Features/Editorial
Star Wars bootlegs and ‘KFC-3PO’ art: Kentucky toy store deals in one-of-a-kind weirdness
A Northern Kentucky suburb of Cincinnati is home to a unique toy store that celebrates the defunct Ohio toy company that helped put action figures on the map.
Earth to Kentucky sits at the corner of Main Street and W 9th Street just three miles south of the shuttered toy-maker Kenner’s original headquarters.
The toy store puts on a monthly-ish show in which dozens of artists create “bootleg” toys inspired by the 3-and-3/4-inch “Star Wars” action figures that transformed Kenner into a juggernaut in the late 1970s. The pieces are put up for sale to the general public and have fetched upwards of $400.
That event isn’t the only thing that makes Earth to Kentucky stand apart from your standard comic or hobby shops. There are some cheaper knickknacks intended for children and plenty of collector-level goods for purchase that you’d find on shelves elsewhere, but far more noticeable are the things you won’t see anywhere else. Where else can you snap a selfie with a Jar Jar Binks mannequin in drag while the 1968 sci-fi film “Gamera vs. Viras” plays on a nearby television, for instance?
Photo: Ryan Hermens/Lexington Herald-Leader
At ‘Power Rangers’ convention, virtual friendships become reality
Three weekends ago, I flew for the very first time.
Not to visit family members living in Vancouver. Not to go frolic on a beach in the Bahamas. Not to take a backpacking trip through Europe. Nah, I flew to Pasadena, Calif., for Power Morphicon, a bi-annual convention celebrating the children’s television show “Power Rangers.” And it was, to pull a phrase from the show’s lexicon, morphinominal.
Sports fans’ spaces in which they can be themselves are abundant and apparent: backyards, living rooms, bars, restaurants, arenas, stadiums. A 9-year-old “Power Rangers” fan in Eastern Kentucky didn’t have quite that many options when it came to engaging with other like-minded folks, so websites like Power Rangers Central became a go-to place to keep up with news and theories about the show, as well as to “meet people” from the comfort of a holler. I never posted much but visiting every day made me feel part of a larger community that mattered, not unlike a herd of NFL fans packed into Buffalo Wild Wings on Sunday afternoon.
Photo: Joshua Moore
Lexington’s oldest hardware store is a hidden treasure of PPE — and it’s expanding
When John and Lisa Justice finalized their purchase of Chevy Chase Hardware in December, they could not have planned for a global pandemic.
But the newcomers to entrepreneurship adapted swiftly. They worked with suppliers to acquire face masks, cleaning supplies, bathroom tissue and other items whose scarcity increased as consumers bought them in bulk as measures to combat the spread of COVID-19.
Located at 883 E High St. and a staple in the city since 1946, Chevy Chase Hardware has been able to maintain a steady stream of those products over the last month, allowing it to continue going toe-to-toe with national chains like Lowe’s and Home Depot while maintaining a small-town sensibility. It’s had to go “outside the box” in terms of whom its working with to supply goods — Bluegrass Distillers, a local distillery, is providing hand sanitizer — in order to best cater to the current needs of its customers, but it’s made it work.
“We’ve been very lucky, we have pretty much kept bleach, gloves, hand sanitizer,” John, who previously worked for Samsung Electronics and Lexmark, said in a phone interview Wednesday. “And masks, we’re getting those from a couple people now in order to take care of everyone in the community.”
Photo: Alex Slitz/Lexington Herald-Leader
Power Rangers on YouTube might not be working for you, but it is for Hasbro
Six months in, Power Rangers on YouTube (PROY) appears more hazardous than the rubble left behind following a Megazord fight. Episodes are regularly uploaded to the primary account — “Power Rangers Official” — with no readily apparent order in mind, and sans closing credits. Sometimes a season’s episode number is present, sometimes it’s not. Playlists exist for some seasons, but the ones that do are unreliable. Take Jungle Fury’s premiere, “Welcome to the Jungle,” a two-parter. The first part, uploaded May 6, is in the playlist encompassing full episodes of the season. The second part, uploaded May 31, is not. (The episodes that “premiered” between the split season-opener? Two from Dino Thunder and one from Wild Force. As of Aug. 25, the final 20 episodes of Jungle Fury had not yet been uploaded.)
As of this article’s publication only one season, Dino Super Charge, has been fully uploaded to YouTube. It is not available on the main account, though; they live on the “Power Rangers Kids” channel, which has 8 million fewer subscribers and about 8 million more emojis in the episode titles. The subscriber discrepancy, it’s worth noting, doesn’t seem to impact viewership; episodes on that channel have performed as well, and frequently, better than uploads to the main one, in terms of total viewership numbers.
At a glance, Hasbro has morphed its Power Rangers backlog into a series of commentary-free “Let’s Play” videos, released daily and with a variety of games (seasons) represented in order to placate the YouTube algorithm. Daily uploads are complemented by concurrent live streams for viewers desperate enough to catch a glimpse of their favorite episode from whatever seasons are in the spotlight in a given week. The episode uploads are interspersed with all the YouTube fixings — think top 10s and “best of” highlight reels — you’d expect to see from any entertainment-focused YouTuber on the platform.
Photo: Joshua Moore
How did a Lexington high school senior find herself in Josh Hutcherson’s new movie?
Sophia Mitchell will never forget how she met Kentucky-born movie star Josh Hutcherson.
“So I had to sit next to him in this field — I can’t say exactly what’s happening — but we were in this field and I had to lean over him and I was like, ‘I don’t know? Do I look at him?’” Mitchell said with a laugh. “Because they were fixing his leg into the ground to make it look like he has a broken leg. I don’t know what to do.
“And so he was just talking and super chill about it. He’s like, ‘Hi, I bet this isn’t how you thought you’d meet me.’ I was like, ‘No, it’s not.’”
Mitchell, a senior at Paul Laurence Dunbar, spent last summer working as a a stand-in for Brianna Hildebrand’s character, Sadie Cunningham, in the upcoming independent horror-comedy “Tragedy Girls,” directed by Tyler MacIntyre. The film, about two high school girls who murder people and become social-media sensations by using their platform, @TragedyGirls, to report on those murders to the clueless public, had a 94 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 18 reviews as of Monday afternoon.
Photo: Provided by the Mitchell family
‘Power Rangers’ star makes it a point to come to Lexington Comic Con. Here’s why.
This year’s Lexington Comic Con will be the 10th iteration. It’s a good bet that Jason David Frank will draw a large crowd of fans, a good chunk of whom have probably interacted with him before in Lexington.
They come not just because he inspired them in their youth as a Power Ranger, but because he continues to do so. As he nears 50, it’s not through fighting evil space aliens but by simply being available in a way that few of his peers are, on social media and during in-person interactions. Whether that meet-up lasts for a minute or an hour, his focus will be on making it memorable. And in that moment, he’ll only have eyes for you.
“For me, it’s an experience, and it’s not a fake experience,” Frank said. “ ... It’s not just about money. It’s about depositing in your emotional bank account. Just live life like that. Do good things and enjoy that moment.”
Photo: Matt Goins/Lexington Herald-Leader