Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Season 1, Episode 42: A Pig Surprise

As I move forward in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers series, there is less and less Japanese footage from Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger that can be used.  With the Sentai series being only fifty episodes long while the American series’ first season is sisxty episodes, there are ten episodes to account for.  This means that some footage or monsters may get used multiple times throughout the season.  It also means that American footage will become more fundamental in the show moving further into the series.

The forty-second episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers helps to show this need for repetition as it brings back a monster that many people remember from their youth.  Some of the monsters that are incorporated into the series stick with you.  Pudgy Pig is one of them and his triumphant return was one of the most entertaining monster appearances of the show up to this point in its run.  The way to show that would be to describe the episode for you, so here we go.

Season 1, Episode 42: A Pig Surprise

The gang is in Angel Grove Park helping out the animal shelter.  Okay, I lied.  Most of them are there.  Jason, Kimberly, Billy, and Trini are all helping to find caring homeowners to take in some animals that need love.  Dogs, cats, and any other cuddly creature that needs a home.  Even a pig named Norman that gets dropped off by an old woman.  Of course the people that want Norman are Bulk and Skull.  That was expected, wasn’t it?

If you’re wondering where Zack was, he was running toward the park.  He was late for the animal shelter rally thing.  As he runs through the woods he sees the old woman.  But she isn’t really an old woman.  That is a disguise.  She’s a putty!  Zack must fight off a gang of putties using his dance skills.  He flips, he spins himself over the branch of a tree, he even does the worm to dodge kicks.  Zack ends up winning the fight.

Bulk and Skull are off playing with Norman and picking up all the ladies when Billy discovers a device.  The device has a timer on it and has something to do with Norman.  When the timer gets to zero, Norman transforms into Pudgy Pig.  He doesn’t want to harm anyone.  He just wants some food.  Zack shows up at the Angel Grove Gym and Juice Bar (what I’ve been calling the Youth Center) in time to see Pudgy Pig cornering Bulk for a sandwich.  He tells Bulk to give up the sandwich.  Then Pudgy Pig disappears to a farm.

The Power Rangers go after Pudgy Pig in what looks like a repeat of the fight they had with him in his first appearance.  That was way back in episode six, titled Food Fight.  After he flees the scene, they chase him to a farm.  This American footage shows Pudgy Pig dancing to try and earn the affection of a female pig.  He’s not a fighter.  Pudgy Pig is a lover.

That is when Rita sends Goldar down to attack Angel Grove.  The fight that the Power Rangers have against Goldar also looks like repeat footage.  It looks like a recycled fight from the first episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.  The fight ends with Goldar running away before he can be hacked with the Power Sword.  So the day is saved.  Or is it?

Billy figures out how to reverse the device from earlier in the episode and manages to turn Pudgy Pig back into Norman.  Norman gets to live a happy life with the female pig on the farm.  The next day, or a couple days later (I don’t know the timeframe of the show), the gang is in class.  A guest speaker comes in with a pig.  Bulk and Skull freak out and huddle in a corner of the classroom screaming because Pudgy Pig caused them to now have a fear of pigs.  The end.

As you can see from that description, the two big fights of the episode seemed to be recycled footage from earlier episodes.  I mean this as recycled Mighty Morphin Power Rangers footage.  I know a lot of the footage in the show is taken from the Sentai series, but that’s not what I’m talking about.  I’m talking about there not being enough Sentai episodes to sustain a fresh full season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.  It’s a good thing that they know how to write stories around that to make it not feel as repetitious as it really is.

This last third of the season is going to be interesting to see.  I don’t know how much of the footage will have already been used in the show before this point.  I’m sure that it’s difficult to make as many episodes of the show as they are making without eventually running out of footage to use.  I don’t have a problem with it as long as they keep coming up with new stories to use the footage with and don’t actually repeat the story of an episode.  If it comes to that point, I will know for sure that they are running out of ideas by having such a long season.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is a show that does not strive for much but manages to still put a solid effort into the work being done.  Even though the acting is not always great and the stories tend to boil down to robot versus monster, it is still fun to watch every time.  I don’t get tired of it at all.  That’s why I keep watching.  I don’t know if anybody is still reading these things, but I hope you keep reading for the same reason.  It just a plain fun show.