Eric dives into the surprising story of how the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers became part of the Disney family. From Haim Saban’s early days as a music producer to building Saban Entertainment, we cover his work in cartoon music, partnerships with Deac, successful shows like X-Men: The Animated Series, and the process of adapting Super Sentai into Power Rangers for American TV. We explore the evolution of Fox Kids, Saban’s strategy to gain a cable network, the formation and expansion of Fox Family Worldwide, and the sale to Disney, which transformed the Fox Family Channel into ABC Family (now Freeform). The episode also touches on Disney’s use of Power Rangers at the theme parks, the creation of Jetix (later Disney XD), the sale of Power Rangers to Hasbro, and the legacy of ABC Family’s “25 Days of Christmas” and the inescapable 700 Club. If you’re curious how ‘90s kids’ TV, Marvel, Disney, and even televangelist Pat Robertson all connect, this episode unpacks it all.
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00:04 --> 32:33 It's synergy time. We have this coterie of rich franchises, the company now that people want to engage with. I came here to try and continue what Walt Disney and his associates set in motion 50 years ago, which is to experiment with every new and innovative kind of entertainment possible. It's what we hope to do here, to really develop something that, well, just more than an entertainment enterprise, it's something that contributes in many other ways. The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Those colorful spandex clad martial arts teenage superheroes who ruled the 90s television screens and the playground. Imagine a world where they ended up under the same roof as Mickey Mouse. Sounds pretty bizarre, right? But that's exactly what happened. That is the timeline that we are living in today. We're unpacking the wild corporate moves that turned a scrappy 90s action show into a Disney property and how it changed both companies forever. Hey, this is Synergy Loves Company where we explore how Disney connects to everything. So you can connect to Disney when you can't be at the parks. I'm Eric and today we're taking a look at at that time when the Power Rangers attached itself to the Walt Disney Company like a giant dinosaur shaped zord vehicle joining the Megazord. It might sound crazy, but it is real. And in the end, it gave us the 25 days of Christmas on Freeform. True story. But to get into all of that, we gotta talk about the guy who started it all. Haim Saban, the architect of the Power Rangers craze. Chaim Saban was born in Egypt in 1944, but his family fled to Israel when he was just 12 years old. As a young adult, he became interested in making music and he started a band with some friends, but quickly realized he would much rather be managing the band and promoting big concerts in Israel. He was still a musician, but selling entertainment was much more his skill set. In the 1970s, he took his promotion machine on the road and he had made some international moves. First to France where he took on producing music for some up and coming artists. And then on to the United States where he became interested in music publishing for television. In the early 1980s, he would focus on cartoons because cartoons had a lot more music than other shows and because of the amount of music he could fit in each episode. That meant he could make more money in royalties from making cartoon music. Heimsaban struck a deal with cartoon maker DIC to write the music and theme songs for their new animated shows in the American market. They could get his music for free. As long as they would pay Saban royalties for the music whenever it would be played in one of the episodes. DIC themselves has a whole relationship to Disney too. I did a whole episode on this last time, and if you haven't check that one out, you should right after this one for Dic. Saban wrote the theme song for Inspector Gadget and that was the company's first big hit. He also wrote the music for Heathcliff, and he even started working with other studios as well. Soon, Saban was kind of the hottest music making ticket in town for animated shows. And he was taking on more music work for more animated shows than he could handle. So he had to start hiring staff musicians and writers who could all help make music for Saban Entertainment, his music publishing company. But music wasn't enough for Chaim Saban. He saw how all of these animation companies operated, and he knew that he could do the same thing. He could make his own shows. By 1984, Saban Entertainment pivoted from just writing the music for shows to actually producing the animated content as well. The first project was Kid Video, and it was made in association with dic. The show was created by Deke founders Jean Chalopin and Andy Hayward, along with Saban Entertainment's Chaim Saban and his right hand composer Shuki Levy. Kid Video is a combination of animation, music, science fiction, fantasy, and the 1980s MTV era. The show followed some teenagers into a cartoon dimension called the Flipside, where they fought the evil Master Blaster between airings of popular music videos of the day. In addition to creating new animated shows, Saban also used some popular moves in the children's programming business to expand his company's catalog. He tried out live action shows, anything to expand his empire. Saban also started to purchase the rights to international shows just to bring them into different markets. Saban brought a lot of Japanese and French programming to American audiences during this time. In 1987, when Deke's Andy Hayward was looking for money to buy the whole company from his co founders, he sold the company's back catalog to Haim Saban. And this helped him grow the Saban Entertainment Company without having to produce a whole new body of work. Saban