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Nerding Day: Zero Zero
Category: NERDING DAY
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Nerding Day: Web Woman
“Play the hits,” they say. Nobody wants to hear your new material — they want the stuff they grew up on. So be it, I say to my trio of muscular, younger men as I begrudgingly rise from the bed we all sleep in together. It’s been eight weeks since mama wrote about some forgotten ’90s bullshit, so go crank some ’90s in Fortnite for a couple of hours while I crank out a few thousand words about, sorry, this says “an American cartoon based on a real-life famous Japanese magician?”
Well, in the words of my close personal associate Super Mario, “here we go.”
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a Saban Entertainment in possession of a Power Rangers, must be in want of two dozen more. We know that Haim Saban and Shuki Levy went fucking nuts in the 90s. We have the proof. Creating the next Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles went to their heads. It was a simple formula: intersperse existing Japanese action show footage with scenes of badly-paid and worse-treated American actors talking to a robot with an anxiety disorder. It was perfect. It defined a decade. You might even say it was a kind… of magic. Mightn’t you? For the sake of the premise of this article, please visualize the words “I agree” in the 1-900 HOT DOG Psychic Terms of Service before continuing.
“Hi, I’m Amy Jo Johnson, but most of you guys probably know me as Kimberly, the Pink Power Ranger,” Amy Jo tells the camera with a little shrug.
Watching this now, thirty years later, is it a Zen-like acceptance we detect in that statement, or else bitter resignation? There’s no way of knowing. Does it matter? The entity that is Saban Entertainment has already claimed her life for its own dark purposes. It is no longer enough that she fly around in a pterodactyl Zord, or shoot a bow on the rare occasions the Power Rangers use their weapons, or turn all evil and sexy and… sorry, what was I saying?
Oh, right. Amy Jo Johnson is introducing Tenko and the Guardians of the Magic.
Released in 1995 just as the original Power Rangers series was winding down, Tenko and the Guardians of the Magic — and yes, it’s “the” magic, I checked — is located firmly in Saban’s “sicko phase.” See, latter day Haim Saban spends his time penning drunken emails to the President urging him to send Israel more guns pls, but ’90s Haim Saban was busy greenlighting literally every idea anyone brought in front of him that had anything to do with Japan, monsters, or teens. Thank whatever god you send military weaponry abroad in the name of that we never got a western adaptation of Legend of the Overfiend.
Here’s one of the emails, by the way:
Because seriously, Saban Entertainment was just doing whatever at this point: VR Troopers, Big Bad Beetleborgs, a co-production of a Creepy Crawlers cartoon with my longtime favorites Abrams/Gentile. Hell, they put Ryan Gosling on a fucking boat that was also his high school in a show called Breaker High and you can trace a direct line from that series to Kenergy.
Rather than being a cheaply-produced live action series, Tenko and the Guardians of the Magic was a cheaply-produced cartoon. It is, however, based on a real-life pop idol turned stage magician named Princess Tenko.
You’ll sometimes see the show called “Princess Tenko and the Guardians of the Magic,” but crucially the word “princess” is not in there, to avoid tainting what could be a perfectly good franchise about ancient wizards that just happens to be led by a female character with the stink of girlhood. The ’90s were not well.
In any case, it’s a deeply weird concept. Would it not have been enough to just have a cartoon about a magician and her gang of handsome boy-toys fighting mystical antagonists? Was the addition of the Princess Tenko branding and her appearance in closing segments where she performs stage magic really what pushed the premise over the top? To me, there’s only one possible explanation: someone — possibly Haim Saban himself, possibly series creator and Yu-Gi-Oh! card namesake Roger “The Executive Producer” Slifer — was desperately trying to flatter/sleep with a famous Japanese magician.
They pulled out all the stops — this introduction with Amy Jo is a full half-hour special, also featuring appearances by magicians Max Maven and Earl Nelson.
Were kids in the ’90s familiar with them, these men who appeared to be the Platonic Form of a stage magician and the oldest man alive, respectively?
Presumably, but can we get back to the whole “Guardians of THE Magic” thing? Every time I hear the announcer say that I feel an itch in the back of my brain. “The” magic? Like this is the only magic there is, and they’re the ones responsible for guarding it? I’ve never been so baffled by a definite article. It’s Izzy and The Torchworld all over again.
