Power Rangers Wasn’t Made Like A Normal TV Show | Douglas J. Sloan EP 221

Douglas J. Sloan — Emmy-nominated producer, writer, director, and author of Morphers, Monsters & Mayhem — joins the podcast for a deep behind-the-scenes conversation about how Power Rangers was really made, why the franchise became a global phenomenon, and what Hollywood creativity actually looks like under pressure.

Douglas breaks down the unconventional production process that made Mighty Morphin Power Rangers unlike any other television show of its era. From adapting Japanese Super Sentai footage into original storylines to building episodes around pre-existing monster battles, he explains the creative problem-solving, speed, and chaos that powered one of the most iconic kids’ franchises of the 1990s.

We also dive into Douglas’s personal journey as a storyteller and author, including the fear, risk, and authenticity involved in writing Morphers, Monsters & Mayhem. He shares powerful memories of working with Jason David Frank, the dedication and intensity that helped turn the Green Ranger into a cultural icon, and what it was like watching the franchise evolve behind the scenes.

Beyond Power Rangers, this episode explores the realities of Hollywood, television writing, persistence in creative careers, and the growing impact of artificial intelligence on filmmaking, music, and content creation.

If you’re a longtime Power Rangers fan, a 90s kid, a writer, filmmaker, or someone navigating the creative industry, this episode is packed with insight, nostalgia, and honest conversation.

Topics include:

• The real production process behind Power Rangers
• Adapting Super Sentai footage for American television
• Jason David Frank and the legacy of the Green Ranger
• TV writing and storytelling under pressure
• Hollywood pitch culture and creative risk
• Douglas J. Sloan’s memoir Morphers, Monsters & Mayhem
• AI and the future of entertainment
• What it really takes to build a career in Hollywood

Subscribe, leave a review, and share the episode with a fellow Power Rangers fan or creative.

Book: Morphers, Monsters & Mayhem: My Travels Through the Power Rangers Galaxy  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G4ZKPXJ9/

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I look forward to connecting with you Anita Mattu https://linktr.ee/AnitaMattu

Transcript

Power Rangers, Fame, And Courage

Douglas J Sloan 1:06

Power Rangers was not a failure. It was just it was those one of those one in the million things that was like this zeitgeist that just exploded in the perfect time in American history and world history where there was no internet, there was no social media, there was only kids on the playground talking about stuff. And that's what they were talking about. It was power pictures.

Anita Mattu 1:31

Today's guest is Douglas J. Saloon, an Emmy nominated producer, writer, director, author, and songwriter with decades of experience in television and storytelling. Douglas is the author of Morphous, Monsters, and Mayhem, My Travels Through the Power Rangers Galaxy, an unfiltered Laugh At Loud memoir that pulls back the curtain on life behind one of the most iconic kids TV franchise of the 90s. Oh, that's brilliant. Thank you.

Douglas J Sloan 2:09

And welcome, Douglas. Thank you so much for having me, Anita. It's great to see you again. How have you been? Good?

Anita Mattu 2:16

Absolutely fantastic. And you see?

Douglas J Sloan 2:18

Excellent. Well, very well. Thank you. It's uh it's been it's been a ride, but here we are.

Anita Mattu 2:26

With that said, what is one of the most courageous things that you have done? Oh my god. I'm kind of thinking you've done a lot.

Douglas J Sloan 2:34

Yeah, it's funny because you know, courage is the definition of courage is interesting. You could there are courageous mental emotional acts, there are courageous physical acts. I mean, uh for me, probably putting out writing and putting out this book was was toward the top of the list because, you know, you're basically uh opening yourself up to uh your personal your personal life is out on display because you can't really write a book and just name everybody else and not talk about yourself and your foibles and the things you've made mistakes doing. You kind of have to lay yourself out there, which I hope I did. Um, so that was that was an act of courage for me. Um and then, you know, throughout my life, there have been physical challenges. I used to race dirt bikes and uh the ones where you're motocross, where you're jumping 70 feet on a motorcycle, and that takes a certain amount of courage and stupidity. But um, you know, but for me, it's all it's usually about like the big meeting where you're going to pitch a new show, or uh the audition when I was an actor. Um, you know, you audition all the time. You have to screen test for things, and that takes some courage to go in and and screen test with an actor who's been on the show for years. And you know, so there have been things throughout my career and my life that have I thought required some sort of courage, but I just always saw it as fear.

Anita Mattu 4:20

I like you, honestly.

Douglas J Sloan 4:21

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Anita Mattu 4:25

So what drew you into storytelling and television?

Douglas J Sloan 4:29

Well, it was interesting because, you know, my father, Alan, was a i in the business for years. He was uh he started in New York uh doing ad sales for networks, then he became the vice president general manager of the CBS in New York, the station in New York. And then we moved California and he ran the Osman Brothers television company and various movies and stuff like that. So it kind of always was that that part of it was always there. And then the other part was when I was in fourth grade, going back a long time, uh, there was two of us in my fourth grade class in Scarsdale, New York, who could write. And we were well above the others in writing. Me, it was me and a and a gentleman named Aaron Sorkin, who you may have heard of, who's written a few movies and won an Oscar or two. Um, but yeah, that was sort of predestined based on the fact that that's that was my talent that was discovered at an early age. You know, it's funny because you can try anything in life, and it always seems to lead you back to what you're really good at if you're lucky. And that's sort of how it uh manifested in my case was it became television writing. Yeah. Yeah. And it was uh it was, you know, I tried acting. I was on this young and the restless for a little bit, you know, did a soap, and it, you know, it was just sort of everything always pointed back to writing and producing. So here we are.

