Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Episode 11: No Clowning Around

The Rangers must fight a clown who has the ability to turn people into cardboard cutouts of themselves. Really.

Episode Summary

Our five teenage heroes are at a carnival, where Zack shows off his stilt-walking abilities. “I could never do that,” says Kimberly between bites of cotton candy. “The only thing I can balance is shopping bags.” Zack starts dancing then falls, landing in Jason’s arms. Very romantic.

A clown watches all this, but it’s no ordinary clown. It’s a Putty in disguise! Another clown, named Pineapple, taps his shoulder. “Don’t frown, my fellow clown. We’ll get them. We’ll get them all!” Cue evil laugh.

Pineapple the Clown

Bulk and Skull are also at the carnival, surprise, surprise. They steal cotton candy from a couple inattentive blondes. Pineapple juggles eggs to the amusement of the Rangers and Trini’s cousin Sylvia. Pineapple challenges the Rangers to juggle his eggs, and Billy rises up to the challenge.

Bulk taunts the Rangers, “Didn’t you guys see the sign at the front gate? ‘No geeks allowed.” As you can expect, Billy’s eggs land on Bulk and Skull, getting yolk all over their faces.

Jason takes the others to check out some gymnastics, but Sylvia wants to stay and hang out with Pineapple. “Sylvia, we’re supposed to stick together,” says Trini, who promises to take her back to Pineapple after they watch the gymnastics.

A Flimsy Plan

On the Moon, Rita observes the carnival through her telescope. It seems the carnival, HER carnival, is fake; we can add “the ability to make carnivals” to Rita’s list of powers. Instead of making monsters, she should just cover the world in these fake carnivals. Conquering Earth would be much easier that way.

She tells Finster that it’s almost time for phase 2 of her plan, which calls for Pineapple to turn the Power Rangers into cardboard cut-outs (?) and then transform into a Pineoctopus monster (!) to terrorize the city. Rita plans to use Sylvia as bait in this plan…

Flat Action

Back at the carnival, while the five teens and a random clown are preoccupied forming a human pyramid, Pineapple snatches Sylvia away. Trini desperately searches the carnival for her cousin; when she finally catches up, Pineapple sprinkles glitter on Sylvia, which turns her into a cardboard cutout of herself. “Uh oh! I guess she’s a bit board,” quips Pineapple, making his escape.

Trini grabs the Sylvia cutout and runs to the other Rangers. Billy suggests they use one of his technobabble inventions to turn Sylvia back to normal. Trini takes Sylvia to Billy’s garage, while Jason grabs someone’s megaphone and tells everyone that Rita’s attacking the park. “It’s a trap!” Everyone is quick to believe him and flees in droves. This looks like the largest number of extras that have ever been on the show so far.

Half Pineapple, Half Octopus, All Clown

Back at the carnival, while the five teens and a random clown are preoccupied forming a human pyramid, Pineapple snatches Sylvia away. Trini desperately searches the carnival for her cousin; when she finally catches up, Pineapple sprinkles glitter on Sylvia, which turns her into a cardboard cutout of herself. “Uh oh! I guess she’s a bit board,” quips Pineapple, making his escape.

Trini grabs the Sylvia cutout and runs to the other Rangers. Billy suggests they use one of his technobabble inventions to turn Sylvia back to normal. Trini takes Sylvia to Billy’s garage, while Jason grabs someone’s megaphone and tells everyone that Rita’s attacking the park. “It’s a trap!” Everyone is quick to believe him and flees in droves. This looks like the largest number of extras that have ever been on the show so far.

Zord Fight

Trini arrives and the Rangers summon their zords, and strangely enough, they don’t immediately form the Megazord. Billy fires triceratops hooks, binding Pineapple in chains as Zack’s Mastodon uses freeze power to cover Pineapple in plastic wrap.

Okay, now the Rangers form the Megazord; instead of using the Power Sword to destroy the monster, the Megazord fires an energy beam from its forehead. That was different

Back at the carnival, everything is back to normal, and Billy shows off his latest invention: stilts that anyone can use (I don’t know what this means because the stilts aren’t that high). He falls off and Zack jokes, “I guess inventing has its ups and downs.”

Thoughts

This is the most absurd plan we’ve seen to date. Turning the Rangers into cardboard cutouts? Strangely enough, the Zyuranger version of this episode had a plan equally as absurd that involved sneezing powder. What makes the cardboard cutout plan even sillier, though, was the fact that it could be reversed by water. Nothing makes sense, which is a running theme in Power Rangers so far.

The carnival was a nice change of location and made the fight scenes a bit more visually interesting, and we see the Putties’ shapeshifting abilities for the first time. Evil clowns are always fun, but Pineapple didn’t really pan out as such, and the Pineoctopus monster had nothing to do with clowns. The message of the episode was okay – don’t run off with strangers (and don’t trust clowns!), but it really would have been more effective with something less mundane than cardboard cutouts.

Counters

Putty Disguises: +1 (running total for series: 1)