The VHS Corner: Power Rangers on VHS (1994-2005)

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well for a Tuesday. Welcome back to the VHS Corner, where I take a look at the VHS tapes of my childhood. Today I'm taking a look at my personal history with Power Rangers on VHS. So let's get right into it.

In 1993 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers exploded onto TV screens all around Canada and the United States of America. Toys, books, comics, and other merchandise sold like hotcakes. I didn't start watching the show until season 1 was almost over. In fact my very first episode was Season 1, Episode 46, "To Flea or Not to Flea". However, almost immediately Saban Entertainment began releasing certain episodes onto VHS.

The tapes I remember renting were the original 1994 VHS releases for the entire "Green with Evil" five parter, titled Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Green Ranger Mini-Series and I remember that my grandmother rented them for us...well for me....after she'd taken my siblings and I to either a children's entertainment concert at Centerpoint Theater, or after she'd taken us to see a movie. I think it was after she'd taken us to a show at Centerpoint Theater because I don't remember her taking us to see a movie in 1994 or in 1995 until Toy Story had come out. And it was either in 1994 or 1995 that she rented them for us because we were still in the old log farmhouse that we moved to when we moved out of the city. The reason we rented these tapes is because I had seen "Green with Evil" on TV, had seen basically all of the Green Ranger episodes from season 1 already, AND I had the Deluxe Dragonzord toy that came with the Green Ranger figure. And I loved being able to watch Power Rangers on VHS (remember, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was the only Power Rangers series out at the time). I loved watching them and I hope I can find these out in the wild sometime to add to my own collection.

Believe it or not, the next set of Power Rangers tapes I'm going to talk about actually aren't ones we rented. "The Wannabe Ranger", "Putty on the Brain", and "Bloom of Doom", all early second season episodes that were released in late 1994, shortly after they aired, were tapes I saw at Rogers Video when we rented Disney Sing-Along Songs: Circle of Life. Yeah, we didn't even rent them. But I loved the box art on them and that stayed in my mind all these years. I saw all three of these episodes when they were on TV, AND I did later see them on VHS, but I'll be talking about that a bit later on.

The next tape I'm gonna be talking about is Alpha's Magical Christmas, the non-canon Christmas special where Alpha teleports a bunch of random kids to the Command Center for a Christmas sing-along party. Because that's not weird at all. By the time I got this tape as a birthday/Christmas present, Global TV had stopped airing Power Rangers and I ended up missing the vast majority of the show's third season, only getting back into it in 1996 as the season was wrapping up and the ten episode mini-series, Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers aired and led into the show's fourth season and second incarnation, Power Rangers Zeo. This was the only Power Rangers TV series VHS that I actually owned.

Of course, we eventually got Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995) on VHS. This was how I saw the movie for the first time after seeing all the trailers/TV spots, and toy commercials for the movie on TV. This is one of my absolute favourite movies of all time. It's so cheesy and funny that I can't help but enjoy it every time I watch the movie. 

Now it's time to fast forward about eight years to when I was in high school. I was in high school, Power Rangers had celebrated it's tenth anniversary in 2003, and I had started watching the series again with reruns of Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue and Power Rangers Wild Force, and new episodes of Power Rangers Ninja Storm and Power Rangers Dino Thunder. Kelly was a fellow Power Rangers fan and she lent me five of the six tapes in the Power Rangers: Power Playback series, each containing two previously released episodes, one from the first season, and one from the second season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. She lent me Red Ranger Adventure, with "Day of the Dumpster" and "The Wannabe Ranger" on it, Yellow Ranger Adventure, with "High Five" and "Forever Friends" on it, Black Ranger Adventure, with "Happy Birthday, Zack" and "Putty on the Brain" on it, Pink Ranger Adventure, with "No Clowning Around" and "Bloom of Doom" on it, and White Ranger Adventure, with "White Light Part 1" and "White Light Part 2" on it. I remembered seeing all of these episodes when I was a kid, but it was the first time in ten years since I'd seen them, so it was pretty neat getting to revisit them.

At the same time Kelly had lent me Power Rangers Lost Galaxy: The Power of Teamwork Overcomes All, which contained the first three episodes of the season. I had initially stopped watching Power Rangers during Power Rangers In Space in 1998 and I'd missed Power Rangers Lost Galaxy entirely. So this was my first exposure to the series. It was fun at least getting to see the first three episodes of the series. I've since seen a good chunk of the show. I'm hoping to get the series on DVD eventually too.

I also had a tape containing six episodes of season 1 of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers that were taped off of YTV and Global TV by a friend of mine at OCTC when I went to school there. His name was Nicky, and the episodes his mom had taped for me were "Island of Illusion Part 1", "Switching Places", "A Pig Surprise" (the second Pudgy Pig episode), "Birds of a Feather" (first episode after Tommy originally lost his powers), "A Star is Born", and "Calamity Kimberly". Kelly also lent me a tape that contained the original Fox Kids PrimeTime broadcast of the season 2 three part premiere "The Mutiny", so that was REALLY cool. I don't have images for either of those tapes though unfortunately. My tape of six episodes is in a box somewhere with all the other recorded off TV tapes that we have, so I might have that dug out at some point.

And that my friends is the end of my journey through the Power Rangers VHS tapes that I've rented, seen at the video store, borrowed from a friend, and owned when I was a kid. It's a shorter post because I don't have alot of tapes to talk about really. Especially because I don't have them anymore so I can't watch them.

That's going to be it for me for today. I will be back tomorrow with my review of the season premiere of Love, Victor and then I'll go from there with what I'll be writing about this week. So until then have a great rest of your day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

The images used in this blog post were taken from Amazon, the Power Rangers Wiki, and morphinlegacy.com in the article on the history of Power Rangers on VHS.

http://www.morphinlegacy.com/2015/07/the-history-of-power-rangers-on-vhs.html