Actor Austin St. John, who famously played the original Red Ranger in the ‘90s TV series Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, has announced his plans to launch a new clothing line featuring quotes from historical figures, including “villains” like, uh…Adolf Hitler.
On March 12, St. John tweeted out his plans to launch a new line of t-shirts that will explore “history’s leaders” using “wearable wisdom,” aka shirts with words on them. “I’m blending lessons from the past into a unique T-shirt line,” said St. John in the post. “From heroes to villains, every quote tells a story. This is more than fashion; it’s a conversation starter.” The tweet features a picture of Ghandi. If you check the replies you’ll find fans asking St. John to not include Hitler quotes, which according to an earlier podcast appearance appears to be the plan for this new line of historical t-shirts.
During the February 26 episode of the Toon’d In With Jim Cummings podcast, which has been doing the rounds recently, the former Red Ranger actor talked more about his upcoming “wearable wisdom” clothing line, saying that he is building a “warrior line” about history.
“I’m gonna have famous quotes from warriors of all ilks, including the terrible ones,” said St. John. “Hitler was, you know, a demon on steroids, but he had some pretty good one-liners. So everybody from the great ones to the infamous and terrible ones.”
St. John says the idea is to “look to our leaders from our past, both good and terrible, and take from them what you can.” In that same podcast St. John said that he was including quotes from Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee, too. According to the actor, Norris is someone he looked up to and is “one of the last real gentlemen out there.”
Honestly, including some silly quotes from Norris isn’t a big deal. But the internet and many of St. John’s fans have asked the actor to not include quotes from Hitler—a man who is responsible for the deaths of millions of Jewish men, women, and children—on his dumb t-shirt line.
His former Power Rangers co-star, Pink Ranger actor Amy Jo Johnson, shared some thoughts about the situation on Twitter, first saying: “Hmmm? I think some people should have publicists. Dear me.” Then she made it clear who she was talking about in a follow-up tweet on March 12, saying: “Rogue Red Ranger has an entire new meaning. Okay I’ll stop now.”
As of this writing, St. John hasn’t addressed the concerns and the clothing line is not yet available to buy or pre-order through his website.
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