pushed his notoriety in the fan community to be one of the main characters in this crossover. So he's very front and center. It's like, oh, wow. The original Green Ranger is sort of how they respond to him. It doesn't do anything for or against him really. Aside from indicating that he has both Saba and also the dragon dagger at this point, which is interesting because he also apparently can zeomorph and also might have the Brachio powers. I don't know. It doesn't matter if he does or not because he clearly has at least two or three other power sets.

01:03:47
Nic
We get confirmation in the anniversary episode of Ninja Steel where they recruit a bunch of other Rangers and Tommy.

01:03:55
Case
Yep.

01:03:55
Nic
And when they introduced the concept of the Master Morpher, which is like I get to slop through my different Ranger powers now, which would be cooler if.

01:04:04
Case
They had more defined powers as being different for them. The one problem with Power Rangers season over season is that typically the power set for each of them is some generic amount of durability, super strength and super leaping and sometimes an energy blaster too. But that's not, like, as part of the main, like, canon for any of the teams. My point just being that, like, yeah, it's cool. But technically, wouldn't the Zeo Powers just be the best regardless because the Zeo ones were explicitly more powerful and growing in power on top of the white or Green Ranger powers?

01:04:35
Nic
The thing is that they actually went into the different sets. There are some differences. Like, the Zeo Ranger powers grow over time. The white Ranger powers cannot be corrupted by evil. The black Ranger powers let you go invisible.

01:04:48
Case
Yeah, I mean, so, like, that's cool stuff there. But I'm saying, like, it would be great if it was even more distinct differences between them. It didn't have to be really, like, played up in a way because, like, the effective power of the White Ranger was not that different from the Green Ranger in the actual show. In fact, arguably worse because the Green ring, like, when the Green Ranger was cloned, he actually wins. And the. The Dragonzord does, like, surprisingly well against the White Tiger Sword which should not happen. Just, just for the record, blasphemy. I love the Dragonzord, but the White Tigerzord can turn into a megazord by itself.

01:05:20
Nic
I still love that fight.

01:05:21
Case
I know, I know.

01:05:22
Nic
It's just like, it's just, again, classic Superman of, yeah, it's a Superman three fighting the evil version of himself.

01:05:29
Case
All we need is Tommy just like drunk. Like flinging stuff up against walls. Like in Superman three.

01:05:35
Nic
Some of the sillier episodes of Power Rangers also remind me of those Silver Agey comic book covers. Like, what is it? Rita's PETA in season three where, like, tommy gets infected with some kind of bug is like, I can't stop eating jug food. Reminding me of that pant, that cover of Superannua's. Like, oh, Jimmy, help. I can't stop eating all these hamburgers.

01:05:55
Case
Yeah, no, I mean, there's certainly the Silver Age equality to Power Rangers that fits really well. Like, some of the goofier ones, like, those pizzas are no match for the arm of the law or whatever the lane was from Turbo.

01:06:06
Nic
The evil pizzas were no match for a simple stoplight.

01:06:09
Case
There we go. Thank you. Yeah, I'm glad I have you here for the accuracy on this one. Yeah, that's it. I feel like this has just been fun to kind of gush about, like, Power Rangers stuff. But we would be here all day if we tried to list off every character who had, like, a really heroic moment on the show, which is why we kind of wanted to talk about Tommy, even though, like, Tommy is kind of, like, it's, like, cliche for him to be your favorite Power Ranger in, like, a lot of the community. Like, we wanted to talk about him.

01:06:34
Case
Like, Jason David Frank, you know, passed away recently, and that was kind of the thing that started this conversation because love him or hate him or have mixed feelings about him, it's really sad that life can get you to that point. And he played a hero for a lot of us, a character that we really looked up to. And even if he became too much the focus of the show at a certain point because it is supposed to be an ensemble production that wasn't entirely him and that, you know, were begging for it at the time. Again, like, it's cool to see this character who kind of naturally from the charisma of the actor and the.

01:07:14
Case
The way the writing handled this character went from being this sort of lancer type, this not the hero of the story type, the arch rival, and became the main hero for a lot of people. So, Nick, I know, like, you brought this as a topic from that framework. Is there anything you want to say about that?

