Ethan: Where are the cool communist bikers who just like, roam around? I mean-
Nelson: That’s how it used to be!
Andrew: Are we gonna be a roaming gang of cool communist bikers, Ethan?
Ethan: I would love-
Nelson: Is that we’re-
Andrew: Let’s buy some bikes.
Ethan: Learning to ride a motorcycle is on my bucket list. I would really enjoy that.
Nelson: Yeah.
Andrew: All right.
Nelson: Welcome to episode sevvv… eight.
[Clap.]
Ethan: Excellent.
Nelson: Hahha!
[“It’s morphin’ time!” + intro music]
Ethan: Minna-san, yokoso. Welcome to your favorite cross-cultural deep dive analysis and recap podcast covering Super Sentai and Power Rangers, Kenkyuu Sentai Podcast Rangers. My name is Ethan, I use he/him pronouns, and with me is my usual co-host Andrew.
Andrew: Hey! I’m Andrew. I use he/him pronouns. I’m here!
Ethan: And also joining us again is our producer and irregular guest, Nelson. Welcome back.
Nelson: Yeah. What’s up? You guys know the deal. I’m still here.
Ethan: He’s always here anyway.
Nelson: But yeah, this is going to be a fun one, because I’m really sitting in the hot seat now, because I have not seen these episodes.
Ethan: Okay.
Andrew: It’s going to be fun.
Nelson: It’s going to be just like the first time I was on here.
Ethan: Well, you sort of have seen this episode.
Andrew: You’ve seen half of this episode.
Ethan: Because you watched “Food Fight” and “Kyofu! Shunkan’ui” is the source episode for that.
Nelson: Oh, so we’re still kind of on track.
Ethan and Andrew: Yeah! Yeah, yeah.
Ethan: So you’ve seen all of the mask footage, you just haven’t seen the Japan side face footage.
Nelson: Yeah. I don’t know how they made this good. If they did.
Ethan: Nelson is joining us to talk about the Sentai episode today, since it’s the same monster from episode six of Power Rangers. Today, we’re discussing Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger episode eight “Kyofu! Shunkan’ui (Terror! Eaten in an instant)” and Power Rangers, season one, episode eight, “I, Eye Guy,” which is definitely super easy to say. Unless we have anything else…
Nelson: Wait, is it like…
Ethan: It’s “I,”-
Andrew: The letter I-
Ethan: -personal pronoun I, comma, “Eye,” E Y E, “Guy.”
Nelson: Okay, so it’s not like, “Aye aye, guy!”
Andrew and Ethan: No, no.
Nelson: It’s not that?
Ethan: It’s hard to like-
Nelson: Why would they do that?
Ethan: Like, it’s easy to parse, but it’s hard to enunciate in a way that it’s clear what you’re saying.
Andrew: You know like, the Isaac Asimov book ‘I, Robot?’
Nelson: Yeah.
Andrew: This is like “I, Eye Guy,” because he’s a guy made of eyes. He’s an eye guy.
Nelson: That’s a stretch.
Ethan: Yes.
Andrew: Uh-huh.
Nelson: That’s… reaching.
Andrew: Before we get into this, speaking of “I, Eye Guy.” I like to take notes for our talkback; I only have one note for the talkback for this, and it just says, “This monster is sick as hell.” I want to get that out of the way up front.
Ethan: It’s so cool.
Andrew: The Eye Guy-
Ethan: Such a cool design.
Andrew: -is fantastic. Okay.
Ethan: So in the Sentai episode, he’s called Dora Argos, and he’s based on the mythic Greek monster Argus, who had a whole body covered in eyes, so that no one could sneak up on him. That’s like his whole thing, is [that] he’s like a guardian of a temple or something like that, and he’s impossible to get past because he will just see you coming from any direction. I don’t remember- It was probably a Hercules joint. Like I said, I don’t remember any details.
Nelson: This guy is nightmare fuel!
Andrew: Isn’t he great?!
Ethan: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Andrew: He’s great! He’s wonderful!
Ethan: He traps- He does like the pocket dimension.
Nelson: This is the right one, right?
Andrew: Yeah, that’s him.
Ethan: He does like the pocket dimension thing, he disassembles and reassembles just like Dora Skelton.
Andrew: No, this this this guy is the best villain we’ve had so far.
Ethan: Great monster design.
Nelson: I don’t like this guy at all.
Ethan: Great monster design.
Nelson: This is legitimately…
Andrew: Yeah, stuff of nightmares. It’s wonderful.
Ethan: It’s got like, a mouth over it.
Nelson: The mouth is an eye!
Ethan: Yeah, but it’s got teeth!
Nelson: Dude, what-
Ethan: He’s got little fangies on there.
Nelson: The more I look at this, the more- It’s like- it’s- blegh, ugh. I know how people with tryptophobia feel, like Jesus Christ. This is…
Ethan: Well, without further ado, let’s get into the recap.
Nelson: Oh my god.
Ethan: Kyo- [starts laughing]
[“Kyoryu Sentai… Zyuranger!!”]
