The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers were an unstoppable monster butt-kicking team, but behind the scenes, these "teenagers with attitude" were fighting against some forces too dark for Saturday morning kids' TV.
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00:00The Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers were an unstoppable, monster-butt-kicking team.
00:04But behind the scenes, these teenagers with attitude were fighting against some forces
00:08too dark for Saturday morning kids TV.
00:11Perhaps the biggest tragedy of the original Power Rangers was the death of Twee Trang.
00:16In the first two seasons, Trang played Trini, a brainy and athletic teen who was gifted
00:20the powers and spirit of the saber-toothed tiger when she transformed into the Yellow
00:24Ranger.
00:25Between 1993 and 1994, Trang appeared in a total of 80 episodes before exiting the series.
00:32After that, she only appeared in two more projects, Spy Hard and The Crow City of Angels,
00:37before leaving acting behind entirely.
00:39Trang never appeared in another project.
00:41In 2001, the actor was killed in a fatal car accident when she was only 27 years old.
00:46Decades later, in 2023, Trang's Power Rangers co-stars reunited for the 30th anniversary
00:52project, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers Once and Always, which paid perfect tribute to
00:56Twee Trang.
00:57This hour-long special centered on Trini's daughter, Min, who takes up her mother's Yellow
01:02Ranger role.
01:03Whoa!
01:04It actually worked!
01:05You're a ranger!
01:06A legit ranger!
01:08Longtime Power Rangers fans tend to agree that out of all the rangers in the series
01:11canon, none are more impressive than Tommy Oliver.
01:15Jason David Frank first appeared as Tommy in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers as the Green
01:19Ranger, only to become the White Ranger, Red Ranger, and Black Ranger in his time with
01:23the franchise.
01:24To the fall of Zordon and the destruction of the Power Rangers!
01:28He was the original team's first secret weapon, eventually became their leader, and later
01:32transitioned to a mentor role for future Power Ranger generations.
01:36Ultimately, Frank appeared as Tommy in over 200 episodes of the franchise, with his final
01:40performance in 2018.
01:42For Power Rangers fans everywhere, there was no tragedy more heartbreaking than Frank's
01:46death.
01:47Frank died by suicide in 2022, having struggled for some time with mental health issues.
01:52He left behind a wife and daughter.
01:54Following her husband's death, Tammy Frank told People magazine,
01:57"'Jason was a good man, but he was not without his demons.
02:00He was human, just like the rest of us.'"
02:02Frank's final live-action performance was in the Power Rangers-inspired feature film
02:07Legend of the White Dragon, which was originally scheduled to be released in 2024 before post-production
02:12delays pushed it back.
02:14As one of the longest-running original cast members of the franchise, fans wondered for
02:18years why David Yost, who played the original Blue Ranger Billy, left the show after Power
02:23Ranger Zio.
02:24He finally gave an answer in a 2010 interview with No Pink Spandex.
02:27"'I walked off set one day, and the reason that I walked off is because I was called
02:31f----- one too many times.'"
02:33Yost explained that the writers, producers, and directors made fun of him for his sexual
02:37orientation while on set.
02:38The vibe he got was that he couldn't be gay and be a superhero.
02:42Leaving Power Rangers gave the actor the opportunity to get a handle on his own life
02:46and work through his own mental health struggles.
02:48For decades, Yost kept the franchise at a distance, refusing to return for specials
02:52or guest appearances.
02:54Until 2023, when he came back for Netflix's reunion special Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers
02:59Once and Always.
03:00Austin St. John may have been the face of the original series, having brought the Red
03:04Ranger Jason to life, but his behavior off-screen was anything but superhero-like.
03:09In 2022, St. John was arrested for COVID-19-related fraud after receiving over $400,000 in Paycheck
03:16Protection Program loans.
03:18In May 2024, the actor was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
03:23But this isn't the only controversy the original Red Ranger has found himself embroiled in.
03:27That same year, St. John was called out by his former co-star Amy Jo Johnson for a clothing
03:32brand he announced that pulled quotes from different warriors throughout history, including
03:36Adolf Hitler.
03:37When the clothing line, which St. John later rebranded as Wise Leader, launched in April
03:412024, there were thankfully no Hitler quotes to be found.
03:45Instead, Wise Leader features only positive historical figures, as well as some of the
03:49actor's personal heroes, including Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris.
03:53In 1995, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers was hit with a ban in Malaysia, but not for any
03:58reason you'd likely guess.
03:59It was because of the word morphin' in its title.
04:02Of course, longtime fans know that morphin' is really just another word for the transformation
04:06the Rangers undergo from being normal teenagers into super-powered superheroes, but that's
04:11not how Malaysia took it.
04:12Evidently, morphin' sounded too much like the word morphine, which raised some immediate
04:16red flags.
04:17After initially banning the series completely, the country eventually decided to allow the
04:21show to be aired, provided the aforementioned word was deleted entirely.
