I can safely say that I owe much of my nerditude to the Power Rangers. Having grown up with the OG crew of Jason, Billy, Zack, Trini, and Kimberly (my first crush ever by the way), it sparked in me a love of robots, heroes vs. villains, and dreams of one day being able to don a colored spandex suit and helmet to fight evil, all the while forcing me into wearing very particular colored everyday clothing for the rest of time.

While I’m still waiting on my suit, that love evolved into other avenues, the likes of which of video games, comics, board and card games, and anime as some examples. With Twitch.tv’s current airing of the 17 day-long marathon and the new movie releasing shortly, my passion for the series has been reignited! Though, now looking back, I realize there are a large number of moments that just make me do a double-take.

So here are 10 Power Ranger that left me at, “Wait…what?”

10: A Ninja Sword-Chainsaw, the Optime of Ninja Stealth Technology

Let’s start with the currently airing season of Power Rangers, Ninja Steel. I’ll admit I haven’t watched much of this season, but one of the parts that have given me some pause is the “Ninja Master Blade” that the Rangers use to execute the Megazord’s final attack. So here we have a ninja team, right? When I think “ninja, ” I think stealthy, fast movements with precise attacks. So the fact that they use, in essence, a giant ninja sword mixed with a chainsaw seems a bit…random. Naturally, the first time I saw it left me scratching my head a bit.

9: Seatbelts be damned! Free-standing cockpits!

First coming about (at least in the States) in Lost Galaxy, the idea of having the Rangers stand instead of sitting in their Megazord always seemed like an odd safety hazard. Instead of the sweet, safe embrace of a cushioned seat, the Rangers on numerous occasions have been forced to stand on the Megazord whilst doing battle with evil monsters! Unless there is some sort of super-advanced gyroscopic device where the main cockpits are, I feel like everytime the Megazord falls, is hit, or gets a bit of turbulence, the Rangers risk broken bones and other injuries.

8: Titanium Ranger Gets a Botched Face Lift

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Power Rangers, Saban did their own version of the Legendary War (Super Sentai’s was much better, but I digress) where all the Rangers from the past come together for about 4 minutes to fight a massive army. Included was the first US Ranger creation, Lightspeed Rescue’s Titanium Ranger! And he looked, well…different.

Now, Lightspeed Rescue all had hazard face masks on, which was shown during morphs and in scenes where their visors are transparent or down. For some odd reason though, in the Legendary Battle, the Titanium Ranger’s mask was OVER the visor, not under. I’m all for going the extra mile in your work, but when what you’re doing is flat out wrong, then maybe you should just do the easy thing and keep it just the black visor.

7: Pinacle of Earth’s Outer Space Exploration, Now with a Giant Head Inside!

Power Rangers in Space was one of my favorite seasons on the show. It brought about what you can consider the “Zordon Era” of the show. At the very start, Zordon has been captured and the Rangers need to, if you couldn’t tell by the name, go into space to save him. To do so, the Rangers board a space shuttle on Earth and depart! Soon after, they come across Andros and the Astro Megaship, gaining new powers, colors, and toys.

Through an incredibly lucky turn of events, the shuttle that the Earth Rangers took off on actually contained the head portion of the Astro Megazord! Man, what are the odds of that?! Even when I was younger, I always thought it was a bit odd and found myself wondering what would happen if they had taken a different shuttle?

6: Screw Infinite, Constantly-Increasing Power! I want a 6-Cylinder!

The ZEO Crystal was touted as this incredible source of every and power that would continuously grow in potency. Giving the Rangers an ever increasingly amount of power, one would think that they would be set with the crystal! For some reason, though, in the form of a new movie, Zordon felt the need to give them new powers in the form of…cars…Wait…what?

Research reveals that this was because they had run out of Super Sentai footage from Chouriki Sentai Ohranger, or source footage that the outfits (Zords) and combat footage came from. In the show, we were always left wondering why the power of cars beats out a source of constantly increasing power.

Hmmm, now that I think about it, how cool would it be if they randomly brought back the ZEO Cyrstal in a future season and that it is even more crazy powerful? That could be cool, right?

5: Half Football Player, Half Tire, Half Bowling Ball

The Power Rangers will always be given brand new toys that will inevitably come just when they face a new foe that pushes their current toys to the the limit. One of the stranger additions to the Ranger armory came in the form of the Power Rangers ZEO Warrior Wheel. This Zord was a tire that was shot out of a giant cannon, rolled until it transformed into a football player, whose finishing move was to be picked up by the Super Zeo Megazord and rolled like a bowling ball…that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

4: Considerate Villains Rule No. 1: Never Take Advantage of a Heroes True Identity!

For as evil as the villains in Power Rangers are (wanting to destroy the world with monsters made from purses, making their monsters grow, and having massive armies of expendable goons) they can also be fairly considerate.

Most of the villains seemed to always know the identities of the Rangers, and yet they never really acted upon that information, or attacked when the protagonists might be sleeping, or otherwise incapacitated. They could have targeted their families, released their identities to the public to create havoc for them, and all manner of things, but nope! The baddies are above that…for some reason…

The new movie may change this up, as footage shows Rita surprising and attacking Trini when she’s asleep…woah…

3: Considerate Villains Rule No. 2: Only on Rare Occasions Should You Send More Than a Single Monster To Fight the 5-6 (sometimes more) Rangers!

Some of the best episodes of Power Rangers have always been when the Rangers have to contend with multiple monsters at once. Be it splitting their forces up or being double or triple teamed! In a 1v1 fight, more often than not, the Ranger would get destroyed (the Rangers win thanks to the power of friendship and teamwork, remember!). So chock it up to the bad guys not being so bad that they never really seemed to just send down a ton of monsters to tackle the 5-6 Rangers.

2: Jason Gets a Demotion

Jason was the strong and dependable leader of the Power Rangers for a season and a half. But that changed when Tommy, the multi-colored popular Ranger, descended from the light in the sky (of the command center) and was dubbed the new leader of the Power Rangers. Wait…so this guy that had originally tried to kill them, then fought with em for a bit until his powers disappeared, then peaced out. This is the guy now taking over for the one who led the team through all manner of troubled times, risking his life to save his fellow Rangers, just like that? Man if I was Jason, I’d be pissssssssssssed.

Granted, this also falls into the category that we know more about the behind the scenes, but still, dick move, Zordon. Dick move.

1: Zordon’s Questionable Ranger Choice

When it all comes down to it, after almost 25 years of watching colored spandex, what I find myself pondering the most is that Zordon entrusted this incredible power and weapons to teenagers. Specifically, teenagers with attitude. When it first aired, I was 5 years old, so it made total sense to me. Now, though with being almost 29 and having lived through the teenage years I just have to say, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?! SO MANY THINGS COULD HAVE GONE WRONG, ZORDON!!!! Hormones racing, pressure at school, not to mention at home, working to prepare themselves for the future…sure why don’t we just add SAVING THE WHOLE WORLD FROM A SPACE WITCH TO THEIR PLATE?! I mean, really, at least in some of the other seasons the Rangers were legit professional young people more geared and mature enough to handle the situations better.

Even with this small sampling of moments that gave me pause in Power Rangers, I still love it for its campy-ness and silly tone. I know this show is for kids, but it puts a smile on my face that it is still going strong. I can’t wait to see the new movie and hope that the Power Rangers continue to fight to protect the Earth in all their color coordinated glory for many years to come. Sound off in the comments down below with some of the moments that have made you double take or you found extra silly! May the power protect you!

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