 This article is about a monster in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
|
- "Ooo ha ha ha! Watch this, Power Rangers!"
- ―Pirantishead's first words when confronted by the Power Rangers in the warehouse district of Angel Grove. After saying this, he blasted the city.[src]
- "Hey! What, what? No fair!"
- ―Pirantishead reacting to the Power Blaster and his final words before his initial defeat.[src]
- "I'M HUNGRY! Ah, lunch!"
- ―Pirantishead upon being enlarged.[src]
- "I'll tear you apart with my bare fins! Power Rangers, prepare to meet your doom!"
- ―Pirantishead after the Thunder Megazord destroyed his nunchaks and his final words before his destruction.[src]
Pirantishead was a piranha monster who served as the main antagonist of the three part opening episode of Season 2, "The Mutiny".
History
When Lord Zedd took over Rita Repulsa's palace, he created his Z Putty Patrollers and sent them to destroy the Power Rangers but they were decimated. Despite this temporary setback, and to try to still one-up Rita, Zedd used his staff to transform a piranha in the Rampoon River into Pirantishead and he teleported to Angel Grove. Pirantishead was one of the most formidable monsters the Rangers ever faced and his weapon was a pair of chain-linked fish shaped flutes that doubled as nunchuks. During the course of his existance, Lord Zedd appeared to be continually feeding Pirantishead energy from his staff continuously making him stronger. The Rangers arrived in the warehouse district and found him sitting on a rooftop behind them. He blasted the city with his flute so they immediately summoned the Dinozords. However, using his flute, Pirantishead was able to freeze the Sabertooth Tiger, Triceratops, Mastodon, and Pterodactyl Dinozords in time and space which rendered them unusable.
Pirantishead left the Tyrannosaurus Dinozord unfrozen but, before Jason could enter the cockpit, Lord Zedd powered him up with lightning. Now enhanced, Pirantishead took control of it and used it against the Rangers, blasting them down with the Zord's ground breath attack. Luckily, Tommy arrived (after being empowered by Zordon since the Putty fight severely weakened his powers) and summoned the Dragonzord to protect them. However, the Tyrannosaurus managed to fight the Dragonzord to a stalemate which enabled Pirantishead to take control of that Zord as well. Pirantishead then had the Dragonzord take down all five Rangers with the wind from a tail swing and then completely vanished from the scene when the two Dinozords went on a rampage. In the meantime, Zordon revealed that it was impossible to unfreeze the Dinozords, since they could never give them enough power to get free, meaning that they needed to replace the entire Zord fleet (bar the Dragonzord) with new Zords. To this end, he introduced the new Thunderzords to the Power Rangers but they still needed to free the Dinozords to use them as a blueprint. To this end, Billy and Trini were able to create a signal jammer to free the Dinozords from Pirantishead.
Now confident that victory was at hand, Zedd sent Pirantishead down to attack the city again. He appeared in the countryside along the Fifth Annual Children’s Hospital Charity Motor Marathon racetrack but the Power Rangers didn't immediately respond since they didn't want to get potentially crippled by the controlled Zords. On the other hand however, he was threatening the entire race and everyone involved so the Rangers were forced to respond even in spite of the Zord danger. Pirantishead then confronted them by standing on a hill only to teleport away so that Zedd could teleport down his Putties. However, Pirantishead had not actually left and instead moved to a different area. He took control of the motorcycles used by Bulk and Skull after they accidentally drove into one another, making them go berserk and ride in a big circle. He then reactivated his Zords which delivered a beat down to the Rangers and started to terrorize them. However, he stopped the attack for no reason and sent them to attack the Motor Marathon, the Rangers being unable to stop them due to thier power and the Tyrannosaurus' breath attack just blew up a dust storm. Luckily, the racers escaped because none of the missiles actually made contact with them. Billy and Trini arrived with their signal jammer which interfered with the Zord control but it didn't work since the batteries were in backwards. Thinking that victory was at hand, Pirantishead got down to ground level and had the Zords charge with more mist blasts. To buy time for Billy to fix the signal jammer, the Rangers formed the Power Blaster and fired at Pirantishead, first aiming at the Tyrannosaurus Dinozord, and then at Pirantishead who initially panics. Likely because they were rushing to prevent the Zords from retaliating, the Power Blaster blast mostly missed him, aimed a little low but the explosion did burn his feet and cause him to hop around before collapsing.
After the Zords are returned to the Rangers' control by the now working signal jammer, Lord Zedd attempts to bury them deep into the Earth, with the exception of the Dragonzord which Tommy hastily withdraws into the ocean, but Alpha is able to save them and transform them into the new Thunderzords. In retaliation, Zedd threw the first of his special Growth Bombs which Pirantishead caught and used to slam into the ground which enlarged him. The Rangers then withdrew to the Command Center and were given their Zords before deploying to fight Pirantishead in the countryside by forming their new Thunder Megazord. Pirantishead then tried to take control of the Thunderzords but the format was immune to his influence so he knocked it back with his nunchaks before wrapping it up. He then electrocuted it but the formation sent a reverse charge along it which obliterated the chain and knocked Pirantishead down. Now enraged, the monster now discarded the now useless nunchaks and announced that he planned to destroy it with his bare fins. However, the Rangers energized the Thunder Megazord's Thunder Saber and slew him with a single slash before he could make good on that threat. All Pirantishead could do was scream in pain, spin on the spot, and fall flat on his face before the first of Zedd's monster was destroyed. Pirantishead's demise led Zedd to decide to stay on Earth and try to destroy the Rangers, leading to his succeeding schemes. 