Ethan: “Kyofu! Shunkan’ui” was written by Sugimura Noboru and directed by Tojo Shohei, and it begins with a boy stuck in a tree. His name is Mamoru, but the other children call him Minnesota Fatso, because he was born in Minnesota and he’s kind of on the hefty side. Boi saves him from falling out of the tree and hurting himself, and Mamoru’s family treats Boi to a grand meal to say thank you. Mamoru’s parents are grocers and their absolute favorite thing to do is eat together as a family. We’re not off to a great start with this one.
Nelson: So is this like, an American kid, like a foreign exchange…?
Ethan: No, he’s Japanese, his family’s Japanese.
Nelson: Why do they call him Minnesota Fatboy??
Ethan: I think his family was on vacation or something when he was born?
Nelson: That’s such a like, weird place to pick.
Ethan: American people born in Japan is way more common because US imperialism. We have like 70 military bases in Japan, but a Japanese person born in America, but not being an American, not living there…
Nelson: And then they go back to Japan.
Ethan: Exactly. It’s odd.
Nelson: Okay.
Ethan: I think he says something about it, that he was born there when his parents were on vacation or something.
Nelson: Sounds like a like a Ric Flair insult.
Andrew, channeling Nature Boy himself: All right, Minnesota Fatboy!
Nelson: Yeah, he’s like- Jesus…
Ethan: The character is not treated in a fatphobic way.
Andrew: But his name is Minnesota Fatboy.
Ethan: But the kids do call him Minnesota Fatso, and that sucks.
Andrew: Yeah.
Nelson: Wait, so is there a Japanese translation for Minnesota Fatboy?
Ethan: It’s literally just “Mi-ne-so-ta Fa-tso.”
Nelson: That’s amazing. Love that.
Ethan: Yeah, it’s pretty good. They’re like- So it starts off, there’s like a soccer ball that’s gotten stuck up in a tree. So they all made him climb up there because they thought it would be funny. And so they’re like circling the tree taunting him, while he’s trying to like, help them and save this soccer ball or whatever it is. [Transcriber’s note: It’s a toy airplane.] It’s just bad.
Nelson: Maybe that’s like, the one episode that Haim Saban saw of like, Zyuranger and was like, “Aw, yeah.”
Andrew: “We’re going to base our whole vibe on this moment.”
Ethan: Could be.
Nelson: “We’re going to make a whole comic relief character off this vibe right here.”
Andrew: I’m- I mean, I almost said I’m glad that Bulk’s name is not Minnesota Fatso, but his name is Bulk.
Ethan: Right. Bulkmeyer, but…
Nelson: They literally named the fat guy Bulk. Wow.
Ethan: Bandora sees this meal through her telescope and becomes intensely jealous, and demands that Pleprichaun produce her a pig monster to eat up all the food in the world, very similar to the Power Rangers episode.
Later, Mamoru and his folks are sitting down to lunch, but their food
keeps vanishing off their plates, and they end up squabbling about it
and flipping over their table. It’s the same story all over town as Dora Circe is eating everything he can get his trotters on, leaving everyone famished and irritable. It’s dire out there. People- I mean, people are like rioting in the streets, because he is eating so much, so fast.
Boi runs across Mamoru again in the park three days later, half-starved and despondent. Boi buys him a burger, but the second Mamoru goes to take a bite, it vanishes. Boi begins to suspect something is up. [Laughter.] It’s only occurred to him just now, “This is odd. Isn’t this odd?” In the secret hideout, he shows the others your Rangers footage from the hidden camera.
He has in Mamoru’s house.
Nelson: Wait, WHAT??
Ethan: Nobody comments on that.
Nelson: Why do they have- ? Okay, you know, so not even questioning that they have, you know, giant robots, because that’s ancient technology, but cameras?
Andrew: 170 million years old, yeah.
Nelson: Cameras.
Ethan: Yeah. He’s a quick learner, I guess. He’s been in the modern world for a few months and is already doing sex crimes.
Nelson: It’s different when Bandora peeks in on a child, because she’s an evil witch.
Ethan: Which, also, she just has a telescope.
Nelson: Yeah, she’s got a telescope.
Ethan: You didn’t have to like go to a store to learn how to use that like Boi would have had to.
Andrew: There is so much that I want to say here, that I will refrain from saying, because it is none of my business. We’re gonna move on.
Nelson: This is a family show!
Ethan: Nobody comments on the cameras, but they do spot Dora Circe in the
frame by frame playback. Goushi recognizes the beast, and consults the ancient book, which we learn is called the Dino Denki, which is like ‘A Dinosaur Legend.’ The book says that if Dora Circe is not stopped, all of Japan is doomed to starve, but that he can only be defeated by the sacred herb moly.
Andrew: Quick question.
Ethan: Yeah.
Andrew: Pleprichaun made him?
Ethan: Yeah.
Andrew: So how’s he in a book?
Ethan: Pleprichaun made more of them in the past.
Nelson and Andrew: Ahh.