Amy Jo is at the Magic Castle in Hollywood. She talks up Princess Tenko as one of the most famous and mysterious magicians in the world, then tells us that if we watch carefully, we might pick up some magic tricks we can use to impress our friends. We immediately cut to Tenko on stage, a dubbed voice telling us “remember kids, I trained many years to perform this magical trick. Please, do not try this at home.”
Ok, so which is it? Am I supposed to learn how to crawl inside a folding box while flamboyant samurai dance around and shove swords into it in a clear representation of group sex or not? For a company that created the Power Rangers, one of the biggest flashpoints around violence in children’s media in recorded history, Saban is giving the pre-teen set an awful lot of credit regarding their ability to tell fantasy from reality. To make matters worse, after she completes the illusion, Tenko steps out, gestures towards the camera, and the same voiceover says “remember kids, the magic is within you.”
It feels like they wanted to get sued. It’s as if at the peak of his influence, Haim Saban was daring the powers that be to challenge him. How else do you explain the fact that each episode of Tenko ends with either a dangerous, complex stage illusion involving bladed weapons or a segment where she teaches viewers the equivalent of the old removable thumb trick? Any court would see this as de facto child endangerment. It would be like if G.I. Joe episodes only sometimes ended with a PSA about messing around with the stove, then the rest of the time demonstrated the proper technique for pistol whipping an unarmed civilian.
Back to Amy Jo, who is talking with Max Maven and Earl Nelson, the former flubbing the title and calling it, sensibly, “Tenko and the Guardians of Magic.” They try to paint Tenko as a real-life magical superhero, setting up her role in the cartoon, but they’re acting like this is all stuff that actually happened. Max tells us Tenko learned real magic from her master Hikita, and that his two other students Jana and Jason were pissed when she was named his successor, leading them to attempt to steal the powerful Starfire Gems. They got a couple of them, allowing them to merge into a giant two-headed dragon, but the rest were flung across the Earth.
Watching this man with Vegeta’s hairline casually talk about the magical powers of the Starfire Gems to summon animals and turn people into dragon monsters is the quickest way to understand the insanity of an entire decade. But it gets better: Earl Nelson then claims to have some gems “from the same region of Japan” as those bestowed on Princess Tenko. Is he about to summon an ancient demon?
Yes, if by “summon an ancient demon” you mean “perform some basic sleight of hand.” So is magic real, dangerous, and awesome, or is it all about trickery and showmanship? This special comes down firmly on the side of “yes.”
Finally, long after most kids have changed the channel to an episode of The Mask: The Animated Series, we learn something about the upcoming cartoon itself — presumably the reason we’re here in the first place. Princess Tenko has three friends, an ethnically diverse crew of hunks who obey her in all things. All things? I mean, probably. In the vernacular of anime, Tenko is essentially a reverse harem magical girl series, complete with spinning transformation sequences.
We’ve got the white dude, Bolt, who Amy Jo describes as “brave and handsome.” He’s voiced by Neal McDonough, a man famous for losing work because he refused to do kisses on-screen.
Then there’s the brilliant Steel, a black guy who — hey, hold on! You put a black superhero named “Steel” in your show? And he isn’t this guy?
Wild. That brings us to the Native American character, Hawk.
One guess as to how Amy Jo describes him. It’s “street-smart” and “fast-talking,” naturally. Oops, sorry — I got my ’90s racial clichĂ©s mixed up. It’s “wise and mystical,” forcing even the Wikipedia entry for Tenko and the Guardians of the Magic, one of those really long ones that was clearly written by fans who imprinted on the show at a young age, to admit that a Native American man named Hawk Windwalker has a “somewhat stereotypical” connection to nature.
“Princess Tenko descended from a ninja and a samurai, which explains where she gets her bravery from,” Amy Jo just casually mentions. Look, I know it’s the ’90s and we’re just naming random Japanese stuff because it sounds cool, but fucking what? Like, Tenko seems pretty cool and all, but can we get a show about her great-grandparents teaming up to kick ass and discovering that the greatest magic of all… is love? No, we can’t. We have to go back to Max Maven showing us an optical illusion for babies.
Oh, the gray squares are actually the same shade? Great. Maybe this counted as entertainment on a summer afternoon in 1995, I don’t know. But it fucking sucks, man. Tell me more about the ninja/samurai romance.