04:25While it's unclear if the word had to be removed from every individual episode, Malaysia relented
04:30on Power Rangers as long as audiences didn't think the children's series was promoting
04:34drug use.
04:36Though Power Rangers merchandise was all the rage in the mid-'90s, the series was criticized
04:40by some parents who deemed it too violent for their children.
04:43A 1994 New York Times piece quoted one concerned parent who believed the show sent a message
04:48to children that violence is a great way to solve problems.
04:51The very same article noted that 25 percent of the show contained violent action sequences,
04:56a number that prompted the Canadian channel YTV to remove Power Rangers from its lineup.
05:00But Canada wasn't the only country concerned about this then-controversial topic.
05:05Power Rangers was also removed from the air in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark after a young
05:09girl was killed in an incident completely unrelated to the show itself.
05:13The Los Angeles Times reported on a study that said kids who watched the series were
05:17six times more likely to resort to violence when dealing with conflict.
05:20Some of you guys might think I'm out there looking for trouble, ready to get in the fight.
05:24That's not what I'm about.
05:27That's not what martial arts is about."
05:28Still, Power Rangers survived, despite protests from some, and has since built a 30-year legacy
05:33that stands strong on its own.
05:36Starring on Power Rangers came with some pretty undesirable working conditions, mainly concerning
05:40compensation.
05:41The cast struggled to earn a living wage while working on the show, despite filming 40 episodes
05:46before the series even aired.
05:48The pay was so bad that Austin St. John was forced to live in his car for a time after
05:52he left the series.
05:53Even before that, he couldn't afford a place of his own.
05:56The actor told Entertainment Weekly in 2018,
05:58"...Walter Jones and several of the stunt guys, we moved into the same house to try
06:02and save money because we weren't paid well at all."
06:04In a 2012 interview with No Pink Spandex, Amy Jo Johnson let the cat out of the bag.
06:09"...Literally, we were being paid, I think, like, top 600 bucks a week."
06:14Due to low pay and poor working conditions, the Power Rangers brand ultimately became
06:18known for its frequent turnover, with the entire roster of Rangers rotating out every
06:23season or two across its 30 years on the air.
06:26Though Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers started with five teenagers with attitude, the franchise
06:30grew far beyond the heroes who fans first fell in love with.
06:34Never was that more clear, though, than in the two-part Passing the Torch episode, The
06:37Power Transfer.
06:38"...The Power Transfer?
06:39Is it possible?"
06:40"...It is possible, but very difficult."
06:44About halfway through the show's second season, Austin St. John, Thuy Trang, and Walter Emanuel
06:49Jones left the Power Rangers to join a global peace summit.
06:52But why?
06:53Well, the simple answer is that the original cast wanted to be paid more, and Saban Entertainment
06:57wouldn't play ball.
06:58St. John told The Huffington Post in 2014,
07:01"...I could have worked the window at McDonald's and probably made the same money the first
07:04season.
07:05It was disappointing.
07:06It was frustrating.
07:07It made a lot of us angry."
07:08Sadly, there wasn't much the leading stars could do about it.
07:11Once The Power Transfer was complete, the three stars never appeared on the original
07:15series again.
07:16If you always thought it would be fun to party with the Power Rangers, then you should have
07:20lived in Los Angeles in the mid-'90s.
07:22Back then, you may have had your chance.
07:24According to Walter Emanuel Jones, he and his roommate-slash-co-star Austin St. John
07:28threw wild Hollywood parties regularly.
07:31He told The Huffington Post in 2014,
07:33"...we had pool tables.
07:34We had a trampoline.
07:35We had a huge Burmese python that was 12 feet long.
07:38And we'd just have a good time."
07:40Sometimes, the pair would come home to find around 150 people in their home in Glendale,
07:45California.
07:46David Yost described these parties as more of a frat house, but noted that they always
07:49produced the most memorable stories.
07:51According to St. John,
07:53Inevitably, somebody would call the police, and a helicopter would show up and put a spotlight
07:58on the backyard where we had a volleyball net.
08:01As much as we loved Thuy Trang as Trini, the truth is that she wasn't the first actor to
08:05play the Yellow Ranger.
08:07When Saban Entertainment was still trying to sell The Power Rangers to Fox Kids, the
08:10production had cast Audrey DuBois as Trini for the first attempt at a pilot episode.
08:15At the time, the audition was called Dino Rangers.
08:18It wasn't Power Rangers.
08:19The former Ranger explained that Trini was originally written as a scaredy cat who couldn't
08:23fight to save her life, but all of that changed when DuBois impressed the producers with her
08:27karate moves.
08:28She opted not to continue with the series, though.
08:31She was unsure if she wanted to pursue acting as a career and didn't want to uproot her
08:34life for the opportunity.
08:36DuBois left the series without saying goodbye to the new friends she had made, forcing the
08:40show's producers to recast her role and reshoot the first episode.
08:43It's a decision that still haunts her decades later.
08:46That wasn't cool.
08:47I wish I could have done that part over.