The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

IT'S FOUR-THIRTY. Do you know where your children are? If they've outgrown purple dinosaurs but still lack the hormones to appreciate Oprah Winfrey's sexual perversion du jour, chances are you'll find them with their eyes glued to The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

Fox TV's latest hit features six gorgeous, live-action teens who morph into sleek, color-coded superheroes in spandex suits to fight villains with comic-book names such as Rita Repulsa and Lord Zed. It's a high-tech kickfest with all the moral complexity of The Three Stooges. Kids love it.

In the highly age- and gender-segmented world of children's toys and television, the Power Rangers have proved remarkable in their ability to draw loyal fans among kids of both sexes and all ages, from toddlers to preteens. Power Rangers draws a whopping 57 per cent Nielsen share among 6-to-11-year-olds. It is the number-one children's show, expected to generate sales of $300 million in Power Ranger toys this year alone, not to mention over 8 million videos, a million novellas, and 7 million pairs of Ranger-covered underwear.

The Power Rangers' popularity stems from their creators' canny borrowing of a patchwork of elements from past TV hits. As with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, part of the Power Rangers' appeal is that they are first and foremost teenagers. One recent episode opened with Rocky, Adam, and Billy, three incredibly clean-cut boy Rangers, hanging out in the school cafeteria, worrying about the school Sadie Hawkins dance. Only forlorn Adam has yet to be asked. Aisha, an adorable girl Ranger wearing a yellow baby-doll minidress, suggests he seek out Sara: "I happen to know for a fact she thinks you're cute."

But wouldn't you know it, just as Adam stumbles across Sara near the volleyball courts, Lord Zed, a bad-tempered, pink-armored knight, sends a pack of his minions, a/k/a "putties," to interfere. "Not now!" Adam cries plaintively, as he prepares for hand-to-hand Kung Fu combat. Putties dress in white spandex. Their arms droop, and they quiver a lot. "They're like the Turtles' foot soldiers," my son tells me authoritatively, "except they're made of clay and you have to hit the Z on their chest to kill them."

Meanwhile Kimberly, the other girl Ranger (wearing a sweet-but-sexy pink angora sweater and a short skirt), is starting to worry. She and the other Power Rangers (sans Adam, who has been captured by Lord Zed's lieutenant, Goldar, a sort of ape-lion with wings and a bad attitude) gather before their chief, a big floating head named Zordon, who bears a remarkable resemblance to the Wizard of Oz. Zordon informs them of Lord Zed's dastardly plans. "We will have to boost the power of the thunderzords," intones Zordon ominously.

What is a thunderzord, you may ask? In a nod to the durable dinosaur raze, each Power Ranger has his or her own mechanical familiar: a giant robotic tyrannosaurus, pterodactyl, mastodon, saber-toothed tiger, unicorn, or firebird. What follows is two-minute toy commercial. The Power Rangers leap astride their respective galloping prehistoric transportation devices, which then morph into giant robot-warriors, as in The Transformers. In the end, as you can imagine, the forces of evil are crushed: "Party's over Goldar!" says Adam. (Or was it Rocky?)

When the Power Rangers shed their spandex, the show is transformed into a carbon copy of another pre-teen hit, Saved by the Bell, which features similarly wholesome teens involved in a Fifties sitcom high-school life.

The Power Rangers are multicultural and politically correct - racially, sexually balanced - but that hasn't saved them from coming under goo-goo fire. Teachers, in particular, claim Mighty Morphin insanity is wreaking havoc in the classroom and on the playground. In one study, 96 per cent teachers claimed to have witnessed Morphin-inspired acts of antisocial behavior. Day-care centers and nursery schools are taking steps to curb Morphin mania, from banning karate chops, to setting up special martial-arts rooms where temporarily overcome young fans can work off their enthusiasm on inanimate objects, to enforcing moments of Morphin silence in school. "We also don't allow Power Ranger talk on share days," Sharon Holt, director of the Montessori school in Lake Forest, California, primly informed the Wall Street Journal.

In this case the local cartoon prohibitionists are being aided and abetted by a sudden outbreak of international panic. In November, the Power Rangers were kicked off the air in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark after a 5-year-old Norwegian girl was kicked to death by playmates. How convenient it would publics could blame their social decay on an American import. But alas, a police investigation showed no connection to the TV show, and Power Rangers once more roam the Scandinavian airwaves.

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council condemned Mighty Morphin Power Rangers for "excessive violence." The problem, the council ruled, is that the violence is not sufficiently integral to the development of either plot or characters, and moreover no one ever suffers any physical consequences of violence.

The latter is a new and interesting standard for children's television: to be morally fit for kids, TV violence must be less cartoon-like, more graphic and realistic - less like Wile E. Coyote and more like Pulp Fiction.

As the Scandinavian would-be scandal shows, cartoons make easy scapegoats. Like campaigns to hand in toy guns at Christmas, the crusade against the Mighty Morphs and their ilk assuages the liberal heart's insatiable desire for symbolic acts of moral righteousness that require no effort on one's own part.

The truth is that the Power Rangers are no better and no worse than hundreds of earlier superheroes. They inhabit a comforting universe where right and wrong are crystal clear, and good always triumphs. Despite their critics, there are worse things than that with which to fill a 5-year-old's brain.