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Cast | Crew | Fast Facts | Fandom | Behind The Scenes Story The Power Rangers televison show developed a huge following in its early years. MMPR mania began just as the internet had become to spread itself throughout many of world's homes. A small yet loyal number of PR fans would use the web to showcase their enthasiam for the show. Over the years the online fandom grew. Many of its members lasting for longer then the shows target demo. In the past few years the Morphicon fan convention was created. A major milestone in the history of the fandom. Rangerboard.com remains the number 1 gathering site for Power Rangers fans/ Power Rangers Central remains the number 1 fan site. The fandom itself has a rich history. The very first Power Rangers website is thought to be Arnie's Olson's site. It was put up in the early ninites. It was more of a joke page. And featured pictures of the MMPR Rangers. It didn't really cover the series in detail. But remains up to this day. The first major website to
emerge was the Morphing Grid. Manny Perz saw that there were no
real Power Rangers fan sites on the web. So he set out to create the
Morphing Grid. Which was a database for the series. In containued
summeries of all the seasons and character information. For its time it
was the majur hub in the fandom. Saban Entertianment once tried to get
the site shut down. The internet was still young and fan sites were a
new phenomon. But thats to the efforts of Terri Ann the Morphing Grid
was allowed to stay open. Provided Manny made a disclaimer saying
that it was a fan site with no affilation with the Saban Entertianment.
The website itself remained current to around 1996 Updates stopped near
the beginning of Turbo. The site itself would remain up until 2000,
when the webserver it was on finally took it down.
The Power Rangers Newsgroup became a major gathering place for Power
Rangers fans in the old days,. Anyone with Aol had easy access to it.
It predated the modern age message boards. The Usenet technology was
slower but effective for its time The newsgroup would remain a
major player until 2000. When the slow shift to maessage boards began
to take its toll. The newsgroup remained but interest slowly
declined.AOL eventually closed all access to Usenet groups. Which
really dealt a crushing blow to the group, But by that time the era of
the message boards made it pretty obselete.
A lot of Power Rangers websites of these years were on free website
building sites. Geocities was a popular place to build a site. These
sites tended to be less graphically pleasing but rich with content.
In 1996, Ray Calderon ( a contributier at the Newsgroup) at the time
opened a site called The Power Rangers Zeo Page. The site was a
success, so he crated a Turbo Page the next year. And then a Space Page
the following one. Eventually Ray combined his three sites and added
information for the first three seasons of MMPR. Ray named the
website Power Rangers Central. The site was rich with information on
eash seasons and its characters. PRC also had an episode and toy
guide. Power Rangers Central would become a hugely popular site. In
1999 Ray bought a domain name, rangercentral.com and moved the site
onto a paying webhost. The PRC's guestbook had begin to grow, so Ray
started the Power Rangers Central Message Board in 2000. The board
became a small but loyal community. Ray first used Coolboard for his forum..
A film student named Amit Bhaumik made his own site in 1996. The site
was a comprehensive database for the Power Rangers Universe. Amit named
the site the Power Rangers Online Archives. The site was considered the
third of the big three websites ( being The Morphing Grid, Power
Rangers Central , and Power Rangers Online Archives). The site
itself would remain updated through Power Rangers In Space. In 2000,
the site was Shut Down.
Another notable Site was the Writers Guide to Power Rangers. In 1996, Joe Rovang created his Trivia Guide. Which served as an encyclepedia for the Power Rangers Uinverse. The site Grew into the Writers Guide. Which mainlyu was meant to serve as a guide for fan fic writers. Teh Guide was hugely comprehensive.
In the early years fan fic websites were a huge part of the fandom.
These archives would be updated weekly and featured hosts of Story's
based in the Power Rangers Universe. One of the chief Fan Fic site were
Cynthia's Snowfields. Which featured Power Rangers and Digimon fan
fiction. Eventually the Power Rangers section would be deleted. The era
of the fan fic archives was ended by the rise of Message Boards and
Fanfiction,net ( which is a massive website with tons of fan fics for
all kionds of televison shows).
Mesh Petals created a site
called Star Points. Which had information of the some of the seasons
and some cast sites. The site would close in 2000. But was
popular for its time.
In 1999, Mike Wayne opened up the Power Ranegrs Online Universe
website. By 2000 the name of the site was changed to Power Rangers
Online. Wayne moved the site to the powerrangersonline.com domain. PRO
featured a news portal and websites for each season. The site was
popular but critics thought it didn't have enough content. Also some of
the content was taking from Power Rangers Online Archives. PRO Opened
up a coolboard Message Board like PRC. Which became popular.
Message Board began to spring up as the ninities went on. Some notable
forums were The To The Tenth Power Rangers Message Board and
AstroRangers's Board. Another popular forum was the Angel Grove
Youth Center. It was around this time that the Power Rangers Online and
Power Rangers Central Coolboards emerged. Both becoming popular in
their own right. Power Rangers Online eventually moved to Ezboard.
Which was a step above coolboard at teh time. Ray soon moved his Message Board to Ezboard.
In 2000, Naks Power Rangers was started ( on Nakspowerrangers.com). Naks was a site that included comprehensive character summeries and a episode guide. As well as a lot of pictures. Naks covers the whole Power Rangers series. And still exists today.
