‘Power Rangers’ Alum Rajia Baroudi Diagnosed With Cancer
I caught wind of this earlier but couldn’t get to a computer in time to write it up. Former Power Rangers actress Rajia Baroudi has been diagnosed with acinic cell carcinoma.
A GoFundMe page has been started on behalf of the actress. A combination of controlled diets and holistic remedies are being used because she is allergic to particular chemicals, so chemotherapy is out of the question.
We are using diet and holistic remedies as she is an APOE Type 4/4 and is very sensitive to chemicals in her body – so no chemotherapy is being done.
Before you say that you’ve never seen Rajia say “It’s Morphin’ Time,” you totally did. Rajia Baroudi portrayed Delphine, the White Alien Ranger. She was the leader of the Alien Rangers of Aquitar in the mini-series Mighty Morphin’ Alien Rangers (SHE! SHE! Power Rangers had women leaders! DC didn’t announce a Wonder Woman movie until this year!) the 10-part finale of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers that transitioned the show into Power Rangers Zeo. So it’s a safe bet that she was a part of your childhood, no matter how small.
Yeah, they weren’t credited in their own opening credits, which is all sorts of bullshit.
In addition to Power Rangers, Rajia has a varied career in video game voice acting, having lent her talents to Diablo III and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.
A word about the Alien Rangers in Power Rangers lore: As beloved as Mighty Morphin’ is, I don’t hear a peep about the Alien Rangers whenever BuzzFeed gets nostalgic or a so-called ’90s kid dwells about, you know, the ’90s. I’ve always wondered why, because I can’t think of any kids’ TV show that managed to do the mini-series thing decades before Marvel’s Agent Carter.
The Alien Rangers were among the coolest things the original Mighty Morphin’ series ever did. They were totally weird, totally strange, and totally badass. The Alien Rangers hailed from an ocean planet, Aquitar — further expanding the scope of Power Rangers — and were hella weird human/fish hybrids that had cheesy-but-charming brain stuff on their heads. Their resting pose was a hand symbol and their heads constantly jerked, probably to drive home to kids still too young to comprehend language that they’re aliens. One would think the weird brain stuff would have communicated that easily.
I fucking loved the Alien Rangers. The Mighty Morphin’ costumes are classic, but the Alien Ranger costumes are beauty in simplicity. They have no diamond patterns or sculpted helmets, yet they all look amazing when paired together. They’re among my favorite costumes of all time even if they lasted just ten episodes. Because of how simple they were, I always drew them in my grammar school notebooks or art class projects like a dorky da Vinci, hiding them in plain sight. I remember doing their hand thing for the entirety of my oldest brother’s wedding, because I was seven and didn’t give a fuck. But the best thing about the Alien Rangers were how they contributed to Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers in ways no one ever thinks of: they expanded the universe. That seems pretty normal today since everything has to have a universe, but Power Rangers had a gigantic imagination that no other kids’ show had.
Power Rangers aired in a decade where TV sci-fi came back with a vengeance. Starting with Star Trek: The Next Generation in the late ’80s to The X-Files, Babylon 5, Farscape, Sliders, Stargate SG-1, Reboot, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Voyager, Power Rangers is an underrated contributor to sci-fi that introduced a generation to love technology and giant robots. In turn, the show soon embraced its sci-fi aspects fully by exploring other planets, dimensions, and even alien societies (like Edenoi, featured in the three-part episode that introduced the spin-off series Masked Rider). In later years, sci-fi became Power Rangers‘ very identity with seasons like Lost Galaxy, Time Force, and SPD.
The Alien Rangers single-handedly added a dimension to Mighty Morphin‘, where suddenly Angel Grove, aka your backyard, isn’t all that matters. But no matter who they are, be it aliens or just people who look or sound different than you, goodness is universal and teamwork can overcome all.
As a lifelong Power Rangers fan, this is just awful news about Rajia. I can only speak as a fan and encourage you to donate and spread the word to get the lady back to full health.
You can learn more about acinic cell carcinoma here and you can donate to Rajia’s treatments on her GoFundMe here. We wish Rajia a speedy recovery.
