Walter Emmanuel Jones recalled an offensive incident on the set of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers that temporarily made him stop filming the show.
During a recent episode of The Art of Dialogue, Jones, who played Zack Taylor/Black Power Ranger in the 1990s action series, explained how he was insulted on set.
The 59-year-old added that he didn’t deal with blatant racism on the Power Rangers set but instead faced “stupidity.”
On the set of one episode, presumably “Food Fight,” Black Americans were represented with bananas during the episode’s culture fair.
“I was curious, ‘Oh, I wonder what they're going to put out for my culture
as a Black person. What are they going to put out for me in the culture fair?’” Jones recalled thinking.
“And I went out to the set and they had bananas. And I was like, ‘What?’ I mean, of all the things that you could think about of Black culture, bananas is gonna represent me?” he continued.
The entertainer and mixed martial artist told the crew they needed to “get something else” and refused to film the episode until they corrected the insulting mistake.
“I was like, you could have got black-eyed peas. You could have got chicken. You could have got anything but bananas,” Jones said.
The actor also recalled the show having a “limited budget” even though the Power Rangers franchise was thriving.
“Although it was a million-billion-dollar show, they didn't give them a lot of money. So, I think they were just trying to go cheap, but I was insulted, and I didn't go out until they got me something different, you know?” he said.
“Nobody ever called me out my name. I was never disrespected. I never had any prejudice issues. Just maybe some stupidity every now and then.”
Jones said on Taboo’s Comics & Kicks podcast last month that he left Mighty Morphin over contract disputes, saying he and other cast members “weren’t treated properly” after the show’s monetary success.
Last year, on Investigation Discovery documentary Hollywood Demons, Power Rangers head writer and voice actor Tony Oliver denied that he intended to uphold racial stereotypes in the show’s casting.
While Jones was the Black Power Ranger, late actress Thuy Trang, who was Vietnamese, was cast as Trini Kwan/Yellow Power Ranger.
Jones responded with an Instagram post calling his role in Power Rangers a “milestone” and an “honor.”