Ethan: The Dino Denki book is from 170 million years ago, but in it is the story of how an ancient Grecian kingdom was ruined by these Dora Circe monsters. They ate all the food and a famine killed this kingdom. Greece did not exist a 170 million years ago, I don’t think I have to say. So it’s one of these just goofball things about the show. But, I mean, we know that Bandora was sealed on Planet Nemesis after like, a reign of terror. So we should assume, then, that someone recorded in the Dino Denki these monsters.
Andrew: Yeah, okay.
Nelson: So Pleprichaun remembers how to make these monsters.
Andrew: I just- in my head, right, like, each one of these creatures was a new thing that Pleprichaun was making up on the spot.
Ethan: Right, that makes sense.
Nelson: He’s already got a bunch of models, already.
Andrew: Not that he was like, dusting off the old classics. That puts a new spin on Pleprichaun. And honestly, it makes Pleprichaun a little less cool than Finster.
Nelson: He’s playing the hits!
Andrew: He’s playing the hits, yeah!
Ethan: I think in this episode, he makes a noise of “puri puri.”
[Pleprichaun dialog]
Ethan: And it’s just- like, we talked about this in our Element chat, that like, where his name comes from is like, this onomatopoeia for like, being huffy about something. And so he like, makes that noise. He says that out loud. So yeah, that’s who this guy is.
Nelson: I do love that like, characters have their own like little noises that they make. You know, like the last episode I was on with Dora Sphinx, and he would just be like “bimbom bimbom!”
Ethan: “Bimbom!”
[Dora Sphinx dialog]
Nelson: It’s good stuff.
Ethan: Love Japanese onomatopoeias. The Rangers attempt to fight Dora Circe, but he overpowers them and eats their weapons, which they worked so hard to obtain. Things are looking grim until a strange old man starts firing golf balls at Dora Circe like they’re 80 millimeter cannon rounds. and this scares the pig off. However, the old man then waves his magical golf club at the Zyurangers and they’re transported to his magical mushroom forest.
The old man reveals himself as Gnome, a longtime ally of Barza, who hasn’t actually been in the show in several episodes, and says he will give the heroes the sacred herb if they can eat all the food on his magical table. Nelson, how do you feel about seeing some golf balls go up a pig’s nose?
Nelson: I’m… I’m just honestly shocked. Okay. Gnome, not the Gnarly Gnome.
Ethan and Andrew: No.
Nelson: And not Dora Gnome guy.
Ethan: He’s got like tiny pence-nez glasses, super long mustache and eyebrows. Very odd-looking dude.
Nelson: And he’s friends with Barza.
Ethan: He’s friends with Barza. So do you remember, from “Food Fight,” the rooftop fight, where the pig eats the weapons?
Nelson and Andrew: Yes.
Ethan: It’s that scene.
Nelson: Yeah, and he shoots ’em-
Ethan: Power Rangers cuts it off before the golf balls start flying in, but they literally show up out of nowhere. They just start like, zooming in with like a magical aura halo around them. He’s like launching them and two of them go up the pig’s nostrils and he’s like, “Urgh, I can’t deal with this!” and he leaves.
Andrew: No, this bit was nuts.
Nelson: We haven’t seen him this whole time.
Ethan: Right.
Nelson: But he’s just been friends with Barza, who just came back like a few days ago, technically, in the story.
Ethan: Yeah, very recently.
Nelson: So has Gnome also just been a groundskeeper somewhere?
Ethan: He’s a magical fairy. I don’t know what to tell ya.
Nelson: Sure.
Andrew: So imagine for a minute, right, that the Power Rangers are fighting the pig monster, right, and all of a sudden Zordon’s old golf buddy just shows up and starts playing golf.
Nelson: That’s what I was thinking! He just starts just letting them lose at him.
Ethan: It’s brutal. It’s like a like a pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, like raining golf balls. Anyway, the Zyurangers give it their best effort to clear all the food off this table, but finally, it is only Boi still eating, and the last thing on the table is a carrot, a food which he hates beyond all others. He suffers through it, winning the moly herb and Gnome’s blessing.
Meanwhile, the townsfolk are on the warpath, hunting for the creature eating all their food. And the Zyurangers lure Dora Circe out with the promise of something delicious. They trick him into eating the sacred herb, which is not a spicy radish, at which point he expels not only their weapons, but so much food that he physically deflates. The Rangers use their Howling Cannon to defeat Dora Circe, and Bandora is too hungry to make him a giant, so he actually stays dead. Mamoru’s family treats the Zyurangers to a home-cooked meal, but the first thing Mamoru’s mom brings out is, of course, an enormous carrot, and Boi faints dead away. The end.
Andrew: Yeah, so, I loved this.
Ethan: It’s a great one.
Andrew: It makes very little sense. I’m assuming the guy who played Barza was just unavailable for a couple of episodes, and they’ve got a Barza stand-in in this one, which is kind of an interesting thing. But like-
Ethan: This character sticks around. We will see more of this character.
Andrew: Aside from that weird little side bit, yeah, this one worked really well. Great little self-contained episode, lots of fun. The pig monster is still horrible.
Nelson: Yeah. And like, you mentioned him like, deflating before they shoot him.
