Was Animorphs Influenced by the Success of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers?

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I have another off the wall kind of post for you today. I'm going to be talking about whether or not Animorphs was influenced by the success of the Power Rangers (1993-Present) franchise, specifically Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (1993-1995). So let's get into it.

Power Rangers and Animorphs are two of my favourite media franchises of all time. Both came out in the late '90s to early 2000s and both were hugely successful for their respective mediums. However the popularity of them never reached what the MCU accomplished in 2012 following the release of The Avengers. Today, while both franchises are still popular with their respective fanbases, mainstream pop culture has left them behind. But, did Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and its success have anything to do with the creation of Animorphs only three years later? First, let's take a look at each series and see what they have in common with each other.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was a TV series created by Haim Saban and Shuki Levy that ran on Fox Kids in the United States, and on YTV and Global TV in Canada, from August 28th, 1993 to November 27th, 1995 that blew up into this multimedia, multi-season, franchise about five teenagers who get the ability to change their form from a friendly alien in order to save the world from not so friendly aliens, with multiple members joining the team later on. The franchise also had...

...a book series...

...a comic book series...

...a movie...

...a toyline...

...episodes on VHS, and...

...video games.

Animorphs is a book series created by Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant, which was published by Scholastic from June 1996 to May 2001. It's about five teenagers who are given super powers by a friendly alien in order to save the world from not so friendly aliens, with multiple members joining the team later on. This franchise has...

...a TV series that aired on Nickelodeon in the United States and on both YTV and Global here in Canada...

...a comic book series...

...a movie (it's in the works)...

...a toyline...

...episodes on VHS, and...

...video games. Sound familiar? Because those are the only similarities between the two franchises, aside from both being staples of the '90s and early 2000s. While Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and Power Rangers as a whole, is a straight up superhero series, Animorphs is not. Animorphs is a teen/war drama series that gets extremely dark with varying shades of gray rather than the straight up good vs. evil that Power Rangers does. 

I am highly doubtful that Animorphs was influenced by Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in any way simply because Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant's first child, Jake, wasn't born yet when they started developing Animorphs in 1995. And while Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was at the height of it's popularity in early 1995, it was still vastly popular with children, not with adults, and both Katherine and Michael were entering their 40s when Animorphs was in development. It's possible that Scholastic may have been looking for a book series that fills the spot that MMPR was filling on television, but that's not what they got from Katherine and Michael. In fact they got an amazing Sci-Fi series that they found difficult to market. Which makes sense because Animorphs is not your typical Scholastic published children's book series.

Now the only way I could see Power Rangers influencing Animorphs at all is in the live action TV series that aired on Nickelodeon, Global TV, and YTV from 1998-2000. The TV show, which had a smaller budget than Power Rangers has ever had, removed much of the darker elements of the books, including the morally gray aspects of the characters. In the TV show, the characters are very black and white. Visser Three and the Yeerks are the bad guys, the Animorphs and the Andalites are the good guys. And Visser Three is more like Rita and Zedd in the TV show version too. And while I can see Nickelodeon wanting a piece of the Power Rangers pie, the TV version of Animorphs was in development in 1997, during Power Rangers Turbo and at a time where Power Rangers was under threat of cancellation due to ratings being so low. Plus, as we saw in my last Power Rangers review, Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie (1997) was a box office failure, so I doubt that Nickelodeon was looking for a show that was like Power Rangers whenever they chose to produce the Animorphs TV show.

Also, by the time Animorphs premiered on September 4th 1998 in the U.S. and September 15th here in Canada, Power Rangers In Space wasn't even halfway through it's original run yet, so I don't think the decision to renew the series for a seventh season had been made by Fox Kids yet. Despite Power Rangers and Animorphs sharing certain elements, such as both being about teenagers using super powers to save the world from an alien invasion force, and the way both had books, TV shows, comics, toys, home video releases, and video games, the authors of Animorphs didn't have Power Rangers in mind when they created the series, and Power Rangers wasn't popular enough for it to have the influence it once had by the time the Animorphs TV show was in production.

That's all I have to say about that. It's something that's been on my mind for the last couple of days as Power Rangers has been on my mind between me having watched up to the first five episodes of Turbo over the last couple of months, and the passing of Jason David Frank over the weekend. And Animorphs has been on my mind lately too. So naturally, I came up with this blog post. 

That's it for me for today but I'll probably be back tomorrow for a comic book review. Maybe issue #2 of Thunderbolts, maybe something else. We'll see. Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care my friends.