Original subtitles

(pensive music)

[Narrator] Struggling artists Peter Laird

and Kevin Eastman,

dream of having a hit comic book of their own.

They're staying up late at night

and they're kind of one-upping each other

with their drawings.

Eastman wanted to do something just to make Peter laugh.

(inspiring music)

(paper rustling)

Pete, what do you think?

It could be a pretty deadly assassin, if you ask me.

- (Pete chuckling) - Let me see that.

[Narrator] What starts as a joke

will one day become a $17 billion multimedia franchise

and include a revolutionary toy line

that jump-starts a flatlining action figure market.

Could put a toy turtle in the hand

of every kid in America, right?

For any toy line to reach a billion dollars, at that time,

that was pretty rare.

(upbeat music)

In 1990, Target sold more Turtle figures

than Snickers bars.

[Narrator] But the "Ninja Turtles'" kung fu grip

on the industry is challenged.

Exactamundo, dude.

[Narrator] When a new sensation

kicks them to the curb.

"Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" action figures

go from being a sought-after toy...

What do you mean we don't have enough toys for Christmas?

To a cultural phenomenon.

There's no precedent

for how many "Power Rangers" toys sold.

[Narrator] Together, they'll give rise

to a new kind of hero.

These two created a market for martial-art toys.

Well, what do you think?

There's never been anybody who's been able to stand up

and defeat the power of the "Power Rangers"

and the "Ninja Turtles."

[Kevin] Let me finish it.

[Narrator] But for now, Eastman and Laird have no idea

of the gold mine they're sitting on.

- [Kevin] Ninja Turtles. - (laughing)

[Pete] Yeah.

(dramatic music)

(fighter shouting)

[Narrator] By the early 1980s,

martial-arts films are gaining popularity in the US,

thanks in part to late night TV.

In the '70s, TV stations started finding

some of these old movies

that they could just leave running overnight

and so they would use things like monster movies

and kung fu movies. (fighter shouting)

You began finding Bruce Lee movies on television

and then all of the Chuck Norris movies.

[Narrator] But despite Hollywood's success,

the toy market can't seem to get any momentum.

The attempts to bring martial-arts toys to the market

had largely floundered.

Aurora had their "Kar-aa-ate Man"

and "Big Jim" had his kung fu academy,

but it was still a market that was kind of ripe

if you could find the right property to apply to that.

(pensive music)

[Narrator] For comic illustrators Eastman and Laird,

making toys is the last thing on their minds.

Laird was about 10 years older than Eastman

and they're these two guys who love drawing comics.

They were working on a character called Fugitoid,

trying to get that off as a comic book,

and they got a lot of rejections back.

So they were kind of, you know, down in the dumps.

They're passing drawings back and forth

just trying to make each other laugh

and Kevin Eastman draws a picture of a turtle

standing upright with nunchucks.

Pete, what do you think?

(chuckles) There's something wrong with you.

(both laughing)

Peter decided he'd take a crack at it,

so he drew kind of a slightly different turtle.

And Eastman wrote at the top, "Ninja Turtles."

[Pete] (laughs) Yeah.

Laird adds "Teenage Mutant."

- Whoa! - (both laughing)

The slowest animal on earth

being a sort of martial arts expert, that's just funny.

Eastman and Laird start to think that,

hey, maybe we got something here.

That's when Kevin Eastman was like,

"You know what, one's great,

but how about four, we make a team?"

[Eastman] What, what do we call 'em?

They just kinda looked around the apartment

to see what they had,

and they found an art book

that mentioned Renaissance painters.

When you're creating martial artist turtles,

you're already saying traditional rules don't apply.

Ghirlandaio?

Looks like a Michelangelo.

[Eastman] What about,

what about something like Leonardo?

And from there, they were able to extract the four names

that became the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,"

Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Donatello.

They start to create a world building

around the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."

And it takes a while to make a comic book.

You've gotta plot it out,

you've gotta write it, you've gotta draw it.

The "Ninja Turtles" origins are this radioactive canister

hit a jar of turtles that this kid was carrying

and they all spilled down into the sewers

and mutagen mutated them.