Ethan: Yeah, it’s like the actor has handles on the inside of the costume,
and pulls it in, so it looks, rather than nice/pleasant/chunky/round, it’s very thin. He just talks about, “Oh, I’m so hungry.”
Nelson: Oh, the reason he doesn’t become a giant is just because…
Ethan: Literally, Bandora like, goes to throw her staff and drops it, and is like, “I’m too hungry….”
Andrew: And see, I love that.
Ethan: Such a goofy episode.
Nelson: “Ugh, not today.”
Andrew: Because, we talked in the last episode a little bit about how, or maybe it was two ago, about how petty Rita is and about how small-minded she gets about the things that she is seeking. And Bandora, for the most part, avoids that. Bandora, for the most part, goes big. We’re going to transform all the children of Japan into trees. We’re going to eat the children’s souls. But in this one, she’s just like, “Nah, it’s too much work.””
Nelson: But I mean, this started- it started petty.
Ethan: The plan is to eat all the food in Japan and then presumably move on from there. But I guess the pig ate all of their food before he left so they just… Bandora, Totpat, Bookback, everyone’s just sort of like slumped on the floor of the palace, because they are too hungry to move.
Andrew: No, I love that.
Ethan: Boi hating carrots is so funny. He hates them. I mean, I also would not want to eat like an enormous raw carrot, just on a plate.
Nelson: Yeah, that sounds gross.
Ethan: That’s not like a pleasant eating experience, but he like, despises these foods, which is very funny. I don’t know, it’s just silly.
Nelson: Like cats with cucumbers.
Ethan: Right. Oh, the thing I want to mention is the Greco-Roman mythological influence here. Circe, in the Odyssey, is a witch who lives alone on an island in the ocean, and turns men into pigs. So we have like a mishmash of the name and the thing there. And then moly is an herb that comes up several times in the Greek and Roman myth. It’s just this like, very sacred holy plant that can cure wounds and stuff like that. It’s just interesting to see, you know, in the last episode, I think, was it six or seven that has Dora Goblin? I have it here.
Nelson: Somebody’s got notes.
Ethan: Episode seven.
Nelson: We have technology.
Ethan: So the Goblin is like, a British Celtic-inspired fairy, you know, loosely. But this is like solidly in the Greco-Roman mythological- which a lot of Bandora’s monsters are, and even her name comes from. And I just think those influences are really interesting. The way that they are pulling from them, remixing them, and then the way that the Japanese production team doing that, and then the American production team doing the same thing.
Andrew: And with Japan, it’s kind of a recontextualization. They’re taking, with Sentai, they’re taking these American myths and they’re recontextualizing them through this lens of Japanese folklore, and also kind of pop culture. When it comes into the U.S., it’s not so much that they’re getting recontextualized as that they’re getting decontextualized. These things that were built up around this this kind of Western mythology have all of their mythological elements stripped away and they’re left to be, “Hey, look at that weird guy.”
Ethan: Yeah. Chunky Chicken.
Andrew: Yeah. And don’t get me wrong, I love the Chunky Chicken.
Nelson: Who doesn’t?
Andrew: But it’s a very different thing.
Ethan: Yeah, and I think it’s interesting that, you know, if you sort of trace this, at least the thing that people claim is the mythological underpinnings of Western civilization, it’s like the U.S. back to Britain, and Britain back to Rome, and then Rome back to Greece. And these are like foundational myths, or at least they’re claimed to be for, quote, unquote, “the West,” which is fake and made up. But when Japan pulls from those, that’s not like their… That’s not like the myth of Amaterasu, for example. That’s not like their foundational cultural cornerstones. So they sort of play with it more than they might something else. And then like you said, Andrew, when they imported it back to the U.S., coming from the other way around the globe, it’s totally stripped of all those mythological underpinnings.
Andrew: And I know I’ve talked about the Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog a lot on this show, and that’s not what the show is about, but I am personally watching the Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog right now, and the Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog figured that out.
Ethan: Yeah.
Andrew: It’s like, “Hey, we can play with Celtic myths and some of this like, traditional mythology and we can start pulling those elements in and make a good underpinning for the show, that is consistent and isn’t just, “Hey, look at this weird chicken.” But it took them a couple of years to get there.
Ethan: Yeah. But that’s the episode. It’s a good one. I think that covers the Sentai episode.
Andrew: Okay.
Ethan: Moving along, Andrew’s gonna give us to our Rangers Recap.
Nelson: Raaaangeeeeeers….
[“Go, go, Power Rangers!”]
Andrew: Power Rangers episode 8, “I,” comma, “Eye Guy.”
Ethan: That’s letter I, comma, space, E-Y-E, guy.
Andrew: Not aye-aye, but I, Eye.
Nelson: Like I, eye.
Andrew: Yeah.
Nelson: Guy.
Andrew: Yeah.
Ethan: Exactly.
Andrew: Because he’s a guy made of eyes.
Nelson: Aye.
Andrew: Okay, so this episode was directed by a man named David Blythe and written by a man named Stuart St. John.
Nelson: Any relation to Austin St. John?