Anita Mattu 6:16

Well, that's like absolutely fantastic. And you must have been on the set a lot with your dad, perhaps.

Douglas J Sloan 6:21

Yeah, it was funny because, you know, through my life, I've been uh around people like Orson Wells, like Fred Astaire, uh you know, people that you would are, you know, my dad had on shows that back then it was just, you know, big old Orson Wells, big deal. But now you think about it, and it was quite remarkable to have been in that man's presence, even though I was only 14 or 13 or whatever it was. Um, and and Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly and people like that who were on my dad's shows. He did a lot of interview shows and magazine shows. So the access to these people, you know, Joe Namath, the football player, um, it was it was pretty remarkable. Um and I was on a lot of sets and a lot of stages. I was a production assistant for him when I was when I was 16. The first day I got my license, I was out as a production assistant. So it just from 16 on, although I went to college and grad school, it it had all it was always predestined, I think. Yeah.

Anita Mattu 7:34

Was there a moment early in your career where you almost gave up? And if so, what kept you going?

Douglas J Sloan 7:42

Well, interestingly enough, I went to NYU film school, and I I was there for a while, and it just New York was just crushing me. I just I couldn't, it was hard. So I decided to go, you know, I needed to augment my experience with something else besides just shooting films all day. So I decided to take an acting class and just to learn what actors go through and how to direct them better and all that, and I and I did, and I fell in love with acting, or I thought I did, not understanding the seriousness of it or the, you know, that it's a very difficult craft. I mean, my first part I think I ever had was a bit part playing opposite Kelly McGillis from Witness and from Top Gun and all those movies. And she had just graduated Juilliard, and that was a quick wake-up call because she was like spectacular. And I was this punk from you know New York acting school for one year. Uh, but you know, I tried. I I studied in in California with a guy named Howard Fine, who was the best acting teacher around, I think. And, you know, I gave it a good try. And it sort of took about five or six years out of my development towards being a writer. But my time on the soap opera on the Young and the Restless was probably that was probably my favorite job ever. It was, it was the best job ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. It's it's I would if I got an offer to go back to one of those shows instantly, I would take it today. But, you know, it's it's a hard dig, you know. So there's there's a very select few who get to do it. And back then, there were thir 17 soap operas on the air. 17. Wow. So there was always an audition for one. Um, now there's four, maybe three. Uh, you know, I I I don't even know. But so it forget doing it now. But you know, I have some friends that uh I met a friend, it's very funny. I I met a guy on the plane going to a screen test in New York, a guy named John Lindstrom, who's also an author now, but he ended up going on to do uh soaps for 20, 30 years. And it just that was his path, and my path was not that. So I ended up becoming a writer. Yeah, it's it's wild, it's bizarre how things happen. And the way my writing career happened, uh, I I explain this in the book, but I can sort of I can re tell it here if you like. Um, I had met um, I was in acting class, and I had met a woman in acting class. Uh, her name is Deborah Shelton, and she was a on a TV show called Dallas. She was also Miss USA, and she was just one of those very, you know, Hollywood starless TV stars. And I met her and we started working on a scene together, and we actually sort of started having a relationship and fell in love and were together for five or six years. But in that time, uh, she had divorced her husband, who was a fellow named Shookie Levy, who worked at a company called Saban Entertainment. And he had come to her house to pick up their daughter for the weekend. And on the coffee table happened to be a script

A Chance Script That Changed Everything

Douglas J Sloan 11:30

that I had written, and he was waiting for his daughter to come down, and he started reading this script, and he liked it, and he said to Deborah, Deborah, who is this writer? I like this guy. He's from Israel, and he had this really kind of sweet, funny way of talking. And uh, who is this? I like this writing. And she goes, Oh, that's Doug. That's my friend Doug. And I'd like to meet him. And so literally within a couple of weeks, I was writing movies for them, and then they put me on the TV show. And it but but the chance it's just the chances of that are so weird and remote that he would be there, pick up my script, read it, like it. You know, it was if that hadn't been on the top of a pile, who knows? I mean, I'm sure I would have eventually ended there because I think if you're supposed to do something, you'll end up doing it. But that was my path to doing it.

Anita Mattu 12:28

Yeah, definitely. I agree with you there. If it's meant to be, it will be.

Douglas J Sloan 12:32

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I think people, it's funny because you always hear people say, I wonder, you know, what a w what if there's someone out there who would have been the greatest basketball player in the world who never got the chance because of X, Y, and Z. But that, I don't believe that happens. I think that if you are supposed to be that, you will be that. You know, I I don't, you know, there are okay, there's things like, you know, hockey players or professional hockey, where that's a sport that not all kids get a chance to do. So there's probably some kids out there who would have been great at hockey players. But mostly you will find your uh destiny in terms of what you're supposed to do, I think.

Anita Mattu 13:15

Yeah, definitely. As we all know, Hollywood can be tough. What did courage look like for you when you were just starting out?