had built a library of programming, both live action and animated, as well as collaborating with a whole army of studios that they worked with and that he could capitalize on the work of. For instance, in 1989, when Disney released the Little Mermaid, it became a huge hit and kicked off the Disney decade. Saban took a look at what was available and snapped up a French Japanese animated series based on Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid, he could bring it over to the US When Saban's Adventures of the Little Mermaid it was called that Saban's Adventures of the Little Mermaid when it launched in the United States in 1991, it was able to capitalize on the hype around Disney's animated feature before Disney got a chance to do the same. But they did too, and Disney later released their own Little Mermaid animated series, and it left Saban's dead in the water. But he was the first to market with a Little Mermaid TV series. Well, let's face it, capitalizing on a trend with a shoddy association isn't as great as an official adaptation. And an official adaptation is what Saban got for his first major hit. In 1992, Chaim Saban was able to score a deal with Fox Children's Entertainment and Marvel Comics to create an animated series. 4. The X Men Margaret Loesch had previously worked as an executive with Marvel Comics, but In the early 90s she was in charge of Fox Kids Network programming and she wanted to see those two worlds come together and she championed an X Men series and she was the one to select Saban Entertainment to produce it. Saban Entertainment's the Animated Series follows Marvel's team of powerful mutants who use their extraordinary abilities to defend a world that fears them. Led by Professor X, heroes like Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm and Rogue battle classic comic villains such as Magneto, the Sentinels and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants while grappling with the prejudice from the world around them and themes like loyalty and survival. The X Men show actually took a lot of material and storylines directly from the comic books and surprisingly stayed faithful to the complex and nuanced storytelling, even getting darker and more serious at times. This X Men animated series just recently got a second window as X Men 97 on Disney, which picks up right where the original left off. Fox loved the success of this action packed mutant super team cartoon and they even moved on the rights, the movie rights for the X Men. That's right. This animated series led to us getting the Fox X Men movie franchise starting in 2000, which caused some of that fragmentation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That is until Disney bought 20th Century Fox back in 2019, which Disney is finally pulling those Fox Marvel movies into the mcu. I'm looking at you, Deadpool and Wolverine. Let's get back to the 90s children's programming though. Heim Saban, loving the success of X Men, cut a deal with Marvel to adapt even more heroes for tv. And he snapped up the rights to Spider Man, Captain America, Daredevil, and the Incredible Hulk, among other heroes. Margaret Lesh, also loving the success of X Men, asked Heim Saban what else he had that could match the super mutant energy and the action of the X Men. And so he pitched to her another show idea that he had been tinkering with for a long time. You see, back in the mid-80s, Chaim Saban had been on one of his many trips to Japan, working with animation studios out there, and he had some downtime. He was relaxing in his hotel room, flipping through channels, when he landed on a show where spandex clad superhero teens were battling monsters. The show was called Super Sentai, and it was produced in the tokusatsu style using lots of practical effects and often used full body costumed characters interacting with small scale sets to make them look giant. Think like those early Godzilla movies. What Sivan picked up on when he was watching this is that when the heroes were in battle mode, they were completely covered from head to toe in helmet and spandex. And the settings were pretty nondescript, like they could take place anywhere. The middle of a desert. It didn't have to be Japan. It could be Southern California, somewhere in suburban America. It could be anywhere. Saban knew that he could film American teenagers out of battle costume for the scenes that would take place before and after the battle scenes. Then when they got suited up for battle, he could switch to the Super Sentai battle scenes. All the special effects and trained martial artists would be the most expensive scenes to film if he had to make them himself. But by acquiring the rights to Super Sentai, they were already done. He could make a huge splash with a small budget. And what was better, Super Sentai had been on the air since 1975. There were already about 10 years worth of material to source from, and it was still going strong. He snapped up the international rights to Super Sentai around 1986 and shopped the idea around. But no one wanted the show as far as production companies and networks were concerned. Saban Entertainment made great music and cartoons, and this live action project seemed a little hokey. They didn't think that American audiences would like something like this. But after the success of X Men in 1992, when Margaret Lesh asked for you know what's next, Saban offered up his Super Sentai idea. He could use the original battle scenes, add voiceover to them from American actors who would film the in between scenes as well. After years of no interest this was the best time for the Pitch, and Lesh was probably the best person for the pitch. X Men was an action adventure show that gained a big success. This one would be great too. Lesh having worked at Marvel previously, she actually worked on some projects with Stan Lee that tried to