[Narrator] Then, they give their teenage turtles

a supporting cast.

Splinter is this rat

who also is affected by this radioactive ooze

that creates the Ninja Turtles,

and he develops this crew into what they become.

In May of 1984, they completed the comic

and they were self-publishing.

With maxed out credit cards

and a loan from Peter Laird's uncle,

they were able to publish.

The comic books were extremely violent,

geared toward an audience just like them,

indie, alternative, college kids.

And only 3,000 copies were made

and it's sold on the Comics Buyer's Guide.

[Narrator] But their timing couldn't be more perfect.

(upbeat music)

In June of 1984, a movie comes out

called "The Karate Kid,"

and there was a lot of hype around that movie

and it was just a phenomenon.

We started to see people

really wanting to get into martial arts.

"The Karate Kid" was the unlikely hero,

the relatable underdog.

That's who we wanted, that's who we rooted for.

What kid didn't watch that movie

and start doing crane kicks in his kitchen?

(pensive music)

They sold out of all 3,000 copies

and that's when distributors started to notice, like,

"Hey, let's reprint that one,

and then we want this many copies of issue two."

So now, they're off to the races.

Now they've got a property

and they have to continue the story.

[Narrator] Meanwhile, halfway around the world,

a cartoon theme song composer

is looking for the next chapter in his story.

Haim Saban is a very creative person.

He was a musician in Israel

and then came over to the United States

and continued to do music

for lots of different animated programs

like "Inspector Gadget" and the "Masters of the Universe."

In the early '80s,

he starts looking to start establishing his own

intellectual properties as well.

He's working in Japan at the time,

feeling a little bit burned out,

not really sure what his next move is,

and on the TV he sees "Super Sentai Bioman."

Well, this is kind of a revelation for him.

"Super Sentai" is this long-running Japanese series

in which these superheroes are fighting these wild monsters.

This is just an acid trip action adventure.

It's fantastical martial arts, huge monsters,

just this revolutionary thing

that really didn't exist in the US at the time.

By the time Saban sees "Bioman" in 1984,

that's already the eighth iteration of "Super Sentai."

(actor speaking Japanese)

Not only is there a TV show here that's already been made,

but there's already a toy line.

Someone else has already done all the hard work.

[Natalia] Saban realizes that

there might be an appetite for this

in the kids media marketplace in the United States.

So he thinks to himself,

"Well, maybe this is my next step.

This could be a big thing if I bring it to America."

[Narrator] As Saban gets started,

(upbeat music)

there's no stopping the "Ninja Turtles."

Over the next two years,

Eastman and Laird publish seven issues.

And it becomes this big cult sensation.

Selling in the hundreds of thousands,

which, for an independent comic, is unheard of.

[Narrator] Their success catches the eye

- of a licensing agent - (knocking)

hungry for a new opportunity.

- Hi. - Oh, hey, we're through here.

Mark Freedman is a high-energy guy

who really has a thorough understanding of the business.

He was doing some work for "Hanna-Barbera" at the time,

licensing out some of their properties.

But at this point in his career,

he's sick of making everyone else money

and he wants to make a little bit of that money for himself.

He created his own company called Surge Licensing,

and his family's putting pressure on him

to really get something going.

Mark Freedman, we spoke on the phone.

Yeah, you're the guy who said he could put a toy turtle

in the hand of every kid in America, right?

I said every kid in the world,

but we'll start with America.

Mark had the original vision

of turtles being a much bigger, better thing.

He sees something there, something special.

It's got a humor to it,

characters that are appealing and relatable and fun.

What Freedman did is he actually went

to Eastman and Laird and said, "I wanna license your property."

A licensing deal basically allows you

to use an existing intellectual property for profit,

and you give a portion of your profits

back to the original creator.

Well, what do you think?

We'll think about it.

Eastman and Laird had seen some other independent guys

that kinda got taken advantage of,

and so they were really leery to license stuff out.

[Mark] Thank you so much for your time.

- Thank you. - Take care.