No dice. Tenko shows us how to lift an ice cube out of a glass of water with a loop of string. You use salt. Cool. I was learning better magic than this in the ’90s from drunk uncles at family dinners. Sure, they’d swing me around the kitchen by my ankles sometimes, but there was always a sawbuck in it for me when they sobered up and felt guilty at the end of the night.
Speaking of, we’re out of time. But before we go, the eerie, disembodied voice of Tenko addresses itself directly to Amy Jo. “The magic is within you,” she repeats, a statement that Amy Jo doesn’t seem quite sure how to react to. “Gee, I sure wish the ‘getting paid more than $600 a week was within me,” she’s probably thinking.
Were there toys? Sure there were toys. But despite the show’s gestures towards gender equality, with Tenko leading her testosterone-heavy crew into battle each week, none of the male characters got figures. Instead, we got a bunch of different Tenko dolls that were actually just altered designs from an unproduced Wonder Woman line.
As for the show itself, there were only thirteen episodes. Tenko and her guys go on adventures, collect various Magic Starfire Gems and combat ancient demons. You might expect there to be some kind of romantic tension between Tenko and the various boys, but actually, the show positions her rival Jason as her main love interest, going so far as to suggest they get married in the future. It’s true what they say: women love tormented bad boys with period-appropriate hairstyles who wield mind-controlling magic disks.
In any case, it certainly wasn’t the next Power Rangers. Do you know what was the next Power Rangers?
It was Power Rangers, a series that has run so long that a few years ago it got its own gritty comic series and video game about trauma for millennials who can’t let go, in which the Green Ranger goes mad with power and fucking kills Rita Repulsa then tries to murder all rangers across all possible dimensions. It’s kind of like Jet Li’s The One except it ends up with a guy with a ponytail banging two different versions of the Pink Ranger. Probably. Man, what was it with the ’90s and bad boys with ponytails?
Regardless, I kind of forget what I was talking about and I’m sure as hell not watching all thirteen episodes of Tenko and the Guardians of the Magic, so cue the Animal House wrap-up!
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme:Michael Dillon, whose parents were a ninja and a samurai, making him a ninjurai and the victim of much discrimination.
Meet the ultimate team-up: Honda, the Department of Transportation, and death. Supergirl watches.
Feels right. Still, I should check my guidelines.
Hot. We’re clear for liftoff. This propaganda is Supergirl’s best car content, short of chucking Fords at Superman for Darkseid/Luthor/kicks. Fast times—she’s usually calmer, only not at all. But you’ve met Supergirl.
Maybe propaganda sounds loaded for “wear this to live.” But it’s a neutral concept. A genre, really. Propaganda isn’t instantly wrong any more than satire’s instantly right. Sucking shit doesn’t make The Babylon Bee a cookbook. Today’s plea for spine preservation is elite propaganda.
These alien animals don’t respect our freedom. This screed shows what happens when you let the nanny-starship tell you how to die. I regret only having one skull to give blurry Instagram clips. If you’ll trade your rights for brain fluid, you deserve blimble florp funnel cake.
Counterpoint: Bizarro no need coward hat! Bizarro do mob heelflip and tag Thrasher! All public park moms clap for Bizarro!
But who cares what I think? The transportation secretary’s here with star power. Like her boss Reagan, Elizabeth cares about povvos dying on her watch:
Double the odds! Based on my bestselling Math Protocols, that’s six times less death. I’m convinced. Though I preferred Doomsday’s pitch:
That’s a recolored Hulk joke. Like Doomsday.
Kara’s day opens with a little apocalypse. An earthquake ravages the West Coast, and she has heat vision trickshots to try out:
It’s a fun sequence. I could fret about deep fried truckers, but I’m only a Level 3 unpleasable fuck. Advantage: Kara.
Still, her messiah act is no excuse for standing up Steve. Infrastructure implodes every day. Where will she find a new Steve? Also, this is Steve:
He’s just like you! You can date Supergirl, followed by whatever else happens to Steve. Maybe a love square with Donna Troy and Nightwing? Pick Nightwing. It’s not just the face, he tends to get through reboots intact. If nothing else, avoid lesser Green Lanterns. They die at X-Men rates with half the style.
