A Pig Surprise

A Pig Surprise is the forty-second episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

Synopsis
Our heroes spearhead a drive to find homes for stray animals, including an old lady's pig named Norman. But Norman is no ordinary pig. At Rita's command, he transforms into the infamous Pudgy Pig.

Plot
The Rangers are in the park for Angel Grove's Pet Adoption Day. As they help find new homes for the many animals, an old woman approaches them with a very fat pig named Norman and asks that they find him a good home before leaving. Meanwhile, Zack is running late and spots the same old woman turn into a Putty holding a strange device before getting jumped by a pack of them. After fighting the clay-brains off, Zack picks up the dropped device.

As the Adoption Day ends, Bulk and Skull arrive demanding a pet as cool as them, and so the Rangers give them Norman. The next day at school, Bulk is showing off his new pet to the students and boasting about how "smart" he is (which given his company is not hard to be). Meanwhile, Billy is studying the device that Zack found and determines it to be some kind of timing mechanism that is counting down. When Zack tells Billy and Trini about the disguised Putty, they realize that Norman may actually be a part of Rita Repulsa's schemes.

Billy and Trini go back to work on the device as the other Rangers look for Bulk and Skull. As they study it, the device suddenly shuts off, and Billy determines that its countdown has finished. At the Juice Bar, Bulk and Skull are splitting a submarine sandwich and getting some attention from a cute girl due to Norman, but Ernie comes in and tells them to take the pig outside. Suddenly, Norman transforms into a familiar and very unfriendly face: Pudgy Pig!

Zack arrives at the evacuated Juice Bar to see the porcine pest chasing Bulk and Skull for their sandwich. Zack gets the pair to give their food to Pudgy so they can escape, but Pudgy himself teleports away. At the Command Center, the Rangers are briefed by Zordon but are afraid of harming Norman in his monster state. Regardless, they know from past experience that Pudgy can't be allowed to run loose and morph into action.

The initial fight with Pudgy ends with him escaping, so Zordon tracks his movements to a local farm and teleports the Rangers there. Instead of another battle, however, they are surprised to see Pudgy trying to woo a female pig. Knowing that there's no way any of Rita's actual monsters could understand love, they determine that Norman is still himself despite his transformation and is thus harmless.

The tender moment is interrupted by Zordon with grave news. Pudgy Pig was a diversion to get the Rangers out of Angel Grove so that Rita can enlarge Goldar and destroy the city. As the Rangers return to town, they are met with a welcoming committee of Putties led by Scorpina. Once the immediate threat is fought off, the Megazord is brought in to deal with Goldar. The Megazord triumphs after a fierce fight, though Goldar escapes before the Power Sword can finish him off.

Back on the farm, Billy rewires the timer device to turn Pudgy back to normal, allowing Norman to live happily with his new friend. The next day at school, Trini tells her friends that the owner of the farm has agreed to adopt Norman, while Mr. Caplan arrives with a pig as part of a special lecture. Upon seeing this pig, however, Bulk and Skull panic and cower in the corner, getting laughs from everybody.

Cast

 * Austin St. John as Jason Lee Scott (Mighty Morphin Red Ranger)
 * Thuy Trang as Trini Kwan (Mighty Morphin Yellow Ranger)
 * Walter Jones as Zack Taylor (Mighty Morphin Black Ranger)
 * Amy Jo Johnson as Kimberly Ann Hart (Mighty Morphin Pink Ranger)
 * David Yost as Billy Cranston (Mighty Morphin Blue Ranger)
 * Paul Schrier as Farkas "Bulk" Bulkmeier
 * Jason Narvy as Eugene "Skull" Skullovitch
 * Richard Genelle as Ernie
 * Henry Cannon as Mr. Caplan
 * David Fielding as Zordon (face)
 * Robert L. Manahan as Zordon (voice)
 * Romy J. Sharf as Alpha 5
 * Richard Steven Horvitz as Alpha 5 (voice) (as Richard Wood)
 * Machiko Soga as Rita Repulsa
 * Barbara Goodson as Rita Repulsa (voice)
 * Takashi Sakamoto as Goldar
 * Kerrigan Mahan as Goldar (voice) (as Ryan O'Flannigan)
 * Takako Iiboshi as Finster
 * Robert Axelrod as Finster (voice)
 * Minoru Watanabe as Squatt
 * Michael J. Sorich as Squatt (voice)
 * Hideaki Kusaka as Baboo
 * Dave Mallow as Baboo and Pudgy Pig (voice) (as Colin Phillips)
 * Ami Kawai as Scorpina
 * Wendee Swan as Scorpina (voice)

Errors

 * Zack looks at his communicator and says he’s running late, even though the communicators don’t have a display with which to show the time.
 * It is not explained why Rita needed a mechanical timer device to turn Norman into Pudgey Pig, when she has the ability to turn things into monsters with her magic (such as Goatan) whenever she wants. Also, she could have just had Finster make a new clay model as was done with the original Pudgey Pig.
 * It is not explained where Rita (or the Putty disguised as the old woman) got Norman in the first place. Norman is adopted by the pig farm owner in the end, but no effort is apparently made to find where he came from originally.
 * Both Jason and Rita incorrectly refer to the Megazord’s Power Sword as “Mega Sword”.
 * Zack calls Pudgey Pig "bacon breath".  Since bacon is made from pigs, this implies that the creature is a cannibal, which is clearly not the case.