Season 1, Episode 23: Itsy Bitsy Spider

"Itsy Bitsy Spider"
Episode 23
Air Date: October 12, 1993

Well, I can relate to Zack in the episode: Insects, bugs and especially arachnids give me the creeps!!! Once again, the rangers are being goody goods and want people to sign a petition to save some statue that has these foretold abilities. I kinda agree with Bulk and Skull here (Oh God!! What's wrong with me) I mean what's up with the rangers and these random causes??? I get the PSA nature of the show but some of these forced messages of standing up for these random causes just fall flat most of the time! Anyway, the teens are also collecting bugs, insects and spiders which Zack is of course afraid of, especially spiders. Nice to see the characters have fears and flaws instead of the perfect goody toe shoes they always try to make them out to be. So Bulk and Skull decide to do something that should get them expelled from school by throwing the bugs on the other students. Zack gets a spider on his shoulder...YIKES!!! O_O

Meanwhile, Rita sends Squatt and Baboo to still the statue for reasons unknown until she says she wants to replace with a spider monster and have it's moths put the citizens of Angel Grove to sleep...ok! O_o Anyway, the next day, after Billy's mouse makes a fool out of Dumb and Dumber, the rangers decide to go bug hunting except for Tommy who's off training and Zack who  of course hates bugs.  The Putties soon attack and Billy still can't fight for some reason (I guess after that yellow belt, he just stopped practicing?! O_o)  After the fight, the rangers regroup and wonder what that was all about. Meanwhile, Zack is teaching kids Hip Hop Kiddo and....it's absolutely awesome and ridiculous at the same time.  Zack forgot his cassette in the car (oh remember those days??) and the kids practice as he go gets it.  The moths soon attack and put the kids to sleep. When Zack returns, he finds them knocked out, contacts Zordon and makes his way to the statue as the moths chase him. The sequence of him running from them is priceless!! Zack then finds the statue and realizes something is amiss.  He morphs and blasts the fake statue as the Spider monster reveals itself. Geeze, that thing is gross!! Goldar shows up to fight Zack and both of them team up against him. Zordon contacts the other rangers to help Zack and they morph into action.  The 5 rangers reunite and fight the monster, with Zack managing to blast it back.

Rita makes him grow and then a zord battle commences. Hmmmm, no catch phrases at the rangers job into their zord cockpits??? Ok! O_o Long story short, Tommy is then called and morphs to help the rangers. Dragonzord comes to help but struggles a bit with the monster. We finally get to see Mega Dragonzord in action (I thought that was Dragonzord Fighting Mode???) and it uses it's drill spear to destroy the monster. The episode ends with the statue being saved because of so many signatures, blah, blah blah. Tommy asks Zack if he's over his fear and pull are prank on him with a fake spider.  Well, at least there was no dumb Bulk and Skull moment to end the episode.

I really liked the episode overall, giving us more insight on a specific ranger and having a cool looking monster of the week. Besides bugs, insects and spiders freak me out so this episode gets bonus points for making my skin crawl.

Final Morph: B+