Power Rangers has been entertaining audiences across the globe for almost 25 years now. Since the team's initial debut in the early 1990s, Power Rangers has become an entertainment powerhouse, with 20 different television series stretching across 24 seasons and $6 billion is retail merchandise sales. For many kids who grew up in the 90s, Power Rangers was a childhood staple. The TV franchise, which was based off repurposed footage from the long-running Japanese series Super Sentai, began airing on the Fox Kids programming block in 1993 an🃏d became a surprise smash hit, catapulting to the forefront of pop culture with its highly successful line of action figures and toys by Bandai.
Power Rangers has continued even to this day in different incarnations such as Power Rangers in Space, Power Rangers Zeo, and even Power Rangers Time Force. The latest series, set to air from 2017 to 2018, is named Power Rangers Ninja Steel and is the 24th season of the franchise. Earlier this year the Rangers even returned to the big screen for their self-titled reboot Power Rangers. Among them is Naomi Scott, the latest actress to play the Pink Ranger. Why does Pink matter so much, you a💝sk?
The Pink Ranger is an important characte💙r because she provides female representation in a male dominated franchise and genre. We decided to dive into facts about this crucial, yet often overlooked member of the Power Rangers team. Her🅰e are 20 shocking things you never knew about the Pink Power Ranger.
20 🔯 A Great Legacy 🐓
A staggering 14 different actresses have worn the helmet of the Pink Ranger. Since Power Rangers' conception, Amy Jo Johnson, Catherine Sutherland, Patricia Ja Lee, Valerie Vernon, Melody Perkins, Erin Cahill, Alycia Purrott, An🐬gie Diaz, Rhoda Montemayor, Erika Fong♕, Christian Masterson, Camille Hyde, and Chrystiane Lopes have previously stepped into the legendary role. Each of them has brought their own style and flair, and while some have been more popular than others, all of them have contributed to the Ranger's legacy.
The Pink Ranger is one of the most important characters to the Power Rangers franchise, especially since female superheroes are still so lacking, and the Pink and Yellow Rangers are still iconic to many. Naomi Scott is the latest to wear the pink armor, taking on the role in the 2017 Power Rangers film. Her performance was met with enthusiasm from long-time fans and got the from the o𝓀riginal Pink Ranger hers🌃elf.
19 They Really Could Have Been🦋 Anyone ♏
When the cast of the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers were chosen, it was an open casting call from thousands of people who showed up to try out for the show. Actor Austin St. John, who played the Red Ranger in the first season, Entertainment Tonight: "people just came in from everywhere a🌊nd I was convinced there was not a chance in you-know-what I was ever going to get anywhere near this... and I was wrong."
Out of the thousands, the casting directors managed to narrow it down to six groups of five teenagers. Amy Jo Johnson, the first Pink Ranger, was grouped with St. John, D⭕avid Yost (who would play Billy, the Blue Ranger), and Walter Jones (who played Zack, the Black Ranger). The group instantly had chemistry and began hanging out outside of the auditi🐭ons. To everyone's surprise and delight, their group would be the one chosen, and the rest is history.
18 A Dat🅰ed Accent 🤡
The first Pink Ranger, Kimberley Ann Hart, was the template for all the ones to follow. Possibly because the writers knew that Amy Jo was the strongest actor in the♛ cast, Kimberly was shown as dramatic and emotional compared to the other Rangers, and especially in the 1995 feature film. The character spoke with a "valley girl" accent in early episodes, but this was soon dropped (by then the concept was a𝓀lready dated).
Her airhead personality was also changed: she was shown to be proficient in sign language as early as the fifth episode, and other episodes establish her as an A/B student. Much like the real-life actress, Kimberley was portrayed as a capable gymnast and possessing some musical talent. As the Pink Ranger evolved, she eventually became known for her sarcastic quips and for having the most candid weapon in the form of a Power Bow. Incidentally, the Pink Ranger was the fir🐟st one ever seen on screen.
17 🌳 It Almost Didn't Happen For Her
Johnson almost didn't go to the audition where she was chosen for the role of the Pink Ranger, however. In fact, Johnson had made the decision to leave Los Angeles right before she was cast. Her first six months in L.A. had been rough. She'd moved out to the West Coast from New York 🧔with her boyfriend, and they had subsequently broken up; she sold everything she owned and was planning on moving back home.
In an interview with , Johnson said: "The night before I was moving, I met this man named Walter Rainley, who ended up being my acting coach for about 10 years after that," she said. "I went home for about two weeks. He called my parents... and was like, 'She really should come back.'" She did, and began taking an acting class with casting director Katy Wallin, who was casting Power Rangers in her office that summer. She called Johnson and sꦫuggested she come on, which landed her the job as the Pink Ranger.
16 🌊 Sometimes A Girl's Just Gotta Lead
Pink is usually a subordinate color on the Power Ranger line-up. Despite being such a prominent character, the various incarnations of the Pink Ranger have only led the team on two occasions: once in Power Rangers Time Force, which was the ninth season of the television series, and once recently in the comic book series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Pink.
