Haim Saban is a Billionaire and it all started with a trip to Japan and only one thing on TV. Way to Go Go Power Rangers.

Dave Young:

Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those.

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Dave Young:

Welcome back to The Empire Builders Podcast, and we're talking empires today. Stephen Semple's there. I'm here. I'm Dave. Gosh, if anybody that ever thought I was reading the intros like that, it's not okay.

Stephen Semple:

Mystery solved.

Dave Young:

Mystery solved. Never the same twice. So Stephen, you told me that we're going to talk about Power Rangers today, and I think of that like an entertainment franchise sort of thing, but also what also toys.

Stephen Semple:

They are also toys, yes.

Dave Young:

Was it one of those things where it's like, oh, we're going to invent this toy and then we're going to have an entertainment program to go along with it? Because these things seem to go hand in hand these days.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah, and they very much was hand in hand. The two came about very much together. And it's got an interesting history to it because it was launched in 1993 and it was created by Haim Saban, who is now a billionaire. He's gone on to do a bunch of things.

Not just making a ton of money from this, but if you look him up on Wikipedia, it's estimated he's worth a couple of billion dollars. So he's done well in the entertainment industry. And Hasbro acquired the company back in 2019 for $522 million. So it certainly has contributed to his wealth. And he was a cartoon theme songwriter is where he got his start.

Dave Young:

Really? Okay.

Stephen Semple:

He worked on things like Professor Gadget and Masters of the Universe. Those were the things that he was writing theme songs for.

Dave Young:

Oh, cool.

Stephen Semple:

But he wanted to create his own property. He always wanted to have his own thing. And at the time, he's on a business trip in Japan, and the only thing you can get on the TV is this Japanese animated series called Choudenshi Bioman, which is part of what they call a Super Sentai series. And Saban was fascinated by this concept of five masked people in spandex fighting monsters. So it's in 1985, and he produces a pilot of Bioman.

And the idea of adapting Japanese productions to the US market started basically in 1970 with Marvel. Marvel did a deal with Toei Company to exchange ideas, and Toei created a Japanese version of Spider-Man that did actually really well. And what Marvel tried to bring to the US, not so much. So it sort of worked. Initially, America to Japan was working, but Japan back to America was not working as well.

But that didn't stop Saban. So what he decided to do was create a show where they could keep the original action scenes, because the action scenes are complex and hard to film, and then just replace the other scenes with good-looking American actors. So basically when there was the action scenes, it was actually the original Japanese content. And then they would put in...

Dave Young:

Oh, wow.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah, he just basically said, okay, here's this Japanese thing. I'll keep the original story. I'll keep the Japanese content. And then where any of the acting is, I'll put in good-looking American actors. Basically that footage is already shot and the toys already existed. So it was also economical to import it to the United States.

This was his idea. So he gets a meeting with Toei and Bandai, and they agree. What the heck? Sure. Take our content. Take it to the United States. So he gets agreement from them. They already got the toys. They already got the expensive action scenes. All they got to do is splice in the other stuff.

Dave Young:

So on the Power Rangers, I mean, I had little kids at that time. Anytime they're in their helmets and they're fighting and it's the bam, bam, bam stuff, that's all from original Japanese shows.

Stephen Semple:

Original Japanese content. At least that's how it started. I don't know as it progressed whether they changed that, but initially, yes, that's what it was.

Dave Young:

And so then when they take their helmets off and they're just sitting around the Power Ranger den or whatever it is.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah.

Dave Young:

Yeah, okay. Wow, what a cool idea. I mean, an interesting way to mash up content.

Stephen Semple:

And so they've got nothing to lose on it. They agree to license the US rights of all of this to Saban. So it's in 1987 and Saban's ready to pitch it to US networks. It has this kind of campy feeling, right? They say, "Yeah, no, we'll pass." He talks to everyone and no one wants it. And the problem is for him to keep the licensing alive, he's continuing to pay the license. There's a minimum licensing fee. It's draining him. He's continuing to pay this licensing fee to keep this alive.

