Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills

Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills is the super ghetto knock off of Mighty Morhpin Power Rangers. This series was actually funnier though because of its cheap qualities. They all had a tattoo of a zodiac sign I think, and then they would turn into zodiac warriors and fight these foam rubber monsters. Their mentor was also a house plant, probably of the ficus family. This show is great pop culture, because it is so terribly lame and short lived. If this ever re-airs it means the end of the world but go ahead and watch it because you will laugh your hinder off.

Wow. I can't believe how relieved I am that this show actually exists.

You see, I clearly remember it from way back when I was a little kid. Four teenagers with strange magical tattoos would tel-port into this black room with a pedestal. On the pedestal was a blob of slime called Nimbar that gave the teens missions. They would then transform into laughably bad costumes and fight villains. The whole thing was like an incredibly low budget power rangers. I honestly don't remember much of what went on, but for years I've remembered this show but have never seen anything else about it until now. It just vanished like the vapor it was.

I only remember one episode, in which a monster sprayed the teens with a gas, then all sorts of bad things happened, including the death of Nimbar. Finally the token African girl said that everything bad had happened since they got sprayed. Then they will themselves to wake up. They had been sharing a dream, or something for 18 minutes since they'd been sprayed, and THE MONSTER FREAKIN' DID NOTHING the whole time they were asleep. Even at seven I wondered what the Kessel was with that.

That is how dumb this show's plots were.

In the long history of television oddities, this one has to rank darn near the top. It was a cheap attempt to cash in on the Power Rangers craze of the time, and featured special effects that would make Edward D. Wood Jr cringe. Basicly the storyline was that four teenagers were chosen to protect earth from this bad guy who looked like Darth Vader sitting in a dentist chair. They were called to action by their glowing tatoos, which summoned portals that somehow replaced them with bodybuilders in spandex who looked pretty much nothing like the original actors. This looked friggin hillarious, because you'd see these stand-ins fighting a guy in the rubber suit that always looked like he was about to tip over, while stomping on a cardboard city. Eventually, the heroes would all lock wrists and turn into and incredibly cheesy looking giant knight. I make none of this up, I swear to God.. this show actually existed! There had to be only 5-10 episodes, because I remember after telling everyone in school about it, I turned on the TV like a week later to see that it was no longer on. Trust me, I was devestated. I'm suprised that to this day I've been unable to find a video of this show on ebay or anywhere else on the net, and I'm also very suprised this classic has yet to pick up the cult following that it deserves.

I loved this show which contained the campy youthful humor of shows like Saved By The Bell and California Dreams and mixed it up with action to capitalize on the Power Rangers / Superhuman Samurai / VR Troopers / Beetleborgs craze of the 90s! Four teens were given the power to turn into giants to fight equally gigantic monsters, and strangely enough, always in the same city set! The monster suits were cheesy even by campy Godzilla standards and when necessary, the teens joined together to form...not a giant robot, but a cheesy knight in shining armor! By not taking itself seriously, it was actually more entertaining to me than the higher budgeted shows aforementioned. I'd love to see them collected on DVD but am equally sure they never will be. From the USA Network!

The only reason I even sat thru this horrendous excuse for a TV show was because it came on USA Network around 4PM right before Knight Rider (watching an automated black Trans Am and a guy with the same leather jacket in every episode was choice entertainment for me :P) So anyways yes, I had the un-pleasure of watching T.T.A.F.F.B.H. It was a wierd and nonsensical show that seemed like an even less palatable version of Power Rangers (which I hated more than Barney, Masked Rider was okay, talking cars RAWK!)

I always wondered about those similarities, like the Tatoo's seem to have the same function as the Ranger's communicator watches. And what the heck was that thing that they always called upon in some Captain Planet-esque fashion to vanquish the bad guy? It looked like a 2 dimensional cardboard cut-out. Old Godzilla flicks had better costumes and special effects. Zodiac signs? Elements.. sure. Animal totems..Why not? But Zodiac signs? WTF? Maybe they should fight the bad guys with mood rings too?

This show was good for laughs and thats about all it was good for. Welp, I'm gunna go watch Knight Rider on the SF channel. Skareeew you 1990's and your damned 70's flashback bell-bottom hippy crap. Long live the 80's! Witness the re-birth of MY decade! Behold, clueless trend-mongers! It is coming!

*insert maniacle laughter*

-BFK