“Power Rangers” is a show I’m sure most people have grown up watching. Since 1993, it has raised multiple generations. The idea for “Power Rangers” was unique for its time as an American adaptation of Akihiko Yoshidas’s “Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger” which came out in 1992.
But we’re not here to discuss “Power Rangers” or “Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger.” Not exactly. We’re talking about Jim Fisher and Jim Staahi’s* super-powered alien fighting show “Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters From Beverly Hills.”
* Jim Fisher and Jim Staahi also wrote shows and films like “Dragon Tales” and “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”
“Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters From Beverly Hills” (TTAFBH) was a 40-episode children’s show that first aired on October 3, 1994, a year after “Power Rangers” made its debut, and two years after “Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger.” It featured a group of four teenagers (played by Leslie Danon, Richard Nason, K. Jill Sorgen, and Rugg Williams) wearing skin-tight yellow, purple, green, and black uniforms who are gifted superpowers by an unearthly being named Nimbar (Glenn Shadix). Their mission is to save the universe from the evil Emperor Gorganus (Ed Gilbert).**
** Glenn Shadix was also featured in Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice” and “Nightmare Before Christmas,” while Ed Gilbert was known for his parts in 1986’s “Transformers: The Movie” and 1992’s “Tom and Jerry: The Movie.”
TTAFBH is an odd show mainly because it has nothing to do with Beverly Hills and the reason Beverly Hills in the title is to make the show more of a higher concept and make it easier to sell to an audience which is where this show falters since “Power Rangers” already had such a major head start on TTABH when it came to gathering an audience and on top of having such a nonexistent budget made it resemble a show like “Friends” and stay in the shadow of a show like ‘Power Rangers”.
Still, the show only lasted a year until it was canceled in 1995. Then in 2011, reruns of the show appeared on Cookie Jar Toons, a daily children’s programming channel seemingly out of nowhere. One explanation for all this comes from YouTube, because within the same year Team Four Star (TFS), a YouTube channel popular for making abridged versions of shows, uploaded the nineteenth episode of their popular series “Dragon Ball Z Abridged,” which featured a joke that mentions—you guessed it—” Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters From Beverly Hills.” And because the show’s name is so unusual, fans of TFS decided to look up “Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters,” and to their surprise, it existed.
Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills was doomed from the start but unfairly and now that ‘Power Rangers’ is reaching its end TTAFBH might be worth looking into if you have an interest in “Power Rangers” or an interest in bad copycats the show might be just what you’re looking for when you want some background noise.