bring Japanese programming to the American market, so she understood the appeal. The show became the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is about a group of teenagers that love to hang out at the juice bar in their hometown, Angel Grove, who gain the ability to transform into colorful superheroes to fight evil forces threatening Earth. They often have to pilot giant robots called Zords that can link into each other to make a Megazord to battle these monsters and evil forces. They're led by a wise, ethereal being called Zordon and assisted by their robotic ally, Alpha 5. The Rangers battle villains like Rita, Repulsa and Lord Zedd, and they protect their city from giant monsters and dark magic. Top it all off with some face melting, shredding guitar solo intro music from Saban's musical collaborator Ron Wasserman, and we are ready to go, go Power Rangers. Even though Lesh loved it, Rupert Murdoch and the Fox execs didn't think this would work, so they had to air it early in the morning during the summer. Not an ideal time for a kids show premiere, but kids started to find it and they loved it. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers became a smash success despite all of the executives who thought it would fail. Not only did it become a success, but Power Rangers became the cornerstone of the FOX Kids Network programming block. Saban and Fox filled in the rest of the programming block and tried to replicate the success of the Power Rangers with similarly formatted productions that interspersed American filmed plot scenes. In between, Japanese produced masked action scenes. We got shows like VR Troopers and Big Bad Beetleborgs. But where they really repeated their success was with multiple iterations of the Power Rangers. The original show in Japan, Super Sentai, always featured a group of color coded masked costumed superheroes, but there were different series and iterations. It wasn't even always the same characters, and it definitely wasn't the same costumes, but it was all still under the same Super Sentai banner. The Power Rangers did the same. After the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers came Power Rangers Zeo, Power Rangers Turbo, Power Rangers in Space. So many more. Saban's Power Rangers was Fox Kids Golden Goose. Other networks tried but couldn't capture the magic of the Power Rangers. In fact, right before they were acquired by Disney. In 1996, ABC and Deke developed the superhuman samurai Cyber Squad, which only lasted one season and couldn't capture the same spark. Fox knew they had to keep Saban in their good graces to stay on top of kids programming. They offered to buy Saban Entertainment from Chaim Saban. But he had something else in mind. Looking around the industry, Heim Saban saw that the biggest entertainment companies, his competitors in children's programming, all had their own cable channels. There was Viacom's Nickelodeon, Turner Broadcasting's Cartoon Network, and Disney had the Disney Channel. Disney was even casting a larger shadow over television and children's entertainment programming because at the same time, they were acquiring ABC Capital Cities and taking over Deke in the process. Remember to check out that episode on D. Saban knew that the way to make a real smash success on TV was to have a channel of his own. But to create a channel for his programming, even a cable channel, would take a lot of money and work. So to make it happen, first off, he cut a deal with his collaborator, Fox. Fox would not want to lose the lucrative relationship with some Saban. So they entered a partnership to start their own children's programming network. Fox would get to keep the Saban programming like Power Rangers. And Saban would get his wish to own a cable network. Starting a channel from scratch is a lot more difficult than acquiring an already existing channel. So in the mid-90s, Fox and Saban started shopping for a cable channel. Most of the channels that were out there were owned by one of the major entertainment companies, like those ones that had inspired Heim Saban to want to get a channel of his own. So those ones were not for sale. But they did find one channel, the Family Channel, that was still independently owned. The Family Channel was started by Pat Robertson as the Christian broadcasting network in 1977, back when Hable was just a wee little baby. The Christian Broadcasting Network would be a religious television network that would give a wider release to Robertson's Christian news magazine program, the 700 Club. It also featured programming blocks from televangelists. But as the station evolved, they started offering more family friendly programming to supplement the programs like the 700 Club. As more family friendly programming and syndicated shows from previous network TV generations started to fill in the programming schedule. By 1988, the channel shifted its focus to offer family programming. And in 1990, they actually changed the name to to the Family channel. With the 700 Club still right smack dab in the center of the programming schedule. In the mid-90s, when Saban and Fox needed a channel. They saw the Family Channel as the perfect target. It was still independent and already family focused. It would be easy to shift it over to the Fox Kids brand in order to make this deal a little cleaner. The two companies, Saban and Fox Kids, also merged around this time to ensure the success of this channel, resulting in a brand new company, Fox Kids International. In 1997, they finally cut a deal with Pat Robinson to buy the Family Channel. They would buy the Family Channel and its parent company, International Family Entertainment. As part of the deal, Pat Robinson's 700 Club would continue to air on the Saban and fox channel. The 700 Club just stuck around because Pat Robinson finagled an in perpetuity clause for the broadcasting of his