With Super-Math, Kara finds Steve’s love is only worth a few dozen lives. Work comes first. I’ve been there, only work was Googling synonyms for “horror.” And then Googling replacements for Google. Bing was born dead, and Presearch is starting to piss me off.
Steve spirals. By sidekick standards, he’s been left at the altar.
Ellen’s his little sister. PSA world is half superheroes, half perfect children, and half drug dealers. No substance abuse in sight yet, so my Super-Math works out. Unlike Steve’s dreams.
Poor Steve. He thinks Supergirl’s out of his league instead of his species. A classic, enduring dilemma. You might remember Steve from American Honda Presents DC Comics’ Supergirl. Particularly his confidence:
The resolve of a hero. With nothing tying him down, Steve soars to his destiny.
Kara doesn’t know what she’s missing. Slates this blank turn into gods at least twice a year. Superman’s watched Pa Kent get powers more often than he’s peed in Luthor’s coffee from orbit. Steve’s one crossover event from the Throne of Light.
Of course, first he has to get to heaven.
Again: it looks bad, but this could be an origin. Most Static Shock episodes opened with incidents like this. The victims were robbing banks and pitching spin-offs by the first break.
The banks are safe today.
It’s a drunk driving PSA too! Two birds, one Corona. I dig that efficiency, though Honda won’t. We’ve killed a free sequel by aiming high, and marketers hate that shit. Brands prefer forty versions of one line, plastered across every subway in civilization.
He’s off to the Phantom Drunk Tank.
If I were a shadow wearing human skin, I’d laugh. I’m not. This is very sad. I’m frowning. I hate this tragedy, and wish it were different. Nothing’s funny about escalating to DUIs faster than a speeding bullet. My empathy’s more powerful than a locomotive. We’ve leapt dull pacing in a single bound.
At this point, PSAs have a choice. Ten pages of hugs and funeral planning, or blooming into insanity.
Comics are everything love promised.
But really, smart choice. I prefer Kryptonians to most people. But they’ve got intense baggage for a safety PSA: they’re all fucking invincible. It’s like Tony Stark telling me to drink carefully, pay taxes, and retire from film with dignity. Or to avoid enslaving supervillains for a national freak-hunt. What the fuck, Tony? Were the demo Sentinels red?
The chase above unfolds in Steve’s coma. Battle for Neptune seems to be Furiosa in snow shoes, which justifies itself. But there’s a reason: seatbelts.
Steve suffers survivor’s guilt:
Inaccurate survivor’s guilt. A good therapist will tell you that’s all survivor’s guilt. Nah. Some people earn their seat at Noir Happy Hour. The paid leave, less so.
Supergirl, broken by secondhand false grief, announces her retirement. She’s a teenage immortal, so it’s unclear how she’ll spend eternity. But without Steve, the good fight’s over.
So it goes.
Hopefully the chain reaction stops here. If Superman gives up because Supergirl gave up because Steve gave up, this’ll be history’s darkest DUI. Does LexCorp have a brewery?
Clark suggests an alternative.
I’m in.
No, really. I’ll always indulge the Fortress of Plot. There’s a whiff of metafiction to Superman hoarding unsorted cancer cures. Think of all the bullshit you accrue in one mortal year. I’ll go to hell with half my games unplayed, half my books unread, and all my nudes set free. Superman chucks Excalibur onto The Pile and promises to try pulling later.
That said, I came fully loaded to mock this plan. But I don’t have a better one. Kara’s 19 with a braindead boyfriend. Not joining a cult’s a win. We almost got a preview of her stint as Apokalips’ bouncer.
In fact, I’d point the alien armory at trifles. Why stand in line? Everyone between me and a blueberry bagel can hang with Zod. And everyone glaring when I add bacon cheddar cream cheese. Phantom Zone. With lox. Phantom Zone! You think I can’t feel your hate? You think I don’t know?! Phantom Zone for you ALL.
Media’s crazy. If this panel didn’t exist, I’d still assume the Inception Booth worked that way. It’s an unquestioned rule in my head. Don’t point guns at yourself, try not to die in the dream machine, and stay far away from your parents during time travel. Unless you want hemophilia.
Supergirl enters the cleanest teen psyche on Earth. Maybe that’s Steve’s appeal: it should be a horrorshow. Instead, he imagines life as a title character. A ronin of the wasteland. A hero of the people, with goggles no one laughs at.
