How About That Thing?

Your eyes are not deceiving you, dear reader. Towards the very tail end of season 2, this happened. We’ve got a lot to cover, and I only have so much free time on my hands anymore, so let’s just get right on into it.

The Episode begins fairly normally, with the announcement that the kids of Angel Grove High are going to Australia. Why, exactly? I don’t know, but I suspect the upcoming movie might have something to do with it.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the movie. Much like the rest of civilization did. I GUESS I could cover that movie one day. If enough people show interest in the comments.

Anyway, the only real interesting bit in all of this is that Billy mentions something Zordon told them off camera: Lord Zedd is about to take his annual slumber.

I vaguely remember seeing this episode when I was a kid, and thinking Lord Zedd would slumber for a hundred years. Kind of an anti-climactic way to defeat the villain. We spent the better part of a year fighting his various monsters, and his gear seems to get more and more powerful and intimmidating with every new installment of… Oh, wait, never mind. Turns out we just had to wait him out. Eventually, he was going to run out of juice, and need a century-long nap. Huh, I wonder if this is why he showed up at the beginning of season 2 like he did?

As it turns out, that’s not the case. Rewatching the episode some thirty years later, it turns out he has to take a nap every one-hundred years. The actual nap itself only lasts, like, a day or two. Maybe a week. I’ve never been EXACTLY sure, but it’s definitely not a century. So, basically, Zedd is just giving our heroes the day off to goof around in Kangaroo Land while he has to endure the horrors of that strange recurring dream about wearing lederhosen in a vat of sour cream.

Before he retires to his sleeping chamber, however, he takes one last look at his enemies, and…

“What’s this?” he says. “They’re leaving? Doh, what rotten luck!”

I still don’t know why this line cracks me up. They give Lord Zedd some classics throughout his time as the big bad. One of my personal favorites being “When I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you!”, or after Goldar tells the rangers he’s the greatest warrior in the universe, Zedd simply facepalms and declares: “I can’t believe that bubblehead just said that!”.

As Zedd gets plugged into his sleep chamber, though, something rotten is afoot.

Once again, Rita Repulsa’s dumpster prison finds its way back to our corner of the universe. Seriously, what cosmic entity keeps throwing this fucking thing back to us? I feel like all that’s missing is a note with an message written in an alien language that translates to “Stop throwing your garbage into our solar system!” or something.

So yip, Rita is back. Her dumpster lands on the moon, and she has no trouble prying herself out this time.

She wanders into Finster’s workshop, right in the middle of Finster monologuing about how much of an awesome team he and Rita used to make. But since Lord Zedd can make his own monsters, he really doesn’t have any use for this guy and his wacky monster oven. Also, Zedd probably didn’t appreciate that quip about using one of his monsters next time in that very first episode, but villains in shows like this are legendary for things like selective memory. Even if they aren’t the MAIN bad guy.

He discovers Rita, and helps her get back to normal size using… A blender? Sure, why not? His oven turns clay figurines into nightmare creatures, after all.

Now full sized again, Rita hatches her ingenius plan.

Meanwhile, Lord Zedd is napping.

Yeah, get used to this image. They cut to it a lot. Even when it isn’t really relevant to anything at the moment.

Rita instructs Finster to place a disk into Alpha5 that’ll turn him evil, and trap the rangers. While that’s going on, Rita will inject a love potion Finster had on standby into Zedd’s sleeping chamber. When he awakes, the first thing he lays eyes on, he’ll fall madly in love with. And right about here is where I always make the joke about the first thing he lays eyes on being, like, a door, or a random piece of equipment. I’m just saying, “the first thing you lay eyes on” is oddly vague. But hey, maybe that’s just me.

Meanwhile, with no Zedd to keep an eye on, Alpha5 goes out and gets some fresh air.

Why a robot would need some fresh air, or get the urge to start improving the landscaping around here is one of life’s greatest mysteries. Unfortunately…

So if the bad guys know precisely where the command center is, and can sense when Alpha5 leaves, why hasn’t anyone attacked it yet? Is this all part of some bizarre four-dimensional chess between Zordon and his enemies? After all, one of the three commandments of being a power ranger is to never go on offense. Which is a shame, because if they did, they could just send Ultrazord to the moon, and blast the crap out of Rita’s palace in episode 3. I mean obviously, that’d mean fewer episodes, and there’s no stock footage for such a thing, but still, if they knew where the command center was all along, why wait till now to do something? Or are we implying that the rules have officially changed now that Rita is back.

Well, all I know for sure is that it leads to Alpha5 fulfilling his programming, and tricking the rangers into this theater.

Yeah, get used to that image as well.

Zordon points out that this random theater SOMEHOW possesses the ability to neutralize the rangers’ powers. Once inside, they can’t teleport out, they can’t call upon their weapons… And we’ve only JUST NOW LEARNED OF THIS PLACE? I mean MAYBE you could make up the argument Lord Zedd didn’t know about it, but Rita sure as shit seemed to. And she’s only JUST NOW resorting to using it?

Well, anyway, once the rangers are trapped, Corrupt Alpha5 cuts off Zordon’s communicators to them. As well as gives Zordon a bit of a makeover.

