Before this week's news of Bryan Cranston being cast as the legendary Zordon in the upcoming Power Rangers reboot movie, I was feeling pretty weird about the film (primarily because of those Iron Man-esque new suits). While no one knows if the camp-y nature of the original '90s television show will be retained in this new flick, the addition of Cranston, a.k.a. Breaking Bad's badass Walter White, is a relief. But it shouldn't be surprising. Why? Because Cranston was on the original '90s television show. Twice.
During a reddit AMA in 2013, Bryan Cranston was asked about his Power Rangers past, and he admitted to his credits on the show: "I did voice work for the Power Rangers years and years ago. Someone once told me they named the blue Power Ranger after me, his last name was Cranston. I found out years later that was true." Cranston also dished on Power Rangers four years earlier during an IGN interview with Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan:
One of my jobs as a young actor starting out was voiceover. I also did dubbing. A lot of dubbing and a lot of voiceover. So foreign films would come in and I'd go in. One of the places that did a lot of that was Saban Entertainment. And they would take movies and then cartoons from all over the world and we'd go and do the English dub. And the Power Rangers came in and I did some voices for that. I had already been there for a number of years, just as a freelance guy coming in and coming out. And it paid like $50.00 an hour, which was fantastic. And you'd work two, three hours at least a day. So I had been there for awhile already and then the Power Rangers came in. They actually named one of the Power Rangers after me.
The amazing thing is that the Blue Ranger, Billy Cranston, lowkey looks like he could've been the son of the future Walter White.
Cranston didn't voice any good guys on the show though. Nor were the villains he portrayed that memorable. In his first appearance, season one's "Foul Play in the Sky," he played Snizzard, a weird snake/lizard hybrid whose voice sounded similar to Brak's from Space Ghost. This thing not only had a torso that looked like a huge snake (with "tonsil snakes" in its mouth), but it had cobras for arms and mad snakes wrapped around his legs. While Snizzard actually made a few appearances on Power Rangers, Cranston only voiced him in his debut. Then, Cranston was back as Twin Man in the season one episode "A Bad Reflection on You," a title which actually reflected the madness that Twin Man caused. He had the ability to duplicate the Power Rangers and attempt to frame them.
So what did Cranson look like as these Power Rangers villains? Sit back and marvel at these clips, the first featuring Snizzard, and the second showing Twin Man:
That's future-Emmy-winner work right there, if you ask us.
If you're interested in his other voice acting works, Cranston actually has a wild filmography that includes the portrayal of Fei Long in the English version of Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, Isamu Alva Dyson in Macross Plus, and Lee Stone in both Orguss 02 and Moldiver. Hey, a struggling actor's gotta do what a struggling actor's gotta do.
