Web Video / Truncated Power Rangers

Jason: Zordon, what the hell is going on?

Zordon: What always happens, Jason? Rita tried to kill people. You saved the day.

The Truncated Series of Power Rangers, specifically Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Created in August 2008 by Mike Manos, the series is notable for being one of the first live-action Abridged series and having its contributors recognized by real names instead of handles.

Posted on Vimeo here. On YouTube, it can be found on this channel.

---

Tropes:

• The Abridged Series: Lampshaded in Episode 10:
  Bulk: Oh-ho! Someone's coming up with oneliners now! It's like you have your own videos on YouTube!
• Adapted Out: Due to the sudden Downer Ending listed below, Tanya never appears.
• Affectionate Parody: The writers have admitted that they know the original series is dumb, and yet, they still got enough of a rise out of it to make this series.
• Artistic License – Space: Lampshaded in Episode 1, with the astronauts visiting the Earth's second moon. The show itself glosses over this.

• As Himself: Ron Wasserman Adam Westing as the show’s take on Guitardo.
• Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: Tommy vs Dry Bowser in the movie plays out like this.
• Author Avatar: Zordon and Alpha, to an extent. This gets ratched up to 11 once Episode 45 drops; Master Vile in this universe equates to the author "entering" the show to destroy it from within.
• Big Damn Heroes: Bulk and Skull wind up saving the day during episode 17. The footage used? The scene where they morphed into mock-Power Rangers from the Season 1 episode "Crystal of Nightmares".
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Oh, lordy. Zedd is the executive producer of Power Rangers - of which Zordon is a producer - and the primary motive is to keep the show on the air.
  • Most episodes have at least one time this happens. At one point Alpha asks, "Is this meta enough for you?" before turning back to the viewing globe.
• Butt-Monkey: Canary Gary from episode 13. And episode 31. He gets possessed by an evil heart, blown up by the Rangers several times when they can’t work out to destroy the heart and then Zordon has him assassinated for not paying him back.
  • Jason and Tommy with idiot jokes. Neither of them can make the Dragon Dagger play the correct noise, or keep the theme of the episodic morph gags (though Tommy is slightly better).
  • Kim with slut jokes.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Baseball is referred to as Stick-a-Stitch on Triforia.
• Call-Back: The first few episodes serve as standalones, but after the writers took a break in the Spring of 2009, the following episodes (11+) began to heavily use these.
• Calling Your Attacks: Frequently.
  Napalm Holocaust!
  Mega Dragonzord Super Fighting Awesome Machine!
  Serenity Slash!
  • Goldar finally calls Jason out on this in Episode 28.
• Catchphrase: Subverted. The morph calls are usually different every episode, but a few phrases get repeated.
  Zack, Episode 1: Elephant!
  Jason, Episode 5: Do the super jump!
  Rocky: Your mother __________
  Aisha: I have no distinctive personality whatsoever.
  • Bonus: If you know a lot of geeky things, the morph calls also count as Shout Outs to various things.
• Censored for Comedy: Invoked in Episode 24. Billy's hand is censored for a split second.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Most characters are guilty of this, but Jason is this in spades.
  • And Tommy. Dear god, Tommy.
  Alpha: "I don't understand this Zordon, Saba doesn't talk!"
  Zordon: "Tommy's turned his new superpowered weapon into something of an imaginary friend."
  Alpha: "Isn't he like twenty?"
  Zordon: "It's Tommy, he's mentally six."
• Combat Tentacles: Episode 28's Gordian Knob sure loves these.
  • And Does This Remind You of Anything?, lampshaded by *Jason* of all people.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Ivan Ooze.
• Curse Cut Short: A few instances; namely, Episodes 7, 15, and 20. The series generally tries to avoid swearing.
• Darker and Edgier: Edenoi in "A Friend in Need" is reimagined as the much-mocked MMPR fan film project.
• Designated Villain:invoked Played for Laughs by the Simian Censor, who is introduced attempting to stop Alpha from having sex with a minor. Then he has to spoil it by attacking the city again.
• Downer Ending: Zordon realizes the show is tanking due to films like Despicable Me and Suicide Squad (2016) highlighting the villains and has the rangers killed off-screen. Without the rangers to stop him, Master Vile uses the Orb of Doom to halt the earth's rotation, killing everyone on Earth by making them float up into the atmosphere and eventually asphyxiate, leaving Rita, Zedd, and the rest of the villains to do with Earth as they please.
• Drugs Are Bad: Episode 11's Steroid Sosa is an embodiment of this trope. In Season 2, Zedd uses HGH to make his monsters grow.
  Alpha 5, Episode 23: Meth is a hell of a drug.
  • Not to mention when, two episodes in, Finster replies to Rita's command to "Screw with the Rangers in the non-literal sense" by replying "Oh, I already did. I put heroin in two of their breakfasts."
• Dumb Is Good: Lampshaded.
  Zordon, Episode 1: Bring me five teenagers too stupid to understand the cosmic repercussions of their actions.