[Narrator] Ultimately, a few weeks later,

Eastman and Laird agree to license their comic to Freedman

under one condition.

(tense music)

Let's see if this guy is really worth it.

We're gonna give him 30 days to try to pull this off,

which is next to impossible.

Mark Freedman's under a huge amount of financial pressure,

but he thinks he's got something special on his hands,

something that could really hit.

So he took it to all the big players and they all said no.

The action figure category was at a low point.

That hook won't stop He-Man.

A lot of the bestselling lines, such as "Masters,"

were on the decline.

Everybody just looked at it and thought,

"What the heck? What is this?

How could this possibly be popular?"

[Daniel] So you just kinda lick your wounds

and move on to the next company.

You really can't fault companies

for passing on these violent, mutant turtles.

It really seems like a wild, farfetched concept.

[Narrator] With only three days to go,

Freedman is down to his last option.

(tense music)

It was an absurd idea

to just think you're going to get that deal in one month.

One of his friends had just started

at a company called Playmates,

but Playmates was not in the boys action world.

It wasn't something that you would think,

"Well, that's a great fit."

When he finally reaches out to his friend,

he's burned several weeks of his month.

Richard Sallis, please.

[Daniel] This is his Hail Mary.

[Narrator] With time running out to make

a "Ninja Turtles" deal, Mark Freedman is betting it all

on a company that's never made an action figure.

Playmates was founded in the '60s

and manufactured a lot of dolls.

"Cricket," which was an animatronic interactive doll,

followed up by "Jill",

and then we were looking for a new opportunity.

Playmates Toys,

this is actually a Hong Kong-based company.

They've got a division in the US,

they wanna start getting into the boys toys market.

Richard Sallis felt like this would be a great fit

for where the company wanted to go,

even though, quite frankly, none of us,

other than Richard, knew anything about action figures.

Richard's a quiet guy behind the scenes, but he's smart.

He knows what he sees and he knows what he likes.

Confident in their potential,

Sallis inks a deal to bring the turtles to toy shelves.

They pay $150,000.

Definitely not what Mark Freedman had been hoping for,

but more than Eastman and Laird

ever thought that they would get.

And at that time, Eastman and Laird are very much focused

on keeping the comic going,

because that's all they know is the guarantee.

[Narrator] Now, Playmates needs to figure out

how to turn the turtles into toys.

The first big challenge was to translate a comic book

that did skew older to a younger audience.

The comic book was dark, it was violent, it was, you know,

it was set in New York, it's gritty.

We still make toys for kids, right?

We do, so make 'em kid friendly,

but still cool.

A lot of the people at Playmates

don't see what Richard Sallis sees.

They think he might've made a huge mistake here.

Sallis, his entire career is at stake.

These turtles are gonna be great.

[Austin] He knows Freedman and he trusts him.

However, he's putting it all on the line.

[Narrator] While Sallis takes a huge gamble,

(tense music)

Haim Saban places his bet on a groundbreaking concept.

He decides, aha, the martial arts scenes

are super complex, super expensive to film.

I'll keep those as they are.

I'll just recast the rest of it

with good-looking American actors.

This is revolutionary.

No one's seen this in the States.

He can take all of this footage from Japan

and make an American kids' TV show

for less than half the cost.

It's pretty crazy.

The show is already made, the toys are already there.

That makes it so economical for importing it to the US.

[Narrator] Saban uses his contacts in Japan

to get a meeting with Toei and Bandai,

the companies who co-produce "Super Sentai" and its toys.

Saban said, "I want your old toys and your programming

in perpetuity."

They had to assume this guy is crazy.

I'm quite sure Toei believed

there's no way this is going to work.

Japan is more concerned about their sales in Japan.

If he thinks he can pull it off,

then they're willing to cash the checks.

[Narrator] With a license from Toei and Bandai secured,

all Saban needs now is to convince a US network to buy in.

(tense music)

Meanwhile, back in the US,

the Playmates' designers are stuck in neutral.

Struggling just to find the overall voice

of what this is gonna be,

just how far we're gonna deviate from the comic designs.

