Difference between revisions of "The Case of the Cola Cult"

Revision as of 07:26, 18 March 2007

Writing Credits: Kevin Hopps

First Aired: First aired in the US on October 17, 1989

Title Reference: The plot is summed up using an alliteration.

Episode Number: 27

Season: 2

Production Number: 23

Synopsis

The episode starts in the streets of the Rescue Rangers' hometown where Gadget is performing a test run of her newest vehicle, the Rangermobile. The other Rangers who have joined her are appalled not only by the sheer speed at which the Rangermobile moves and by Gadget's way of driving, but also by the fact that the brakes have already fallen off the Rangermobile. When it loses the left rear wheel, it gets out of control, enters the local branch of the Coo-Koo Cola Company, and ends up in their empty bottle storage.

Suddenly, a group of armed ninja mice appears almost out of nowhere, followed by a huge, musculous mouse named Bubbles who accuses the Rangers of spying. Soon afterwards, Pop Top enters, an elder rat who introduces himself as the leader of the Cola Cult and Bubbles as his assistant. He invites the Rangers to attend a Cola Cult ceremony. It starts with two mice loading a video tape into a VCR which starts the playback of a longish Coo-Koo Cola TV commercial. Hundreds of mice in white robes start celebrating, and said white robes soon change their color to orange, cherry red or grape, depending on which soda shower the mouse has taken. In the course of the ceremony, a soda can with a door in its side is filled with prosperities of several members and moved by a kind of mouse-powered crane into a bucket full of orange soda. As it re-appears and is placed back on the floor, Pop Top opens the door, and the prosperities are gone. Fizzed, according to the Cola Cult members.

Despite the invitiation of Pop Top's to join the Cult, the Rangers leave the place, having seen enough strangeness of several kinds. Back at the Headquarters, Gadget does some last work on another invention of hers, the Magno-Ray. But during its test run, it attracts about everything containing iron within its reach, and said reach reaches as far as the kitchen. Metal things fly through the air, stick to the electric magnet, and fall off again as the Magno-Ray breaks down. In the middle of this chaos, a Cola Cult member named Myron appears at the door, having something important to tell them about the Cult, and disappears seemingly into thin air before he can say a word. The other Rangers try to find him, but all they find is a bottle cap slammed into the RR logo above their door.

So they decide to have another look at the Cult. This time they travel by another brand-new invention of Gadget's, the Gyromobile. It works as desired and fails only when it tries to cling to a surface in the storage which doesn't support suction cups, but the Rangers have somehow stopped trusting Gadget's inventions too much after the failures of the Rangermobile and the Magno-Ray. While investigating in the storage, they are attacked by some empty bottles being tipped over, and someone yet unknown loosens a screw on the Gyromobile. The Rangers try to rescue themselves by jumping back into the strange vehicle and driving up the wall, but as they move along the ceiling, the Gyromobile falls apart, and all that keeps them from falling after the parts is a ribbon on which all seats and one of the suction cups are attached. Zipper manages to catch the falling Rangers with a cloth as the suction cup goes off the ceiling, too, but he is injured in the course of his rescuing mission.

Back at the Headquarters again, this failure, together with the earlier failures and what has happened to Zipper, leads Gadget to the decision that now that she can't invent anything useful for the Rangers anymore, she is of no use for them, and she'd better leave them rather than go on endangering them. The next morning, it takes the other Rangers some time to realize that Gadget is about to go for good. While they try to find words to hold her back, Myron comes once more and falls over unconscious. Trying to get him back to life by giving him a glass of water, they hardly notice Gadget leaving.

She soon finds herself in some alley in the rain, sitting on a piece of wood and watching the tears on her face in the puddle in front of her for a while before she walks on with no destination. When she hears some weird noises, she takes a closer look and sees Pop Top and some more Cola Cult members march through the allies and chant their chant. She follows them, mostly to get out of the rain, but somehow, Pop Top manages to convince her to join the Cult as she has nowhere else to go.