Andrew: No! I thought that I was about to have a really interesting research topic when I saw that this was Stuart St. John. No, no relation to Austin St. John, just a similar name.
Ethan: That’s Jason’s actor in case anybody doesn’t know.
Andrew: Yeah. One thing that I do when I’m writing this recap is I pull out some notes for myself for stuff to make sure to talk about, and I only have one note for this episode, and that’s that this monster is sick as hell. The eye guy is sick as hell. So, Billy has a friend named Willy.
Ethan: -noise of extreme disappointment-
Nelson: Jeez.
Andrew: And Billy and Willy are inventors.
Ethan: -continued noises of disappointment-
Andrew: And Willy has created a virtual reality machine the likes of which would permanently alter like, the course of human development. And he plans on entering it into the local science fair.
Ethan: He’s 12.
Andrew: Uh-huh. Willy and the Power Rangers, not as Rangers, are going to the science fair and some Putties show up. The Power Rangers fight the Putties. They move on. They go to the science fair at the youth center.
Ethan: The slo-mo in this attempted kidnapping sequence is dumb as hell. It sucks. I mean, the first several minutes of this episode are kind of a drag. I will say Billy and Willy’s secret handshake is adorable. It’s very good. But this so far is not a winner.
Andrew: So Rita wants Willy’s machine.
Ethan: And his intelligence.
Andrew: Yeah, so she summons the Eye Guy. And Eye Guy’s sole mission is to capture the smartest children and to steal their intelligence and also this machine.
Ethan: I have written down in my notes: “nonstop eye puns.”
Andrew: Yeah.
[Eye Guy: “You’re a sight for sore eyes, your loveliness. It’s good to see you again. I assume that I can be of service to you.” Rita: “Yeah.” Eye Guy: “Aye aye, my queen!”]
Andrew: So we’re at the youth center. We’re at the science fair. Bulk and Skull are here.
Nelson: Here we go.
Ethan: This one goes to some places.
Nelson: Oh boy, here we go.
Andrew: The only important bit for the plot is that they pull some antics
and Willy gets disqualified.
Ethan: Yes, very unfairly. Like immediately the judge for the science fair sees the shenanigans and for some reason pins it on Willy, despite the fact that he just showed up and has not done anything wrong.
Andrew: So I’m going to leave it at that. We’ll come back to Bulk and Skull later, because we’ve got a lot to say about Bulk and Skull in this episode, but for now I’m leaving it at that. Willy sulks because he’s been disqualified.
Ethan: Yes.
Andrew: So he goes off into the park, and everybody else follows shortly behind him. But the Eye Guy’s giant eyeball, his main eye, just shows up, captures Willy. For some reason the eye can transport all of his clothes except for his hat.
Ethan: Yeah, he lost his hat, so the Rangers find out something has happened to him.
Andrew: But Willy is transported into like a secret dimension inside the Eye Guy’s eye, which I guess is kind of supposed to parallel Willy’s like, virtual reality world, I guess.
Ethan: I have a note: “space camp gyroscope puker machine.” He’s in one of those things. If you watched like, a space camp commercial in the ’90s, you saw one of these.
Andrew: The gyroscope puker machine. Yeah, of course.
Nelson: Is that the thing that they strap you into and you start going in circles?
Ethan: And it’s like a tri-axial…
Andrew: It spins you this way and this way and this way, all at the same time.
Nelson: It’s like the f***in’… Da Vinci modern man thing, except it’s a ride.
Ethan: Yeah, yeah. So the eye slurps Willy up and puts him in one of those. And this is the intelligence extraction device. It’s not a plan.
Nelson: I mean, do you not slurp up all your intelligence? That’s how I take in my intelligence.
Andrew: Some of the Power Rangers look for Willy. They find his hat. They suspect that Rita has kidnapped Willy, for some reason.
Ethan: They go straight to it too. “This must be Rita.”
Andrew: Yeah. Not the kid was sad and he ran away. And granted in this case it was Rita, but like it’s just a really weird job to make. But they go to Zordon. They go to the Command Center and Zordon’s like, “Hey, there’s an Eye Guy.” So the Rangers go and confront the Eye Guy, except he’s missing his main eye, which is where Willy is. But they confront Eye Guy and Baboo. They shoot at Eye Guy and he blows up, but then all his eyes just reassemble. He blasts the Rangers, they fall down.
Zordon pages Billy on his communicator, and only Billy for some reason. And he’s like, “Yo, the main eye, it’s in the woods. You gotta go.” So Billy goes out into the woods with his giant lance. Now we haven’t seen much of the giant lance on the show so far, but the giant lance is the best weapon in the Power Rangers game for the Sega Genesis, so I’m always really happy to see it appear on the show. And so Billy uses the lance to attack the Eye Guy, which weakens the rest of the monster. At this point, of course, Rita Repulsa makes the monster grow.
Nelson: Finally!
Andrew: And the Power Rangers summon their Megazord and they do battle. Frequently, they manage to defeat the thing and it shatters into a bunch of individual eyes and reforms. It’s creepy as all get out. It’s got like fang- wonderful monster.
Ethan: Yep.
