"Three typical, average kids,
Inside a haunted mansion,
Just by chance, freed a ghost,
Who made them BeetleBorgs!"

You can never really have too many shows about daring teens in color-coded uniforms, fighting evil creatures with futuristic weapons. And thanks to the success of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Saban Entertainment was more than willing to offer another live-action series up for fans who couldn’t get enough of the action, with Big Bad BeetleBorgs.

Debuting in 1996, the series centered around a trio of teens, Roland William, and Drew and Jo McCormick, all avid fans of BeetleBorgs comic books. Their lives changed dramatically upon being dared by two local bullies, Van and Trip, to stay overnight at Hillhurt Mansion, a place purported to be haunted. Much to their surprise, the teens found a whole collection of supernatural spooks in the house, including Count Fangula, Mums, Wolfgang, and Frankenbeans, who managed to give them quite a fright.

As the teens attempted to flee their haunted surroundings, Jo managed to accidentally play a few notes on a pipe organ, summonsing the magical spirit Flabber in the process and freeing the big-nosed, pompadour-wearing blue creature from his spiritual confines. Ever grateful to finally taste freedom, Flabber offered the teens a wish in return, and they promptly chose the first thing that came to mind - to become their heroes, the BeetleBorgs.

Transformed into ironclad superheroes, Roland became Green Hunter, Drew became Blue Stinger, and Jo became Red Striker. Unfortunately, ol’ Flabber also unwittingly released some other characters from the comic book series, namely the evil Magnavors, who, under the leadership of Vexor, set out to destroy the teens, and for good measure, the rest of mankind. It would take every bit of strength and weaponry for the teens to battle their newly unleashed adversaries, but of course they were up to the task.

"Then new villains came along,
Blew away their powers.
BeetleBorgs were in a fix,
And now have gone Metallix!"

Change was in the air for the second season of the series. Now dubbed BeetleBorgs Metalix, the teens were given some spiffy new names to match – Titanium Silver (Roland,) Chromium Gold (Drew) and Platinum Purple (Jo). And since they had already banished their previous enemies back to comic book land, it was time to take on some new nasties, in the form of the evil Crustaceans, who had the ability to destroy their once-powerful armor.

While they might not have had the same drawing power as their Mighty Morphin counterparts, Big Bad BeetleBorgs managed to develop a sizeable fanbase in the two years that the series ran – proving that the world is indeed big enough for two groups of brightly colored teens to battle the forces of evil.