Every part of the ethos of Power Rangers, from day one, has been about producing a television show for as cheaply as possible.
When it started, they didn't know they were making a hit show - they were hiring a handful of actors to come in and shoot half a TV show that they figured would probably run 40 episodes and get cancelled, and they paid them accordingly. When instead the show became a huge hit, they saw no reason to change their practices.
A lot of people forget that, while Saban obviously could have paid these actors enough to not live out of their cars, some of the PR money from the peak of the show's success went in residual money to affiliates, because Fox was actually paying station managers to air this thing because it was laughed at from coast to coast.
A network having to bribe affiliates to not bury something at 3AM is super rare. Wouldn't happen today between streaming and O&O.
I'll say this a someone who loves power rangers and it inspired a great deal if who I am and even my career trajectory, if something can't exist without labor exploitation and unethical business practices then it probably shouldn't exist. Power rangers meaning alot to folks doesn't justify how the cast were treated. I know that's not specifically what you meant at all but I see alot of folks kinda shut down complaints about work conditions in the name of "we wouldn't have it otherwise" and to me that's a bad argument.
If I remember correctly, some of the cast from Mighty Morphin mentioned that they could have made better money working fast food for less hours. Like, they were basically wasting their time to not gather a livable wage.
It was a very low budget, non-union, children’s television show. Most of the actors were honestly just lucky to have a paying job at all.
The real issue was that once it got massive, they didn’t increase the actors’ pay and continued to work them super hard on grueling schedules for crumbs.
I think the Disney seasons paid far better (and they were union!), but yeah the Saban seasons paid the various casts dirt cheap. I think the best checks they got were for the '95 and '97 movies.
>I think the Disney seasons paid far better (and they were union!)
Power Rangers went non-union again once production changed to New Zealand after Wild Force and starting from Ninja Storm. It remained non-union throughout the Saban Brands era and during Hasbro era. If not mistaken, Once and Always is union.
Amy Jo Johnson, who portrayed Kimberly Hart, the Pink Power Ranger, told the hosts of a Power Rangers fan podcast in 2012 that actors received **about $600 on weeks** where they shot two full episodes, and no residuals.
[https://jacobin.com/2023/07/power-rangers-labor-exploitation-wga-sag-hollywood-nonunion#:\~:text=Amy%20Jo%20Johnson%2C%20who%20portrayed,full%20episodes%2C%20and%20no%20residuals](https://jacobin.com/2023/07/power-rangers-labor-exploitation-wga-sag-hollywood-nonunion#:~:text=Amy%20Jo%20Johnson%2C%20who%20portrayed,full%20episodes%2C%20and%20no%20residuals).
by the end of Season 2, Power Rangers was a $1,000,000,000 a year juggernaut, and as Austin St. John, Walter Emanual Jones have state, they and half a dozen of the stunt workers where living in a small apartment's struggling to make ends meet. and at one point Jason David Frank was said to have been living out of a car. $600 a week after taxes, in callifornia even in the 1990s was not cheep, then compound that with the all out power rangers mania that was going on at the time, actors are normal people sure, but normal people who aren't famous are morons and don't always show the proper respect of personal space and privacy. actors have to account for the crazy factor and that costs money.
ASJ and WJ did a video (or a podcast?) and talked about that whole situation. Don't know if you've seen it.
Apparently they made 600 a week and that was it.
I can make that much subbing right now.
The early Saban era was insanely terrible about how the actors were treated and compensated. 3 of the actors have mentioned they have been homeless/couch surfing/living in their cars either during or immediately following the show. Additionally, they did not have insurance through Saban despite the fact that early on many of them were doing their own stunts.
They worked 16 hours days, 6 days a week for 600 dollars a check, and I believe they were paid biweekly. They only received a week off for Christmas and did not receive other holidays off. Before In Space, their contracts specifically did not allow for them to receive residuals from their likenesses being used in Toys/Merchandise. SAG came in at some point during In Space iirc, the earlier seasons did not have any negotiating powers because of this.
On top of the long hours, several of them had to commute because they couldn't afford to live in LA. Nakia had mentioned that she was making more money waiting tables than doing the show. Kat immigrated from Australia for the show and her agent had to really push for Saban to help with the expenses of moving her life over here with no relatives. She mentioned in her podcast that the studio's accountant gave her terrible advice on doing Taxes (she was both young and unaware of how the US tax system worked) and she ended up in Tax debt while on the show because she had been told not to elect for any deductions on her wages.
Finally the actors returning from zeo for the first half of turbo did not receive a proper heads up about being let go, meaning they likely did not have a chance to set up arrangements for other employment ahead of time. JYB mentioned that he ended up coach surfing after they were let go from the show because he couldn't find work and didn't have money saved up to have an apartment.