01:07:33
Nic
Yeah, it kind of makes me weary but also curiously hopeful about where the franchise goes in the future because, like, the loss of Jason David Frank, it's not like the loss of, say, George Reeves from the old Superman serials. Another hero actor who tragically lost an unpleasant way because, like, we've had other superman after that. Like, I don't really think we're going to get another Tommy Oliver, but it makes me curious about the new reboot. It really strikes me that after cosmic Fury, like, they decided to fully go forward with a reboot, and even more so in that cosmic Fury takes the time to firmly set. So we mentioned power Rangers SPD earlier, if that takes place 20 years in the future from when it aired. So 2025, which is a year away.

01:08:30
Case
Don't you just love it when the future science show is like, oh, that's the past now.

01:08:35
Nic
But, yeah, cosmic Theory takes the time to establish the status quo going into SPD, which is interesting, and also the soul of the dragon comic book boom release, which is kind of like their answer for, like, old man Logan, whatever happened to man of tomorrow? But with a Tommy Oliver part of the plot of that book is Tommy going to SPD headquarters and asking sky about his son. And so it's really interesting. This character is depicted as this age when they were in 2005 and is acting with old man Tommy Oliver.

01:09:17
Case
Yeah, we should have talked a little bit about the boom comics, by the way.

01:09:20
Jmike
I've never read the boom comics.

01:09:23
Case
They're pretty good. Like, I really enjoyed them in general. But the original big concept that they rolled out in the comics after just doing, like, good Power Ranger stories for the first couple issues and teasing this bigger bad guy was the Drakon, which is an evil alternate reality version of Tommy with the fused power of the green and white Rangers.

01:09:41
Nic
And much like with Superman, I'm sick of Dracon. I'm sick of evil Superman. I'm sick of Dracon.

01:09:49
Case
Yeah. Definitely became the most popular thing to come out of the comics just because it was such a cool idea. It's in the fighting game that came out, battle for the grid, which I was just replaying the other night and I still enjoy. It's quite a fun little fighting game.

01:10:02
Nic
Yeah. And while I'm not a fan of Drakon past the first 16 issues of the main book and probably not even past shattered grid, he does work very well as, like, a counterpoint to the main version of Tommy because throughout those 1st 16 issues of the book, Tommy has been dealing with a lot of insecurity. Like, he still has flashes of Rita from when he was under mind control. Like, he's hearing social media talk about how the Dragonzord bust down a bridge in Angel Grove, but now they're letting him on the team. What's up with that? And he's dealing with tensions between the different Ranger groups. And again, the whole thing with Zack originally being given the chance to be the Green Ranger and that's a extra special attention. But then Drakon invades the main universe and depowers all the other Rangers.

01:10:52
Nic
So it's like, okay, I have to fight. Jason's gonna be in the Dragonzord. So it's Jason in the Dragonzord and Tommy Zordless fighting a big, giant black dragon monster. And he's able to hold his own pretty well. Like, again, the whole thing with the tv show is that Tommy is the most popular character, so he's going to be the leader, whereas the books, I felt like, really are making a effort to make Tommy work for the status that he has and make him earn it more.

01:11:21
Case
Yeah. And then they also give, like, Jason, like, real stuff to do after he leaves because he, Zach, and Trini, like, actually go off and become sort of like special Forces Rangers. What is it? The Omega Rangers.

01:11:32
Nic
Omega Rangers. Which I'm looking back now, I'm kind of mixed about. It's a dirty deal that they got in the show where they were fired because they were wanting equal pay. But at the same time, I don't really remember a lot of the Omega Ranger stuff from when I read all the comics back a while ago.

01:11:51
Case
I mean, it's just cool to have them have a really active role outside of it. It's the same reason why I like the Pink Ranger mini that they did.

01:11:59
Nic
Pink.

01:11:59
Case
Was it just pink?

01:12:00
Nic
Yeah.

01:12:01
Case
Which, by the way, has one of the coolest designs where through her powers, Zack gets his powers reactivated. So he's wearing a version of his costume but with a hoodie. And it all has, like, pink trim in addition to the, like, the black and white on his design. That hoodie, if anyone could somehow make it for me, I would pay money for it because it's just so goddamn cool. In the boom books, they've done this a couple of times where they've had, like, the powers get kind of shuffled, like when Tommy's powers were, like, distributed amongst all the other members. So they were all Green Rangers for a minute. Yeah.

