Re: Disney and Power Rangers - When they inherited it, the show was on the outs. "Ninja Storm" was promoted OUT THE ASS by Disney: Wave after wave of promos on ABC Family, that 9-minute trailer screened through Kmart stores across the country, the forced-premiere on February 15th (regardless of what your ABC affiliate did with Power Rangers, be it one-week-behind or a same-week-different-time broadcast, you saw the NS [and DT, consequently] premiere ON THE DAY YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO)... Disney tried to make the franchise work for them. When Toon Disney became mostly Jetix around 2005, a majority of their broadcast day was various reruns of Power Rangers seasons. SPD was EVERYWHERE.
It wasn't until Summer 2006 that the bubble seemed to burst. Slowly, but surely, Power Rangers disappeared from the 'public consciousness,' so to speak:
* Summer 2006 - ABC Family gets 'made over,' dropping all of the kids' shows; "Power Rangers" is, basically, Toon Disney's exclusive property at this point, as ABC stations might or might not show the series
* Autumn 2007 - Whatever 'SAG Crackdown' happened, all of the non-Disney seasons disappeared from Toon Disney's reruns
* 2008 - Disney XD is announced; Reruns trickle down to just the occasional 'Jungle Fury' rerun; "Power Rangers" is nowhere to be found on the new XD lineup
* 2009 - RPM is strictly an ABC Kids property; "Show it or don't; We don't care!"; Toyline promotes 'Jetix,' despite Jetix no longer existing in the US; RPM is, effectively, the end of the franchise and, in the fans' eyes, is a high note to end things on
* 2010 - The Reversioning; Saban buys back the franchise officially in May; The Reversioning is burnt through by the end of August and, effectively, ABC Kids is killed off shortly thereafter
To be honest, for a show that simply came along for the ride with Disney's main reason for buying Fox Family Worldwide (to get their hands on Fox Family to turn it into an "ABC-2" network), they tried to make it work for them for the first couple of years. 2006 is when things started to go downhill. However, we did get SEVEN NEW SEASONS of a show that could have been canceled after "Wild Force," so shouldn't we, in the end, be thankful for that much?