In the Time Force TV series, the Rangers mutiny against the leadership of Alex, the Red Ranger, and force him to give back the Red Time Force's morpher. This resulted in the Pink Ranger leading the team in live action for the first (and so far only) time in Rangers history. Unfortunately, the Screen Actors Guild strike led to an extra 10 episodes and a possible movi🌌e deal being scrapped. In the comic book work, Pink Ranger enjoys her own comic series with Kimberly Ann Hart leading the team.
15 Doing Al📖l Her Own Stunts...
Saban Entertainment, the production company responsible for adapting Japanese series like Maple Town, Noozles, Funky Fables, Samurai Pizza Cats, and the first three Digimon series for American🤪 audiences, sought out actors who could perform athletic feats like superheroes. Johnson and Yost were gymnasts, and Jones, St. John, and Frank were all martial artists. Sure enough, the crew ended up doing their own stunts for the first season, but without the luxury of time to figure them out.
Jones reminisced that unlike film productions where action sequences are planned weeks ahead of time, he was frequently given fifteen to thirty minutes before shooting to come up with something. Much of the action of Power Rangers was choreographed spontaneously. Johnson pointed out that it 🔯was a non-union show, that she had to do a lot of stunts, and the iconic helmets only had three tiny holes to breathe through. John🔥son herself recalls a scene where she was hanging over a fire pit, which she described as "scary." Unsurprisingly, by the second season the crew had stunt doubles.
14 ...But Wasn't Paid Much ꦆ
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was a surprise hit, and before long Saban Entertainment was raking in loads of cash from merchandising, including action figures, helmets, weapons, Hallowꦡeen costumes, video games, theme parks, and more, all capitalizing on the likeness of the Rangers' actors themselves. One would think the actors who made the Rangers come to life on the TV screens would have gotten a healthy cut of the profits.
Unfortunately, you'd be mistaken. "Literally, we were being paid, I think, tops $600 a week," Amy Jo Johnson . The non-union show also gave none of them residuals, or royalty payments made to a performer. St. John once said they could've worked the window at McDonald's and made the same money for the first season. Working on Power Rangers involved hard wo💧rk and around-the-clock shifts. Despite their efforts to unionize after the first s🔥eason, Trang, Jones, and St. John didn't return for the third season and were replaced as the Yellow, Red, and Black Rangers respectively.
13 ಞ Creating Controversy ♍
It doesn't take a historian to know Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was a surprise success. The first season, which aired from 1993 to 1994, quickly became the highest-rated show for kids and launched a merchandising empire. Mighty Morphin would turn out to just be the first incarnation of the Rangers, but that doesn't mean the show was without its share of controv🎉ersy. Early on in the series, questions were raised by fans and critics about the color choices for some of the Rangers, especially in the potentially racial overtones of Jones, an African-American, playing the Black Ranger and Thuy Trang, whose family was of Vietnamese ancestry, playing the Yellow ꧑Ranger.
Other critical commenters also noted that St. John, who played the Red Ranger, was of Native American ancestry, anಌd that the Pink Ranger was the only one who wore a skirt and played up the ditzy white girl stereotypes. While the implication of the casting is still debated today, concerns have faded as the character of the Pink Ranger evolved away from "dumb blonde" stereotypes.
12 Once A𝐆 Girl, Always A Girl ✤
While we've had male Yellow Rangers in Power Rangers and Super Sentai, and we came close with the first Purple Ranger in Power Rangers Jungle Fury, the Pink Ranger is the only member of the team to have never been male. With the exception of Power Rangers S.P.D., the variants of the ༺pink spandex suit have always sported skirts as well. Given that the color pink is typically thought of as feminine, the reasoning behind this choice is obvious. On the plus side, no Pink Ranger has been the only female on her respective team.
Curiously, the Pink 🐲Rangers often pilot Zords that feature little pink; they're usually white with pink trim. Pink Rangers also typically have the most ꧑straightforward weapons, almost always a variant on a power bow or laser blasters.
11 U🧸nderrepr🥀esented
While there have been many actre🗹sses who stepped into the role of the Pink🔜 Ranger, that doesn't stop a glaring omission from showing in the legacy of the Pink armor: visibility. It's inarguable that the Pink Power Ranger is the most overlooked member of the core Rangers team. This is true for appearances in media and especially with merchandise. Chances are it comes down to gender politics and the fact that toymakers are skeptical that their primarily young male audience would want to play with a Pink Ranger action figure.
The shows are no better: in fact, the Pink Ranger is absent entirely from Power Rangers Wild Force, Power Rangers RPM, and Power Rangers Jungle Fury, replaced by the White Ranger, Black Rangers and others. Though with her own comic book series and the character's appearance in the 2017 movie, it seems the Pink Ranger will continue to be a part of the Power Rangers' legacy for years to come.