01:12:31
Nic
So they couldn't morph. But Tommy's coin was still active. So I was like, okay, if we filter your power coins through the green energy, you all can morph, but your suits are green, but you have access to your zords, then that's how that works.

01:12:48
Case
Really cool stuff. And when they've done the Ninja Turtles crossover with Power Rangers, they've had the Turtles get Power Ranger versions of themselves. They've played it with the Power Rangers stuff. And it's been a very fun collaboration series there.

01:13:00
Nic
I have the TMNt Power Rangers sequel. I'm not ready yet, but I do know Ninjor shows up and he grants Casey Jones Ninja Powers.

01:13:11
Case
Love it, love it, love it.

01:13:15
Nic
So, yeah. Some other things about the early boom studio comic books, like, they give, again about that whole thing of making Tommy work for the status that fans have given him and making him truly deserving of Superman, of Power Rangers. They give him some really Superman ass lines, like in the final fight with Drakkon of the first 16 issues, Tommy has a line about how, like, yeah, I brought on my friends, but that's okay. Everyone here fears you. They don't trust in you. And, like, the line is, trust and hope need more resolve to believe in than paranoia and fear. Like, that's very Superman of you, Tommy.

01:13:54
Case
Yeah.

01:13:55
Nic
And, like, the first issue of the main book starts with a bulk and skull shooting video for their YouTube series about how they live in Ranger capital of America and, like, interviewing all the people about how do you feel about the Green Ranger joining the other team? And, like, that sets up Tommy's doubt throughout those first issues. But again, he gets more confident in himself, more sure of his place in the team. And he has a really good monologue that I trimmed out some of it. I trimmed down some of it. But I feel like I gotta read that for posterity.

01:14:28
Nic
Like, so at the end of the arc, when he's finally giving his interview for Bulk and Skull, he says, like, the thing you don't get out of any of the web footage or photographs is that while the Power Rangers clearly care about us, they care about each other just as much. And really, to me, that's so amazing about the Rangers because if they can band together in the face of overworing odds, if they can put aside their differences and trust in each other, if they can believe in each other no matter the odds, then so can we. The Power Rangers are a reminder that all of us are better together. That even when we're at our weakest, as long as we trust in each other, then we're never really alone. We're never lost. There's always hope. Yep.

01:15:08
Case
Very, very supermanly. Yeah. So I feel like we've covered the gist of Power Rangers in general and like, with Tommy Oliver in particular, I feel good about where we've gotten to on this one.

01:15:20
Nic
I just want to talk about Solo dragon really quickly. Solo Dragon I mentioned. It's the old man Logan of Power Rangers, man of Tomorrow Power Rangers, but more hopeful of it. It's basically Tommy finally coming to terms with his age and his place as a Ranger. Place as a important ranger. And, like, it's the future of one year from now and basically we're seeing, like, SPD being established. Like, Kat is able to take a vacation trip to Triforia and then back. It's like we have space travel. Tommy, this is cool. Like, Kat has a really good line that I brought up when Jason David Frank passed away and the Power Rangers audio drama group was like, asking fans and castmates to, like, say a few words about Jason David Frank. This is the line that stuck with me from Kat.

01:16:15
Nic
Like, Tommy's like, oh, did we really do as good as we thought we did for the world? We still have to deal with, like, border patrols and, like, terrorist plots. Like, I don't feel like I made a difference and Kat has to, like, calm him down. It's like, no, you did make a difference. Anyone could sit there and say, I could have done more, but it's just as important to recognize what you have done and the impact you have made. Otherwise, you're just going to drive yourself crazy, which is something I think we can all take close to Heartland. And, like, I don't want to say who this next line is from because it's a spoiler, but there's also, it's a really great monologue from someone who has a complicated history with Tommy and Rita, but I don't want to leave it out.

01:16:59
Nic
So the line goes, I'm sorry, Tommy, for my part in what Rita did to you all those years ago. However, it makes me so happy even now to see you make something positive from such a terrible ordeal. You always know how to rise above the odds, Tommy, if anyone can save your child, I know it is you.

01:17:21
Case
Yeah, really showing, like, the faith in.

01:17:23
Nic
The character, but also the fact that Tommy is able to retire and pass on the torch to his kid. That means the Zeo Christmas framing device is cant.

