Mrs. Cotter and many other parents wonder why shortages exist after more than a year of Morphin mania, and some of them complain that Bandai is manipulating the market.

Like many parents, Kathleen Weil, of Wayne, N.J., said she thought the scarcity "is artificially induced, to build up demand." But many retailers and toy analysts said unprecedented demand, and not skulduggery, was behind the shortages.

At Bandai, the director of marketing, Trish Stewart, said that this year and last the company was overwhelmed by "demand that was completely unpredictable." Because some of Bandia's earlier toys, like the Ultraman super hero, fell flat, the company was cautious about estimating the demand for Power Rangers. Indeed, other toy companies had rejected the idea of producing Power Rangers before Bandai went ahead.

The company insists that it has not tried to make the figures scarce. Ms. Stewart says it takes a full year to design, tool up and manufacture a new Power Rangers toy and get it to the stores. "There was nothing we could do in October 1993, when we knew it was a hit, to get more product by last Christmas," she said.

The company has increased the number of Power Rangers factories from 5 in China to 16 in China, Taiwan, Thailand, Mexico and Japan, and Rangers are coming to life around the clock, seven days a week. The demand is highest in the United States, but is growing in other countries.

Sean McGowan, a Wall Street toy analyst, said: "There is no chance that these guys don't want to meet demand -- that would be stupid. Manufacturers do like to under-ship. But you wouldn't want to do that on this product. Parents have to buy something for Christmas, and if they can't find Power Rangers, then something else is going to get bought."

Saban Entertainment Inc. of Los Angeles, which owns the rights to the Power Rangers, in addition to its toys and television show, has tried to plaster Power Rangers images on everything from bed sheets to flashlights to toothbrushes by licensing 90 producers in the United States and another 300 internationally.