show. It still had a home on this new channel. There were also rumors that he had seen stipulated that the word family would continue to be part of the name of the channel. But I also think that this might have been a move by Fox to slowly transition the audience. It's still kind of the same thing. Families there in the name. In 1998, the joint venture between Fox and Saban became the Fox Family Channel, the permanent cable home of the Power Rangers and other Fox Kids programming. They expanded their company to be called Fox Family Worldwide Worldwide because the Fox Family Channel allowed Fox Kids to expand programming globally as well. With a focus on Europe and Latin America. Fox Family Worldwide would successfully ride the Fox Family Channel into the the new millennium. But Heim Saban, never one to rest on his success, started to see the writing on the wall. Already his original goal was to become a cable entertainment juggernaut like Viacom, Turner or even Disney. But even with his own channel, Fox Family Worldwide was still only a fraction of the size of those other companies. He would not be able to quickly grow to their size. At this point he saw that his best option would be to sell this company, probably to one of those competitors he was trying to be like. And I mean that would make him lots of money. Here's where Disney comes in. Disney was in the post ABC acquisition era. But just because they had acquired a network didn't mean Michael Eisner was done. Oh no. ABC was an over the air terrestrial channel in the United States. Michael Eisner wanted more. He wanted to conquer cable. He wanted to expand to Europe and Latin America. He wanted to fill in programming gaps for the tween and teen demographics. He even before we knew what a tween was, Fox Family had all of these things. And in 2001, Disney entered a deal to buy Fox Family Worldwide and all of its assets, including Saban Entertainment for $3 billion. The Fox Family Channel would be rolled into ABC's jurisdiction under Bob Iger. Disney changed the name of the channel to ABC Family to represent their ABC property, but also to continue to help guide audiences and not create confusion by putting Family in the name. Or maybe that family title thing was really a Pat Robinson deal thing because ABC Family continued also to air the 700 Club in perpetuity. Saban Entertainment got rolled into Disney's Buena Vista Distribution and became BVS Entertainment Buena Vista Saban. The deal made Heim Saban lots of money, but it also sold off his Power Rangers to Disney. And because Michael Eisner was in charge, Disney immediately got to synergy with their new family Channel assets. And the jewel of the BVS crown was of course, the Power Rangers. In 2005, the Power Rangers started making appearances in the Disney Hollywood Studios park in Orlando at Walt Disney World. It worked like this. All five of the @ the time current Power Ranger team would ride up in a special themed car and then they would put on a little show with some martial arts and movement and then do a little meet and greet type thing where they would sign autographs. Then they would all return back to the car and drive on backstage. It happened in the old streets of America section of kind of the, the back lot area. It's. But it was right outside. Lights, motors, action. This was a great way to promote the current seasons of the Power Rangers that were airing on ABC Family. During the aughts the 2000s. Disney would continue producing Power Rangers shows for ABC Family. They like picked up right where Saban left off. They had Power Rangers series like Wild Force, Ninja Storm, Dino Thunder, spd, Mystic Force, Operation Overdrive, Jungle Fury and rpm. They even spun off another cable channel that would focus on these Power Ranger iterations in the Saban or BVS catalog. And it was called Jetix. It would later become known as Disney xd. By the end of the decade, the Power Rangers had started to lose their luster for Disney. And maybe just a little, Heim Saban was starting to regret that he had sold off his prized possession, Golden Goose, the Power Rangers. Disney had been trying to cancel the Power Rangers, but before they did, in 2010, Heim Saban bought back the Power Rangers franchise. Eventually he did sell it off again later to Hasbro Toys because they were going to sell tons of Power Ranger toys. And then Heim Saban made a whole bunch more money again off of the Power Rangers. But Disney still had ABC Family and they continued to focus on the teen and tween demographic with shows like the Secret Life of the American Teenager and Pretty Little Liars as well as their iconic anticipation building holiday programming promotions, the 13 nights of Halloween and of course the 25 days of Christmas. Iconic. In 2016, they finally dropped the family name, changing the channel from ABC Family to Freeform. Even though they changed the name, though they could Never Shake the 700 Club, Pat Robinson's deal said that the channel had to continue to air the Christian news magazine show the 700 Club and it's still there, buried in the Freeform programming schedule today. Check your listings. It's there. Pat Robinson's deal had an in perpetuity clause and that means forever. Thanks for joining me in this dive into Saban Disney and how the Power Rangers for a short time were Disney heroes. You listened to this podcast and you made it here to the end. You are my kind of people, so I wanted to invite you to something exciting. I also do a video version of the show on YouTube. It's basically the same show except it has visuals that go along with the audio. Like if you watch this one, you'll see some power rangers. My YouTube channel has been growing and it hit 1 subscribers and I'm really excited to celebrate this milestone. So I'm going to be hosting a live stream in the month of May. 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