How About That Thing?

Masked Rider was one of Haim Saban’s attempts at adapting a popular Japanese live action show to American audiences. He’d had success with translating super sentai into Power Rangers, and multiple Metal Hero shows into Vr Troopers. So now, it was Kamen Rider’s turn. Specifically, Kamen Rider Black RX.

Masked Rider was ALSO the first real dud in Saban’s portfolio. Masked Rider, despite airing all of its episodes on television, was considered such a monumental flop that the guys in charge of the Kamen Rider metaseries demanded that Saban never be allowed anywhere near their work ever again!

But was Masked Rider really THAT bad? Lord knows that, back in the day at least, I didn’t think so. In fact… Embarrassing as this is to admit out loud… I actually LIKED Masked Rider. I watched it all the time when it was on TV, and I even had the action figure at one point. I can’t remember if it was a christmas present, or something I bought with my own allowance money the one time I didn’t blow it on a game rental or a comic book (back when I had the vision for comics), but I definitely wound up with a figure at some point.

Sadly, if I’ve learned anything from going back to these old shows for the sake of grabbing screenshots, it’s that Saban’s work in particular really doesn’t age that well. And not just in that “it’s for kids, not 38-year-old-losers” way, either. At least with shows like Mutant League, I could MAYBE see the appeal. Shows like this, meanwhile, leave me scratching my head and wondering what the hell I ever saw in them. Especially after watching the pilot for this one.

The pilot for Masked Rider was technically a three-part Power Rangers episode where the two properties crossed over. However, when the show proper got started, they conveniently forgot all about those five multicolored weirdos from Earth, and now the reason the bad guy wants to invade Earth is… Um… For lulz?

The show opens with a pretty decent orchestral tune with a narrator basically spoon-feeding you the premise of the show outright. Nothing especially bad about this… Although why you put it on episode 1, and therefore spoiled everything that’s going to happen in episode 1, I’ll never know, but whatever. It’s far from the first TV show to accidentally give away important plot points before they actually happen. And really, it’s not even the worst offender out there. Looking at you, Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda.

The orchestral theme song is actually not half bad. But then, they immediately ruin it by having some randos chanting “Masked Rider!”. I don’t know if they were trying for a chorus, or what, but it really sticks out, and I reallycan’t say I approve.

The show proper starts, and it’s here I notice that the entire soundtrack of this show has this royalty-free John Williams kind of scoring to it. It’s definitely a change of pace from the synthesized electric guitar riffs from Power Rangers… And dare I say, it’s probably the thing I like the most about this show so far.

We’re introduced to the planet Edenoi. Edenoi, AKA: Earth with an orange filter put over the camera, is enslaved by the villain of the series, who spends most of, if not his entire time on his spider-shaped warship. No, seriously, his ship is in the shape of a giant spider. Don’t believe me?

I’m not sure how practical having a spider-shaped warship actually is, but it definitely makes a first impression.

This is Count Dregon. He’s the bad guy, duh. He is currently waging war on the true king of Edenoi and his forces, and while said king’s forces have seen better days, the fact they’re holding him at bay this long is either impressive for the king’s men, or very telling of how incompetent Dregon’s men are.

Fun fact: Count Dregon and Lord Zedd from Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers know each other personally. They’re not friends. In fact, I get the feeling Zedd is still pissed about how Dregon used to give him swurlies back in high school, and stole his prom date their senior year. But that’s just my guess.

And And as for Dregon’s men…

This is Doubleface. He… Exists.

This is Cyclopter. He… Also exists.

This is Gork. His most noticeable character traits are that literally everything he says is in rhyme, and the rest of the crew hates him. As a result, he already has more personality than the rest of Dregon’s crew. That’s not saying as much as you think, though.

Rounding out the crew is Nefaria. At one point, I thought she might have been the actual villain of Black RX… But it turns out Dregon, or whatever his name was in Black RX, was the villain there as well. I’d always assumed Dregon was a Saban original, for some reason, but recent research has proven me wrong on that one. Not sure where I got that idea anymore, either.

