Power Ranger Walter Emanuel Jones Jokes About Show's 'Super Cheesy' Dialogue: 'Seemed Very Low-Budget' (Exclusive)
Power Ranger Walter Emanuel Jones Jokes About Show's 'Super Cheesy' Dialogue: 'Seemed Very Low-Budget' (Exclusive)
Virginia ChamleeTue, March 3, 2026 at 7:16 PM UTC
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Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers; Walter Emanuel JonesCredit: PictureLux / The Hollywood Archive / Alamy Stock Photo; Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images -
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers actor Walter Emanuel Jones is sharing his early memories from the show
Speaking exclusively to PEOPLE, Jones says the pilot "seemed very low-budget" — but the resonance of the show proves that didn't matter
"I really didn’t predict the show would impact three generations of people in 40 countries and in a multitude of languages," he says
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers actor Walter Emanuel Jones is reminiscing about his first day on set of the iconic children's show — and the "cheesy" dialogue it included.
"When I stepped onto the set of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, I wasn’t sure what I had gotten myself into," 59-year-old Jones — who played Black Ranger Zack Taylor in the '90s superhero series — tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview. "The pilot we were shooting seemed very low-budget. The writing was super cheesy, but everything felt like it had possibilities of being cool."
Jones continues: "I had no idea that 32 years later, we would have fans that range from 5 to 45 years old."
"I really didn’t predict the show would impact three generations of people in 40 countries and in a multitude of languages," he adds. "I still get shocked when people in my current adult peer group tell me they grew up watching the show."
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Walter Emanuel JonesCredit: FOX
The live-action superhero series premiered on Fox Kids in the U.S. in August 1993, originally running for three seasons, concluding in 1996. A global phenomenon, it spawned popular merchandise and a franchise of television series, including Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers, Power Rangers Zeo, and Power Rangers Lost Galaxy.
It also — as Jones notes — inspired generations of kids and young adults, who still speak to him about the impact it had, all these years later.
"People carry these stories of the childhood adventures they had and relationships that grew from them. When they share them with me, I’m told how it molded them," he says. "How it gave them a guide on how to be their best possible selves. We were giving parental lessons. I take pride in knowing I made a difference in the world."
Even with the show's popularity, it has been criticized by viewers for how the Rangers' colors were assigned: Jones, who is Black, played the Black Ranger, and Thuy Trang, who was Vietnamese, played Trini Kwan, the Yellow Ranger.
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In a 2025 Investigation Discovery docuseries called Hollywood Demons, former Power Rangers head writer Tony Oliver said of the casting: "None of us are thinking stereotypes. It was my assistant who pointed it out in a meeting one day, that we had made the Black character the Black Ranger and the Asian character the Yellow Ranger.”
"It was such a mistake," Oliver added.
In an April 2025 Instagram post, Jones responded to Oliver's comments, writing, "I understand the impulse to address what might be seen as cultural insensitivity, but calling it a ‘mistake’ would dismiss the impact it had on countless people around the world who found inspiration and representation in TV’s first Black superhero — morphin’ into none other than the Black Power Ranger!”
“It wasn’t a mistake; it was a milestone,” Jones added in his post. “It was an honor.”
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Looking back, Jones tells PEOPLE he vividly remembers feeling the weight of his casting as a Black superhero.
"My clearest memory from filming the pilot of the show is the recognition that I had never seen this kind of diversity in a superhero team on TV before," he tells PEOPLE. "I thought, 'Am I the first Black superhero on TV?' It turns out that the actor-producer Robert Townsend aired a television movie about a Black superhero called Meteor Man about two weeks before Power Rangers aired."
He continues: "While I was not the first Black hero to appear on TV, I do hold the honor of being the first Black superhero on a live-action television show. That distinction feels especially important because the show aired Monday through Friday. In many ways, I became a daily reminder that a person that looked like me could be an important part of a team: strong, capable, and valued."
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