01:17:35
Case
Oh, man. For those not aware, Power Rangers has had Christmas specials. Some of them have shown flash forwards to the future, one of which showed Tommy with Kat married with kids. I feel like we've covered Tommy pretty well. We've covered Power Rangers pretty well. There's so much of it all. Like, it's a fun series in general. I tune in and out for certain amounts of it all currently, but there are some really good seasons out there. Like, if you're curious about it, I would just say check out rpm is like an easy one to just go to and not need to have a lot of background kind of info on. And it will just be a good season. But there's so much material out there and I.

01:18:10
Case
It's easy to just pop in for a few things here or there, check out the team up episodes and then go from there. If you like the season, be like, oh, cool, I'll actually watch the rest of this. It's a fun series that I am glad to have rediscovered as an adult because it shows what you can gleam from even the most kid oriented kind of media out there. And I think that you can really gleam a story of a hero like Tommy Oliver. So, Nick, thank you for bringing this as a subject for us to talk about.

01:18:41
Nic
No problem.

01:18:42
Case
For the listeners out there, where can people find you and follow you.

01:18:46
Nic
I am in the winds at the moment. I still have my Reddit. M y c k o u n t. I use that mainly to talk about like slight one small change rewrites. I've also been on the certain point of view network before. I've talked about Squadron supreme with case. We talked about.

01:19:05
Case
Yeah, here on this show, the Power Rangers reboot.

01:19:08
Nic
Yeah, I talked about Squadron supreme on Men of Steel before. I've talked about the Power Rangers reboot movie from 2017 on Nether Pass. I've also talked with friends of the show Angela Bullock and JD Martin on Fables and reflections. We talk about Sandman and Neil Gaiman. I've also been on JD's other show, comics quests. I've talked about visions by Tom King and the Marvels as well.

01:19:35
Case
Great books, great episodes.

01:19:37
Nic
And depending on when this comes out, I will be or have been on another pass again, talking about Godzilla 2019, king of the monsters.

01:19:45
Case
Oh, this is going to drop well before that episode.

01:19:48
Nic
Okay, very good. Very good.

01:19:51
Case
So people should check out those episodes. Like, you bring a lot to every conversation that you come to.

01:19:56
Nic
Oh, thank you.

01:19:57
Case
So people should absolutely check out those episodes and then they should try to track down J Mike. J Mike, where can people find you and follow you?

01:20:04
Jmike
I am like a shadow, a ghost in the wind. I am everywhere. Nowhere at the same time, but mostly on Twitter right now at jmike 101. There you can find me. I occasionally, like, reach out and post a couple of gifts with case that retags me in something. Eventually I will move to blue sky. Still working on it?

01:20:25
Case
No. Like, social media has become very hard these days, but it's still the lifeblood of being a podcaster.

01:20:32
Nic
I quit Twitter in 2020, probably for.

01:20:35
Case
The best, but yeah. Yeah. So I am on Twitter and bluesky sagan. I am on Instagram at five because I'm holding onto my aim screen name from high school for dear life. And then you can find me on the discord for certain pov. You can find a link to our discord server@certainpov.com, or in the show notes or wherever you are watching or listening to this. We've got links to our discord. Come hang out. It's a great time. So find us at the certain pov discord and then come back and check out our next episode. But until then, stay super. Man.

01:21:21
Jmike
Of Steel is a certain pov production. Our hosts are J. Mike Folson and case Aiken. The show is scored and edited by Jeff Moonan and our logo and episode art is by case Aiken.

01:21:42
Case
Video games are a unique medium.

01:21:44
Nic
They can tell stories, immerse us in strange, fantastic worlds, blur the very boundaries of our reality. But at the end of the day, video games are fun. Whatever fun is to you. I'm Jeff Moonan. And I am Matt, aka Stormageddon. And on fun and games, we talk about the history, trends, and community of video games. It's a celebration of all the games we play and all the fun we find within them. And there's so many more games out there, so we hope you'll share in that conversation with us. Fun and Games podcast with Matt and Jeff. Find us on certainpov.com or wherever you get your podcasts and happy gaming.

01:22:21
Case
We don't bite. Unless it is consensual, in which case then we should talk. What does that even mean?

01:22:31
Nic
I think you're asking the listeners to slide into your DM's, which is the bold mood for a merry man.

01:22:37
Case
Yeah, that wasn't exactly what I was trying to do.