Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Season 1, Episode 54: Trick or Treat

(Heads up before you read this post. The summary for this episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was written before Halloween 2015.  For whatever reason, be it laziness or other things coming up, it has been sitting in a Word document on my computer for three months.  I thought that I would finally get around to finishing the post and getting it up for the few people that read these things.  Up until the end of the episode summary is what I had already written.  The three final paragraphs are what I have just written to finish the post.)

With Halloween coming up at the end of next week, I am happy to be watching the Halloween episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers during October.  It seems right.  Even though I never meant to take the nine month hiatus I took in writing these posts, I’m glad that I came back when I did.  Everything lined up rather perfectly for this one.  The time, the episode.  It’s all right.

Now, this episode probably won’t leave a lasting effect on the series.  It’s a Halloween episode.  Sure, it’s going to be in canon with the rest of the series, but I don’t see it changing anything in the show.  Nobody is going to die.  The costumes, weapons, and Zords won’t change.  There won’t be any new additions to the team.  This is going to be a standalone episode that fits into the overarching story of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers without pushing it forward.  I can see that happening.

So, let’s get spooky with the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers as I dive into the next episode.  The Halloween episode.

Season 1, Episode 54: Trick or Treat

Kimberly is going to be on a game show!  It’s called Trick or Treat.  I don’t know what it involves, but it sounds like Halloween.  Tommy can’t go, though, since he has an inner city karate tournament that he can’t miss.  His words, not mine.  Kimberly will be going up against Skull in the game show.

All of this Trick or Treat stuff gives Rita Repulsa a great idea.  Her newest monster will be the Pumpkin Rapper.  The seeds for the monster have already been planted in the park and it’s only a matter of time before it goes after the Power Rangers.

The game show is a show that involves trying to stump the host with questions.  The whole gang, excluding Tommy, is in the audience to cheer Kimberly on.  For some reason, Tommy is walking through the park and stumbles upon the pumpkins.  Rita sends some putties after Tommy and he fights them.  The fight scene is intercut with bits and pieces of the game show.  Tommy beats the putties and warns Zordon that something is happening.  Zordon tells Tommy to go to his karate match.

Kimberly fakes fainting so that she and the Power Rangers can defend Angel Grove from the Pumpkin Rapper.  The monster will “try and distract you with his clever raps and rhymes.”  The Power Rangers go to investigate the pumpkin patch, and in the creepiest thing in the series so far, end up with their heads stuck in pumpkins.  Kimberly uses her gun to cut the pumpkins off.  The Power Rangers then fight a bunch of putties that have pumpkins on their heads.

The rapping is really bad but it distracts the five Power Rangers enough that they get wrapped in vines.  Tommy ditches his tournament because he has to come and save them.  He cuts them loose and fights the Pumpkin Rapper long enough so that the other Power Rangers can put their weapons together and shoot the Pumpkin Rapper dead.

The episode ends on Bulk and Skull who won the prize at the game show when Kimberly left.  Someone from standards and practices shows up to take it away.  Bulk ends up in his boxers.  Tommy tells Kimberly that you don’t need to win a prize to feel like a winner.  The end.

I was quite right in my assessment at the start of this post.  This episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers seems like it won’t have any lasting effect upon the series as a whole.  Anything that could have changed by the end of the episode reverted back to its original state by the conclusion.  The monster was defeated, Bulk and Skull lost their new car, and all of the Power Rangers are alive, healthy, and sticking around.  Without this episode, nothing in the series would be any different at all.

The closest thing to something in the episode that will stick around is the memory of the truly horrendous rapping that the pumpkin rapper does.  Well, I guess that and the horrific imagery of the Power Rangers with the pumpkins stuck on their heads.  The episode is otherwise entirely forgettable and meaningless.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers will move on from this low point.  In fact, it will get two more seasons, then spawn 20 more years of Power Rangers on television.  This is one of the longest lasting continuous franchises at this point.  Hopefully, I will soon take a step forward and watch another episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and write about it for all of you to read.  That is my goal.  We’ll see how that works out.