Power Rangers very rarely appears in the conversation of what the best superhero team of all time is, or even the best superhero show, and it should be. The original Super Sentai franchise has a fan base in its own right in its home country of Japan and beyond, but outside viewers who look at the term Power Rangers usually attach Mighty Morphin’ before it and call it a day. There is far more to Power Rangers than just the first, if iconic season. It has endured now for three decades with consistent releases year after year. The 30th anniversary is going to be commemorated with a Netflix special that drops this month, titled Once and Always, with many veterans to the series reprising their roles.
As it stands, Power Rangers seems to be in relatively good hands since its acquisition by Hasbro in 2018. Along with a fantastic line of comics by Boom! Studios, and quality collector action figures, many of the newer seasons made under their watch such as Beast Morphers and the most recent Dino Fury, being viewed generally well by fans old and new. On top of that, all seasons not on Netflix are now available for free on Power Rangers’ official YouTube channel. It’s a great time to be a Power Rangers fan. As we approach yet another anniversary with hopefully more to come, let’s look back at the history of Power Rangers, and the ownership of the franchise constantly changing hands. It’s much more exciting than it sounds, promise.
A Brief History Of Power Rangers
The franchise starts with media mogul Haim Saban, whose company Saban Entertainment, found its niche in adapting Japanese tokusatsu shows for American audiences, the only one really sticking being Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, adapted from Super Sentai’s Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger. It really was the kitchen sink of all the things children like — dinosaurs, teenagers with attitude, giant robots fighting giant robots, slick color-coded super suits — and it was a hit. So much so that he kept going, after Mighty Morphin’ was Zeo, and after that Turbo, continuing through the rest of the 1990s. It was one of the flagship shows of the Fox Kids programming block, the birthplace of some of the greatest children’s programming of the decade.
But all things come to an end, Fox Family Worldwide was bought out in 2001, and along with that Saban Entertainment. Fox Family Worldwide morphed into ABC Family Worldwide Incorporated, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company.
From 2001 to 2010, the Mouse owned the Power Rangers, colloquially known as The Disney Era by fans. Fox Kids was discontinued in 2002, being replaced by 4Kids with its own lineup of shows, which ironically also adapted Japanese television. Power Rangers was moved to ABC Family and soon after, Jetix on Toon Disney (later named Disney XD). Jetix was, to put it succinctly, Disney’s attempt at competing with Toonami on Cartoon Network. A lot of action-oriented shows, European collaborations, and honestly not a lot to talk about outside of Power Rangers. My apologies to the Captain Flamingo fandom, I’m sure all two of you will recover.
A Look Inside the Disney Era
Fox wasn’t quite finished with Power Rangers, airing one more season on the Fox Kids block along with ABC Family, which was Wild Force. That was the final classic Saban series of the show, and there’s a considerable shift between it and the next several seasons. Ninja Storm, Dino Thunder, SPD, Mystic Force, Operation Overdrive, Jungle Fury, and RPM. To the unfamiliar, these all sound like wildly different concepts, and they are, but it’s all Power Rangers. In fact, it could be considered the greatest era of Power Rangers, turning out some of the best additions, and making for genuinely solid television even today.
This article would be a novella if I talked about each iteration in the Disney Era individually, which for the record I would do gladly, so let’s instead look at the big picture. Of the five series that aired on Jetix, there are what the fans considered to be three of the stronger entries, that being Dino Thunder, SPD, and Jungle Fury, and two of the weaker entries, Mystic Force and Operation Overdrive. This is a consensus, of course, I will gladly defend Mystic Force, but even with that two-series dip in quality, there are many strengths that tie it together.
Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, they moved the entire production of Power Rangers from Los Angeles to New Zealand after Wild Force, which was easily the best decision they made with the show. Not only did they have a lot of filming locations that were more in line with the Japanese footage, but they also had the country’s incredible visual effects industry. The best term to use for the Disney Era is “blockbuster”; it had bigger explosions, intricate new monster designs, and more Power Rangers-original footage that made it feel like its own thing rather than American Super Sentai.
The improvements aren’t just shown in the production, but the writing really shaped up in most of the seasons as well, both in creating new stories and in expanding already established Power Rangers lore, such as the return of Tommy Oliver (Jason David Frank) in Dino Thunder. Despite this, the plan was to end the show after Jungle Fury, but due to contractual obligations with toy company Bandai, the post-apocalyptic Power Rangers: RPM was born. Which, incidentally, was one of the most compelling, tightly written, and genuinely funny seasons of the entire franchise.
The End Of Disney and the Beginning of Neo-Saban
Power Rangers would’ve really ended with a bang, however unfortunate, with RPM, with only reruns of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers on ABC Family in lieu of a new season in 2010. However, Haim Saban was not going to let his franchise die out of his hands and reacquired it from Disney for $43 million with plans for the 18th season, Samurai, and the beginning of what is referred to as the Neo-Saban Era, which includes the 2017 movie. The show began airing on Nickelodeon in 2011, meanwhile changing to the Hasbro Era and would continue to do so up until 2021, with the next season, Cosmic Fury, making the full jump to Netflix.
What makes Power Rangers such a distinct franchise is versatility, and that was on full display during the Disney Era. In one show, you can have ninjas, teenagers with attitude and dinosaur superpowers, elite space cops, a team of elemental mages, adventurous relic hunters, animalistic Kung Fu warriors, and an AI Armageddon. Constantly shifting genres, tones, and casts, and most of it is beloved by a dedicated fandom. The fact that Disney gave up on the franchise really feels like money slipping through their fingers, however small the amount may be.
When you think about what became of other franchises that were acquired by the House of Mouse like Star Wars and Marvel, becoming multiphase extravaganzas, continuing with multiple projects a year, bloating more and more until an inevitable burst, how do you think about the hypothetical? What if Disney took that same approach with Power Rangers years beforehand? Do you think about it with disappointment or relief that it never happened? After all, the very formula it has used now for 30 years is ripe for that kind of expansion, but it’s also not as ubiquitous as the properties it has happened to. But I, and the other zillennials who consider this with fond nostalgia, will remember when Disney owned Power Rangers, and the fact that for a time they took advantage of its endless potential.
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