Absence of Steve Cardenas in "Good as Gold"
 

Hi people...today was a holiday here in Brazil so I decided to watch some random PR episodes, the last one was "Good as Gold", the PRZ finale and I noted that Steve Cardenas was missing in the story, he did just a little voice over...does anyone know the reason? I know he was leaving PR at the time, is this related?

Re: Absence of Steve Cardenas in "Good as Gold"
 

He was injured. It's nothing to do with his departure though. I think his contract simply expired. Johnny and Nakia likely signed one year extensions, but Rocky was axed because the execs wanted a kid ranger, like the Beetleborgs, whose ratings were better than Zeo's.

Re: Absence of Steve Cardenas in "Good as Gold"
 

I've never heard Steve Cardenas being injured on set. During convention panels he says he left the show because he wanted to, he wasn't really hurt. Johnny, Nakkia, Catherine and JDF were axed because (according to JDF) Saban wasn't giving the actors enough recognition, JDF confronted him, and Saban chose to axe the entire cast

Re: Absence of Steve Cardenas in "Good as Gold"
 

Really? History repeating itself right there. ASJ said pretty much the same thing in that interview with Karan Ashley, only it resulted in him, Walter and Thuy being replaced, not the entire cast that time. Man, Saban must be a massive jerk to work for.

Re: Absence of Steve Cardenas in "Good as Gold"
 

Well ill add a little more to this technically JDF and Catherine both wanted to leave at the start of Turbo but got talked into staying on for abit and i believe thats why carlos and ashley were introduced as replacements for them but then according to JDF he got fed up with the way the actors were being treated and basically said he was going to quit the show for real unless things changed the producers fired back by saying if you quit we will fire everyone to which he replied something to the effect of do what you got to do I'm done.

Re: Absence of Steve Cardenas in "Good as Gold"
 

Again, wow. Makes me wonder, if Saban's treatment is so bad, why did ASJ come back for Zeo, why did JDF come back for what's it called, why did BOTH of them appear in Forever Red and why did JYB come back for those two eps? And didn't Walter Jones end up doing some voice work for a while? How on earth is Saban getting any actors with this treatment??

Re: Absence of Steve Cardenas in "Good as Gold"
 

^people have to eat and money always makes people forget the past

Re: Absence of Steve Cardenas in "Good as Gold"
 

And in the case of Forever Red, Dino Thunder and Once a Ranger, it was a different regime by then, those are Disney.

Re: Absence of Steve Cardenas in "Good as Gold"
 

Thanks for the information guys!

Re: Absence of Steve Cardenas in "Good as Gold"
 

Austin, Walter and Thuy were taken off the show in season 2 because they wanted to the show to become union, they felt the show was really successful and they weren't getting paid enough, the hours were too long, etc. IMO, they just wanted a fair work environment.

The general reason the actors came back (ASJ in Zeo and FR, Walter in FR, JYB, etc.) was that they maintained good relationships with the producers of the show like Koichi Sakamoto and Johnathan Tzachor, so they either came back as a favor or because it was a paycheck. Saban is notorious for being cheap and maintaining bad relationships with his actors, and it has hurt him (not financially, the guys still rich), the 20th Anniversary Mega War is going to be a complete bust, most of the actors won't consider doing the show because it's still non-union or they feel they aren't getting enough respect. They got a weird mixed bag of Rangers, but it's absolutely not the big 20th anniversary fans deserve