Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Season 2, Episode 49: Storybook Rangers, Part II

In the first half of Storybook Rangers, three of the Power Rangers were stuck powerless in a book called Grumble the Magic Elf, trying to fight off The Snow Monster while an avalanche headed their way.  Bulk and Skull were creating a monster that they didn’t know Lord Zedd was planning on using against Angel Grove.  It was an interesting episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers that left me excited for a conclusion.

This episode should tie up the loose ends of the story pretty well.  The three trapped Power Rangers will get out of their situation and fight back against the moon dwelling evil-doers that put them in that situation.  They’ll be joined by the other half of their Power Rangers team.  But most of all, Bulk and Skull will create a problem for Angel Grove that the Power Rangers will have to stop.  It’s going to be huge.

Season 2, Episode 49: Storybook Rangers, Part II

Tommy, Rocky, and Kimberly were left in a rough situation as an avalanche buried them in a sort of snow cave.  If they couldn’t get out, they wouldn’t be able to help Grumble the Magic Elf stop being a grumpy elf.  That meant that they would be trapped in the storybook forever.  Luckily for them, Grumble helped them out of their snow trap.  They took Grumble to see Mondo the Magician, but Mondo wouldn’t break the grumpy spell.  They were out of luck.

Billy, Adam, and Aisha wanted to help their friends.  However, there was a bigger threat.  Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa had brought Bulk and Skull’s turkey monster to life and it was running amok through the park.  They had to go stop it.

While the three remaining Power Rangers were fighting off the Turkey Jerk monster, Bulk and Skull were hiding in a tree waiting for their moment to unmask them.  The moment wouldn’t come.  Bulk and Skull fell out of the tree at the end of the fight and by the time they got up, the Power Rangers had already teleported back to the Command Centre.  After their wasted efforts, the two bumbling teens returned their books to the book fair.

Aisha came up with a plan to free her friends from their storybook trap.  She drew some new presents into the story, which allowed Grumble to deliver them to the children and find his happiness.  The story was over and the Power Rangers were free.  Mondo the Magician was also free, which was a problem.  He was attacking Angel Grove.  The Power Rangers had to Zord up and stop his mayhem.

This brings us to the fights in the episode.  The first fight was the previously mentioned battle against the Turkey Jerk monster.  The fight was mostly an Adam fight as he pulled out his Power Axe and went one on one with the turkey.  It highlighted that Adam was one of the most skilled fighters on the team at the time.  They were lucky that he stuck around into Turbo because he made the team stronger.  The other fight was the Zord fight against Mondo which had a lot of swordfighting.  It was a pretty strong fight, feeling less edited than most.  It seemed like they took the majority of the fight unchanged from the Sentai.  The only change was the edit to the exploding monster at the end.  Good stuff to close off the Storybook Rangers story.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers has grown a lot since Day of the Dumpster.  The show went from being very self-contained in each episode to growing the characters out bit by bit, to multi-episode stories where the characters feel fully formed.  It has come a long way.  Changes have happened with three of the main cast members being replaced.  One other major change has been in Billy’s look.  He started out as the stereotypical nerd, in both how he spoke and what he wore.  This season has seen him shed his nerdy look and begin speaking like an average person.  He’s smart but that other stuff was never needed to confirm that.  It should have always been who he was, not what he looked like and talked like.  It’s nice to see this transition out of the stereotype.

There were a couple things that came up in the second part of Storybook Rangers that should be discussed before bringing talk of it to a close.  One was the use of Mondo the Magician.  His Sentai counterpart was a major villain.  In Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, he was nothing more than a monster attacking Angel Grove in one episode.  That’s a large change, and one that was necessary because of how the American show played out.  For some reason, the American producers decided to create their own villain in Lord Zedd instead of using the Sentai villain from the footage they took for the second season.  That left major villains without anything to do in the American show. 

The other thing that should be brought up, which is much less important, is the name Grumble.  Naming the magic elf Grumble wasn’t the first use of the word Grumble in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.  Back in the first season, there was an episode called Grumble Bee where the monster was the Grumble Bee.  It’s a strange word that nobody ever uses.  Why was it used for two different characters in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers world?  It was a strange similarity between the two characters and one that I felt the need to make note of.

The book has been closed on this episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and we’re about to begin another chapter.  Coming up will be the final multi-episode story of the second season.  There’s still another episode after it, but first we must go through the two episode story of Wild West Rangers.  This should be a fun one.  Come back soon to see how fun it is.