Episode 6 - "Food Fight"

Episode 6 – “Food Fight”

Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends. Or at least that’s how it sometimes feels (and yikes we’re only one episode 6!) Let’s get right into the episode

RECAP

We start things off at the gymnasium/juice bar where a “cultural food festival” is happening. We see lots of plucky teenagers wandering around with sombreros and then Ernie enters wearing Hawaiian lei’s (to match his standard Hawaiian shirt) and an armload of cream pies. Uh-oh, anyone else see where this is headed? Ernie orders Bulk and Skull to come assist him with the cream pies. Let me repeat that. Ernie, asks Bulk and Skull (the guys who’ve ended up with cream on their faces in 2 of the last 4 episodes) to come help him with his precariously balanced cream pies. How Ernie is able to run this business is beyond me. In a bit of classic bait and switch Bulk and Skull just carry the pies off without incident… but have we seen the last of those pies? Only time will tell. Mustachioed and toupee clad Mr. Kaplan comes up and starts talking to Kimberly and Trini, through some very subtle (cough…) expository dialogue we learn that the cultural food festival is going to raise lots of money for the preschool and daycare center (presumably they’re both also juice bars.) Mr. Kaplan wishes to sample some of the merchandise but is shot down by Kimberly who tells him “he’s gonna have to pay if he wants to try it.” Something tells me that’s not the first time Mr. Kaplan has heard a woman say those words… Ernie tells the kids to get back to work and Jason remarks that he hopes Rita isn’t hungry for trouble today. Way to jinx it muscle-head.

On the moon Rita seems to have come down with something, she’s screeching more than usual. (That’s how you can tell…) Squat figures showing her the food fair will make her feel better. It doesn’t. Back at the juice bar/gymnasium the festivities are in full swing. Bulk and Skull have hatched an evil plot to hit the people at the fair with cream pies. I KNEW IT! Bulk attempts to hit Mr. Kaplan with a cream pie but just takes his toupee off and hits Skull. Skull does his best John Belushi impression and announces that it’s FOOD FIGHT TIME!!! This whole scene is there simply to set up Rita for this line: “Food fight?! I’ll give them a fight for their food!”… terrific. Finster is told to create a special “pudgie pig” monster. Rita plans to have him eat all the food on earth. Diabolical. Finster mutters that he’s doomed for sure. Not a lot of confidence in your work there Finster. The monster is sent down to earth and we see him in all his glory. Well, perhaps glory isn’t the right word. He’s a pig face with weird stubby arms, freaky legs and a Centurions helmet. Yeesh. Anyway, this monster is hungry and proceeds to go dumpster diving .

Back at the food fair, the rangers are huddled in the corner talking about how they have to stop everyone’s fun and save the food fair! I thought they were supposed to be teenagers with attitude! Jason grabs a sausage link and uses it as a pair of nunchucks. His fancy ninja-sausage moves distract Bulk so badly that he drops the pie on his on face. There’s a bit more pie throwing and then we cut to park (curiously filled with dead grass) where some plucky teenagers are enjoying a picnic. Pudgie Pig charges in and ruins their nice afternoon. Back at the juice bar/gymnasium the fight is still in full swing. We see a ridiculous sequence wherein Zack pretends to be a matador and makes Bulk charge him. The whole thing culminates in Kaplan getting soaked in punch, he gets pissed right off and blames the rangers for the whole fiasco. He puts Jason and his friends in charge of cleaning up the juice bar/gymnasium. Just then, Zordon contacts the rangers and tells them to teleport to the command center.

At the command center the rangers watch Pudgie Pig on the big magic crystal ball. Zordon informs the rangers that he will consume the entire supply of food in the world in 48 hours which is laugh-out-loud stupid.

IT’S MORPHIN TIME!!!

Pudgie Pig jumps 20 or so stories in the air onto a rooftop. Not to be undone the rangers follow suit and jump as well, but they add flips and poses because they have such attitudes. The rangers attempt to attack Pudgie Pig but he gets the upper hand and EATS THEIR WEAPONS! Pudgie Pig does a jumping jack and makes a lightning bolt shoot out of his mouth that somehow teleports the rangers to that same field of dead grass, out of costume somehow! Zordon cuts in and says what is possibly the greatest line in the history of television: “Power Rangers! While you were caught in the pigs vortex he found his way into your food festival and is causing chaos!” We cut back to the juice bar/gymnasium where the pig is causing exactly that. Everyone is terrified, but it seems there’s not much to be afraid of; the pig just seems to want to eat the food and then he teleports away just before the rangers charge in. Jason points out that they should really stop that pig, Kimberly points out that the pig ate their weapons. Has everyone just forgotten that they can summon gigantic dinosaur robots? Anyway, Trini comes up with a plan. She points out that the pig ate everything except for the spicy food. I guess Zordon made a mistake, Pudgie Pig will eat all the food in the world EXCEPT for anything with spice. Billy then suggests they use the spicy food to defeat the monster. Everyone praises Billy for his genius plan. I don’t mean to nitpick, but IT WAS TRINI’S IDEA!!!

Meanwhile on the moon Rita points out how happy she is that things are going well for once, she keeps yelling at Finster who seems to have gotten a bit big for his comical overalls. He’s so pleased with himself and his monster that he’s actually ignoring the crabbiest woman in the galaxy. Ballsy.

IT’S MORPHIN TIME AGAIN!

The rangers teleport to a food packing plant where Pudgie Pig is causing a ruckus. The rangers pose with their plates of food which they proceed to throw down to the pig. Trini loads some red hot radishes (is that a thing?) into a hero sandwich and throws it into the monsters mouth which causes him to deflate (!) and barf up their weapons. The rangers combine their gross barfy weapons into the rainbow gun and let ol’ Pudgie have it! When Rita finds out, she’s piiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssssed.

The rangers wander back into the juice bar/gymnasium and discuss how awesome they are, but then they notice that the food fair is STILL a huge mess. Trini wonders if they have made enough money for the playground equipment. (I thought they were raising money for a preschool/daycare/juice bar?) Zordon contacts the rangers and congratulates them on a job well done, Alpha steps in to save the day and teleports some sandwiches to them which they then sell to Mr. Kaplan for 20 dollars. Unfortunately he buys the one full of the spicy sandwiches and upon taking a bite demands water! Trini hands him a big jug and he for some reason pours it on his head with his mouth closed. This is one weird dude.

GO GO POWER RANGERS!

The Good

The Monster was so ridiculous that he was actually the best part of this episode

The Bad

The only really bad thing was that we didn’t get much action. The fight scenes are very very short, and unfortunately all the crap in the juice bar/gymnasium takes forever

The Hilarious

Mr. Kaplan may be the most unintentionally hilarious character ever.

Overall, a pretty decent episode. I give this one 3.5 power coins out of 5.

Well that’s it for this week. Don’t miss Monday’s installment where we’ll be discussing episode 7 “Big Sisters” in which Rita sends an army of nuns to defeat the rangers AND correct their penmanship with sharp raps on the knuckles with giant power rulers. You don’t want to miss it!