  • Played straight as well—while Zordon and Alpha are normal, as well as the villains, the heroes are stunningly idiotic.
• Faster-Than-Light Travel: Gleefully subverted in Episode 31.
• Final Season Casting: Long-time writer Christian (Ian) Salabert joined as a full-time voice in Season 3, providing dialogue for Ninjor, Rito and monsters-of-the-week.
• Flat "What": Zordon's reaction to Alpha breaking out multi-parters "out of freakin' nowhere" in Episode 33, particularly when three of the Rangers get trapped in a storybook.
• Fluffles the Terrible: Episode 16, when Finster creates Goldar's War Zord (Cyclopsis from MMPR) and names it Fluffles after the rest of Rita's crew can't decide on a name.
• Freudian Slip: Zack's accent allows one to happen rather easily.
  Zack: Power arse. Axe. Axe is what I said.
• Gag Dub: The show is an overdub parody of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
• Genre Savvy: Zordon. On the other side of the (Power) coin, Goldar.
  Alpha:Being self-aware sure is handy!
• Gilligan Cut: Episode 10.
  Jason: Let's sneak up on him!
  (beat)
  Jason: HEY UGLY!
• Godwin's Law: Invoked in Episode 24, and lampshaded via caption.
  • Also used in episode 32.
• Greek Chorus: Usually from Zordon and Alpha, but the rest of the cast get their moments.
• Hostage Situation: Episode 7's dance party is revealed to be one of these.
• Insufferable Genius: Billy, ramped up to eleven.
• Interactive Narrator: Episode 40 reveals that the writers' universe coincides with the Truncated Power Rangers universe. Somehow. It ends up becoming much more when he turns into Master Vile.
• Just Fine Without You: When Zordon warns that Jason may not come back at the end of Episode 28, the team cheers.
  • The team leaves Tommy stuck in Utah at one point. He then swims back via the Atlantic Ocean.
• Larynx Dissonance: All the female characters, but Rita stands out the most.
• Leitmotif: Youth Center scenes are accompanied by the Wii Sports theme. Bulk and Skull's are various Super Mario themes. When Rita is around, her palace scenes are accompanied by Ganondorf's theme; similarly, Zedd is always coupled with Dr. Wily's theme.
  • Season 3 sees the villains coupled with a level theme from Rocket Knight Adventures.
• Lens Flare: Lampshaded in Episode 7.
• Mars Needs Women: Somewhat invoked in Episode 32, but this was more of a reference to Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.
• Mauve Shirt: Putty #6, notable for being a Butt-Monkey in Episode 21, becomes this in Episode 22.
• Million to One Chance: Goldar has a really good day in Episode 28 and asks what the chances are of Jason coming and ruining them...
  Kim: Uh ... pretty good, actually.
• Monster of the Aesop: Lampooned in Episode 20.
  Horny Rhino: See, I punched! That's something they do in football!
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Apart from his cameo in Episode 1, Lord Zedd is voiced with an Eddie Deezen impression.
• No Indoor Voice: Jason and Tommy. Especially Tommy.
• Oblivious to Hints: The rest of the team is shocked when Tommy is revealed as the White Ranger.
• Offscreen Crash: Billy and Kim shove Waldo into one of these in Episode 3.
• Precision F-Strike: Ivan Ooze's demise in the Movie.
• Reference Overdosed: Debatable.
• Rimshot: Episode 23 features one.
• Rule of Three: Episode 27 lampshades this with its plot device.
  Tommy: Any questions, bitch?
• Running Gag: The Dragon Dagger plays different music each episode... except the episodes when Jason used it, and he couldn't get the thing to make any sound.
  • Goldar's the only one who played the Dagger's proper tune. This is at least partly because Jason and Tommy are idiots.
  • Jason's call during the morphing sequence is always something different.
  • The narrator's TV show name shout outs every time there is a scene cut to the villains.
  • The onomatopoeia and various text overlays from the 2010 recut are constantly lampshaded.
    "Outnumsixered!"
  • "RUN AWAY!"
  • Adam getting mocked about his voice acting career.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Tommy loves doing this while being a suit actor in Episode 7.
• Science Is Useless: In Episode 31, Jason, Trini, and Zack are frozen by flower petals. Yup.
• Scotland: Haggis the Horrible in Episode 25.
• Selective Obliviousness: Jason and his gay porn rumors.
  • Just so everyone's clear, Jason's actor never did that.
• Self-Deprecation: Constantly.
• Self-Insert Fic: Episode 45. The author becomes Master Vile.
• Shout-Out: Too many to list here, so they got their own page.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: In episode 36 ("Grimdorks"), Dex gives his serious business exposition to our heroes as some rather cartoonish music from the WALL•E score plays.
• Special Guest: Mr. Mighty RAW himself, Ron Wasserman, voiced Episode 26's... Ron Wasserman.
• Start My Own: Invoked in Episode 25.
• Stock Australian Phrases: The Putties.
• Stylistic Suck:
  • The real world scenes in episodes 40 and 45 are deliberately poorly-acted to match the actual show footage. The special effects in the latter are also intentionally shoddy.
  • The acting for the Alien Rangers is nothing but Dull Surprise, with all their attacks being referred to with incorrect names, all as part of the Take That!.
• Suicidal Overconfidence: Episode 30 features Sauron bragging how he can dodge anything. He can't.