Now, it's 1990 and people are now looking... Remember, 1990, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles happens. So now there's a little bit of an appetite for these things, and there's a new president at Fox Kids, Margaret Loesch. Now, here's the interesting thing. Margaret Loesch knew the series because she had been at Marvel and had done these ideas with Stan Lee in the 1970s. So Marvel was doing these cross-pitchings, she was part of all of that. She was actually running that.

And so she loves the idea. She was immediately on board, and she takes it to her bosses. But the upper management hate it. Live action targeting at kids. It's too new. Not going to happen. And she puts her job on the line. She says, "I'm going to do this." So it's 1992, she puts her job on the line. Saban gets a green light, but he needs a new name. They want a little bit more than Power Rangers. So it becomes the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

Dave Young:

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Yup.

Stephen Semple:

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Now, Bandai is small in the US at this time, like $4 million in sales. Hasbro's doing like $2 billion, but they're going to save all this money because the toys already exist. And not only that, all the characters are from the same mold. They just do a different color.

Now, the size is a little bit off standard because the Japanese market's a little different standard size than the US, and they want to do something to really make it stand out. So here's the interesting packaging thing that they do with the toy. Toys at the time were like there was the toy would sit in the middle and you'd see it, right?

Dave Young:

Yeah, the action hero in the... Not the shrink grip, but the...

Stephen Semple:

So the window would be in the middle of the packaging cardboard...

Dave Young:

Plastic formed thing. Yeah.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah. Well, what they decided to do is put the character in the corner of the packaging. So now the window wrapped around the character. So you could see the front of the character and the side of the character, and it would also make it unique. Stand out on the shelves. They created this corner packaging. So now the show comes out and it's a hit.

Dave Young:

Stay tuned. We're going to wrap up this story and tell you how to apply this lesson to your business right after this.

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Dave Young:

Let's pick up our story where we left off. And trust me, you haven't missed a thing.

Stephen Semple:

So now the show comes out and it's a hit. It's such a hit that when the Nielsen ratings come out, people don't believe the numbers.

Dave Young:

Really?

Stephen Semple:

There's no way it was this popular. It was so popular that they moved it from the mornings to the afternoon and put it up against Oprah.

Dave Young:

Wow! Okay.

Stephen Semple:

And by October, Power Rangers are surpassing Oprah.

Dave Young:

That's crazy.

Stephen Semple:

Isn't that crazy? And the toy explodes. You can't get your hands on it. In 1993, the demand is so high, it's now becoming the story that's out there. Bandai makes 4 million of these toys. It's not enough. They've got 11 factories. It's not enough. Christmas 1994, they can't keep up. Literally in Christmas in 1994, Power Rangers represents 40% of all action figure sales.

Dave Young:

That's amazing. That's amazing.

Stephen Semple:

In the first three years, they do a billion dollars in sales.

Dave Young:

Outstanding.

Stephen Semple:

Is that crazy?

Dave Young:

I had a niece that was really into the Power Rangers. My kids really weren't, but yeah, what a cool thing. That's a lot of plastic.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah. What I really liked was Saban, he saw this idea in Japan. And again, it wasn't all that new thing of trying to bring something from Japan, but what I really loved was the way he looked at it was it became almost a slam dunk for people to license it to him. Because it's like, we're going to reuse your toys, even though the US market's a different standard size.

We're going to reuse your content, all the expensive stuff. We're just going to reuse it. And here's how we're going to make it an American feeling is we're just going to splice this stuff in. When I heard that, I was like, wow, that is brilliant. What a brilliant way of reusing content.

Dave Young:

Well, on a microscale, it's what's happening all over TikTok and Instagram, everything.

Stephen Semple:

Today?

Dave Young:

Yeah, you mash it up. You take somebody else's something and do something else with it.