Once again, I have to bring up my idea for a sitcom where we look in on Alpha5 and Zordon between monster attacks. I can’t help but imagine that this appearance editor in Zordon’s tube is the basis for a lot of April Fools Day pranks.

SIDE NOTE: ironically, I’m writing this ON April Fools Day. Assuming that means anything.

Lastly, there’s Rita’s appearance. Finster gives her a moon mud mask.

According to Finster, a few minutes with this glop on your face, and you’ll look like a whole new person. It looks kind of silly, but it looks better than that face mask my wife tried that one time. Sure, the end result was fine, but the time between applying and removing it, she insisted that it looked like she was going around the house wearing blackface. Honestly, I thought it looked more like really-dark-greenface… You know what? I’m getting sidetracked.

Finster power-sands the mask off of Rita, and…

Boy, Finster wasn’t kidding. It really DOES make you look like a whole different person. Rita herself even comments on how she doesn’t look a day past eleven-thousand.

Lastly, Finster creates an army of monsters for the upcoming wedding. He talks about having all of Rita’s personal favorites… And immediately name-drops Invenusible Flytrap. Setting aside the fact it’s one of, if not THE clumsiest attempts at naming a monster in franchise history, Invenusible Flytrap was one of Zedd’s creations, not yours. Oh well, I guess the had to work with whatever monster costumes they still had on hand.

All the monsters show up at the theater… And a thought occurs to me. Why does this theater neutralize the rangers’ power, but the monsters are unaffected entirely? We’ve kind of established that this theater is a bit of an anomaly that exists independent of Zordon or the villains’ will.

Part 1 ends with the rangers realizing they’re trapped, and the monsters serenading them with a horrendous musical number I can barely make out. Not going to lie, it’s a bit of a clumsy start. And we’ve got about two more parts to go. I told you this was going to be a long one, didn’t I?

part 2 begins with a much clearer version of the serenade the monsters give the rangers.

“Bobop shabee, bobop shaboo, gonna make the rangers ranger stew! Bobop Shabee, bobop shaboo, goona make the angers meet their doom!”

On one hand, now that I actually HEAR the song, I got to say, it’s probably the worst thing I’ve heard in quite a while. Right up until I remembered that I live in a timeline where “Wet-Ass Pussy”, and “ABCDE-FU” are popular songs in the last three years.

On the other hand… Well, I guess that’s kind of the point, isn’t it?

Well anyway, most of part 2 is the rangers fighting their way through the crowd. It turns out recycled monsters are a step above putties, but a step below monster of the week. They give the rangers a run for their money, but a lot of it has to do with the rangers in question being nigh powerless in the theater. Past episodes have proven that when they aren’t the monster of the week, season 1, and early season 2 monsters end up getting a bit nerfed in the resurrection process.

Oh, and despite all of these monsters supposedly being Finster creations, I also couldn’t help but spot RoboGoat, and I think Salaguana in the crowd. Both of which being Zedd monsters.

The fight does eventually lead to the rangers finding the exit.

Unfortunately, not too shortly after escaping, they have to fight giant versions of Peckster and Rhino Blaster. And whew boy.

It’s always a riot when season 1 monsters have to fight season 2, or even season 3 zords. It’s especially hilarious to note how the sky looks kind of grayish whenever Peckster or Rhino Blaster are on screen, but then the sky is clear blue when it’s the Thunder Megazord or the Tigerzord. I mean I guess I have to applaud them for at least ATTEMPTING to make chicken shit into chicken salad in moments like this, but still…

Corrupt Alpha5 ends up sabotaging their zords, and teleporting them back to the theater after everything falls apart. Except now, Peckster and Rhino Blaster are the only monsters standing guard. This is because all the other monsters are attending Zedd and Rita’s wedding.

Sure enough, as this is going on, Zedd wakes up, and the first thing he spots in his love potion induced state is Rita. Good thing it wasn’t Goldar, or one of the putties. I don’t think kids TV was ready for THAT wedding.

Alpha5, content with destroying the zords and retrapping the rangers, decides to see what other mischief he can get into. And I love how the footage is clearly sped up up, like, twenty percent to add to Alpha5’s manic state. The guy in the Alpha costume probably did the bestthey could with the direction they were given, but let’s just boost that up a knotch. I also wouldn’t be surprised if any of the scenery near Richard Horvitz had all sorts of teeth marks on it at the end of his recording sessions.

Anyway, Alpha5 is looking for something new to do, so he does what anyone in a position of power would do: fuck with Bulk and Skull.

Yeah, for some reason, Bulk and Skull also got invited to Australia. Aside from a gag involving an “extra fresh lopster”, though, they really haven’t been doing anything noteworthy this go-around. Until now.

Alpha basically teleports them to a whole other part of Australia. The part that’s less tourist-friendly, and more “everything here wants to eat you”.

“I’ve made my very own comedy show!” proclaims Alpha. “This is more entertaining than cable! Cheaper, too. HEE HEE HEE HEE!”

Okay, that line made me laugh. If only because nobody my son’s age is going to get the reference to cable TV.

