Top of the Flops

"Top of the Flops" is the third episode of season 2 of Mighty Moshin' Emo Rangers. This episode focused on Ross.
==Plot==
The Evil Empress decides to get creative. When simply attacking the Rangers outright without any further plan has routinely ended in failure for her, she figures she can lure them into a trap. She recruits Sold Ya' Kid (an obvious knockoff of Soulja Boy) to turn Chelmsford kids into mindless and hypnotized hoards that do the Empress' bidding. His minions quickly hijack a studio, and begin putting out hypnotic-wave-induced ads to convince children to steal their parents' credit cards in order to pay for Sold Ya' and his "music." 
Ross is almost fooled into the scam himself, but Captain Emohead snaps Ross out of the seduction in time. He also reminds Ross that since the 1990s ended, purchasing music that way also went out of fashion. Ross decides to confront Sold Ya' in the park, but Sold Ya' starts controlling the kids as if they were the Hoodie Patrol. Ross is forced to morph - and to injure some kids - in order to get to safety.
A battle ensues, and Ross appears to gain the upperhand over Sold Ya'. This enrages Sold Ya' to the point of summoning his AvrilBot to attack Ross. The robotic Avril Lavinge clone has a magic guitar that proves too powerful for Ross to take on by himself, so Emohead contacts the other Rangers to give Ross some assistance. Fearing the worst, the Empress combines Sold Ya' and AvrilBot to form the Pop-Rap Collaboration Monster - Ross' "worst nightmare."
However, the Evil Empress has used up most of her evil energy in doing so. Meaning, a failure by this monster will guarantee her defeat. The Rangers decide not to waste time and allow the Empress to grow the monster, and instead they use the Emo Blaster to take it down.
Ross later uses his engineering skills to revive the Avril robot. The only difference, is that he reanimates her with new programming to make her a sex slave. Emohead appears uncomfortably amused with Ross' progress in this area, claiming he'd also "like to have sexy time" with the robot. The Avril Bot objects to these advances, claiming it would be "rape."
Meanwhile, the failure of Pop-Rap Collaborator causes the Empress to suffer an emotional breakdown. She retreats, and it is assumed that she simply gave up her quest for Earth. However, her residual magic has led to other villains coming to exist - some of them becoming powerful enough on their own to create their own Hoodie Patrols.
==Notable cast==
* Ross Fretten as Ross
* Luke Cole as Captain Emohead
* Georgina S. as AvrilBot
* Thanda Mutero as Sold Ya Boy
* Laura Bradley as Evil Empress
==Development==
The moral decided on for this story was on whether or not using a credit card to purchase music online was always a justifiable decision. It was spoofed that if the music is terrible and the card not one's own, that even bootlegging music would be preferable. Plans were made for this episode in 2007, when Stef and Vicki were still heavily into music by Avril Lavinge. To tease them for this, the producers wanted to make Avril surprisingly show up as one of the villains. However, they were unable to convince the actual Avril to show up. Instead, Georgina S. volunteered to doll herself up to look like Avril. Avril's name and concept were permitted for use, with Georgina simply serving as a body double. 
Delays in editing and scheduling, however, ensured that the episodes for season 2 didn't get released until late 2010. By then, the joke of throwing Avril into the mix during the height of her fame was lost. 
The further joke of cashing in on happening ten years after Power Rangers Turbo was also lost, given it'd be 13 years later when the episodes finally aired. For some reason, the previous episode became the second-to-last time that the show exclusively mocked Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. The final time would be "You Want Cries With That?," wherein which Burger Klown felt like a deliberate knockoff of Pineapple the Clown. Both "Top of the Flops" and "Rave New World" seemed to borrow heavily from Power Rangers Turbo. For some reason, references to Power Rangers Zeo were skipped completely - in spite how emo that season of Power Rangers could be on its own. 
Stef trying to find a date and it not working out in her favor in "Uncle Kuddles and Fiddles the Kid" could be a reference to the relationship between Cassie and Phantom Ranger - but with the reasons for things not working out being very different (and far less family-friendly!) Weirdly enough, a few months prior to the pre-production of this episode in 2007, a similar (and more family-friendly) scam was pulled on Dax by the villainness Miratrix in Power Rangers Operation Overdrive. It is unknown if the episode "Heart of Blue" factored into the plot of the "Uncle Kuddles" episode of Emo Rangers or not.
==Reception==
At its peak, this video quickly garnered close to 40,000 views on YouTube on the main Emo Rangers channel. Over the course of 7 years from time of release, that number climbed to around 61,000 unique views. On Ross's channel, DrBellyFinger, it received 884 additional unique views in that time.
Positively Dreadful's channel also commented on this episode, stating that a more timely release would have made the Avril jokes funnier.
==See also==
* Ross
* Sold Ya Boy
* AvrilBot
* "The Song of Confusion", an episode of Power Rangers Turbo with a similar plot.
==External links==
* "Top of the Flops" on YouTube
Category: Episodes