Andrew: They finally use the Power Sword. What’s the Japanese name?
Ethan and Nelson: The Godhorn.
Andrew: They finally use the Godhorn, much better name. They finally use the Godhorn to destroy the Eye Guy and Willy is freed.
Nelson, smugly: They freed Willy.
Andrew: They freed Willy. And at this point, we gotta talk about Bulk and Skull some more. So they go back to the youth center. Billy gives Willy his hat back and Ernie, the guy who runs the youth center, and Willy’s professor are playing the VR thing that Willy made. They realize that Willy is in fact a genius and apologize to him. And then Bulk and Skull show up wearing only towels.
Ethan: Yeah, so we have to go back to the first science fair segment. There is pants vanishing spray. There’s shenanigans. Trash can turtle happens again. And then Bulk and Skull end up in like, a fashionizer machine.
Andrew: Yeah.
Ethan: It’s weird. I mean, it’s a cool invention. But, of course, it’s only used to humiliate these two characters, and they end up in drag, essentially. They end up in drag, and then they run off screen.
Because they’ve been humiliated because… homophobia is…
Andrew: There’s nothing more humiliating in the ’90s than… yes.
Ethan: It sucks. It’s real bad. Not to say that drag is bad. Drag is fun and like, brings a lot of joy to a lot of people. But it’s used for nefarious purposes, I would say, in this moment.
Andrew: Yeah.
Ethan: So anyway, coming back to the second science fair sequence.
Andrew: They would rather show up just wearing towels than wearing the outfits that they left in. They walk in, they’re wearing towels, and they ask for their clothes back. And instead of being given their clothes back in any reasonable sense, they’re given their shrunken clothes.
Ethan: Tiny baby clothes.
Nelson: Do they try to put them on?
Ethan and Andrew: No, no.
Andrew: They just-
Ethan: That’s just- sort of- the episode sort of freeze frames on them, in towels, having come from like, showering. Because when they came out of the fashionizer machine, they’re like, not just in girls’ clothes, but like, full faces of makeup, wigs, everything. So they went to wash that off and then came back all the way from the showers into the main room of the juice bar.
Nelson: This is all one giant place. This is the gym, juice bar, cafeteria, science fair.
Ethan: It’s just very weird and awkward.
Andrew: Yeah, no, I did not like it. Aside from that bit, I actually really enjoyed this episode. I think that the Eye Guy is a great villain. I think that all of the mask footage in this was very well done. The bits with Willy are… I mean, they’re fine.
Ethan: Yeah. Like I said, the secret handshake is super cute. They say stuff like “quasi-tronic circuitry.” It’s, you know, it’s cute. You know, there’s good bits here and there’s bad bits here. I think the Dora Argos, in the episode that he shows up in, is even more well utilized.
Andrew: Sure.
Ethan: So I’m looking forward to hearing your reaction to that episode, when we get there.
Andrew: But yeah, I mean, just on the whole, I liked this episode. There are things to like in this episode. It’s got its problems, but like, especially compared to some of the ones that have led up to this that were just such a slog, like this one? It was fun.
Ethan: Yeah.
Nelson: I don’t- I don’t think- I don’t think I like the eye monster.
Andrew: No, he’s horrible.
Nelson: It’s up there with the pig.
Ethan: So when- so do you remember with Dora Skelton, the way he would reassemble was that they had all the bones like hanging from wires and then they dropped them from the wires, and then they reversed that footage?
Nelson: Yeah, I looked at a gif of it, yeah.
Ethan: They use that same effect here, except it’s just a- it’s just a cluster of eyeballs like, swarming up from the ground.
Andrew:It’s wonderful.
Ethan: I have written that the energy effects… “really good energy attack effects.”
Andrew: Yeah. The Eye Guy was one of the only monster toys I had as a kid because it was just so gross, and I loved it.
Ethan: When he launches little energy eyeballs, they have like mouths with teeth in them.
Nelson: How do you make a toy of that without it being the ultimate choking hazard?
Andrew: So the eyes were all molded on.
Ethan: It’s just a solid figure.
Nelson: Okay, cause I was gonna say like, he has so many break-off-able pieces…
Ethan: He had one or two that would shoot off, but they were tied with string. So you would just like poke the string back into the body. Anyway, I think that’s our talk back. So Andrew has our research topic for this episode, so what do we got?
Andrew: So, in my last research segment, I talked about the actor that appeared in the most episodes of Power Rangers. It was Paul Schrier, who plays Bulk and also the HyperForce Yellow Ranger, Jack Thomas, apparently.
Nelson: What’s Bulk’s full name?
Ethan: Farkas Bulkmeyer.
Andrew: Yeah, Farkas Bulkmeyer.
Ethan: Farkas is apparently Hungarian for “wolf” and Bulkmeyer is a fake, made-up German-sounding name.
Nelson: So his name is essentially Big Wolf.
Andrew: More or less.
Nelson: Nice.
Andrew: I didn’t actually talk much about Paul Schrier, though. So, today I’m going to do that. Schreyer was born on June 1st, 1970. He is, as of this recording, 53 years old. He’s an actor, obviously, but he’s also done some voice work. He did a ton of- well, a ton, I mean, it’s relative, but he did- he worked on anime dubs that Saban imported.