TV STORY-The Mutiny
Later, Pirantishead was revived by Lord Zedd along with Commander Crayfish, the Slippery Shark and the Goo Fish to make up his Fish Army. with help from the Tube Monster. They fought the Rangers at the beach, stalemating until the Rangers had to use their Thunder Megazord to kill the Tube Monster and left Tommy to fight the sea monsters alone. However, in spite of being heavily outnumbered, he easily took them down with Saba, making all of the monsters disappear in flashes of white lightning which marked the permanent end of Pirantishead. TV STORY-A Reel Fish Story
In Other Media
Pirantishead returns.
Pirantishead appears again, battling the Rangers and trying to steal radioactive Piranhas from the Angel Grove Aquarium. In this appearance, Pirantishead lacked the fish fins on the side of his head and the monster's name is spelt as "Pirantis-Head." Also, he was referred to as Zedd's latest creation and the comic version is white all over except for the green hands, and green fin on his head.The radioactive fish made himself grow in the water, but the Rangers defeated him with with the Ninja Megazord. Unlike most monsters however, he does not explode and is instead uppercutted into the air and that was the last time he appears, the single blow apparently ending him. TV STORY-I'd Like to be Under the Sea
Personality
Pirantishead was a sinister, cunning and unpredictable monster, as he turned the Dinozords against the Power Rangers. He was also proven to devious and sadistic but was intensely loyal and faithful to Lord Zedd.
Powers and Abilities
- Strength: Pirantishead is amongst the most powerful monsters faced in the original three seasons, being able to knock back the Thunder Megazord with single throws of his nunchaks. However, he did mainly rely on the Dinozords in combat.
- Durability: Pirantishead has extremely thick fish scale like skin that meant that, when blasted by the Power Blaster, he only performed an Irish jig.
- Skilled Fighter: Pirantishead was a skilled enough fighter to easily be able to defeat the Rangers using his weapons, skills and the Dinozords.
- Teleportation-Pirantishead can teleport to any location at will in a large grey energy swirl.
Arsenal
- Nunchak Flutes: Pirantishead wielded a pair of flutes that were connected by chains and doubled as nunchucks to use in combat. However, thier main function was controlling the Zords.
- Energy Blasts: Pirantishead can play his flute to unleash energy blasts powerful enough to take down all five Rangers and cause large explosions in the city.
- Machine Control: Pirantishead can play his flute and blast the Zords with a white mist that allows his complete control over them.
- Machine Freezing: Pirantishead can freeze machines in time using this same technique, as shown when he performed this on the other Dinozords.
- Chain Wrap: Pirantishead can throw his chain which makes it wrap around his enemies, as shown when he did this to the Thunder Megazord.
- Electrocution: Pirantishead can slam his fist down on the chain to send an electrical charge along it that electrocuted the Thunder Megazord.
- Fins: Even without his flute, Pirantishead had his bare fins (AKA his bare hands) that he claimed he would use to "tear apart" the Thunder Megazord. However, he was destroyed before he could use them.
Behind the scenes
Portrayal
- Pirantishead was voiced by producer Scott Page-Pagter and had a voice identical to the Oysterizer from the previous episode.
- Ironically, in Season 2, Scott had become the sole producer in Power Rangers after the departure of Ronnie Hadar. With Hadar gone, the only people Pagter had to answer to were executive producer Jonathan Tzachor and show runners/creators Haim Saban and Shuki Levy.
Notes
- Pirantishead comes from what is commonly referred to as Zyu2 footage, and was not seen in the original Zyuranger. Pirantishead was originally supposed to have been destroyed by the original Ultrazord which one can tell with the superimposed explosion over his face. Recently released Zyu2 footage shows that Pirantishead did indeed fight Megazord & Dragonzord instead of the Thunder Megazord. In the fight Pirantishead once again takes control of Dragonzord and commanding it to fight the Megazord which explains why Dragonzord was absent during the fight with the Thunder Megazord.
- Despite Pirantishead playing his flute to use his energy blasts, freeze mist, and Zord control smoke, one can clearly see that the mist itself is coming from the center of his mouth. This is most evident when he takes control of Bulk and Skull's vehicles.
- Pirantishead's costume was later adorned with Hate Master's "hair," recolored blue, had the fins on the side of his head removed, and later used in background shots in the episodes "Fire in Your Tank" (where it was among the monsters in Divatox's boot camp) and "Countdown to Destruction" (where it was among the monsters in Rita and Zedd's army). Fans have named this monster "Blue Grouperhead."
- This suit butchering is also why Pirantishead himself didn't appear in Countdown.
- 