Looking at this band of merry men, and also Nefaria… I got to say, I’m less than impressed. While more memorable than the fifty different underlings who served under Grimlord over in VR Troopers, it says a lot when the hurr durr patrol over on Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers are the more memorable baddies.

Anyway…

This is Dex: the wielder of the Masked Rider power, and the hero of this picture. This screenshot is from much later in the episode, but I figured you’d prefer one that DIDN’T have an obnoxious orange filter over it.

The king of Edenoi sends Dex to Earth because Count Dregon has decided to turn his attention to it instead of Edenoi. Why? Well, it turns out Dregon wants to enslave the Earthlings the same way he enslaved most of Edenoi, and thinks he might be able to use the humans as some sort of supplemental force. Honestly, though, I think Drakon was just sick of the color orange, and wanted to conquer a new planet.

Either way, Dex is sent to Earth to thwart his newfound ambitions of conquest. And, for reasons nobody can explain outside of selling plushies, this obnoxious little shit goes with him.

This obnoxious little mascot character is Ferbus. He sounds like someone trying to impersonate that kid from that Bobby’s World cartoon while speaking in nonsense. To the show’s credit, though, they remained mostly consistent with what his little nonsense sayings mean. Mami- yami, for example, meant he was hungry, and mami-chacha meant he was bored and wanted to play. And if you ever needed proof of how counterintuitive my brain’s functionality is… I mean really, I still can’t remember how to solve most basic algebra equations, but I still remember nonsense language from a thirty-year-old kid show?

Well, anyway, Dex arrives at about the same time the monster of the day does.

This creature right here is The Destructosphere. And… Not going to lie, watching him put himself together like he does is actually pretty cool. Unfortunately, the cool factor is immediately undercut by the fact he technically isn’t from Black RX. I forget which Kamen Rider show he belonged to, but the monster fight ends up being a mishmash of footage from BlackRX, the Kamen Rider show Destructosphere came from, and maybe an instance or two of Americans wearing the costumes if I’m not mistaken. Which begs the question: why did they even bother?

I mean it’s bad enough that they waited till part two of the pilot to include the monster fight, but to have to go to such insane lengths of editting to justify this fight’s existence. And yes, the end result is as disastrous as you think. I could describe it, but I really wouldn’t be doing it any justice. You need to see what it looks like over on YouTube to truly appreciate the amount of hurr durr that went into assembling this sequence.

Surely, we could’ve started with any other monster than this. SURELY!

Oh, I almost forgot to talk about the family Dex is staying with. Largely because they’re just… There. One even wonders if we really needed to have these guys in the show in the first place.

This is the dad of the family. He exists. Also, I think he’s supposed to be some sort of inventor? Or maybe he’s just really good with electronics? I don’t know.

This is the younger son. He’s adopted, just in case you’re blinder than I am. He’s also probably the worst of the actors in the family, but he’s a kid, and I try to be a little more forgiving when it comes to child actors.

This is the daughter of the family. She’s adopted too. 

If you’re wondering what their names are… Yeah, I forgot the moment they were said on camera. Seriously, I learned all their names during the watchthrough of the first two episodes, and immediately forgot all of them. Yet I somehow remembered all the names of Dregon’s crew without so much as a glance through Wikipedia. Got to love a blogger with priorities, I guess.

While part 1 focuses on introducing us to the cast proper, part 2 features the action. Oh, and it also features these two.

This is Patsy and Herby. They’re basically Masked Rider’s version of Bulk and Skull, except they don’t have a memorable theme song, they have significantly less charm, and if they didn’t say each other’s names over and over again, I probably wouldn’t even remember their names, either. I do, however, get a weird feeling that Herby is the gay friend that we aren’t going to say is gay, but… Yeah, dude’s gayer than a unicorn farting a rainbow on a Tuesday. Either that, or he’s the hopelessly optimistic loser with a hardcore crush on Patsy, and Patsy is either completely oblivious to it, or she friendzoned him in sixth grade and he’s doing his best to cope with it. Even if it means having to be her underling for the rest of high school. 