This is not just about taking a two-dimensional comic book

and turning it into a three-dimensional figure.

You gotta figure out how the kids are gonna play with it.

How do you want them to look?

What are their features?

The first thing we had to do

was understand that we could differentiate them.

It was a black and white comic,

and you could only tell them apart

by what weapons they were holding.

You've gotta make these four guys different

and as different as you possibly can.

[Narrator] But the heroes aren't the only problem.

There's always a challenge with your villains

because, inherently, they're not as popular as the heroes.

And one of our big problems was that the turtles only had

two real bad guys, Shredder and The Foot,

and all The Foot looked the same.

They're having to develop new villains for them.

Let's just take people that lived in New York City,

a plumber, a chef, firefighter, and let 'em turn bad.

And we developed a lot of funny characters.

We had a guy that had a double-barrel snot gun,

it was plugged into his nose.

We had a guy named Mr. Badwrench

that had a a twirling wrench,

but it was a little too close to home.

They had to keep going back to the drawing board

to make these violent toys somehow kid-friendly,

and that was a challenge.

We were getting a lot of frustrated notes

because no one felt like

we were necessarily going the right direction.

This isn't it.

Hong Kong is not approving a lot of things,

they have notes they're sending back.

Eastman and Laird are looking at things,

they're trying to figure out if they like the tone,

they're sending notes back.

[Narrator] Making matters worse,

time is not on their side.

One of the milestones that they really want to try and hit

is to make sure they have some kind of product to show

at Toy Fair, which is February in 1988.

How soon can we start cutting the molds?

With these changes, not until after Christmas.

Playmates want these toys on the shelves in 15 months,

and that means the molds have to be ready in 10 months.

Producing a toy, no matter

if you're producing it in 1984, 1994, 2024,

time works the same way,

and you don't have enough of it.

They're taking this story 180 degrees

from where it begins.

He's gotta budget a lot of money towards this.

He's gotta, you know, bring his team along

to understand his vision.

This is an enormous professional risk for Sallis.

(pensive music)

(tense music)

[Narrator] After securing the rights

to the "Super Sentai" TV show

and shooting new scenes with American actors,

Haim Saban is finally ready to pitch it

to a major US network.

I know you guys are gonna love this new idea that I've got.

It's got martial arts, monsters, giant robots,

everything that a kid could want,

and it comes with great toys.

The meeting was in a nice boardroom,

there's guys with suits on.

Saban does his salesmanship, which he's great at.

Yeah, watch.

(suspenseful music)

Seeing that for the first time,

it probably looks really low budget and cheesy

to someone he's trying to sell it to, right?

'Cause they basically just overdubbed it and cut it up.

It was campy, it was a little bit corny,

but that was the charm.

They watch it with just blank stares.

They have no idea how to absorb this,

they don't know what it is.

(suspenseful music)

[Executive] It's not for us.

And they tell him no.

Well, thank you for your time.

They just weren't seeing that same kind of future

that he could see in this show and with these toys.

It's gotta be really stressful and frustrating

to see the vision and no one's buying into it.

You know you could knock it out of the park

if anyone would just give you a chance.

Because he believes in this property,

Saban keeps paying this licensing fee year after year.

[Narrator] As more networks continue to tune Saban out,

(pensive music)

Sallis and Freedman tune in to a new opportunity.

Mark Freedman and Richard Sallis,

looking at these initial designs,

realize that this is not gonna get off the ground

without a cartoon to basically be a commercial for the toys.

♪ Transformers

Cartoons and toy lines

were kind of just interchangeable in the '80s.

[Announcer] All the vehicles and planes.

"Transformers," "G.I. Joe" reboot, "GoBots,"

all of these are linked to cartoons,

and that's what sells toys.

Can't move units without a toy-based cartoon in the 1980s.

It was deemed essential to have that animated series.

And Playmates Hong Kong agreed to give him $1.5 million

to go create an animated series

for the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."

They have six months to put together this cartoon

and really build out the world for kids

and get them excited.

[Narrator] The cartoon has another crucial upside.