• Take That!:
  • Zack's character is a shot at Samuell Benta.
  • Episode 6 takes a shot at Mystic Force.
  • The mock PSA, aka Episode 15.5, features a not-so-subtle shot at Justin.
  • Episode 36 is long potshot against the MMPR fanfilm.
  • The third act of Episode 37 ("Now in HD") has Jack Olesk — ahem, Ninjor — take potshots against Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy.
    Ninjor: The Dark Knight Rises sucked. There, I said it.
  • Episode 38 all-but-directly calls the show racist due to its inability to distinguish Asian cultures.
  • Episode 43 takes the piss out on Megaforce.
• Toilet Humour: Jason has an affinity for this. It tones down after the first few episodes.
  • Tommy wondered if the Megazord had a bathroom. It did.
    • Tommy was disappointed to learn that Rita did not install one in the Dragonzord.
• Vetinari Job Security: Baboo and Squatt try making a monster in Episode 5. This parallels what happened in the source show.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Episode 24's Censor Simian.
• Wham Episode: Episode 40. The episode begins with a "real world" prologue in which the author has trouble finding inspiration for Aisha's focus episode. Eventually we cut to the episode, but near the end, the "real" world and the "Truncated" world begin to interact in strange ways... In the end, the author is so pissed with the ass pulls that the show is doing that he vows to end the show for good.
  • Episode 45. After many failed attempts to end the show, the writer decides to ingest the essences of a few of his creations, transforming him into the equivalent of Master Vile. He then enters the program to destroy the show from within, which he finally succeeds in doing by the finale.
• Where da White Women At?: Alpha in Episode 7.

---