Douglas J Sloan 13:24

Well, you know, it you start out with a feeling like you don't belong because you're new and everybody's been there. And you think you know what's going on. You think you know that your writing is good enough and that you know your dialogue is funny and this and that. But the truth of the matter is you don't yet, unless you happen to be named Tarantino or someone like that, who their first script is brilliant. You know, that wasn't me. I I took a lot of years to learn and to grow. And so in the beginning, you you think that you know it all, and you you really don't. And so it was always scary to me to be in these meetings with people like Chaim Saban, who uh, you know, the billionaire media mogul. And you know, I would be in a meeting with just him and me, and it was it was bizarre. And even recently, you know, in meetings with Jeffrey Katzenberg from DreamWorks, when I worked at DreamWorks, or the people at Disney, you know, Rich Ross, the head of Disney at the time, these are very powerful people, and you just kind of have to wipe that out of your brain and and just think of them as human beings who are also scared because I mean, Haim's not scared, but but anybody who has a normal job in Hollywood as a studio head or whatever, there's always that fear of getting fired. I mean, everybody, that's what Hollywood operates on, or it used to when I was doing it, was the fear of of losing your job. So that's why people said no so much, because they didn't want to be responsible for the failures. So, you know, it's it's a fear-based uh ecosystem in Hollywood, I think. But you know, the mavericks, the people who are the do it themselves and and don't listen to other people, those are the people who rise to the top, I think.

Anita Mattu 15:23

Yeah, gosh, that's interesting.

Douglas J Sloan 15:25

Yeah, it's like Chaim. Haim Saban is Egyptian, moved to Israel, uh, and uh basically started out, he came to America and him and Shooky started a made a made a they were starting to do music for TV shows and stuff, and they they now this is courage, this is courage and uh intestinal fortitude. They Chaim went to the biggest animation producer in Hollywood and said, We will give you all the music for every animated show you want for free. It's yours. Take it, we won't charge you a dime. The only thing we want is to keep the publishing rights. Now, if you think about that and what publishing is worth, you know, when those shows started to air around the world, Saban became the third largest uh earning publishing company on the planet. And that's where their fortune was initially made. But it was a brilliant thing for him to do. I mean, that takes courage to walk into this guy and say, hey, here's what we'll do. So, you know, guys like that you really have to admire. And he's got a reputation as being hard-nosed and crude and crass and all that, but he's also a genius. So there you go.

Anita Mattu 16:52

Wow.

Douglas J Sloan 16:53

Yeah.

Anita Mattu 16:54

So as we most of us, I definitely know Power Rangers. Working on Power Rangers, what were some of the biggest creative or personal challenges you faced?

Douglas J Sloan 17:05

Well, Power Rangers is an interesting thing because everybody you look at Power Rangers and you think it's this dopey little show, badly, you know, bad production values, the whole thing. But the the truth is that Power Rangers is based on a Japanese uh genre of TV show called Super Sentai, which has been around forever. And the and the way Haim actually got Power Rangers made was that he bought one series of Super Sentai from Japan, uh 52 episodes. And what he just thought would what he came up with was he would take everything in that Japanese episode where they were in helmets and you couldn't see their mouths move. It was the Power Ranger helmeted things, which was all the fights and the big swords and all that stuff. And he would

The Super Sentai Puzzle Behind Power Rangers

Douglas J Sloan 18:00

cut, take that, and revoice it with the American actors and then shoot an American story around it. So what you're doing is in the financial or fiscal uh aspect of it, you are basically getting 11 minutes of footage that you would have had to shoot for an amortized rate of maybe $50,000. So you're able to shoot a 22-minute show front to back for around $250,000 at the time, which was nothing. It was nothing. And that's the only way he was able to sell it. And so, as a creative person on that show, the challenge is you're you're writing backwards. You're taking the footage from Japan, which could be of a giant flea who's attached attacking the city, or a you know, a giant octopus or a squid or a scarecrow or something. And you've got to create a story with the American kids uh that fits into that and that can cut into that. So, for example, my one of my first ones was I got the the this flea uh monster, and I had to come up with an American story, and I pitched a couple of them. I pitched a flea circus, which I thought would have been hilarious, uh, and that didn't go through. But it ended up being they did a dog rescue, and there was a flea on one of the dogs, and it grew and attacked the kid, you know, blah, blah, blah. But that's the challenge. You know, sometimes the footage is great, sometimes the footage is not great. Sometimes you run out of footage for the year. Uh, you know, we were doing 50 some episodes uh in the U.S. And so that was counting on the fact that there were 52 good episodes to pull from from the Japan show, and that's not the case. You know, we would have to, you know, recut things and reuse footage, and you know, that's the challenge is when you run out or you don't have what you need, and you can't shoot it because you just don't have the money to shoot it. So that's the basic creative challenge back then of Power Rangers, you know, when the budgets were really, really low, um, and they went up over the years. I I when I took it over when it went to New Zealand for Disney, the budgets were much higher, so you could do a lot more. Um But that that that to me was the creative challenge. And you couldn't use union actors, so you had to fight high find non-union talent, which was always difficult because you know, these are people who have never probably acted before. And they're asked to be on this huge hit TV show, but you know, we got lucky. We got some really big personalities and and were able to make it through that, but it can it can be a challenge.

Anita Mattu 21:04

I'm sure it can. So what's a behind-the-scenes story that fans would be shocked to hear?