Cartoon was very important in establishing to the kids

who these turtles were and their personalities,

give voice to them.

I think that helps Playmates start to make things

more fun and more light.

That's it, look how bright it is and it's fun, right?

This is the point where the turtles

really start to take shape.

And let's see if you can prepare

something new today by 2:00.

Secret sauce and the unique element was the humor,

and we brought it to life in various ways.

So they give them these laid-back surfer dude attitudes

and personalities.

Playmates leans more into that teenage aspect.

They love pizza

and they're gonna do a lot of skateboarding, you know?

Things teenagers love.

(upbeat music)

But they need to be color-coded,

that's how we can tell them apart.

Donatello had the purple bandana,

Raphael had red,

Michelangelo, or "Mikey," had orange.

And Leonardo had blue.

Exactamundo, dude.

[Narrator] Designers also looked to the cartoon

for ideas on how to bring the villains to life.

We were looking at the show,

so we thought let's go into the zoo

and mutate some other characters.

And so for whatever reason, we picked a rhinoceros

and a warthog.

We tried to strike the balance of,

this character has to look menacing, edgy,

look like a threat if it's a villain.

So you try to make them

so that clearly they lead to great conflict

with your heroes,

but they're also hilarious as personalities.

It's good work.

[Narrator] Finally on the right track with their designs,

they're ready to start sculpting.

In those days, before the advent of digital,

you'd start off with a wire armature.

You'd then put clay around that,

starting to get the body proportions down.

Let's see what we can do

in changing the head frame around like that.

There you go.

You then would mold an output in wax,

where the sculptor could start putting in all those details.

The facial expressions, veins,

battle scars on the shells that would be noticed by kids

as they played with it.

They feel more confident in the direction of design,

but now they've got four months,

and it just doesn't feel like it's doable on that timeline.

I had doubts that we could get it done

with all of the details that had to be accomplished.

The first five episodes of the turtles' TV show

came out Christmas 1987,

and we were all on pins and needles

because for turtles to have any future,

as a TV show or as a toy line, it needed to work.

It's released in syndication,

which means that it's not on the same channel

everywhere in the country.

It wasn't blockbuster,

but it was good enough for the stations to re-run it.

[Narrator] As the cartoon struggles to break through,

the toys debut at Toy Fair, ready or not.

Playmates has already sunk over $2 million

in the development of both the property

and the animated series,

and Toy Fair '88 is kind of a disaster.

They don't have a lot of prototypes to show.

The response was lukewarm at best.

There were a couple guys who showed interest,

and there were others that said,

"Just stick to dolls and preschool.

Why are you bothering?"

How are the sales going?

Well, we finally got one, Toys R Us,

but they only want 6,000 units.

[Narrator] With so much money already invested,

Richard Sallis needs a miracle to turn a profit.

The future of Playmates Toys is on the line.

They are sinking millions of dollars

into "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."

If they fail, they could tank the company.

[Narrator] With their deadline weeks away,

the Playmates sales team struggles to hook retailers,

while the design team rushes to finish

the "Ninja Turtles" toys.

The entire time that we were getting ready

to launch the turtles, I felt the pressure.

We might go back and forth a dozen times

reviewing the sculpting.

There were thousands of decisions,

thousands of drawings,

thousands of notes to make this product line happen.

And then Kevin and Peter bless it,

then we would mold an output in resin,

and that's the character you would send over to Asia

to start cutting steel.

(intense music)

The "Ninja Turtles" finally came out in June of 1988.

The original line was actually quite compact.

It consisted of the four turtles,

April O'Neil and Splinter.

Bad guys were Shredder, The Foot,

Bebop, the warthog,

and Rocksteady, the rhino.

Well, when Turtles first came out,

the action figure category was at a low point.

The ironic part is that's usually the best time to get in

with a new brand, and that's what happened.

They blew through those 6,000 units in no time

and Toys R Us requested another 50,000.

But you can't just wave a magic wand

and those next 50,000 appear.

July 1988.

Going and seeing those empty shelves,

from there, we just played catch up.