A hero still holding the line against seatbelts. This might be art.
It’s art.
In Steve’s defense, this is essentially his afterlife. Imagine getting infotainment after a lifetime of theater toil. I’d be murderous, if I weren’t clearly in hell for t-boning an innocent drunk driver.
While the kids enter a torture loop, Clark supervises.
What the fucking what? Darkling get off your ass, stop the ten ongoing genocides, and then help Kara. At least Batman’s downtown when Robins explode. Superman would empathize from a lawn chair.
Honestly, this is where Evil Superman riffs fall short. Sure, there’s money in genocidal Superman, pervert Superman, or whatever Snyder tried. But consider TV binge Superman. Week-long lunch break Superman. “My train was late” Superman. A Kal-El knockoff whose adventures are League of Legends, a nap, DOTA 2 (he plays both, for peace), and posting “Luthor’s out of control,” on LexChat.
After all, isn’t your only real beef with Superman that he wasn’t there for you?
The torture-loop loads the next level, wherein Steve’s a whipless Indiana Jones. Whips resemble buckles, and Steve’s faith is strong. He can’t reach a higher plane if he’s tied to this one.
I’m torn. This scene has a sane, correct point. It’s also arguing against no one. The standard line against seat belts isn’t “the road is made of marshmallows.” It’s “fuck off.” This is the first PSA to need a dumber, ruder strawman. Steve should’ve been melted for saying “kiss my human ass” four too many times. But that’s a different PSA.
Scratch that. Forget the PSA we could read. We have Supergirl vs. Final Destination.
Where did the latest truck come from? Look inside. There’s a light untouched by hate, pain, or my usual tone. An unmarred seed of joy. That’s where Steve’s trucks come from. Santa might be driving.
Fighting death would be easier. DC death’s punchable, just faster than Mayweather. Instead, Kara’s trying to make her boyfriend smarter. That’s beyond Supergirl. Based on Milton, that’s beyond God.
The deathloop shifts to crime noir, a lane with more pastiches than entries. Meet detective Steve. He’s doing alright, if you ignore the dying.
It’s hard to read. Guilt’s eating him alive.
He trips over Chandler prose for a spell before returning to his muse: speeding. Steve never wakes up without a plan. Mornings are for hitting on aliens, and the rest is introducing cars to walls.
So far, Honda’s taught me to change for no one. Steve’s partying across hell. Or, I daresay, moron Valhalla. Pleas from his sister, space girlfriend, and dying brain bounce off him. He’s free. And like all free creatures, he gives it away on a whim.
Just in time for his afternoon death.
The collision’s for show/hilarity. Clipping the holy belt wakes Steve up. Forget all that shit about guilt, we’re all about adherence. Steve needed to get with the program. Kara, naturally, is relieved by her new Save/Death ratio.
Honda’s done, so I’ll fill in the denouement. Kara thanks God for saving Steve. While flattered, Superman admits Kara did all the work. All of it. With Steve’s one trait fully tamed, Kara dumps him for a flying centaur.
Take it or leave it. Either way, we never see Steve again. And Supergirl dies a year later.
Good times. Yet I don’t feel 100% safety-washed yet.
Guess that’s all. Fun recap, everyone. I hope you enjoyed the lighter mood: next week we’re sprinting beyond hell.
P-pretty strong. I have a thriving, intact shoulder.
Alright, I was wrong about Kryptonian PSAs. “Do you even lift planets?” is a golden public safety angle. Megalomania goes down smoother than pretending Supergirl fears anything that’s not green or bald. Sure, you might feel insulted. But does the Department of Transportation really give a shit? They’re just here to stop you from becoming roadkill.
My bad, Supergirl doesn’t think you’re a pussy. She thinks you’re a slow pussy.
This approach makes me grin like a balanced person. If anything, this section’s too soft. Lean in to Galadriel mocking hobbits. “Can you melt trucks? How many gods have you maimed? If we high-fived, would anything be left to bury?” It writes itself.
Deathloops are fun, but I really wanted you to know Supergirl thinks you’re a bitch. And cares. Wear a seatbelt, or watch your glass bones shatter.
DC’s taken on a few other causes over the years.
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme:Alex Knollenberg, who never wraps the cord to the blinds around his neck since that very special issue of Spider-Man with Gwen Stacy.
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