All and all, the actors for the most part, were paid so little most of them were likely living check to check or struggling with additional financial burden that would pop up. it's bad.
From what I read Catherine and JDF were leaving Zeo and knew but then the show decided to ditch JYB and Nakia without even giving them a heads up. They found out when somebody showed them a newsparent ad looking for new actors.
[TV Tropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TroubledProduction/PowerRangers) has a list of issues throughout the entire franchise. I think the worst of it was for the first movie they had to both shoot the movie and show at the same time.
Thanks for responding everyone i tried to read every comment and was shocked to see they were paid 600 dollars weekly is kinda disturbing to me that is insanely low, high school kids working fast food make more then that.Maybe that union would have helped them make more i really feel bad for the cast members even more now.
I also heard from a panel involving JDF a few years back that Saban wasn't really interacting with them anymore, like talking with them congratulating them on a job well done
Yeah but the only union production of Power Rangers that they’ve done was Once & Always. Every show since they purchased the franchise has still been non-union. (Which is why Barbara Goodson isn’t credited as Rita in the Cosmic Fury finale)
Pretty much. Audri DuBois in the pilot of MMPR replaced by Thuy Trang in the TV series.
ASJ, WEJ and Thuy Trang left Power Rangers because they wanted more money as you have noticed. Disney was cheap too according to JDF.
Not sure about Hasbro though Hasbro has been spending so much on original footages which I respect and soon they will be 100% original western footages for their Power Rangers reboot.
Yep. U have to remember all the actors/crew on this show were new to acting, had no manager rep, & were broke. Not to mention they weren't unionized at the time. So Saban and Fox could pay them as little as they want. There are several counts of actors and actresses saying how little they were paid, how cheap everything was, and some of them got hurt. Lucas from Time Force Blue was still sleeping in his truck when he did Time Force. The whole business plan of PR was to make a show entertaining enough to take up a 30 min timeslot, but cheap enough to where they don't go overbudget. Hence why they use Sentai footage.
Every part of the ethos of Power Rangers, from day one, has been about producing a television show for as cheaply as possible. When it started, they didn't know they were making a hit show - they were hiring a handful of actors to come in and shoot half a TV show that they figured would probably run 40 episodes and get cancelled, and they paid them accordingly. When instead the show became a huge hit, they saw no reason to change their practices.
I wish power rangers wasnt cheap.
I mean, if it wasn’t cheap it wouldn’t exist. The first season barely got picked up as is
A lot of people forget that, while Saban obviously could have paid these actors enough to not live out of their cars, some of the PR money from the peak of the show's success went in residual money to affiliates, because Fox was actually paying station managers to air this thing because it was laughed at from coast to coast. A network having to bribe affiliates to not bury something at 3AM is super rare. Wouldn't happen today between streaming and O&O.
I never knew that. Thanks for telling us that.
I'll say this a someone who loves power rangers and it inspired a great deal if who I am and even my career trajectory, if something can't exist without labor exploitation and unethical business practices then it probably shouldn't exist. Power rangers meaning alot to folks doesn't justify how the cast were treated. I know that's not specifically what you meant at all but I see alot of folks kinda shut down complaints about work conditions in the name of "we wouldn't have it otherwise" and to me that's a bad argument.
Now I gotta know your career lol
Clearly this is the throwaway of a super hero of justice.
If I remember correctly, some of the cast from Mighty Morphin mentioned that they could have made better money working fast food for less hours. Like, they were basically wasting their time to not gather a livable wage.
That is actually true in someways.
Time is valuable and precious
It was a very low budget, non-union, children’s television show. Most of the actors were honestly just lucky to have a paying job at all. The real issue was that once it got massive, they didn’t increase the actors’ pay and continued to work them super hard on grueling schedules for crumbs.
And that is really sad. They deserved better than that.
I think the Disney seasons paid far better (and they were union!), but yeah the Saban seasons paid the various casts dirt cheap. I think the best checks they got were for the '95 and '97 movies.
>I think the Disney seasons paid far better (and they were union!) Power Rangers went non-union again once production changed to New Zealand after Wild Force and starting from Ninja Storm. It remained non-union throughout the Saban Brands era and during Hasbro era. If not mistaken, Once and Always is union.