People are calling Playmates, they're calling Toys R Us,

they're calling other stores that didn't carry them

to ask for them.

It's a big hoopla that Playmates is having to deal with

while they're trying to get more product on store shelves.

[Narrator] While Playmates rushes to fill empty shelves,

Saban is still empty handed.

He schlepped that "Bioman" pilot tape all over town

to every network possible.

You're trying to pitch this show

and everyone's like, "Yeah, I don't think so.

Yeah, I don't like it."

It was almost an impossible task.

He's told no over and over and over again,

but he keeps going.

And the only way you get something made

is to forget about the no's and keep pressing for the yes.

[Narrator] While the noes keep piling up for Saban,

Playmates tries to keep up with demand.

There was nothing like the turtles at the time.

It's a perfect mix of action and absurdity

that's really resonating with kids.

It's not just whether or not your kid likes a toy,

it's whether or not they have to have it.

We sold roughly 30-something million dollars in 1988,

and then it went up to 140-something million

the next year.

That third year was the peak year,

that's when it was $570 million just in the US.

(intense hip hop music)

[Narrator] On the heels of the toy line's success,

Freedman looks for even more opportunities.

We're starting to see lunchboxes and the bedsheets

and you know, just everything that goes with licensing

a property like this.

Ninja Turtles were everywhere.

It hit you from every angle.

It was just this onslaught of, like, everything turtles

at the same time.

Freedman thinks a live action movie is the next step.

Playmates is a lot more hesitant about that,

but he moves ahead, he gets funding and he makes this movie.

Playmates only has a stake in toy sales.

They have nothing to do with the movie.

Obviously, they're really concerned.

What if this movie fails?

What does it do to our toy sales?

They have to trust that Freedman knows what he's doing.

Mark talked to a number of people

and eventually ended up working with Golden Harvest,

who did a lot of kung fu movies.

The Jim Henson Creatures Shop signs on to do the costumes

for the turtles.

Mark shows it to Playmates,

and there's a screening

that people are just walking out of shaking their heads.

They don't understand, they think it's too goofy.

They think that this might be the thing

that takes down the turtle empire.

(tense music)

The Turtle movie comes out in 1990.

We didn't know what to expect.

We were hiding under our sheets

thinking that it was gonna be a disaster,

but it does gangbusters.

(triumphant music)

I don't think a lot of people thought the live action

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie

was gonna do as well as it did,

but it was sort of gritty and goofy all at the same time

and kids loved it.

It became a huge cult classic.

It was the fourth highest grossing film that year

at 200 million.

Yo, Shredder got killed towards the middle of the movie.

It was just exciting.

[Narrator] The movie's success also benefits someone else.

(tense music)

Haim Saban is finally able to point to this other success.

Clearly, this is something that kids want,

that combination of goofy humor and martial arts.

Let's watch it.

Saban is looking for another person to pitch this idea to.

In 1990, Margaret Loesch ends up at Fox Kids.

Wait, I know this.

(pensive music)

She knows "Super Sentai."

She was the former CEO of Marvel Productions

and she herself had tried pitching it

with Stan Lee in the '70s!

So when Saban said, "This is my pitch,"

she already was on board that this is a great idea.

She's really excited by the fact that

there's already a lot shot,

there's already a toy tie-in.

She's like, "I'll take it."

That's great.

One little wrinkle is that Margaret makes this promise

without actually talking to her bosses about it.

(tense music)

So, what do you think?

The upper management hates it, absolutely hates it.

Executives were very cautious.

This is a live-action show, it's untested waters.

[Margaret] If it bombs, it's on me.

There hadn't been a lot of live-action adventure shows

targeted to kids.

It's a big risk.

Who knows if it'll really take off with American children?

Margaret Loesch may believe in the idea,

she may believe in Saban,

but if this is a flop, Margaret Loesch is out of a job.

[Narrator] After eight years of rejection,

Haim Saban finally gets the green light

for his "Super Sentai" show,

but there's a lot at stake for Margaret Loesch.

