Power Rangers infamy

Okay, you asked for it. Here's one of my stunt jobs as a villain on second season of Power Rangers.

Guess which one I am. Hint: "Your power now belongs to Lord Zed."

Yes. I am a proud Woman In Suit.

At 4:39 I almost died.

They said "Run until you see the edge of the cliff, then stop." But I had Puttys flipping all around me and only a two inch eye hole to see out of, and it was down by my navel. See the edge of a cliff as I run? Not likely. Fun times.

During that spring I played Stag Beetle, Invenusable Fly Trap, and Octophantom. All bad-to-the bone villains. Even posed for Stag beetle's action figure, which I still have Mint In Box.

I would come home to find phone messages from my roommate like "Jxxx called, he needs you to destroy the Power Rangers tomorrow."

Season 2 ended and they went off to Australia to film the feature film with local stunt performers. I never heard from The Power Rangers again.

As Octophantom I stole the Green Power Ranger's powers. It was at the height of the show's worldwide popularity, and it was "THE" storyline. Kind of a big coup for me. To be feared and hated by children everywhere.

(Don't fret little ones, Tommy became the White Ranger, and then you had a whole round of new Bandai toys to buy.)

By the way in case you don't know the history of the Power Rangers circa season 2, Bandai took the Japanese show that was already taped (Super Sentai Zyu2) and built American stories around it, reshooting as little as possible. I'm in the fill-in scenes, which are easily identified by the different tape stock and coloring. In between takes we'd throw the old footage up on the monitor and come up with the choreagraphy for the fill-in scenes. Let me tell you, those Puttys were the meanest bunch of badasses you would ever want to meet. Don't eff with an Australian or American stunt man; they will cut you, bitch. They were just starting to import the crazy Korean stuntmen who were my exact height and weight (5'5 104) when I left the show.

That's spectacular Olympic medalist Shellie Blanks as the Yellow Power Ranger; the closest we get to American royalty in martial artsland. Oh, how the stuntmen swooned over her. The amazing Sophia Crawford (Buffy stunt double)is in Pink. She's had a very long and terrific career. Had a hell of a time keeping up looking like Sarah Michelle Gellar as the lollipop look came into Hollywood and the actresses got below a weight that sustained muscle mass (i.e. aneorexic). Impossible for a healthy stunt woman to achieve a matching body shape.

Great gals. Shellie recognized me a decade later in a Tae Bo class she was leading and came right over in the middle of it to say hi; super kind human.

Did I mention it was 105 degrees and I was doing martial arts encased in several feet of foam? Yeah. There's a reason I weighed 104 pounds back then. That reason is NON-UNION.

Whatever. I was a stupid kid and I was getting my shot at taking over the world in neon green. In hindsight, I'd do it again.


Years later in my hometown, some guy was going around saying he'd slept with the local girl who was a "star" on Power Rangers. He meant me. He made the mistake of saying it to a friend of mine and she flat out called him a liar, and we never heard about him again. My family and friends all laughed pretty hard at that, because I'd only had two boyfriends and honey he was not one of 'em. If I remember correctly I was like "Wait, WHO?? Have I MET him??"

Only thing more pathetic than claiming stunt work on Power Rangers as the highlight of your life is lying about sleeping with the girl who did stunt work on Power Rangers as the highlight of your life.