But Gadget isn't the only Rescue Ranger heading for the Cola Cult. The male Rangers have decided to investigate and taken Myron with them, all dressed in the typical robes. Once again, they witness the ceremony, but this time, they spot Gadget among the other mice, and they watch as her tools are prepared for being fizzed. Doing some further investigation, they end up in another soda can which is then sunk in the soda bucket. And they finally find out what being fizzed means.

After being flushed out of the can through some sort of lock, they find themselves in a room full of wealth. Coins, gems, Myron's old clothes, and Gadget's tools, everything has been fizzed in the past. Now it is clear for the Rangers who, like Myron, are orange now from heads to toes, that they are dealing with a criminal, and they suspect Pop Top to be behind all this.

Up at the ceremony, Gadget tries her best to "feel the fizz" and be one of the Cult, but she is so depressed that even a soda shower has no effect other than turning her hair, her overalls, her goggles, and even her nose orange. However, for some reason Bubbles doesn't like her applying for a Cola Cult membership. Soon she is thrown into the same room as the other Rangers. Their suspicion that Pop Top is to be accused is soon proved wrong as the rat is forced to join them by none less than Bubbles and his army of ninjas.

While Pop Top, Myron and her friends are held captive, Gadget manages to escape. When Bubbles has told her that it was him who has made the Gyromobile fall apart, she has regained her self-confidence, and now she is back in her workshop. Using parts of the Rangermobile and the Gyromobile plus some heavy armament, she builds the Gyrotank. Now she is orange, she is angry, and she is armed, and in this dangerous state she drives the Gyrotank back to the Cola Cult.

From the empty soda bottles in which they have been locked away and waiting to be drowned, the Rangers plus Pop Top and Myron watch the showdown while Bubbles plays the master of ceremony and does what he can to fight off the sudden intruder. The Gyrotank swiftly evades empty bottles which roll up to it by running up some crates. Soda straws being thrown at it don't harm it at all. But Orange Gadget doesn't even need it to take on giant Bubbles and all his ninjas. All she needs is her plunger crossbow, her Magno-Ray, and her will to fight. With the Magno-Ray, she sends two bottle caps flying towards her over to the six-pack with her friends inside and cuts off the tops of the bottles. The ninjas are taken down in groups, and so it's no surprise that Gadget finally defeats Bubbles by balancing him on fountains coming from soda cans and throwing him into the fizz bucket. And he was never seen again, at least not in the series.

Now that the case is solved, but the secret behind fizzing is revealed, Pop Top fears that this is the end of the Cola Cult. But Gadget tells her that the mice don't need the Cult to meet.

Characters

The Rescue Rangers

Pop Top

Bubbles

Myron

Devices

The Rangermobile

The Gyromobile

The Gyrotank

The Magno-Ray

Quotes

Chip: "Gee Gadget, didn't you put any brakes on this thing?"

Gadget: "Don't be silly, Chip! Of course I did, but they fell off a few blocks back!"

Pop Top: "Have a fizzy day!"

Dale: "So-da long!"

Dale: "What was that?"

Gadget: "Oh, nothing to worry about."

Chip: "What about that?"

Gadget: "That's something to worry about."

Gadget: "Okay, who wants to find out if this thing works?"

Songs

The Coo-Koo Cola Jingle

Come along, you belong

Feel the fizz of Coo-Koo Cola

It's the cola for making you proud

Take another sip and be one of the crowd

Feel the fizz of Coo-Koo Cola

Come along, you belong

Feel the fizz of Coo-Koo Cola

Get to the store and take all you can carry

We've got the flavors, orange grape and cherry

You belong with Coo-Koo Cola

Come along, you belong

Feel the fizz of Coo-Koo Cola

It's bottled in Pensacola

Come along, Coo-Koo Cola

You belong, Coo-Koo Cola

Trivia

External Links

Episode summary by Julie Bihn at Julie's Ranger Rama