Douglas J Sloan 21:10

Oh my gosh. Well, there it just there were so, so many. I mean, the funny, the big famous, funny story, it's not famous, but the funniest story in the book to me is that when uh they had these two characters on the show called Bulk and Skull, who were the the uh comic relief, and they were very funny, great actors. I mean, they were great. And uh they decided to write a pilot for them and shoot this pilot. So while they were gone, though, we needed to have some kind of comic relief and keep Bulk and Skull's presence there. So what they decided to do was turn them into chimpanzees. But the chimpanzees would talk amongst themselves with Bulk and Skull's voice. Now, you know, you're in Hollywood and you would think that you would be able to find some what I mean, chimps are the most well-trainable of any of the studio animals. But of course, in our in in the mind of our producer, uh, we weren't gonna spend the money on the on the well-trained chimps. We were gonna get the bargain basement chimps who, you know, one of them had psoriasis that was so bad. I mean, and the uh they couldn't do any kind of, they really couldn't do anything. They weren't, they were just sort of there. And so that's those are the chimps we got. And so we would get them on set and they would do nothing. Like literally, they would just sit there like a couple of rugs. And so I was, you know, we were just writing what we could, and Chaim apparently saw the dailies of the first couple days of shooting, and he called me uh while I was at a lunch in Beverly Hills, and he said, Mr. Stone, this is It's just a bun. And and excuse my language, what the F are with these chimps? They're horrible. They do nothing. They just sit there. They're like lumps. And I said, Well, Haim, they can't do anything. And he goes, I can think of what they could do. They could throw feces at the rangers. They can rub it on themselves, on the walls. They can, they can blah, blah, blah. And I said, No, Haim, you don't understand. They don't do anything. They're not trained chimps. They're just chimps. And so his next thing was, you are taking food out of my children's mouths with these chimps. You are ruining my career. You're ruining my show. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he went on. And I was like this with the phone, you know, holding it out. And finally it subsided. And I went back to the stage and we started rewriting all of the stuff we had written for the chimps because knowing they couldn't do anything. And eventually it was okay. We had them talking a lot and we just kind of, you know, fudged it. But bargain basement chimps, man. They say never work with kids and animals. Well, animals you you can work with as long as they're trained. I mean, like I did a show a movie for Disney called Minutemen, and it's there's a line in the script that says uh the lead character walks his, has his cat on a leash and is walking the cat down the street, and the cat sits with sits when he gets to a curve. And I I know something about cats back in the in the day, and it was like, there's there's not a cat I've ever seen that will walk on a leash and sit. That's dog stuff. But the kid was kind of quirky and weird, so we had a cat. And of course, we trained they trained this cat for three months to get it to do, and it never did it. Showed up on set, and the kid had to carry it around. So, you know, you gotta pay the money to get the trained animals, or you know, that was a big one on on our show. Um the the the chimp thing. That was that was pretty wild. It was pretty wild. It's crazy.

Anita Mattu 25:20

Yeah, it it's so funny though, but they always say that, yeah. I mean, if you're gonna get budget or you know, the lowest of low, then that's what you're gonna get.

Douglas J Sloan 25:29

Yeah, the the there's a three-part sort of uh saying about Hollywood. You you good, fast, or cheap, pick two. So you can have it good and fast, but it won't be cheap. You can have it cheap and fast, but it won't be good. You can have it good, you know, it's it's good and cheap, but it won't be fast. So, you know, but when you try to do all three, it usually ends up being a failure. And that's although Power Rangers was not a failure, it was just it was those one of those one in the million things that was like this zeitgeist that just exploded in the perfect time in American history and world history where there was no internet, there was no uh social media, there was only kids on the playground talking about stuff. And that's what they were talking about was Power Rangers.

Anita Mattu 26:24

You worked closely with Jason David Frank.

Douglas J Sloan 26:28

I did. I did.

Anita Mattu 26:29

What did that relationship teach you about resilience?

Douglas J Sloan 26:33

Well, God, man. That it was interesting because my first job on the show, um Shookie called me and he says, Doug, I've met this kid. He is unbelievable. He's like Bruce Lee meets Jean-Claude Van Damme and he's this and that. And I said, Okay, great. What's he been in? Nothing. I said, so he's never acted, nope. And he goes, well, so he goes, that's why I'm calling you, Doug. You I want you to be his acting coach. I want he starts shooting in three weeks. I want you to teach him how to act. And I'm like, okay, well, I can, I don't know what I can do. I've never met him. I don't know what his abilities are. I don't know if he's gonna take to teaching. And you really can't teach acting in three weeks. It's not a possibility. But you can teach someone to be better than terrible. So, you know,

