Season 1, Episode 6: Food Fight

"Food Fight"
Episode 6
Air Date: September 4, 1993

This episode....boy, is it fun!!! Starting out as another do gooder episode for the rangers turns into a full blown food fight at the Cultural Food Festival at the Youth Center. I don't care what kind of charity the rangers are raising for; seeing Bulk and Skull inadvertently causing a food fight is the best thing they've done so far. I'm sorry, but F@#$ the rangers from stopping everyone else for doing what any crowd of students would be doing in the 90s! It's just so realistic and as over the top this display of throwing food is, it makes sense.  Meanwhile, Rita is sick...but gets the idea to send a Pig monster to Earth to eat all of the food on the planet. Forcing the world into starvation isn't as bad as plans go for Rita so far....I mean it certainly beats last episode's plot with the musical Gnome! Ehw! I have to say, Pudgy Pig is another classic monster of the week from this era of the show. Sure, his costume is absurdly laughable BUT he's so charming and cute; watching him eat food and scaring the people of Angel Grove away is just awesome in all of it's obnoxious cheese!

Finally the food fight is stopped by Mr. Caplen and the rangers are forced to clean it up (even though they didn't start it and it was clearly the idiotic comedic relief but OK!) Luckily, the rangers are contacted by Zordon and they morph to go face Pudgy Pig. This fight is just awesome and hilarious; watching the rangers owned by Pudgy Pig; especially when he eats their weapons and traps them in a vortex....that just teleports them to the park....unmorphed...ok!? O_o Anyway, Pudgy Pig heads to the food festival and eats everything in sight. The rangers head there after Zordon contacts them again. Once they get there, they notice something and by them I mean, Trini. Soon her and Billy come to the conclusion that the monster hates spicy food which is a shame since that means he has a weakness.  Pudgy Pig heads for the Angel Grove Food Packing Plant as the rangers gather up some food for him and morph; heading to his location after Zordon tells them where he is.

The Pig, eager to eat, fails for the rangers' trick as he consumes some spicy food and throws up everything he ate; including their weapons. The rangers retrieve their weapons and attack; before forming their Power Blaster (This time they just call them "Power ......" like the first time thank god!) and destroying Pudgy Pig. Oh and there's a final scene where the rangers get some extra food from Alpha and Zordon as well as Mr. Caplen apologizing for blaming the gang for something they didn't do (Wow!) Lame joke and hijinks conclude the episode!

"Food Fight" is the best episode so far this season because it combines the essentials of what makes PR great: fun, foolishness and solid action! The cast looked like they had fun with this one and Bulk and Skull, while still grating, were kept to a minimum, thank God!  I really chuckled a lot during this episode just for the over the top glory of the writing.  With no concluding zord battle or forced moral message, it was nice to also see the rangers thinking for themselves on how to defeat the monster instead of Zordon giving them some get out of trouble free card like a new weapon, power crystals, etc. This is the show finally finding it's footing! :)

Final Morph: A-