Ethan: Do you have any shows or characters listed that he…?
Andrew: Yeah, give me a second.
Ethan: Okay.
Andrew: He did some anime work with Saban, and then he went on to do some anime work without Saban. He was also a voice actor on a Cartoon Network show called the Mighty Magiswords. He played a character named Flonk.
Ethan: I love that.
Nelson: Did they get Jason Narvy in there to play another character called Kerplunk?
Ethan: I hope so.
Andrew: I don’t believe Jason Narvy was in that episode. The two of them are friends, outside of Power Rangers. They hang out, they work together. For anime, he [Schrier] was in a show called Technoman, where he played Technoman.
Nelson: He played Technoman in Technoman?
Ethan: That’s cool he got the lead role, though.
Andrew: He was in a show called Eagle Riders, and he was in a show called
Daigunder.
Ethan: That sounds more up our alley.
Andrew: Eagle Riders was based on Gachaman 2 and Gachaman Fighter, and Daigunder was based on Bakuto Sengen Daiganda.
Ethan: Yeah, Daigunder.
Nelson: Good on ya.
Ethan: I had no idea he did anime dubs, but since Power Rangers is very close to its own anime dub, that makes a ton of sense.
Andrew: So after doing some dubbing for anime, he started directing. He goes on to direct several episodes of Power Rangers, later in the show.
Ethan: I read about this when I was looking into him for something else. Specifically, during the filming of Power Rangers The Movie, he and Narvy both, because they didn’t have huge roles in the movie, they [the studio execs] were like, “Well, we’re shooting more episodes of the TV show, why don’t you both go be assistant directors, while you’re not filming here?” And that just is such an efficient use of time.
Andrew: And it worked. So he went on to be a director on several episodes. And then he got into directing animation, and he directed 16 episodes of the Hello Kitty animated series.
Ethan: Well, that’s precious.
Andrew: But the thing that really caught me off guard, and the reason that I didn’t just include this info in the last research segment, is that he’s also an artist and specifically a 3D modeler, and I want to make sure I get this bit right. He worked with a team of artists who pioneered an entirely new style of comic book art, which makes heavy use of 3D models. He was one of the 3D modelers on that team. And then they demonstrated that new style of comic book art in a comic called The Red Star. I’d never heard of The Red Star before, but it’s a comic about a kind of idealized mythol- a kind of idealized mytholol-
Nelson: Mythological?
Andrew: Mythololigized?
Ethan: Mytholigized.
Andrew: A kind of idealized mythologized Soviet Russia. It’s this communist magic technology utopia. So, since the late ’90s, he’s been working as a 3D modeler on this techno fantasy Soviet Union comic book. And I just think that that is exceptionally cool.
Ethan: Yeah, I really want to look into that.
Andrew: I don’t know if the comic is still ongoing. It’s listed in several places as being ongoing, but like the last updates that I’m seeing from the comic are from like 2017 or 2018, so like, I don’t know when the last issue came out. I haven’t kept up with comics. I’m just- I’m not sure. But I’m going to seek the thing out, because I’m immensely curious.
Ethan: Yeah, no, that sounds killer.
Andrew: This dude took a bit part in a kid’s TV show where he was mocked and ridiculed, and he managed to turn that into a decades-long career as an actor, a voice actor, a director, and a Power Ranger. As I mentioned in the last episode, he does finally appear as the Yellow Ranger in Power Rangers HyperForce. And then because that wasn’t enough, he also became a 3D modeler who helped change the face of comic books with a 3D illustrated comic about a future sci-fi Soviet Russia. I mean…
Ethan: Yeah, solid dude.
Andrew: Yeah. So, that’s Paul Schrier. It feels weird for me to be talking about him two research segments in a row, but I found way more to say.
Ethan: Yeah, sometimes there is just that much.
Andrew: Yep. I’m going to go in a real different direction for next month’s research segment. I think it’s time for us to start talking about video games, but that’s what I had for today.
Ethan: That’s excellent. I love artist spotlight type things and it’s very cool how episode six’s research topic led you naturally into this one, and his career inside and outside of Power Rangers is just really cool.
Andrew: Yep. And like, his career was clearly very heavily shaped by Power Rangers, but it was not-
Ethan: Solely defined.
Andrew: Yeah, it’s not like he got stuck there. The work that he’s done as a 3D modeler is probably just as important, if not more so.
Ethan: Yeah, no, that sounds awesome.
Andrew: But then he’s also the guy who appears in the most episodes of Power Rangers, like, he is the guy who’s gotten the most mileage out of being involved in the series. And I just- I really- I think that’s really cool.
Ethan: That is really cool.
Andrew: And it makes it hurt all the more when they treat him like such s*** in these episodes.