By 2001 updates to PRO has become almost non existant. A brand new PRO was
pro0mised but it never really came to frution. By 2002 he main page had
been taking down. Only the Message Board remained. But with no
adminstrator the board became dormant over the following years.
Power Rangers Central and its Message Board continued to enuide during
this time. PRC had already beciome the number 1 Power Rangers site. The
PRC Ezboard continued to grow at a massive Rate. By this point many of
the old boards had closed . The PRC board was known for its lax
rules and having an anything goes mentlaity. With PRC funneling in
traffic, PRC Message Board transitioned into the biggest board in
the fandom. Gradually, veteren members of the newsgroup started to
migrate to PRC Message Board. It became the new main hub of the fandom.
When the Ezboard was hacked and lost, Ray bought a Vbulletin
liscense. Over time Ray decided to give the board its own idenity
separate from PRC. So PRC Message Board became Rangerboard. Ray
bought the domain Rangerboard.com. Gradually over time, Ray brought in
mods and made Rangerboard more moderated. Cast and Crew members would
post there on occastion.
Chris Funaro, Derik
Smith, and Sirstack created the Funaroverse. The verse was based of
BigBot.com ( a transformers web protal). Funaroverse was a web portal
for the Power Rangers fandom. It featured plenty of Power Rangers news
and info. By 2002 updates began to slow. The site was closed down but
left up as an archives. A couple of comebacks were attempted. But they
never stuck.
In 2003, a new Power Rangers site
was created, Power Rangers Network (powerrangersnetwork.com). The site
was heavily graphic enriched site that provided episode downloads in
the begginning. Some content on the show as later added. But some
critics felt that there wasn't enough. PRN was able to create a
successful forum. Which eventually moved to Vbulletion. PRN Grew into
the number 2 community.
In 2004, Mesagog created Power Rangers Empre. PRE was a Message Board
that also provided episode downloads. Overtime it grew to to a major
forum in its own right. Probably right behind RB and PRN;s Forum.
Also in 2004, Chris Zunis would take control of the dormant PRO
Message Board. He created a website to promote the forum called Save
Power Rangers Online. Soon after the site was renamed Power Rangers
Online Database. The domain rangerdatabase.com was perhased for the
site. The site grew into a database for the Power Rangers series. In
2005, Chris moved the the domain to powerrangersonline.org and renamed
the site Power Rangers Online. Chris tried moving the board to an
invisionfree and much later a vbulletin. But he eventually decided to
go back to the ezboard, which was now a yuku ( Ezboard upgraded
itself). Chris was able to aquire powerrangersonline.com A domain that
he has slowly beeing moving too.
By 2004, Ray had begun phasing down his duties on PRC. He made it clear
that it was just a hobby and not a job. Ultimately Ray decided just to
focus on Rangerboard and closed PRC. Micheal Basitan had become
the owner of SuperSentai.com. He was trying to create a PR section. He
was able to get permission to put up an archive of PRC. Ray didn't care
if he updated the site. Bastian put PRC back up on rangercentral.org.
He ended up creating a new forum called Rangertalk. Which quickly
grew into one of the larger boards in the fandom . Eventually Ray
passed the Rangercentral.com domain on to Mike.PRC was fully back and
remains that way today.
Power Rangers Network has become a dormant site. The admins of the
message board decided to move the board onto Ranger-Power.com. The
board would leave on for a few more years. But slowly it started to
become less popular. Eventually the board was closed down for updates.
Never to reopen again. Eventually PRN closed, the domain later aquired
by Basitan. Powerrangersnetwork.com now points to rangertalk.com.
Chris Funaro and Derik Smith created Funaroboard. Yet another Power
Rangers Message Board. It was a tight nit community that was designed
to have free form discussions on the show. In 2010 , the board closed down.
Mesh Petal returned to the
fandom to open a new version of his star
points pages. His sites were once again a big success. Eventually Mesh
decided to create Rangercast. A power Rangers forum designed for
actors to interact witht he fans. Rangercast became a major board in
the fandom. Its name interfered with the Rangercast Podcast. So Mesh
eventually changed the name to Rangercrew. Mesh closed his Power
Rangers season sites in favor or just keeping his cast sites on Star
Points.
Many Power Rangers wiki's began to spring up, based off of the wikia technology created by wikipedia. Some of this major wikis include Power Rangers Universe and the Morphing Grid ( not to be confused with Manny's site). In 2007, the first Power Rangers website was held in LA. The idea for the convention was created by Chris Funaro. Maureen Dawsom orginized the whole convention. It was a small intimate gathering of fans and some cast and crew as guests. A second convention is scheduled for the Summer of 2010. And is Under new management. Power Rangers Empire closed down in 2009. But it was announced that it will reopen in June of 2010. Ray passed on control of Rangerboard to Decade in 2010.; He still is a member of the mod staff. But his days as a Power Rangers webmaster appear to be over. Other Websites Not Mentioned
(There are tons of websites
that deserve mention here. And will upon futher revisions. But I will
probably forgot some important people with this list too. But this
document is always subject to change. This is just the beginning. )
Tommy's Power Rangers Universe
Rangersaga Power Rangers Spoiler Warnings Grnrngr.com Ranger Retrocenter Rangerforums Ranger Base Ranger Gallery Jengas Library Spandex Report Rangercast Podcast The Orb LinearRanger.com Visit the Links section to visit some of these pages and more.
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