30 September 2010

Here Lies the Putty Patrol


Alleigance: Rita Repulsa
Abilities: teleportation, shape-shifting
Language: "putty babble", English (understood and spoken)

Clay footsoldiers, light grey in color. Their hands/forearms are grey, larger in proportion, and rocky—perhaps to make for a better weapon. Their faces are often a lighter grey than their bodies, with dark [sometimes human] eyes, a rough, bumpy complection, usually depicting a twisted sort of smile, but sometimes with nothing more than a hole for a mouth [usually from using the older masks that have lost their shape; a faint reminder of the twisted smile could still be seen]. On their bodies appear various black tiger-esque stripes, numbering anywhere from 2 to 5 [or more in the case of ZyuRanger footage]. They are often heard making a babbling noise that could be assumed to be a language only they understand. While they have the ability to stand upright, as humans do, they are most often seen hunched down, prepared to fight. Their gait, like their fighting stance, is awkard and clumsy, sometimes seeming to not so much run into battle as much as stumble.

Entrance: teleportation through yellow/orange flash, flipping into view out of nowhere
Exit: teleportation through yellow/orange flash, running away
Weaknesses: While fairly weak in general, no apparent weaknesses.

First Appearance: Day of the Dumpster, MMPR Season 1
Final Appearance: An Oyster Stew, MMPR Season 1
[Putties appear in the video game Power Rangers Super Legends]
Ultimate Fate: stopped being produced with the advent of Lord Zedd's Putties

Notes and Oddities:
Sometimes putties went without belts, often earlier in the season. They first wore them when Rita sent them down to fight Tommy in "Green With Evil (part 1)". On occasion, later in the season, putties could be seen fighting without belts. [Whatever reason they lacked them early on, they probably needed to add them, sooner than later, to better match the Sentai footage].

The tiger-esque stripes that appear on their bodies are never mentioned or explained, though it could be assume they are meant to resemble the cracks or fissures that appear in a clay figure. Another theory is that they might signify rank, though this is unlikely as putties were produced quickly and few likely fought multiple battles.

Putties, when disguised as a human, had the ability to speak fluent English. One did so when disguised as an old woman in "A Pig Surprise", and another sold cursed jewelry to Zack in "An Oyster Stew".

Unlike their successors, putties never had a death sequence. They always only vanished into a yellow flash. It is unknown what happens to them after this. It could be assumed that they cease to exist (at least in that form) since Finster makes the comment early on that they "can always make more". But they are also known to vanish without being defeated, in which case there is no reason a putty could not fight again in a later battle.

The Putty Bowl Restaurant, a restaurant where putties serve guests while wearing yellow vests, is never mentioned again outside of the episode "Calamity Kimberly".