 This article is about an episode in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
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Day of the Dumpster is technically the first episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, filmed in 1992.[1] This episode, however was initally unaired and would not be revealed for nearly six years after the premiere of the official first episode, "Day of the Dumpster".
Synopsis[]
Five teenagers, who hang out in an average bowling alley, and occasionally use their karate skills to fend off a gang of mean bullies, are summoned to save the world by an intergalactic being named Zoltar. He gives them the power to become Power Rangers, and to call upon giant dinosaur robots called Droids to combat the forces of space witch Rita Repulsa.
Plot[]
The teens are hanging out at the bowling alley. Billy gives Trini some tips on getting a strike. Zack and Jason are clowning around, then turn their attention to Kimberly. The bowling ball slips out of her hands and onto a plate, getting food all over a nearby thug. The thug approaches Kimberly, and demands some form of payment, and Kimberly objects. A fight ensues, and Trini lays the thug out on the floor. Zack shows one of the thugs some of his moves, just before kicking him down. Jason takes over, and sends the thug flying down the lane. Strike! Kimberly flips out, and sends the girl thug reeling. Even Billy gets in on the action, with a nice punch to the gut.
Meanwhile, on the Moon, two astronauts open a mysterious container. The container holds Rita Repulsa, and she is now free. She wastes no time in attacking Earth. Zoltar senses that Rita has returned, and tells Alpha to initiate plan B. Alpha locates five worthy candidates to become Power Rangers, and teleports them to the Command Center. Zoltar explains to them the situation, and what they must do to defend Earth, giving them Transmorphers.
The teens aren't convinced, and they leave the Command Center. Rita sees them, and sends down Putties, who easily defeat the Rangers. Seeing it as their only escape, the Rangers pull out their Transmorphers. They are transformed for the first time into Power Rangers! They are teleported to downtown Angel Grove, where they fight an army of Putties. The monster Flyguy is transformed into a giant, and is accompanied by Goldar. The Rangers call on the Mega Dinodroid, and destroy Flyguy, as Goldar flees the battle. Dino-mite! The Rangers celebrate their first victory back at the Command Center. A legend is born...
Cast[]
- Austin St. John as Jason
- Amy Jo Johnson as Kimberly
- Walter Jones as Zach
- Audri Dubois as Trini
- David Yost as Billy
- David Fielding as Zoltar
- Richard Steven Horvitz as Alpha 5 (voice)
- Bob F. Vavla as Gang Leader
- Lee Whittaker as Punk #1
- Paul Schrier as Punk #2
- Stella Angelova as Female Punk
- Machiko Soga as Rita Repulsa
- Barbara Goodson as Rita Repulsa (voice)
- Takashi Sakamoto and Kazutoshi Yokoyama as Flydar
- Minoru Watanabe as Grock
- Michael J. Sorich as Grock (voice)
- Hideaki Kusaka as Mongo
- Dave Mallow as Mongo (voice)
- Takako Iiboshi as Finster
- Steve Kramer as Finster (voice)
- Tony Oliver as Flyguy (voice)
Production[]
After the success of X-Men: The Animated Series, Fox green lit a pitch from Saban Entertainment for a show that was tentatively titled Phantoms. They provided a small budget for a promo pilot. After auditioning roughly 500 people for a main cast and picking from 13 screenplay drafts, the pilot was shot.
It was presented in front of the executive staff at Fox, including network President Barry Diller. The idea and overall concept won over the network and the show, now titled Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, was green lit for a first season. However, Diller demanded a new pilot be shot as the original was deemed too violent.
Tony Oliver humorously recalled his experience presenting the pilot. “We were sitting in the board room and we are watching the scene in the bowling alley. Our heroes get into a fight with the group of bullies and you see Austin (Jason) just deliver this mean round house to Paul (Bulk), which would have sent him to the hospital in real life. You could see the uncomfortableness from Barry when that happened. When it was over, him and his staff looked at us and said ‘We’ll give you shot but dear God we have to fix this’.”
Errors[]
- Flydar is supposed to be down on Earth, however when the scene cuts to Rita's moon base he can be seen behind Rita who is about to throw her wand to Earth, which makes Flydar and Flyguy grow.
- When the Rangers morph, their Zyuranger counterparts can be seen behind them.
- The audio cuts when stock audio replaces the Dinodroids and Mega Dinodroid's names.
- After Jason says "watch the ball", Bulk is standing in front of him, but the camera cuts and he is gone before appearing to be kicked down the bowling lanes by Jason.
- After Rita says "I think we should pay the Earth a visit and then destroy it", she blasts the Earth but is suddenly much bigger and the sky around her has shifted from a pure blue sky to a light brown green.
- The beam Rita shoots at Earth is pink, but when the scene cuts to it hitting Angel Grove it is green.
- On Zoltar's viewing screen, Rita laughs with her teeth clenched.
- Flyguy grows despite not having been present beforehand.
- Jason is near a cave when he calls his Zord despite just being in the city.
- None of the dialogue during the Zord roll call syncs up with the shots being displayed due to frame rate issues.
- Billy says "this is quite emulant" after they formed the Megazord. "Emulant" is not a word.
- Flydar is suddenly with Flyguy despite not having been shown growing.
- At the start of the final scene, the audio starts off very quiet and suddenly jumps several decibels.
- Billy describes either one of the Rangers or the Megazord doing splits but none of them actually did so.
- Billy says "I think I pulled my medial gracillis tendon." There is no such thing as a medial gracillis tendon, though there is a gracillis muscle in the right thigh.