Jason David Frank And Resilience

Douglas J Sloan 27:30

a couple of days later, there's, you know, a knock on my door and I open it, and there's this kid. He's 19, he's wearing a tie and a jacket, and and he says, Mr. Sloan? And I'm like, just Doug. And he goes, I'm Jason. Shooky sent me here to learn how to act. And I was like, okay, come on in. And basically what I did with him was I gave him the very, very basics of acting, which were taught to me by Howard Fine, which is a way to look at a script and break it down and allow you to stop thinking about and getting in your head and just do, you know, work with actions and objectives, like when you go into a scene, what's the first thing you want from the other character? Uh every line has an action like two pleas, two temps, two this, to that. And the thing about Jason was that he was a martial arts expert. And through that, his work ethic was extraordinary. So he applied that to the acting. And as a result, he became very, very proficient at it very, very quickly. And I don't think he ever really uh shod out as being a terrible actor on the show. He was always, I guess that bears itself out by the fact that he instantly became the most popular Ranger. He, when when the Green Ranger series came out, which is what he he first did, he literally just exploded in popularity. And um, you know, he was he was 19, he was funny, he was uh full of energy, he was, you know, he was cuckoo in a great way. But then as he got older, it started to come out uh his sort of he was a he his paranoias and his moods and stuff. I wouldn't say paranoia, I would say moods. He would, he would take mo have mood swings, and that would create paranoia. And working at Saban is not the place to be if you're paranoid, because they're probably gonna screw you over at some point. So, you know, he we would have these huge long conversations in my office about this and that, and they're they're doing this and they're doing that. And, you know, I was like, Jason, man, you are the biggest, one of the biggest stars on the planet right now. You're on the cover TV guide, you're in a huge movie, just enjoy it, man. You're not going anywhere. They can't do the show without you. But it, you know, when you're dealing with um kind of a a chemical thing, which I think is is what he had, um, God rest his soul. But you know, it's there's nothing you can say that changes that. And unfortunately, we lost Eric, his brother, um 20 years before Jason in the same exact way. Yeah, which was interesting to me. It was sad, but you know, it was it was telling because family, you know, they were brothers and families have genetic things that run through them. So, you know, he he was a joy in in for me. He was like my son, my brother, whatever. He, you know, we you know, he would do things like uh we the big movie they were in premiered, and he called me up, he said, Listen, man, I want you to sit next to me during the premiere. And I'm like, Are you sure? He goes, Yeah, right next to me. And I'm okay. So we went to the premiere and we're sitting down, ready for it to start. And he takes my hand and he whispers, I love you, man. None of this would happen without you. And it was like, God damn. I mean, that's like you live, what what else is there? You know, I mean, here's this kid who's got the world at his feet, and then he's grateful and he's, you know, appreciative. And he was just a kind, wonderful human being. He loved his fans, never let his fans down. He just had, you know, this stuff that he couldn't get rid of. And I don't know what his his early family life was like. I understand there were things there, but um, you know, I miss, I definitely miss him. You know, he it was that was a tough one.

Anita Mattu 31:51

Your book is described as brutally honest. What made you decide to tell the unfiltered truth?

Douglas J Sloan 32:01

Well, you know, it is brutally honest, and it's brutally honest about me for in the first place, and some of the crazy stuff that happened to me in my life. And that sort of to me opened the floodgates to tell the truth about the show. And the truth about the show is that there were a couple of people on that show in the crew uh that were not very nice people and had an agenda and really did everything in their power to make sure that me and my partner, that I am my partner and I, Ann Austin, failed at our jobs. And in the end, they were able to do that. You know, it was really shady, and I didn't know from I knew nothing back then. I was just sort of trying to do my job.

Brutal Truths, Studio Politics, And Authenticity

Douglas J Sloan 32:57

And and the thing is that, you know, I can understand it was what I say in the book is I can understand going after me. I'm I can be a little bit, you know, uh obnoxious and arrogant, but Ann Austin is like literally uh an angel from the sky. She's the perfect person. And to do that to her was unthinkable. And so that's why I've always felt like, you know what, someday there people are gonna know what really happened. And I didn't name their names of these people. Like I gave them fake names. And uh, but it was it was just time. And and the same thing, I'm gonna do the same thing in the second book. Um, you know, the one about New Zealand. I mean, there was one Disney executive who was just an obnoxious adult. He was just dumb. You know, he came to New Zealand and we were on a scout in a in a sheep pasture, which was acres and acres and acres. And he looked to me and he goes, God, how do they mow all the grass? Do they have like gardeners and stuff? And I'm like, dude, they have sheep. The sheep mow the grass. I mean, that's that's kind of what it was. But uh, you know, he um he made it very difficult. But because, you know, Disney wanted everybody who gets a hold of Power Rangers, and it's been with every studio, every network, every it's been everywhere. Everyone's had a bite of the apple. And everyone tries to change it. And Disney tried to change it to be, you know, Hannah Montana with laser beams, and you can't do that. You just got to keep it what it is, and that's why it's popular. That's why the toys sell. And, you know, there are just people who don't get that, and they have to learn that. So that was my big challenge on that show was dealing with the the Disney machine that didn't really that wanted to change it. And thank God there was the guy running the place or the running the thing, a guy named Gary Marsh understood that and didn't try, you know, he he settled things down and said, just do the show, try to make it funny. If you can't, you know, do what you can. And we did what we could. But Power Rangers is always going to be Power Rangers. That's just what it is.

Anita Mattu 35:26

Was there anything you were nervous about sharing? I know you've just shared that. Yeah, I would publicly, you know, anybody can pick up the book and read it.