If you're the executive who green lights something wild

and out of the box and it's a hit,

you're a visionary.

But if you're the one who takes a gamble and it fails,

heads have to roll.

Saban's fortunes are on the line,

Margaret Loesch's job and reputation are on the line,

all through this television property

that everyone has decried as too violent, it's too hokey.

[Narrator] And to give them a fighting chance,

they'll need a new name.

Saban goes back to Bandai for a little bit of help

translating the original title.

Not every word has a direct one-to-one translation,

there's nuance and subtlety.

So for "Super Sentai," they come up with "Power Rangers."

(dramatic music)

They think this is good, but it's not enough.

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" was the king of the hill,

and that came out to four names.

So they just keep playing around with that

until we get "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers."

[Narrator] Now, all Saban needs to do

is turn the "Super Sentai" toys

into "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers."

One element that was very integral

to Saban's plan with "Power Rangers"

was this working relationship with Bandai America

to keep producing these toys

and to get those toys on shelves.

And for a small company, at the time, it was a big step.

Bandai America was doing $4 million a year

in terms of annual sales.

They were in need to find a big hit.

For comparison, Hasbro and Mattel

are generating $2 billion each.

It's a goldfish versus two blue whales.

It was like, either we're gonna succeed at this

or Bandai America may not exist.

(tense music)

One easy way to save money on toys

is just to use one mold as much as possible.

They're all going to be from the male molds.

Saban recognizes that there's some risk involved,

but he's gotta get this out to market.

Paint one pink, paint one yellow, those are the girls now.

(tense music)

In the US market at this point,

there's sort of an established 3 3/4 inch scale.

In Japan, those are gonna be in a larger scale.

The eight-inch action figure,

something that's gonna stand out on the marketplace immediately.

When you have an eight-inch toy,

it seems like something that you're supposed to love.

They weren't things that would go out and do missions.

[Narrator] And their unconventional size

makes repackaging them a challenge.

Also, the toy packaging was your standard rectangle.

It was either a blister card that you hung on a wall

or a box that you put on a shelf.

We set out to come up with something

that would make this toy stand out

and show that it's different, it's something special.

We kind of sketched out this idea of a triangle box.

(suspenseful music)

Just because it allowed you to be a little closer to the toy

because of the angles of it, and it's also very different.

How are we going to give some distinction on the shelf?

And that was when we came up with the lightning bolt,

which was emblematic of the transformational energy

of the "Power Rangers."

That lightning bolt became the keystone element

on the packaging.

[Bob] The "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" logo

wraps nicely over the triangle shape.

That lightning bolt is right at the apex of that triangle,

which really kind of captured

the power of the "Power Rangers."

[Narrator] Finally, after almost a decade of hustling,

on August 28th, 1993,

(intense music)

Saban's "Power Rangers" hits the air.

It was live action

and they mashed up the American elements

with the Japanese elements,

and we thought it was kind of bat-(bleep) crazy.

It hits the airwaves early Saturday mornings

and it's a phenomenon.

It takes the world by storm.

In the first weekend, the Nielsen ratings were coming in

and people are doubting the numbers

'cause they're that good.

And Nielsen is charged with,

you need to recheck these numbers 'cause this,

this cannot be right.

It's gotta be amazing for Margaret Loesch.

She's sitting in a room

feeling awfully good about herself,

and she has every reason to be.

The show initially debuts at 7:30 AM on Fox Kids,

and it's so popular

it's quickly moved to the 3:00 PM time slot.

Oprah was queen of that time slot in the afternoon.

I mean, absolutely no one could touch her.

By October, the "Power Rangers" surpassed Oprah.

(intense music)

There's a "Power Ranger" for every kid.

There are young people that look like them

who are dealing with the same problems

that they're dealing with, and that's hugely powerful.

[Narrator] Fans can't get enough

and the show makes the toys the hottest ticket in town.

Bandai America releases 50 different product tiles

and you can't find them anywhere.

They are sold out instantly, everywhere.

(scanner beeping)

And the demand for them in 1993

was making headlines alongside a tsunami in Japan,

bombings of the World Trade Center,

and primetime news is covering

how parents can't get the Red Ranger action figure.