Ethan: Yeah. And then we see in future seasons, I mean, he’s still kind of comic relief, but it’s not this style of like, overtly cruel writing that like places him in harm’s way, and constantly puts the heavyset guy in like, gross physical contact with food as a like, punch line. So like, I hope that he was able to like, advocate for himself, once the show was more established and be like, “Can we take this in a little bit of a different…?” and obviously, by the fact that he became an assistant director and a director, like, clearly he was able to garner some pull in the studio and that can only be a good thing.
Andrew: We’re not going to see much of that though in season one. In season one, everything is very seat of our pants. We don’t know if this is going to keep going. We don’t know if it’s going to work. The show, from everything that I’ve read and from everything that I remember, just gets better after season one.
Ethan: Yeah!
Nelson: Yeah, you got to start somewhere.
Ethan: It’s pioneering in a big way. And so like once they sort of had a process down, they were able to improve on it.
Andrew: So that’s Paul Schrier.
Ethan: Excellent. Thank you so much.
Andrew: Yeah.
Ethan: That was a very cool one.
Nelson: Nice.
Ethan: Do we have anything else about these episodes? I know Nelson doesn’t ’cause he didn’t actually watch them. We kinda sprung this on him.
Nelson: Yeah, I mean, these sound amazing.
Ethan: Yeah, they’re pretty good.
Andrew: Okay, so what I want you to do, right, is watch them. And then just just give us like a 30 second, like, ‘this is what I thought about these episodes.’
Nelson: Yeah, I’ll go back in post, and here’s my opinion on this:
Future Nelson: Well, now that I’ve seen these episodes, I gotta say, you guys definitely did a great job explaining what actually happened and painting a good picture, before I actually got to see it. And I think that we didn’t talk about that I thought was very funny was when Boi consoles Mamoru, and his pants fall down because he hasn’t been able to eat.
Andrew: Yep.
Nelson: So that’s what I think.
Andrew: Excellent. Thank you so much, Nelson.
Ethan: We’re always happy to have you here.
Nelson: Yeah, it’s good. It’s a good show. Well, these are two good shows and an even better podcast.
Ethan: Thank you. I guess that’s everything for this one. So-
Nelson: Hit ’em with the outro.
Ethan: We’ll be back next time to discuss episodes nine of Zyuranger, “Hashire!! Tamago Ouji,” which is “Run!! Prince of the Eggs.” Literally, “Run!! Egg Prince,” but that flows a little bit worse than than “Run!! Prince of the Eggs,” and Power Rangers, “For Whom the Bell Trolls.” Two guesses as to what’s the monster in that one. If you’ve enjoyed this show-
Nelson: Is it a troll?
Ethan: Actually, not. It’s actually…
Andrew: A bell.
Ethan: No, it’s Trini’s doll, that Rita brings to life. And his name is Mr. Ticklesneezer. [Long, horrified pause.] It’s bad. It’s bad! Anyway-
Nelson: Well, you guys aren’t gonna want to miss that.
Ethan: “For Whom the Bell Trolls.”
Andrew, barely holding it together: When we talk about Mr. Ticklesneezer!
Ethan: The Sentai equivalent is Fairy Dondon, which is like, not nearly as gross-sounding. Mr. Ticklesneezer, you got to wonder where they came up with it.
Nelson: That’s like some… I don’t know, man. It sounds like some old…
Ethan: It feels bad. Kimochi warui, as the Japanese would say.
Nelson It’s like some Hollywood pervert bulls***.
Ethan: Yes, uh-huh.
Nelson: Like some Dan Snyder alleged, you know, Mr. Ticklesneezer.
Ethan: Uh-huh.
[Everybody is grossed out for a second.]
Ethan: If you’ve enjoyed this show, please feel free to send me $5, and if you want to find me online, don’t. But you can follow the show on the Fediverse @KenkyuuSentaiPodcastRangers@Meet.CommunityMedia.Network. Andrew, how can people get in touch and what should they look out for?
Andrew: You can find me online at AndrewRoach.net or AJRoach42.com. And from there, you can find links to all the other things that I do.
Ethan: That pretty much covers it.
Nelson: Yeah. Wait, hold on, also, watch Working Class Music and my YouTube channel, IndieCon Recs. That’s where you can find me.
Ethan: Can you can you spell that out for us?
Nelson: IndieCon Recs?
Ethan: Yeah.
Nelson: No.
Ethan, laughing: Okay.
Andrew: Link in the description, thanks everybody!
Nelson: Yeah, I’ll put a picture of it here, because the spelling is weird, yes.
Ethan: Okay, that’s all the show we have for you today. Thank you so much for listening and thanks also to Hurly-Burly and the Volcanic Fallout
for the use of their song “Colossal Might (totally radical instrumental version)” for our intro and outro music. Kenkyuu Sentai Podcast Rangers is licensed to CC-BY-SA, and produced in collaboration with New Ellijay Television at the Ellijay Makerspace, which stands on the ancestral, unceded, stolen, and occupied lands of the Cherokee people. You can learn more about the Makerspace by visiting EllijayMakerspace.org, and you can learn more about the Cherokee people by visiting Cherokee.org. Strength, love, and solidarity to all oppressed people, and in the words of a wise man, “F*** capitalism; go home.”
Andrew: And I will.
[Outro music.]
