Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Season 3, Episode 28: A Chimp in Charge


In the previous episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Katherine got the teenagers of Angel Grove together to clean up a vacant lot. It was going to be prepped to become a new home for someone who needed it. Rita Repulsa tried to ruin the hard work, creating a brick wall monster in the process. The monster turned four of the Power Rangers into bricks. Katherine saved them while Billy fought off the monster. It was something to see.

The next episode should bring some more strange standalone action as the Power Rangers fight off another monster. The monster will probably be a chimp, based on the name of the episode. Maybe it will be a zoo animal or circus animal. I could look up a synopsis, but I would rather watch the episode. That’s why I’m about to start…

Season 3, Episode 28: A Chimp in Charge
Ms. Appleby had a new assignment for the students of Angel Grove High School. They were to pair up and create a presentation about any language they wanted. Bulk and Skull asked if they could do English, which they were allowed to do. Tommy and Billy were going to make their presentation about Egyptian hieroglyphics. Aisha and Katherine decided to go with another outside the box kind of presentation.

Katherine arrived at the Angel Grove Youth Centre with Kelly, a chimpanzee. Kelly was being taught sign language by Kat’s aunt, so Kat was going to learn sign language and have Kelly as part of the presentation. Lord Zedd saw Rita and Goldar looking at the chimpanzee and decided that would be the perfect monster.

Bulk and Skull were tasked by Lt. Stone to find out who stole Ernie’s bananas from out back of the Angel Grove Youth Centre. They figured that the best way to find the thief would be to follow Kelly around. Kelly led them to a fruit stand run by a guy with a terrible Jamaican accent. They brought the guy to Ernie. The problem was, there was no thief. Ernie found the bananas in the freezer. They had been misplaced by the new stock boy.

An early fight happened while Katherine and Aisha were discussing Kelly and their presentation with Tommy and Billy. The Tenga Warriors attacked, causing the teens to go into their Ninja Power forms. Finnster was also there to use a ray gun to try and zap Kelly into a monster. It didn’t work, as Kelly dodged away and behind a bush. The Power Rangers outsmarted and outworked the Tenga Warriors. Billy shrank down so they couldn’t get him, while the other three did backflips for so long that the Tengas were tired out. When Lord Zedd found out, he got angry and zapped Kelly himself. She turned into a giant gorilla type monster. The Power Rangers didn’t want to hurt her, so they distracted her. This allowed Billy to take some fur off her and go back to his lab to test for an antidote. He came back with one, right as Zedd and Rita made their monster grow. The Power Rangers got into their Shogun Zords and defended against Kelly’s attacks. Tommy realized that if he waved his Zord’s hands around, Kelly would be distracted. Billy was able to shoot the antidote into her and things came to a happy conclusion.
 
There may not always be a big story in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, but there can still be something surprisingly good in there. This episode might have had a fairly loose story that never wrapped up with the presentations being done. It did have one of the more interesting ideas for defeating a monster, though. Bulk and Skull also got to have got a little more screen time. It ended up being a more entertaining episode, regardless of the actual story arc.

The writers stretched their limits when they forced this story into the Sentai footage they were using. The monster was very loosely an ape of some sort. It had long, white dreadlock style hair. It was wearing some sort of hat. There was a furry, multicoloured covering over its shoulders. That wasn’t what Kelly looked like, so some liberties were taken to get her there. She led Bulk and Skull to the Jamaican fruit stand man. That man saw Kelly and decided to dress her up. He gave her a vest, then put a mop on her head and put a hat on top of the mop. That was when she was zapped. It was a strange turn of events to get her from friendly chimpanzee in a pair of shorts to what the monster looked like.

None of the Power Rangers wanted to hurt Kelly when she became a monster. Billy came up with an antidote so they could bring her back to her chimpanzee form. He packed the antidote into a little missile that they could shoot into her. The thing about that missile was that it was just a Vortex painted black and white. That Nerf toy that was basically a foam football with a tail was going to be used to save the day. Things like this happen all the time in prop departments. Some common item will get repurposed to be something new in a film or TV show. It was just super noticeable this time.

A Chimp in Charge felt like an empty, strange Mighty Morphin Power Rangers episode. Yet, it was filled with sequences that felt different from what the show had been presenting up until that point. The way the monster was defeated was different from the standard kill and don’t care. Bulk and Skull got some fun stuff to do as they followed Kelly around. There was a chimpanzee hanging out for the story. It was fun. There wasn’t any real substance though, and the show will be getting back to important stuff very soon. The next episode will be the first part of a three-part story. Master Vile and the Metallic Armor, Part I will be coming up soon, and I hope you’ll come back to check out what I have to say about it.

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