The Hoodie Patrol (also sometimes spelled "Hoody Patrol") are a band of hypnotized minions, usually consisting of ordinary teens with hoodie-style shirts on. The hypnosis process somehow very quickly lowers their all-around intelligence, but makes them semi-capable fighters. For some reason, only Rangers are able to make them fight incompetently. Others are genuinely afraid of them, for reasons unknown given their lack of genuine abilities beyond mindless assault. They are parodies of the Putty Patrol from Power Rangers, only they're not made of clay. They are also somehow more competent at their jobs than their Putty counterparts, in spite being almost as lacking in personality and intelligence as Putties.
History[]
Hoodies seem to have a habit of being obedient servants of whoever has gained the power to hypnotize them - at least until beaten into submission by the Rangers. Then, they wake up after passing out and return to being ordinary civilians. If by chance one of them is killed by a Ranger, however, then the Rangers oddly enough never seem to face any legal consequences for their deaths. This is in spite the fact that one would expect at least a few assault and manslaughter charges to be brought forward against the Rangers.
The initial variety, pure Hoodies, are the first ever seen. The Evil Empress creates them directly, and they serve her and Colonel Crusher. Funky Monkey also demonstrates an ability to create them for the Empress' army. It's later revealed that she can give all her underlings the ability to create Hoodies. When she turns a TV show host evil, that show host is able to create an evil version of Santa Claus to terrorize Chelmsford - complete with a Santa Bot. This somehow results in a version of the Hoodies that wear Santa hats in spite of this. The Santa Hoodies are somehow even more aggressive and dangerous than regular Hoodies, often not waiting for even Luke to make the first move. After Panic! at the Disco destroys the show host's device, the Santa Hoodies are never seen again.
For some reason, Johnny and Mr. Fluffy are not given their own Hoodies to control. However, Fluffy is able to control an army of teddy bear automatons in the stead of having any Hoodies to control. The animated toy bears prove to be just as dangerous, even setting several buildings on fire. Finally, before the Empress gives up, she allows Sold Ya Boy the power to hypnotize teens. However, he is lazy and doesn't bother to supply them with hoodie shirts. Instead, he supplies a robot clone of Avril Lavinge to help him defeat the Rangers. This proves ineffectual, as the Rangers are able to stop both menaces with the Emo Blaster.
Somehow, the villains that succeeded the Empress also find ways to create Hoodies. The New Rave Pirates create their own minions, who are similar but don't wear hoodie shirts. They instead wear random outfits that are inspired by rave culture and music. Most of them are bright, neon-colored menaces. This is possibly a reference to Power Rangers Turbo, where the Putties (and Cogs from Zeo) are replaced with the much-weirder-looking Piranhatrons. The Rave Minions prove less effective than proper Hoodies, and Luke is able to dispose of most of them by himself with minimal effort.
Burger Klown, for equally unexplained reasons, gains hypnosis powers. He insists on using small children as part of his Hoodie army, instead of exclusively using teens. Predictably, they are no match for Fai's weaponry - which she can apparently summon even when unmorphed. To the Rangers' relief, Uncle Kuddles doesn't have any of his own Hoodies. However, he does have Fiddles for both seduction and energy beam assaults. The reason for this appears to be that Kuddles only cares about raping teens and small children, and does not have any higher aspirations of world domination - rendering Hoodies pointless.
The Principal of Happy Valley High finds a way to use altered prescription drugs to gradually turn obedient students into his own versions of the Hoodie Patrol. These prove to be a lot tougher and more threatening than any previous minion generation. However, Mary Jane proves to be a lot tougher than the average Emo Ranger - and with a lot more martial arts experience - enabling her to fight well even while high as a kite, and even use the weed to improve her combat performance dramatically (something John could not do, as it mixed much more poorly with his body than with hers.) It takes all that Mary Jane can muster in her brief introduction to being a Ranger in order to take down the new Hoodies. These Hoodies also wear silver skull masks, for some unknown reason. And they wear gloves, to prevent them from leaving fingerprints. However, this also takes away from their humanity further, reducing them truly to monsters that Mary Jane can beat up and not feel a tinge of guilt. It is unknown how many other varieties of Hoodies ever did or will exist.
Hoodie evolution[]
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Development[]
The Hoodies were made up of any volunteer or extra that the film crew was able to convince to be a part of production. This was often tricky to pull off, as not many in Chelmsford were all that comfortable with being filmed in the first place. Being allowed to hide their faces convinced a few to become a part of the cast, however. As the series gained more popularity, willingness to participate grew. But as the series waned in popularity, volunteers once again became difficult to find. For the 2015 special, getting to wear silver masks convinced self-conscious Boise natives to act the role - knowing most of them would not be credited and that their faces wouldn't be shown.
See also[]
        CHARACTERS AND EQUIPMENT | |
| RANGERS | Ross • Luke • John • Stef • Vicken • Fai • Mary Jane |
| ALLIES | Captain Emohead • Emo 5 • Mysterious Vagrant |
| ENEMIES | Evil Empress • Colonel Crusher • Funky Monkey • Generic Evil Robot • Evil Show Host • Evil Mall Santa • Santa Bot • Johnny • Mr. Fluffy • Sold Ya Boy • AvrilBot • New Rave Pirates • Burger Klown • Uncle Kuddles and Fiddles the Kid • Evil Principal • Hoodie Patrol |
| OTHER | Miscellaneous characters • Arsenal • Zords / Fight Bots |