I came into a little bit of fuck-you-play-money recently, so I did what any responsible adult would do – I went on a mad witch hunt for a toy from my childhood that I still wanted to this very day.
It only took nearly 23 years from the day I first decided that I wanted one, but I finally got my hands on a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (legacy) Megazord. I’m serious, when I first saw the show when I was in the fifth grade, I remember thinking “man, this show is sooooo lame,” but then the next thing I knew, I was watching every episode and it wasn’t long afterward did the want to watch the show force me to learn how to program a VCR so I could tape the show because it came on at 2:30 in the afternoon and I didn’t get out of school until closer to 3:30.
When I first saw commercials for MMPR toys, I wouldn’t have imagined that they’d become the literal hardest things in the world to get a hold of that year, but then again to a fifth grader, there aren’t a whole lot of things to imagine other than more MMPR, video games, and trying not to get bad grades so my mom wouldn’t kick my ass. But I learned really quickly the concept of supply and demand that year, when it became very apparent that every other boy around my age also wanted MMPR toys, and getting a hold of a Megazord or a DragonZord was going to be the equivalent of trying to catch lightning in a bottle.
Suffice to say, as much as my mom tried to spoil her son and acquire one, it didn’t happen. I literally remember articles in the Washington Post about how they were the hot item, and how no toy store in the country could ever manage to get more than 1-3 of either in at a time, and people were literally waiting for doors to open on a daily basis to get them when they did.
I was disappointed that I couldn’t get either of the toys, but eventually time heals all wounds, and by the sixth grade, I had really gotten into comic books and gradually, the Power Rangers and the want for the toys eventually faded into the background.
I’m sure I wrote about all this before in the past, when I got my DragonZord a few years ago, but to recap, there came a point somewhere in the late 2000s where I realized that I was an adult and I occasionally had this shit called “disposal income” that could be used to exchange for things we wanted. So I started looking around on eBay, thinking that old MMPR toys would be those things that people were trying to peddle here and there to sad-sack nostalgia hounds like myself for reasonable prices, but how wrong I was.
Not only were they no cheaper than they were in 1995, they were just as rare, and to make matters worse, there were these 20-year anniversary versions of the toys all designated as Legacy, and they were just as expensive, just as rare, and just as hard to find in retail as they were back in 1995.
By whatever divine intervention and/or luck, I came into my DragonZord at a ThinkGeek retail store, where I resisted way too long before realizing I was being fucking stupid, and bought one. Looking back, I wish I bought all three that were available on the shelf, so that I could try and capitalize on the eBay market, but I can’t complain that I got one of my childhood unicorns.
Anyway, with some house money in tow, I scoured eBay and found a decent condition Megazord for sale, and sniped it successfully for a price under my cap. And then the wait was on, for it to finally get to me, and when it did, it was like being 12 years old all over again.
Despite the fact that ultimately, I wanted both to be in their most recognizable forms on my shelf, there was absolutely nothing more I wanted to do with my two toys, than to combine them into DragonZord Battle Mode; it should come as little surprise that the one iteration of Megazord/DragonZord I liked the most was probably the one that got the least amount of exposure throughout the American televised series. But whatever, with both toys now in my possession, there was nothing standing in my way of making my childhood dreams come true.
Except the toys themselves, which I found to be really rigid and stiff, and really difficult to actually play with. Disassembling both Mega and Dragon Zords, I couldn’t help but feel this apprehension that I was going to break something, trying to reduce them down into components to where I could merge them into DragonZord Battle Mode. I even watched YouTube videos to make sure that I wasn’t doing something wrong and risk breaking my new precious unicorns. But eventually, I figured out all the connection points and found safe ranges of motion for the points of articulation, and I finally made one of my childhood dreams come true: DragonZord Battle Mode.
At this point, there was little else to do except stare at the completed zord and take satisfaction at the task that took 23 years to accomplish. After putting the toy together, I couldn’t help but think a few things in particular, namely the fact that due to the immense rigidity of them in general, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be a kid playing with these things. Perhaps it’s good that Saban or whatever manufacturer didn’t really make many (any?) oversized monsters or Goldar for kids to pit their zords up against, because without question, these things would break, have their connection points wear down or any other deterioration that comes with kids playing with toys that would have ultimately ruined them.
There’s little mistaking that Megazord was designed with the final fighting mode solely in mind, and it makes me wonder why they even bothered making it capable of disassembly, other than integration with DragonZord. Mainly on account of the Tyrannosaurus Dinozord which could very easily be a toy in itself if the kids had their way, but in its actual toy form couldn’t be any more of a blatant conduit and not a figure, based on its extremely limited movement and the fact that the arms are pathetically small and lack any articulation whatsoever.
Not to mention the sheer flaw in scale of the toys themselves; the Tyrannosaurus was so small by itself compared to DragonZord, much less DragonZord Battle Mode, it’s laughable. If a kid wanted to replicate any scenarios from the show where the Tyrannosaurus fought solo, it would be like putting a dwarf next to a monster. A part of me thought about leaving DragonZord in Battle Mode on my shelf, with Tyrannosaurus alone, but based on sheer sadness of T-rex on its lonesome made me nix that idea and revert them back to their standard forms for display purposes.
Either way, none of the critiques changed the fact that I got my hands on both of these two toys that I had coveted for over two decades, and played with them with great relish for nearly 30 minutes after bringing them together. It’s almost like I’m in a state of not knowing what to do anymore, because I’ve finally gotten these two things that I’ve wanted for so long and now that I’ve secured them I just don’t know what to do.
It only took 23 years, but yes I’ve finally gotten my Megazord and DragonZords. They’ll live on my shelf of display until further notice, only to be taken down for occasional dusting and reminiscing playing around to merge DragonZord into Battle Mode, for old time’s sake. Zero regrets, whatsoever.