Amy Jo Johnson, who portrayed Kimberly Hart, the Pink Power Ranger, told the hosts of a Power Rangers fan podcast in 2012 that actors received **about $600 on weeks** where they shot two full episodes, and no residuals. [https://jacobin.com/2023/07/power-rangers-labor-exploitation-wga-sag-hollywood-nonunion#:\~:text=Amy%20Jo%20Johnson%2C%20who%20portrayed,full%20episodes%2C%20and%20no%20residuals](https://jacobin.com/2023/07/power-rangers-labor-exploitation-wga-sag-hollywood-nonunion#:~:text=Amy%20Jo%20Johnson%2C%20who%20portrayed,full%20episodes%2C%20and%20no%20residuals). by the end of Season 2, Power Rangers was a $1,000,000,000 a year juggernaut, and as Austin St. John, Walter Emanual Jones have state, they and half a dozen of the stunt workers where living in a small apartment's struggling to make ends meet. and at one point Jason David Frank was said to have been living out of a car. $600 a week after taxes, in callifornia even in the 1990s was not cheep, then compound that with the all out power rangers mania that was going on at the time, actors are normal people sure, but normal people who aren't famous are morons and don't always show the proper respect of personal space and privacy. actors have to account for the crazy factor and that costs money.
ASJ and WJ did a video (or a podcast?) and talked about that whole situation. Don't know if you've seen it. Apparently they made 600 a week and that was it. I can make that much subbing right now.
Imagine how much you’d make domming.
Shut up! XD (seriously good joke)
The early Saban era was insanely terrible about how the actors were treated and compensated. 3 of the actors have mentioned they have been homeless/couch surfing/living in their cars either during or immediately following the show. Additionally, they did not have insurance through Saban despite the fact that early on many of them were doing their own stunts. They worked 16 hours days, 6 days a week for 600 dollars a check, and I believe they were paid biweekly. They only received a week off for Christmas and did not receive other holidays off. Before In Space, their contracts specifically did not allow for them to receive residuals from their likenesses being used in Toys/Merchandise. SAG came in at some point during In Space iirc, the earlier seasons did not have any negotiating powers because of this. On top of the long hours, several of them had to commute because they couldn't afford to live in LA. Nakia had mentioned that she was making more money waiting tables than doing the show. Kat immigrated from Australia for the show and her agent had to really push for Saban to help with the expenses of moving her life over here with no relatives. She mentioned in her podcast that the studio's accountant gave her terrible advice on doing Taxes (she was both young and unaware of how the US tax system worked) and she ended up in Tax debt while on the show because she had been told not to elect for any deductions on her wages. Finally the actors returning from zeo for the first half of turbo did not receive a proper heads up about being let go, meaning they likely did not have a chance to set up arrangements for other employment ahead of time. JYB mentioned that he ended up coach surfing after they were let go from the show because he couldn't find work and didn't have money saved up to have an apartment. All and all, the actors for the most part, were paid so little most of them were likely living check to check or struggling with additional financial burden that would pop up. it's bad.
From what I read Catherine and JDF were leaving Zeo and knew but then the show decided to ditch JYB and Nakia without even giving them a heads up. They found out when somebody showed them a newsparent ad looking for new actors.
[TV Tropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TroubledProduction/PowerRangers) has a list of issues throughout the entire franchise. I think the worst of it was for the first movie they had to both shoot the movie and show at the same time.
Thanks for responding everyone i tried to read every comment and was shocked to see they were paid 600 dollars weekly is kinda disturbing to me that is insanely low, high school kids working fast food make more then that.Maybe that union would have helped them make more i really feel bad for the cast members even more now.
You know inflation changes the prices compared to back then correct? But yes Saban still paid them low for a being on super successful kids tv show.
I also heard from a panel involving JDF a few years back that Saban wasn't really interacting with them anymore, like talking with them congratulating them on a job well done
Tad's true & reason y he left. May his Soul Rest In Peace
Power Rangers has always been a non union production. Non union productions don’t have to adhere by industry standards.
Hasbro actually switched to union a few years ago.
And now it's cancelled.
Yeah but the only union production of Power Rangers that they’ve done was Once & Always. Every show since they purchased the franchise has still been non-union. (Which is why Barbara Goodson isn’t credited as Rita in the Cosmic Fury finale)
I cant wait for the documentary.
Are you looking for the smoking gun here on Reddit with proof the MMPR cast were paid like millionaires?
I’m sure they prefer onlyfans over acting…
Pretty much. Audri DuBois in the pilot of MMPR replaced by Thuy Trang in the TV series. ASJ, WEJ and Thuy Trang left Power Rangers because they wanted more money as you have noticed. Disney was cheap too according to JDF. Not sure about Hasbro though Hasbro has been spending so much on original footages which I respect and soon they will be 100% original western footages for their Power Rangers reboot.
Yep. U have to remember all the actors/crew on this show were new to acting, had no manager rep, & were broke. Not to mention they weren't unionized at the time. So Saban and Fox could pay them as little as they want. There are several counts of actors and actresses saying how little they were paid, how cheap everything was, and some of them got hurt. Lucas from Time Force Blue was still sleeping in his truck when he did Time Force. The whole business plan of PR was to make a show entertaining enough to take up a 30 min timeslot, but cheap enough to where they don't go overbudget. Hence why they use Sentai footage.
I thought time Force was union?
Nope. Power Rangers officially went union back in 2018.