Guys in crayon-colored Spandex - they're (uh) heroes.

A phenomenon known as "Power Ranger Gridlock" logjammed traffic for miles along Lankershim Boulevard and the Hollywood Freeway on Presidents Day last week due to the first public appearance of TV's hottest new celebrities, the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

The chaos caused police to close off exits, detour drivers and foil fans of their chance to see their heroes. But despite the difficulties, the Power Rangers' six-show debut at Universal Studios' 6,200-seat amphitheatre set a record, said Universal spokesman Jim Yeager, who estimated attendance at more than 35,000.

This tidal wave of adoration follows a similar turnout at shopping malls late last year, when toy action figure likenesses of the Power Rangers and a $9.95 video became hot Christmas items.

The visit to Universal Studios was scheduled to announce the Rangers' appointment as teen ambassadors to the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, otherwise known as DARE.

Each of the six shows featured a spectacular entrance spiced by jamming music, incendiary devices, gymnastic stunts and martial arts moves. Then the Rangers explained DARE, and moved on to answer questions about their TV personnas and personal lives.

On television, the live-action, top-rated kids show -- which debuted this season -- airs daily at 5 p.m. on the Fox Network. The story line for Fox Television's runaway hit goes like this:

Once upon a solar system, Zordon, Champion of Decency, and Rita Repulsa, Empress of Evil, began a 2,000-year battle for control of the universe which was temporarily resolved by a best-of-five coin toss.

Rita lost the toss and was banished to a waste dumpster set adrift in outer space. "A gazillion space miles later," goes the tale, Rita's dumpster crashed into "this little moon orbiting a lovely little planet called Earth." From there, it was just a matter of time until Rita set up a secret command center in the California desert.

Noting this turn of events, Zordon crossed the boundaries of time and space to foil Rita with the aid of "the two most powerful forces ever to exist on Earth -- Prehistoric Dinosaurs and Teenagers with Attitudes." After building huge dinosaur-like fighting vehicles, Zordon located a group of teenagers who had "a special physical skill (gymnastics/martial arts) and the innate ability to wear Spandex" of a designated color.

Once chosen, the teenagers attained the power to "morph" -- or metamorphose -- into heroes.

The story concept was nine years in the making and was sparked when Haim Saban, the show's executive producer, was on a business trip to Japan and channel-surfed to the only TV show he could understand.

At the time, he was pitching Japanese studios on buying music services provided by his company, Saban Entertainment. The Burbank-based firm had already sold opening themes to a number of American shows and had recently produced "Kidd Video," a show combining live-action and animation that was eventually sold to NBC.

Though live-action shows like "Bio Man," involving human transformations into super-heroes, had been watched for years in Japan, the show was a whole new experience for Saban, whose Israeli and French upbringing tended toward tamer childhood characters like Babar the Elephant.

"I realized that there was a great opportunity here to try and create an American version of that show" - with a few cultural adjustments, said Saban. So he contacted the show's producers, Toei Co., about co-producing a pilot for a global audience.

"I went and talked to the people in charge, and I said, "Why don't we joint venture on this?'" Saban relates. Eventually, he and his partner, Shuki Levy, brain-stormed with two "creative people" from Toei to come up with a format that would be culturally acceptable in both Japan and the U.S.

The way they conceived the show, Saban explains, was to create about five or six minutes of action footage common to both versions of the show. Then, he says, his Japanese counterparts "create their so-called 'A Story' with their actors and we create our 'A story' with our actors."

The format, concept and action scenes are the same, but the actual story line is different. For instance, the Japanese might defend hospitalized children, while the Americans ace exams.

The process is facilitated by the fact that the actors wear helmets, neck-to-foot Spandex jumpsuits and gloves during the action scenes.

Despite prodigious efforts, the pilot "was turned down for eight years by every single (production) outlet," Saban says. That is, until Saban crossed Margaret Loesch's path.

Loesch, president of Fox Children's Network, said Saban's two-minute pilot truly hit home.

"When I was president of Marvel Productions and responsible for selling programming to the networks, I unsuccessfully tried to sell a show very similar to Power Rangers," she says.

"I really believed in the concept of costumed superheroes fighting those campy Japanese monsters" and fought management and staff opposition at Fox for a year to get it on the air this season.

Right now, says Saban, the show has licensed 60 spinoff products and there is talk of a feature film.

Saban says the key to the Power Rangers' success is simple: "We've created a saga here. There's an evolvement in the relationship to the characters reminiscent of soap operas."

And, like soap operas, the show strives to introduce new elements and characters to keep it fresh.

"From time to time," Saban says, "we'll bring in a story out of left field."

For example, the producers introduced a new kid named Tommy, who beat the till-then undefeated Power Ranger ringleader, Jason, in a karate match.

Noting the possibilities presented by this new talent, evil Rita put a spell on Tommy forcing him to battle the Rangers over the next four episodes. But Tommy's source of power was inevitably discovered and destroyed, ending his career on the show -- that is, until thousands of fans protested.

Judging from his appearance and reception at the Universal Studio show, Tommy may well be back.

In addition to producing "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers," Saban's multimillion dollar company has produced an extensive list of programming that includes the two-year-old animated "X Men" series for Fox, which is based on the 30-year-old Marvel comic strip of the same name. It is also working on a new live-action series called "Cybertron" which has been sold to various independent stations across the U.S.

To date, says Saban, "we're in every country of the world, on every single network in those countries," he notes, with the company producing feature films for theatrical and home video release as well as programming and music for television.

Meanwhile, far from the throngs of preteens, another Saban Entertainment subsidiary, Libra Films, which turns out about 15 films a year, is raising eyebrows due to "bad girl" Shannon Doherty's nude scene in an upcoming and movie for adults. As a preview, Doherty will be featured in the March edition of Playboy magazine.

Saban insists his company plans to spin off Libra this week, maintaining only distribution rights.