And that’s basically all that happens in part 2. Oh, and Goldar eats bugs.

“Oh well, at least this thing has good grindage,” says Goldar, while lamenting the fact Rita is back.

At which point, I have to wonder out loud: did we actually say the word “grindage” back then? I mean I DO remember there being a lot of ‘ages back then. Cartoons were toonage, skating and skateboarding was skateage, etc. But I thought snacks were referred to as snackage? I don’t know, it’s been ages since even I used the slang. But I’ll take grindage over “snackies” any day. Seriously, Gen-Z, TALK LIKE FUCKING ADULTS!

Part 3, and the final part of this trilogy (thank god), is basically the wedding ceremony. Lord Zedd and Rita make their various preparations… Only for Zedd to realize Goldar forgot to book an organist.

“This is what I get for sending a monkey to do a monster’s job,” Zedd grumbles.

I’ve probably mentioned it somewhere here this month, but they really did give Zedd some of the best lines.

Zedd takes it upon himself to summon an organist, an organ, and demands to know ifhe can play the wedding song.

“Maybe if you hum a few bars, I can fake it,” says the monster in question.

Yeah, they seriously dusted off that old relic. They even put a rimshot in for maximum corniness.

The wedding march plays. Rita begins singing an off-key, off-rhythm version of the song reminding everybody she’s evil just in case you have the memory of a termite. The wedding march then becomes a pipe organ version of Rita’s old villain theme as Finster weds the two. And then, the reception takes place.

I must confess, I cracked up rewatching this. There’s so much context that went over my head as a child that I just now picked up on. By which I don’t mean the terrible puns most of the monsters use, or the terrible pet names Zedd and Rita use for each other like Prickly Pear, or Honey Blister. I mean the tacky looking fireworks you can sort of see in the screenshot Tubi was so generous to let me have, and the fact the entire reception is set to a clearly royalty free version of Hava Nagila. I don’t know why that cracks me up, but it does. I guess sinister pipe organ music, or a disco version of Lord Zedd’s theme might have been a little on the nose?

Once the reception is over, Rita and Zedd hop aboard Serpenterra, and make their way to Earth to claim the power rangers as their wedding present.

Unfortunately, The Peckster has been thwarted.

I feel like there’s a Kung Pow: Enter the Fist reference in this moment somewhere, but I’m not sure if I should even bother. Especially since Tommy took on Peckster earlier, and tricked him with “Hey, your beak’s untied.” Seriously, which is lamer: Tommy for making the joke, or Peckster for legitimately falling for it?

The rangers escape, and after getting chased by monsters for a while, they make it back to the command center, and immediately fix Alpha5. They return Zordon back to normal, and apparently, all the monsters grew at some point between arriving and now. Boy, Zedd’s arm must be tired after having to throw all of those grenades.

The rangers summon their respective zords… And boy, if you thought the two on two between Peckster and Rhino Blaster Vs. Thunder Megazord and Tigerzord was a delight, then just wait till we add, like, ten more monsters into the mix. I don’t know if I should cringe at how bad this turned out, or commend the editor for doing the best with the material they had. Either way, hope you love watching Thunder Megazord’s finishing sword slash, and Tigerzord’s chest laser, because that’s how they manage to finish off all of these guys.

Honestly, I’m surprised they didn’t even ATTEMPT to break out the Thunder Ultrazord for something like this. Then again, as memory serves, they didn’t really use Tor all that often.

Either way, the monsters all go kablooy, Bulk and Skull are returned to civilization, and Zedd and Rita spend their entire honeymoon aboard Serpenterra bitching each other out. [INSERT BOOMER MARRIAGE JOKE HERE].

And that was pretty much the wedding episode. Whew boy, do I have thoughts.

When I was a kid, and this was airing in real time, I wasn’t really sure how I felt about Rita Repulsa coming back. It was equal parts a big deal in the making, and probably the worst decision the writing staff ever made. I mean I get that it’s a kid show, and Rita POISONING Lord Zedd while he was in his sleep chamber might have been a little too far, but outside of one or two more episodes after this one, the whole marriage being a product of trickery just sort of becomes a nonissue, and it turns out Zedd loved Rita after all. Boo, hiss, I say.

As for the episode itself… Man, I forgot how much of an ordeal this one was. Even as a Kid, this one always felt like a chore to get through. Part two in particular always felt like the biggest waste of time. I’m not sure you could cut this down to two parts, but still…

Also, from this moment onward, Lord Zedd really lost a lot of his menace. True, you could make the argument that Lord Zedd losing as often as he had kind of undercut things a little as well, but once Rita was onscreen, Zedd felt less like this terrifying new menace, and a lot more like this comedy relief villain who served as a straightman to Rita’s sillier brand of evil. You could tell towards the end of season 2 how defeated Zedd was. Rita’s all gleeful about her latest plans, and Zedd just grumbles about having this feeling of deja vu.

And just in case this wasn’t bad enough, season 3 would introduce Rito Revolto: a henchman so incompetent and idiotic that Goldar would actually GAIN credibility as a result. But we’ll get to that another time. Possibly next May, if this month long event proves to be successful enough.