Notes[]
- This episode is a favorite of Austin St. John.
- Trini is portrayed by Audri Dubois instead of Thuy Trang in the pilot. Dubois reportedly requested higher pay for the role and was promptly fired, being replaced by Trang as Trini for the series proper.
- Ironically, Thuy Trang herself later left the show for similar reasons in Season 2.
- The entirety of the dumpster scene, starting from the astronauts reacting to the newly released crew, was recycled for the aired episode.
- Finster's line, "After 10,000 years, it's good to be free again" was changed to, "Oh, it’s good to be free after 10,000 years."
- Zordon's command to "teleport to us the most dangerous group of ruthless, underhanded, overbearing, self-absorbed and over emotional humans in the area" was changed to "teleport to us five overbearing and overemotional humans" when it was remade for television.
- The dinosaur images the Rangers warp into during Zoltar's explanation of their powers are lifted straight from the Zyuranger intro but loop so it does not cut to the next dinosaur.
- During the Jones and John segments, the Catzord suit from Power Rangers Turbo can be seen.
- The first scene of the episode features a brief part of the Red Hot Chili Peppers's cover of the Stevie Wonder song "Higher Ground", which was removed in the aired version. This song would end up on the soundtrack for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie two years later.
- Footage cut for The Lost Episode that appeared in the pilot includes numerous punches and kicks to the villains' heads.
- Billy's line "an inter-temporal cross dimensional super being with outward verbal communication, how prodigious" (in reference to Zoltar) is removed. Instead, Kimberly's line about asking for someone to come and pick her up as she was lost is moved up to replace it.
- Kimberly wears a black tank top and pink shorts in this pilot; this outfit is found in the picture on the back of the first five MMPR original VHS releases, some of the original posters released, as well as stock drawings of the character. All the outfits the Rangers are wearing in the pilot were seen in a lot of cards and merchandise in the show's early days, but the teens were never seen wearing them on the show. In some photos taken after the pilot was filmed[2][3], Thuy Trang is shown wearing the same outfit as Audri Dubois in the pilot.
- Billy wears different glasses in this episode. They are the same glasses found in the picture on the back of the first five MMPR original VHS releases as well as some of the original posters and trading cards released.
- Paul Schrier, who went on to play Bulk, has a small role as an unnamed bully with wild hair. The lead gangster played by Bob F. Vavla would later become retooled to create Skull. According to Jason Narvy, Vavla was brought back in to portray Skull in the next pilot, but his performance was deemed "too intimidating" for Skull's comedic personality, so Narvy was cast instead.
- The only scenes from this pilot to make it into the final version of "Day of the Dumpster" are the long shot of the five teens departing the Command Center into the mountains and the explosion in the desert when Rita fires at the teens as they walk away from the Command Center. A shot of the morphed Rangers in the desert and a close-up of two confused Putties appears in "Foul Play In The Sky".
- The TV in the bowling alley shows an episode of Samurai Pizza Cats, an anime dubbed by Saban.
- Rita's voice is not nearly as screechy or loud as it is in the actual series. Barbara Goodson mentioned that she was fired after her performance as Rita in the pilot because "it didn't sound angry enough". When she returned to record, Goodson said "You want angry? I'LL GIVE YOU ANGRY!" She has used this voice for Rita ever since.
- Steve Kramer (who would go on to voice Darkonda in Power Rangers in Space) voices Finster for a single line in this pilot. Robert Axelrod would replace him in the series proper. The monster Flyguy (who was renamed King Sphinx for the series proper) was voiced in this pilot by Tony Oliver, while in the TV series he is voiced by Richard Cansino.
- The Command Center is slightly different; there are bolts of lightning coming from the floor to the walls whilst in the series the walls are colored with blue, red and yellow tones.
- The redesign also introduced the Viewing Globe for the Power Rangers to see the goings on in Angel Grove. In this pilot, Zoltar summons a screen out of thin air for his exposition.
- Clips of the pilot were used in an early MMPR toy commercial, such as the moving building and the Rangers turning into their prehistoric animals.
- The footage of the scientists evacuating the building during Rita's invasion was from the first episode of Chodenshi Bioman, which marks the only time Power Rangers used footage from a Sentai season before Zyuranger; this was likely because of Saban's prior attempt at adapting Bioman.[4]
- The bowling alley used in this pilot (the Santa Clarita Lanes, in Santa Clarita, CA) would be revisited in Power Rangers Wild Force for the episode "The Tornado Spin", as Turtle Cove Lanes.
- When aired as part of The Lost Episode, stock audio from the final product replaced the dinodroids' and Mega Dinodroid's name. The original names are only known because the scripts for the episode were released online and from cast interviews.
- Kimberly's line "hey, nice stereo" when she enters her Zord was carried over into the aired pilot.
- The Morphers are called "Transmorphers" in this pilot, while in the series proper they would be called "Power Morphers" instead. The name "Transmorphers" would be reused for the Galaxy Rangers' Morphers in Power Rangers Lost Galaxy.
See Also[]
- Ep. 1: The Birth - Super Sentai counterpart in Zyuranger. See comparison page. (fight footage and story)
- Ep. 6: Arise! Daizyuzin - Super Sentai counterpart in Zyuranger. See comparison page. (Megazord vs. Goldar battle)
- Ep. 1: The Enigmatic Giant Robo Arrives - Super Sentai counterpart in Bioman. See comparison page. (building evacuation footage)
- Kamen Rider Dragon Knight (pilot)
- Cybertron, the pilot of VR Troopers
References[]
Footnotes[]