Douglas J Sloan 35:36

Yeah, I mean, look, I don't really I didn't share anything that wasn't true. I mean, and about myself and about others and about what they did. And if it was if it was my opinion, I absolutely said, This is what I think happened. This is what I think, this is what I remember. You know, if you remember it differently, feel free to write a book and dispute this. But this is how I remember it. And you know, I think most of it was pretty accurate. And, you know, it was it it had to be said. And I did some really stupid stuff. Um, not a lot of stupid stuff, but I did do some stupid stuff. And I take accountability for that. And uh, that's the only way this book works, is if you take accountability for your if you clean up your side of the street, as my old partner likes to say, um, you've got to clean up your side of the street, or it doesn't work, you know. And it's funny because my father uh read the first 10 chapters of the book, which is all about my childhood and growing up and all this, and he was he didn't understand why I had to include my story along with the Power Ranger story. He goes, No one wants to hear about your life. They want to know about the Power Rangers. And I'm like, well, here's the thing: you can't you have to frame it. It's the story's about me and my experiences on Power Rangers, and you have to frame it in a way that people will understand why things happened, how they happened. You know, otherwise, who cares? I mean, there's if there's no protagonist, I mean, and no antagonist, then you even if it's a uh an autobiography or a memoir or whatever, I mean, the best memoirs are the ones with heroes and villains to me. And, you know, and every I have a whole chapter, I go crazy on this in the book, is that no piece of drama can exist without a good villain. I mean, you just every movie you've ever seen that you've loved that's been great has a great villain. Um and, you know, from Alan Rickman in Die Hard to uh, you know, what's uh Meryl Streep and Devil Wears Prada, all those, you know, those are all, you know, to Christoph Waltz in uh Inglorious Bastards. That opening scene of that movie with him, I don't know, have you seen that movie Inglorious Bastards? Oh my God. It's an opening scene with him playing a Nazi uh Jew hunter, quote unquote. And it's the most riveting piece of cinema I've ever seen. But he's the villain, and that he makes that movie work. And so in the book, my book, anyway to my book, you had to have two villains, and they were right there. You know, they were the they were my villains, and whether they were anybody else's, I don't know, but they were mine, and they ended up m getting rid of Ann and I, which was the best thing that ever happened, by the way. Because if we had stayed there, it would have been, I don't know what would have happened. We wouldn't have all the movies we did for Disney or any of that stuff. It it would have been different.

Anita Mattu 39:04

What do you hope readers feel after finishing your book?

Douglas J Sloan 39:08

Well, you know, to me, it's uh I would like for them to feel uh like they've experienced a little tiny slice of what that was like. Because, you know, nobody, unless you were involved with it, you don't know what it was like to be in the eye of that storm. I mean, it was it was what was going on around us was insanity. I mean, it was just and everybody was learning at the time. And to be in the center of that with the star, the main star of that, Jason, was quite remarkable. But at the time, it wasn't, thank God I didn't know what I know now because back then I didn't know anything. I, you know, he was just Jason. He was like my little buddy. You know, we would the funny we would see each other and he would go, buddy, and I would go, buddy. I mean, that was our thing till the day passed. And uh, he was just my little buddy, and and I never really until later, and I got perspective on it. And people who I worked with who had been fans when they were kids brought toys in for me to sign and scripts for me to sign and stuff like that. I never really, I don't think, got the real true uh epic, epic scope of the whole thing, but it was and is, you know, it's something that will live forever in pop culture. It was on for 30 years. You know, that's crazy, you know. The Simpsons is the only thing that that beats it. You know? Yeah.

Anita Mattu 40:52

So what separates people who make it in Hollywood from those that who don't?

Douglas J Sloan 40:57

Oh my goodness, that's a great question. I think there's a lot, you know, you have to there are a lot of people who have made it, I believe, who don't have a ton of talent at creativity, at the creative part of it. But they're very, very talented at politics, networking, talking, you know, worming their way in and out of things. You know, I've met executives who who their notes are ridiculous and stupid, but they managed to stay at their jobs for 20 years. Um, and there's they're doing something that keeps them there. And, you know, there was a company where this guy was there for, you know, for 20 years, and he was everybody knew this guy was kind of an idiot. And uh what it basically came down to was that's what they wanted in that position, was someone who would just say yes to the boss and do what the boss did said and didn't have their own opinion or any of that stuff. It's just, you know, and that's a very lucky thing to fall into. Um, but if you're a writer or or something like that, you know, you have to have self-discipline, you have to be persistent, you have to, you know, you have to be able to get up every day and sit down and write. Just write, right, right, right, right. And after a while, some people still love to do it. You know, David E. Kelly, who uh, you know, the from Law L LA Law and all those shows, is still doing it. He's got a new uh show on the air right now. Margot has money troubles uh with L. Fanning. That's his show. And he still to this day is just brilliant. And Aaron Sorkin, brilliant to this day. You know, it's just, and there's very few of those people. It really is very hard to stay completely focused, and especially someone like me with AD, not ADD, but I just I like to do a lot of different things. I like to do music, as you can see. You know, I like to do all sorts of things. So it's uh you can't, you kind of, for me, I've kind of come to terms with the fact that I can't stay focused on one thing for more than a certain amount of time. So I just have to give over to it and and indulge all the other things that I like to do. But in Hollywood, the people that really, really do well are the ones who live it 24-7. They don't give up, they go out and find uh uh intellectual properties, they write brilliantly, you know, and there's only, if you really think about it, there's only a handful of those guys that you can name that are top shelf, you know, really, really super successful. There's maybe a hundred of them. And then, you know, the rest are agents and stuff like that, which do, and they do well, they do great, they make money, they retire nicely. But, you know, to really truly, you know, I mean, I guess what what do you call success is a great question. And, you know, to really be like a a Tarantino or a Francis uh uh Coppola or Martin Scorsese or something like that, you've got to live and and just that's your thing. And you know, it's the old adage that if you love what you do, you don't work a day in your life, right? And that's what those guys are about. And I've been around those guys. Uh I was on a movie set as a stand in with uh for a movie uh that Sidney Lamette was directing uh with Richard Gere. And so I was right there in the middle of it and watched him. work and it's like when you see passion you know it and it's right there and it's magnificent. So yeah that's what I think it it takes.

