Power Rangers: Season 1, Episode 13: No Clowning Around

Monster designs are one of the most important aspects of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.  Each episode thus far has had a different monster.  Each monster needs to be unique.  You can’t have two monsters that look similar, or else the audience will feel like they’ve seen it before.  Sometimes this leads to a great monster that can bring fear and menace to the show.  Other times it creates a ridiculous looking creature.

I pointed out in a previous episode’s summary that I found the pig monster to be an insanely bad concept.  That episode was Food Fight, if I’m remembering correctly.  It was a big, round pig-like monster with hands coming out of its mouth.  It ate everything that it could set its eyes upon.  Except for hot food.

The episode that this post is about brings in another really terrible monster.  If you don’t believe me, I’ll try to find a picture for you.  Not yet.  I need to describe the episode first.  Here we go.

Season 1, Episode 13: No Clowning Around

So there’s a fair.  I would call it a carnival, but I think they all said it was a fair.  Jason and the gang are at the fair.  Trini brings a young girl that she’s babysitting.  The group has fun at the fair.  The girl, who calls her “cousin Trini” gets transfixed by a clown.  The clown, named Pineapple, turns the girl into a piece of wood that looks like her.  That’s because the clown is evil!

The clowns at the fair turn out to be putties.  That is, all of the clowns that aren’t Pineapple.  Pineapple turns into a Pine-Octopus, whatever that is.  Oh wait, I know what that is.  That’s this:

The gang sends Trini to Billy’s garage, where Alpha 5 is going to help fix the little girl.  The rest of the gang uses their powers to fight the putties.  Then Pineapple turns into the Pine-Octopus that you see above.  The Power Rangers try to fight him, but it doesn’t work.  Alpha 5 throws water on the wooden girl, and she turns back to normal.  Trini joins the other Power Rangers.

The Power Rangers summon their zords and defeat the Pine-Octopus.  Rita Repulsa yells.  I don’t remember anything else after that.  That might have been the end.  Either that, or they went back to the fair to have fun.

Yeah, the Pine-Octopus is a ridiculous looking creature.  I cannot believe that they used that as a monster on the show.  That’s just… Why?

But there is a lot of good in the episode.  The fair made for a great action setpiece.  Kimberly fights off the putties by using the spinning swings.  Zack uses a swinging ship to take out a putty.  Jason throws one putty into a ride, and kicks the other one onto the cage of the ride, as the ride goes up in the air to do vertical circles.  I’m not sure what that ride would be called, and I’m not sure you would understand from my description.

Finally, clowns are always kind of creepy.  Using them as the disguises for the bad guys was a good choice.  It brought a little more threatening nature to them.

That’s all I’ve got for this episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.  I’ll come back next time with another post about another episode.  See you then.