YOPR: 6. Food Fight
On April 19, MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS: ONCE AND ALWAYS premieres on Netflix. I’m writing about all 60 episodes of MMPR’s first season in the lead-up to that premiere.
If you’d like to follow along on this rewatch, entirety of MMPR’s first season is available for free (with ads) on YouTube.
6. Food Fight
One-sentence synopsis: A binge-eating pig tries to destabilize the Earth’s food supply.
Why it matters: “Iconic” is an overused word. It may not quite be applicable to Pudgy Pig, but consider this: for the majority of the run time, the alliterative porker does little beyond rummaging through trash cans for leftovers and ransacking a Golden Corral buffet masquerading as a “cultural food festival,” and it’s not hyperbolic to suggest that he’s the most recognizable Monster of the Day” in the series’ history. About 25 percent of the episode is dedicated to the titular food fight, during which a school principal scoffs at paying for something to benefit a local preschool, sausage links are used as nunchucks and multiple people take “cream pies” to the face (and people say Power Rangers is only for kids). Its comedy-to-action and original footage-to-Sentai footage ratios skew far to the former in both cases; the heroes spend, roughly, just 3 full minutes morphed in an episode that doesn’t end with a Megazord fight. It’s possibly the most inconsequential early episode of the series, but one of its best.
Episode MVP: Finster. Throughout more recent media, especially the Boom! Studios comics, Rita and her cronies have been fleshed out well beyond the confines of their TV selves. Early in MMPR season one, Finster often makes reference to his lengthy history of servicing Rita with monstrous creations, mostly through the recollection of the last time they used that specific creature on some fictional planet. These lines – written without a second thought by a team of writers who never imagined their biggest contribution to pop culture would be this – have provided a platform on which future creators have built. But for Finster, they’re also a constant source of regret: these monsters destroyed before but can’t destroy now; what changed? And when he knows a monster will fail – as he predicts with Pudgy Pig – he has no free will to do otherwise. Rita is the boss, Finster the overworked employee who just wants to create. Through an adult eye – with or without the benefit of wonderful modern material exploring him – Finster is the show’s saddest figure.
A good quote: “I’m sensitive to dissatisfaction.” – Baboo
Rating: 5/5 spicy radishes
Previously on “Yesterday on Power Rangers”
1. Day of the Dumpster
2. High Five
3. Teamwork
4. A Pressing Engagement
5. Different Drum