(upbeat music)

I had never seen pandemonium for a toy

the way I saw it with Power Rangers.

Kids went berserk.

[Child] I want one!

It was a phenomenon I have not seen since

and that's the honest truth, it's crazy.

There were riots,

there were people waiting in parking lots,

there were people bribing employees.

To watch it from the outside, (chuckles)

It was kind of incredible to see.

Bandai America does not have enough toys to put on shelves

and Christmas is around the corner.

(pensive music)

(tense music)

What do you mean we don't have enough toys for Christmas?

Saban is like, "We sold too many?

How is that possible?

How can you sell too many?"

We're two months away from Christmas

and now, you have people lining up

at five o'clock in the morning at Toys R Us

waiting for the "Power Ranger" shipment to come in.

The appetite for these "Power Rangers" toys is so intense

that people are fighting.

It's kind of reminiscent of the "Cabbage Patch" riots

almost a decade earlier.

Steven Spielberg called our offices

because his son was turning eight years old

and he needed a white ranger,

which was very hard to come by.

It's so unprecedented that they had to go to a step

of issuing an apology.

(intense music)

Bandai America produced an astounding 4 million toys

and it still wasn't enough.

They opened up 11 new factories

just to keep up with the demand for "Power Ranger" toys.

And that still was not enough to fulfill the appetite.

(intense music)

Christmas '94 was even more disastrous

because by this point,

production of the toys has increased,

but so has demand.

You could go into stores that would have

Japanese box "Power Ranger" toys,

because they couldn't buy the American ones to sell,

but they could find the Japanese ones.

By 1994, they have 40% of action figure sales.

That's astounding.

[Narrator] In its first three years,

"Power Rangers" generates over $1 billion in sales,

taking a big chunk out of "Ninja Turtles" profits

in the process.

By 1996, the "Ninja Turtles" franchise

was at its lowest point since it had been created.

"Power Rangers" was the dominant children's franchise

on television.

The animated series had been canceled.

The toy line was winding down after over 300 figures.

It lasted a good nine years.

I think one of the biggest issues

is that the TV show did kind of stick to their formula.

It felt like you were watching the same episode.

(pensive music)

[Saban] Gentlemen.

So in 1997, the turtles are not doing so well.

The "Power Rangers" are still doing amazing.

So, what do you say we bring these turtles

- back to life, huh? - Yeah.

And Saban decides he wants to revitalize

the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."

- They come up with "Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation,"

which is a live-action show,

very much in the vein of "Power Rangers."

- It's a fresh start. - Brand new character.

They introduce a fifth turtle,

a female turtle named Venus de Milo.

It feels a lot more like "Power Rangers"

than "Ninja Turtles" and it did not succeed.

It only lasted one season.

It needed a rest,

especially when you have something that burned so hot

that it really needed to take some time off.

[Narrator] A few years later,

the turtles are revived for a new generation

and are still going strong today.

"Ninja Turtles" found great success

in finding new iterations and versions of the turtles

to make you want to keep buying them.

When you're looking at how profitable this was,

to think, in the first four years, they got to $1.1 billion.

For any toy line to reach a billion dollars at that time,

that was pretty rare.

It's been 35 years and "Ninja Turtles"

still has a major place in the culture,

the comics, movies, action figures everywhere.

- It's morphin' time! - Yeah!

Yeah!

The "Power Rangers" has basically become

yet another evergreen property, like "Hot Wheels,"

like "Barbie,"

the thing that toy manufactures can only dream of.

(upbeat music)

The legacy that Saban has made

with bringing "Power Rangers" to American audience

is stick to your guns.

He never gave up on it

and we have that now as part of American culture.

The "Power Rangers" brand is a multi-billion dollar brand

at this point in time.

These two shows created a market for martial-art toys.

Turtles started that fire

and "Power Rangers" just dumped gasoline on it.

There's never been anybody who's been able to stand up

and defeat the power of the "Power Rangers"

and the "Ninja Turtles."