How many yellow Power Rangers am I going to have to buy?

Anyone with a boy that’s above the age of, say, 3 years old, will tell you that the newest incarnation of Power Rangers just started showing on Toon Disney – “Power Rangers Mystic Force”. The general idea behind the plot is that these five teenagers have been chosen as Power Rangers to use mystical powers (wind, water, etc.) to battle the “dark forces”. I’m sure that Monkey Man could give you a much better synopsis than I can. And of course they have all kinds of tools at their disposal like these jet-cycle things that they ride through the forest, fancy swords that cast spells and about every other thing you can think of that Disney can market to the kiddie set. Sure, the stuff might only cost like $7 each, but when you have five new Rangers and then their jet-cycle thingies and God forbid you don’t get the morpher thingy, that crap adds up. Just ask our Visa bill.

I am pretty clueless about all this Power Ranger stuff. Joey started liking them about six months ago and became hooked on “Power Rangers S.P.D.” And of course every now and then Disney will sneak in an episode or two of “Power Rangers Ninja Storm” or “Dino Thunder” or “Generations” just to keep the groupies going. One of the moms at preschool clued me in last week on some other random Power Rangers show that I have never heard of in my life (so random I can’t even remember the name). I guess I should be thankful that I’m not having to search e-Bay every night trying to find those figures for a show that ended five years ago.

These shows are a total racket. Every series comes out with a whole new set of characters, new toys, new costumes. And you can’t fool the kids into using the yellow Ranger from the S.P.D. series…noooo, it has to be the NEW yellow Ranger. Oh, and did I mention that they have two different yellow Rangers for “Mystic Force” with different features? Unh. It’s enough to make you start drooling out of the corner of your mouth. I am praying to all things holy that they won’t come out with another yellow Ranger, because when your kid adores all things yellow it becomes a kind of personal hell to try and track this shit down.

You think - “But you can always say no – you don’t have to buy him that stuff, give him a stick and a rock and he should be happy.” I think compared to most of Monkey Man’s friends he has a very limited amount of toys and he typically only has one or two different things he’s interested in. With the Power Rangers, he acts out stories all by himself and can keep himself entertained for at least 2.7 seconds. As long as he’s using his imagination, I’m all about that. Like usually he’s acting out a story using his Transformers (the dialogue he creates between the Transformers is absolutely hysterical – “Where have you been?” “I have been somewhere.”) and is happy as a clam. I think having a good imagination is one of the best gifts a person can have, so if buying two yellow Rangers helps him in that direction that’s OK with me.

I can hardly wait for the next series. I suspect it will be something like “Power Rangers – Corporate Sellout”. Hopefully they’ll only have one yellow Ranger. Or maybe they’ll start recycling some of the old Rangers. I guess I can always hope.