IMDB Obsession

I've taken to looking stuff up on IMDB almost every day. Of course, I had to hit the site this weekend when Reagan died, and from those explorations learned wife Nancy:

"Was married to Ronald Reagan while being three months pregnant. Both Reagans are famously pro-family-values."

Go figure. And then yesterday I played the "Where are they now?" game by looking up the actors from old shows I remember from growing up. But I don't mean any old shows (why take the effort to look up what that Michael J. Fox of "Family Ties" is up to these days?) -- rather, I'm talking about the exceedingly cheesy shows, ones for which it would both surprise and impress you if the actors ever went on to do anything decent.

Naturally, the first show I looked up was one of my brothers' favorites, "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers." I believe Power Ranger action figures were the first great fistfights-between-moms-in-the-store toys of our modern age, beating even Tickle Me Elmo and Furby to the punch. Of course, few of the stars did anything beyond Power Rangers. The only one of the principles to have achieved notable success was the original Pink Ranger, but then, I'd already seen her show up on "Felicity," so no big surprise. However, some of them have racked up impressive resumes -- consisting of almost nothing beyond different iterations of "Power Rangers." Strangely enough, one of the cast members died driving somewhere on the freeway right next to the building where I work.

The thing about IMDB that's fun is there are so many links. You look up a show, click an actor's name, find they were on another dead-end show you remember, and then start looking up what happened to the actors there.

By the way, note that the girl linked to above was about 14 when she played the innocent love interest of the 26-year-old man on the linked-to kiddie show. Nasty. The things you learn . . .