Ninja Turtles, gambling, and pizza

One of the more popular throwaway quotes among Power Rangers diehards comes from the “Forever Red” episode of Wild Force. T.J., the Red Turbo Ranger, says “Did I ever tell you guys about the time I got baked into a giant pizza?” and it’s popular because it showcases a few things fans had come to love about the series.

Firstly, it’s a show that doesn’t mind making fun of itself. Secondly, it’s a show fond of its own history. Finally, it’s an actual thing that happened. An actual episode of Power Rangers was dedicated to a pizza monster trapping the team in a giant pizza.

With over 900 episodes of Power Rangers, there were bound to be a few episodes weirder than the rest. This list isn’t about whether these episodes were good or bad (that’s for another time), but celebrates how strange the show can get.

Here are ten of the weirdest episodes of Power Rangers.

10. “And…Action!” (Power Rangers RPM, Episode 23)

While Power Rangers RPM definitely earns a spot as one of the better seasons of the series, it was no stranger to strangeness. After losing the season’s showrunner (whether it was his own volition or not is still up in the air to this day) and finding a replacement, one episode of RPM was dedicated to catch-up. With a behind the scenes special breaking up the series just as it was heading into the final plot of the season. this was just an anomaly. As everyone stayed in character, fans didn’t even get a full-on behind the scenes special. It was this weird, half-assed thing ultimately only making sense when all of the production trouble came to light years later.

9. “Once a Ranger” (Power Rangers Operation Overdrive, Episodes 20-21)

As the series went on, the central cast changed several times leading to fan-favorite crossover episodes when a previous Ranger team joined forces with a current one. For the show’s 15th anniversary, then-current owner Disney decided to have a special team-up episode featuring a few of their seasons. The resulting episode highlighted how the series can put a ton of effort into being lazy. Shortcuts (they found Alpha in a box), Adam returning without the MMPR theme music yet everyone else having theirs, a supposed son of Zedd and Rita with a weird costume, and showcasing how terrible of a team Overdrive was, this was the weirdest crossover ever. It’s just strange that they did it at all considering how it felt like everyone involved hated the idea.

8. “Rocky Just Wants to Have Fun” (Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers S2, Episode 32)

Most of Power Rangers‘ early seasons had episodes dedicated to teaching all sorts of values and moral lessons. My personal favorite also happened to be the weirdest one of the bunch. Sure there were episodes featuring ugly troll dolls and rapping pumpkins, but I still can’t believe there was an episode about how much Rocky loved gambling. When the Juice Bar gets a pachinko machine, Rocky gets hooked to thing. Every time someone asks him to do things, he’s like “I’m just going to play.” It’s kind of like that one episode about humans dating robots on Futurama when the kid says “No thanks, I’d rather just make out with my Monroe-bot.” Then the pachinko machine takes monster form and turns the Power Rangers into balls. I almost went with the football monster episode here (because that’s another case of the Rangers being turned into inanimate objects) but that was goofy rather than weird and this is my list anyway so whatever.

7. “Movie Madness” (Power Rangers Time Force, Episodes 24-25)

Power Rangers Time Force was the closest the series had come to great B-movie territory. The best actors in the series to date, and honestly the best story overall at that point. But as with RPM, being a good series didn’t save it from Power Rangers‘ trademark weirdness. In this episode, a monster named Cinecon traps the team inside of their favorite movie genres. A jungle movie, a samurai film, a Western, and even a kung-fu flick featuring the Jackie Chan knock-off Frankie Chang. It sticks out like a sore thumb among the other episodes of this season since it’s really the only time any of them have any fun. Also, there hadn’t been an episode like it (other than “Wild West Rangers,” which almost took the spot here for the Mexican Cactus monster) yet or since, really.

6. “Shell Shocked” (Power Rangers In Space, Episode 4)

While not the first crossover episode, and not even the first crossover with another series, this one is definitely the weirdest by far. Since Fox was promoting Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation at the time, the cast managed to pop up in an episode of Power Rangers. When the turt bros and sis get a little too turnt on Astronema’s mind control, they take control of the Rangers’ space ship and almost ruin everything. But without any of the good stuff from crossover episodes (fights between teams showcasing why each team is great), this was just a weird, clear-cut commercial for a bad show.

5. “Another Song and Dance” (Power Rangers Zeo, Episode 46)

When a show runs as long as Power Rangers has, there are bound to be musical episodes. It’s a standard trope of TV and, when done well, can be great. But in Zeo’s case, it sure was awful. When a spell causes Tommy and Aisha to sing all of their dialogue, you’ve got some hokey weirdness because 1.) No one else is singing and 2.) It’s all sans music. So you’ve got two singing fools just singing instead of speaking normally for no reason.

4. “Lost and Found in Translation” (Power Rangers Dino Thunder, Episode 19)

Dino Thunder was Disney’s attempt to wrangle in old fans of the series (with Jason David Frank’s return as Tommy) and this all came to a head with this episode. As Power Rangers borrowed footage from Toei’s Super Sentai series, there had been an unspoken rule about not saying it out loud. But with Dino Thunder’s cheeky in-jokes, came this episode. Showing a poorly dubbed over episode of its parent series, Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger, Dino Thunder poked fun at the idea of fans preferring one over the other. But I can’t imagine how off-putting this must’ve been for kids at the time. Here they were told Japan stole the Power Rangers idea and decided to make a knock-off version while their Power Rangers just sat on a couch all episode laughing at it. Just a weird experiment that was really for older fans of the show.

3. “Island of Illusion” (Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers S1, Episodes 28-29)

The first season had its fair share of terrible, experimental ideas (fighting literal Frankenstein, the vagina monster), but the one that always stuck out to me the most was this two-parter. Here, Rita trapped the team on an island where they all had to fight off depressing memories otherwise they’d fade away forever. But the weirdest/worst part about all of this is there’s a little person who only speaks in rhyme and plays the flute every time one of the Rangers goes through their whole thing. It’s not like he was put there by Rita but he’s just some mystical guy that likes to mess with people. This was one of the series’ first forays into multi-part storytelling (after the famous “Green With Evil” story) without heavy use of overseas footage. It’s all pretty much self-contained nonsense.

2. “Trouble By the Slice” (Power Rangers Turbo, Episode 22)

When Power Rangers Turbo villain Divatox loses her memory and takes a job at a pizza place, her henchman try and save her by distracting the Power Rangers with a monster created from the pizza place’s logo. The villain, Mad Mike, speaks with a heavy, stereotypical Italian accent, uses pizzas to take control of their supercars (long story), and then proceeds to famously bake them into a pizza. Then a police alien comes to save the day with a stoplight and I still can’t believe this was an episode. Turbo had episodes like this with even worse ideas like a bicycle that forces you to ride it forever, but this was the episode that inspired the list in the first place. At the end of the day, however, this was still just another average Power Rangers episode.

1. “The Rescue Mission” (Power Rangers Lost Galaxy, Episode 18)

But this entry wasn’t an average episode of Power Rangers. When a distress signal reaches Terra Venture (the home base of the Lost Galaxy team), two of the Rangers are sent to check out a seemingly abandoned ship in search for a mystical book of some sort. Before long a spider monster begins abducting the team one by one in a low-rent Alien story. This episode was a dramatic departure from the rest of the series and featured almost no actual Ranger action. It was the best episode of the season, and the weirdest. In fact, it’s the weirdest episode of Power Rangers. You should check this one out above all else.