Wow, I put way too much thought into what is essentially a knockoff Bulk and Skull. Moving on.

Not only does part 2 feature the poorly cobbled together fight with the destructosphere, but it also features the debut of these guys.

These are maggots. They’re basically Masked Rider’s version of the putty patrol. IE, they’re generic grunts who are incompetent, bumbling idiots who can’t be trusted to do anything beyond be a distraction. And the maggot fight between Masked Rider and the maggots ends up being the most embarrassingly idiotic display of battle I’d seen up to that point. Masked Rider even pulls out a red tablecloth, and goes “torro! Torro!” at one point, which begs the question: how the fuck does a bug person from Edenoi know what bull fights are? And that’s just one moment.

Defeated, and humiliated, the maggots run away. The footage appears to be super sped up, which only furthers the cringiness. Also, I’m guessing at some point, one of Dregon’s guys flew down there and gave them a lift back up to the spider ship, because otherwise, the Earth is going to have an impressive maggot population by episode 50. But maybe I’m thinking too hard about things again.

Dregon heads over to his insectovore collection.

Oh yeah, the monsters in this show are called insectovores. Because they’re all bug themed in one way shape or form, you see. Apparently, nobody in production realized putting the suffix “vore” at the end changes the meaning to a creature that eats insects… Although I vaguely remember there were a couple of bug eaters in Dregon’s collection much later in the series, so maybe… Ugh, whatever. This is already getting long-winded enough.

After Destructosphere failed, and after the maggots proved to be as useless as usual, he begins contemplating which of his “insectovores” he should send. Nefaria suggests sending all of them, but Dregon dismisses the suggestion as insane. He drops some line about how he can barely control them one at a time, and sending them all at once would basically be madness… But we all know better. It wouldn’t be much of a monster of the day series if he ran out of monsters on episode 2, after all.

He settles for this guy.

Meet The Beetletron. I think he looks kind of like an insect version of ED209 from RoboCop… But that’s probably just me. He definitely talks like a robot.

While Dregon is in the process of deciding what the monster of the day ought to be, Dex retreats to some random cave, and creates allies using the power of bullshi-uh-I mean his mind. Guided by an astral projection of his father, he uses his forehead crystal to create not one, but two new allies.

First up is a sentient kawasaki, creatively named Chopper. I own up to preferring Harley Davidson motorcycles myself, but I got to admit, it’s a pretty cool looking bike.

Companion number two is Magno. Not as cool as the motorcycle, and the car itself admits it isn’t as fast, but it ends up endearing itself to Dex all the same in the battle against Beetletron.

The battle with Beetletron is brief, but it’s put together better than the fight with Destructosphere. Except for the end of the battle. Apparently, this year’s version of the megazord can use a sword slash to destroy the monster of the day, but a man in a bug suit riding around on a kawasaki with a bug head on the front? That’s too far. So they turn his sword into a laser gun. It makes no sense, but at this point, I’ve long since stopped caring.

In typical Saban series fashion, Dregon throws a fit, and blames everybody around him for the failure. And I don’t know what’s funnier: the fact they forgot to add the effects onto Dregon’s voice during this brief scene, or the fact Doubleface lets out an astonished “Whuh!?” when blamed for his master’s loss. Like, the fuck, dude!? YOU’RE the dumbass who picked Beetletron, not me!

Te episode ends, and thank fucking god.

How the hell did I ever find anything endearing about this show? I really hope it got better from episode 3 onward… But I kind of doubt it did.

I originally considered this show for the episode-by-episode recap series this thing was originally going to be, but after watching through two episodes of this, I think I’ve had enough. Unless, of course, you enjoyed this display of self-inflicted masochism that serves to remind me of how I had no taste in television when I was a kid. At which point, sound off in the comments, and I’ll see what else might be worth making fun of.