Anita Mattu 45:19

Yeah. Because the other thing is how do you stay authentic in an industry that pressures people to conform? Because there's got to be a lot of that going on as well.

Douglas J Sloan 45:29

Oh my God. It's it's well you don't a lot most people don't stay authentic. I mean there are the there are few people who do stay authentic because only because they're allowed to most of us are not allowed to stay authentic to ourselves. We have to bend and sway to the uh wants and needs of the networks and the movie studios and that type of thing and you rewrite scripts that you don't you may not agree with the notes but you do it anyway because that's the thing. But if you're Spielberg or if you are Josh Whedon or um you know any of those guys you do what you they don't tell you what to do usually they don't give you notes. I mean the worst job for an executive is to be assigned to a JJ Abrams show for example or a David E. Kelly show or you know Vince Gilligan the guy who did Breaking Bad and all those what are you going to tell him really nothing. He's going to his shows are brilliant he does them himself and he doesn't need your notes so you know those are the guys who are able to stay authentic and they're great and you would think that people would learn that authenticity breeds success but they don't because they everyone's got to put their stamp on them. Interesting yeah it makes it difficult. Of course yes yeah yeah for someone who wants to break into writing or producing what's the most honest advice you could give them well writing there's many different kinds of producing so you know if you want to be a producer in the movies for example the thing you need to do is find a piece of pro a property an intellectual property or a piece of work or something that you can option or own that you can sell to a studio get a writer it gets made you're a producer. That's movie producers. Now in TV producers are all writers every except for the line producer who is not a writer or the directing producer who is not a writer but every other producer is a writer. So if you want to be a television writer producer the best thing you can do is write sample scripts of shows that are on the air that you think your writing corresponds to or have a

Breaking In Now Plus AI And Ownership

Douglas J Sloan 48:04

great sample script that people can read and that that will they'll say oh my gosh this writing's great got to get this person. And you know it's it's a young person's game if you're trying to enter it. So you know if you're 50 and you're trying to get started as a writer I would say that will be difficult. But nowadays it's it's there's really no excuse if you have that passion and you really truly want to do it you can create your own stuff very easily and I you know I know this because I've I've been doing it and researching it and you know the uh tools that are available now are mind-boggling. I mean it's just what you can do I could if I really sat down and put my mind to it I could take one of my movie scripts and turn it into a movie that looked pretty good in six months, let's say but with at a at a cost of a thousand dollars maybe you know because I'm able to do the music I'm able to you know all the stuff I've directed before I know all the stuff that it needs and all that stuff can be typed into a prompt on you know an AI platform and and you're going to see that more and more and more. It's happening with music it's happening with everything. And you know there's a definite dividing line about artificial intelligence and there's a fear of it and it's you know it's a big scary thing for artists who went to CalArts or whatever and learned how to animate and draw and and all that stuff and are now being replaced by by computers and it's it's a bummer to be honest. But it's that's what's happening. So you know I and I I hate it for them and a lot of the fans for Power Rangers are artists and are outraged by uh AI and I get it. I absolutely get it. You know I was accused of using AI for the cover of my book and I did not I hired a guy to do the cover of the book and he did it. I watched him do it. But um you know AI is a is a sore subject and and but I that doesn't mean that I will not take full advantage of it because at the end of the day I'm I'm older and there aren't the opportunities there once were and I've gonna have to I'm gonna have to create stuff myself which I will do. And there's plenty of places to put it plenty of ways to sell it. It's if you really want to be a filmmaker there is real there's absolutely no excuse now to not be a filmmaker. You can you can sit in your just like we're sitting right now you can sit and type and do it. And so yeah it's it's a it's a new time it's a new era it's a great time for o'tours uh who don't have the means to go out and hire a film crew and and shoot a whole movie I mean it does take a village to shoot a movie or a TV show or whatever regardless it's it's it takes a lot of money and a lot of people and a lot of time and it's becoming less and less like that. Yeah for better or for worse.

Anita Mattu 51:46

What's something you wish someone had told you at the beginning of your career wow that's interesting.

Douglas J Sloan 51:56

You know I wish someone had said to me I mean and I did get started writing at a later age you know I my first job came when I was 31 or 32. That was Power Rangers and I was so broke that the money they were offering me to do the first show I did was like to me astronomical. So I didn't think twice about doing it. But looking back I wish someone had said look man you need to be writing spec scripts for TV shows if you want to get into that arena which would have been the smart thing because I can I could have been doing that for years uh been in a writing room and been a writing producer and all that stuff you know I could I should have done that and it would have been financially much much more advantageous for me to do that but you know you go the path that you're given and there are properties and you know movies that wouldn't exist had I done that. You know some of my movies are have become like these little Disney classics you know Johnny Tsunami and motocross and movies like that have all become you know part of Americana and part of you know sort of uh what what um you know the this generation that the 30 year olds now remember um you know they they you know Johnny tsunami can is used as a verb my friend my friend's son said yeah man I Johnny tsunami did it all the way to Hawaii and it was like you know that's pretty and my catchphrase in that movie that I came up with was go big or go home that that was that originated in that movie that was something we came up with and that phrase is part of America's lexicon I mean or the world everybody says go big or go home. It's like and if I had a nickel for every time someone said that I'd be retired long ago. But you know none of that stuff would have happened had I gone another route. So in ways you know I guess it's it's okay. I mean you just you kind of do what you do and you live how you live and you look back on it and you think man there's I've met a lot of amazing amazing people I've you know I've worked with some great people I've seen historic things happening you know it's just it's been a ride on the show and who knows what would have happened if I'd gone another way.

