Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Season 1, Episode 51: Grumble Bee

After an extended break, I’m finally making my way back into the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers episodes with this post.  This is the first episode after Return of an Old Friend and will likely dive right back into the monster of the week storylines that I have come to expect of the show.  The episode probably won’t bring anything new to the series’ overall story, but it will at least continue the show’s trend of being entertaining.  Unless it’s a Trini episode.  I think it’s a Billy episode, though, so we’re all good.

Another thing I expect of the episode is for the story to be ridiculous.  Why would I expect that?  We’re into that part of the first season where all of the Japanese footage is original footage shot solely for the American series.  The American adaptation of the Sentai series was longer than its Japanese counterpart, so extra footage was needed to fill the later episodes.  The footage from the Japanese show had been used up at this point, as I noted in earlier posts, including that episode where the pig monster came back for a second time and a bunch of the footage was reused footage from the first time.  What will this episode bring?  A bee.  I know that much.  Let’s see what the episode is.

Season 1, Episode 51: Grumble Bee

The episode starts in Angel Grove High School where Billy gets his first B grade ever.  Billy never gets Bs.  He’s going to now, though, as it puts the idea into Rita’s head that she should make a new monster that is a bee.  That’s right.  This is an episode about Billy fighting a bee because he got a B as a grade.

His name is Billy.  That starts with a B.  And he got a B on a test.  Because he got a question about a B wrong.  This might keep him out of Young Scientists of America or some club like that.  I think that’s the name of it.  While Billy and Trini are studying, the rest of the gang (Tommy excluded because he’s at a karate tournament) are playing basketball.  Then Rita sends some putties down to the court and they fight.  Goldar shows up to the fight and ties the three of them up in a magic rope that they can’t escape.  Rita chooses this time to send the grumble bee monster to Earth.  Billy and Trini are the only ones who can stop it.

The two Power Rangers don’t fare too well in their first fight against the grumble bee.  Billy gets injected with venom that causes him to weaken.  He can no longer kick properly.  Trini does some weird climb up a tree and then lands a kick only to be knocked away.  The grumble bee uses some sonic pulse and the two Power Rangers flee.

Trini and Billy go back to fight again.  The grumble bee shoots venomous silly string all over Billy and it’s eating through his suit.  Meanwhile, Alpha has freed the other three Power Rangers and they come to join the fight.  Now the big fight happens.  Alpha gives Billy a bug spray gun, Billy sprays the grumble bee, then Rita makes the bee large.  Cue the Zords, combine them for the Megazord, and fight away.  Sidenote: Scorpina is in Rita’s castle, but she hasn’t been a part of the episode.  Heh.  And when Rita is yelling at everyone, Scorpina is gone.  Weird.

So, now that the monster is gone, Tommy comes home.  He’s sad he wasn’t brought into fight, but he has to save his energy, so it’s all good.  And Billy comes in with good news.  He got an A+ on his exam and got into the Young Scientist Club.  And now Bulk is studying.  The end.

Like I predicted, this episode didn’t have any real weight on the rest of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers series.  It reminded the audience that Tommy needed to save his power since his power wasn’t as assured as that of the other Power Rangers.  He will need to be refueled by Zordon every once in a while which would weaken the entire team.  That is a serious problem but one that could be worth it if it saves the world from a giant threat.  That might come up in a future episode.  I don’t know.

This episode was exactly what I expected when I wrote about the previous episode.  I said I was expecting some dumb fun.  This episode was most definitely dumb fun.  The fact that everything was related to Billy, B, and bee… That was delightfully dumb.  It was the best and cheesiest way to use the material.  I’m not sure if Japan was making the footage based on the American story or if the American’s were making the story around new footage.  Either way, it worked.

I’m hoping to get to the Halloween episode by Halloween, so that’s at least three more posts that you can expect in the next two and a half weeks.  I didn’t intentionally hiatus for this reason.  It just worked out that I got back into the groove in time for this.  It’s coincidental.  As for the next episode, it has “two heads” in the title, so I’m expecting something weird.  We’ll see.