Anita Mattu 54:40

So if there was one key takeaway you want every listener to walk away with today, what would that be?

Douglas J Sloan 54:46

Well it really you know if we're talking we're circling back to courage if if that's uh okay you know to me courage is not the absence of fear courage is fear you're afraid but you do it anyway because that's what you need to do to get the job done you you push past your fear or you push through your fear and that's the courage. And I would tell people that you know if you are if you're doing something every day that you don't love if you're going to a job that you hate and you're not doing what you love and if there's any way you can find figure out what you do love and try to monetize that then that will change your life because you know I I've met a you know I I I had dinner once with um

Passion, Projects, And Where To Find Douglas

Douglas J Sloan 55:46

Dave Grohl who's the lead singer of the Foo Fighters and probably one of the nicest guys you would ever ever want to meet relax chill and I'm like dude what's the deal and he's loves his life he has a he's a rock star. He loves what he does and but he didn't get there easily it was really hard and he lost a lot of friends along the way but it's what he loves. It's it's the same with any athlete it's the same with uh uh actors or whatever you know they stick with it and they end up doing what they love and yes it's hard it's not easy but that doesn't mean you have to be a famous actor or whatever you could be an accountant and you love numbers and you love accounting. Find that or a hairstylist you love cutting people's hair you love doing that you know find that and go do that because that's what makes you hap people happy not grinding away for 40 years at a job you hate and then you know giving it all to your kids. That's that's what I would say is just find your passion.

Anita Mattu 56:57

That's brilliant. So where can the listeners find you online your books?

Douglas J Sloan 57:03

Well my uh my books are on Amazon my book is on Amazon Morphers, Monsters and Mayhem uh it's uh you know it's available in paperback and Kindle and and the audiobook I think is pretty funny. I read it myself I do it myself and people seem to enjoy it um and please leave a review if you do or you know if you like it leave a review.

Anita Mattu 57:29

The links will be in the show notes so please listeners do go ahead get the book see what it's all about and connect with Douglas.

Douglas J Sloan 57:39

Absolutely you know it's you know I have a Facebook Douglas Sloan Writes um is my Facebook uh uh author page and um you know I'm on Instagram and Twitter uh vrdjs victor robert david john sam vrdjs143 that's me on Twitter if you want to follow me I always or I try to post Power Ranger stuff and other stuff as much as I can um Instagram same thing um and then the new project we've got is a a music project a punk rock band and we're called it's called Lollygag and we write songs about stupid things that are in our culture. You know our first single just came out and it's called OnlyFans Babe and it's about a guy who falls in love with a girl on OnlyFans and doesn't realize that she's not real and uh you know so there's that that's available on on uh iTunes and Apple um so there's you know there's stuff out there and um I'm just I'm gonna keep going I'm writing the second book hopefully be done with that before the end of the year and there you go.

Anita Mattu 58:55

Brilliant. Yeah just before I finish off just tell me about your guitars because we had a whole conversation about them because they are folks well thank you.

Douglas J Sloan 59:05

When I uh during COVID everybody sort of got a hobby right we everybody needed a new hobby and my and I played the guitar for years and I decided that my new hobby was going to be building electric guitars. And so you know I built quite a few of them and it took several years to even get one to play right. I mean there it's very hard to build a guitar and uh it just it's very time consuming in the in the financial model is not great. So most of you know those are all ones I built um and they play great and I actually I had a teacher when I was growing up um a guy named Randy Rhodes who was the guitar player for Ozzy Osbourne's band in the the first Ozzie Osbourne albums the first two and he was killed in a plane crash. And so it's he was one of two teachers I had in my life that really affected my life. So I've played the guitar you know ever since that day and actually if I can show you I I built a tribute guitar to him. Let me see if I can stretch over so this was the guitar that he you know he's famous for playing and I kind of built a tribute but on the back I did his image in resin and and built it into the guitar and this was sort of my the one I'm really the most proud of and it has his you know name on the top. But you know he was uh he was a huge influence on my life and uh you know he died when he was 26 years old it was it was the first death in my life that really just you know was tough. But anyway so yeah that's the guitar the guitar story and I still play I still record I still write songs and I mean that's a joy a great joy in my life you know it's it's something that keeps me sane and yeah thank you for sharing that's oh absolutely absolutely yeah I I I enjoy them definitely and it's you know it's a little bit cheaper than buying one although by the time you get done not that much with all the mistakes I've got a stack of guitar bodies in the garage that will never see the light of day.

Anita Mattu 1:01:42

So thank you so much for sharing your insight your wisdom and your stories with us today and by doing so you've impacted so many people and truly made a difference.

Douglas J Sloan 1:01:54

I really want to acknowledge you for that Douglas and I want to acknowledge you I want to acknowledge you for creating the platform for me to do that. It's uh you do I do a lot of these things these podcasts and this is special this is definitely something special and I appreciate that.

Anita Mattu 1:02:11

Thank you Douglas all right and we are all about create the courage to be fearless podcast so what is your definition of courage?

Douglas J Sloan 1:02:19

Courage as I said is the presence of fear but the willingness to push through it you know it's it's having the the capability to overcome the fear that is in all of us and persevere and succeed regardless of that.