The Question Marvel Fans Have About Morbius' Infamous Fake Catchphrase

The mere mention of "Morbius" causes an incredible deluge of meme-inspired comedy on every message board the living vampire touches. However, on the subreddit r/OutOfTheLoop, u/robskoo asked what was up with all of the "Morbius" memes — and while the topic immediately devolved into the standard "Morbius" nonsense, some fans took a deeper look into the question of how "It's Morbin' time" came to be. Most notably, u/sterling_mallory commented, "What I want to know is if people recognize this as a Power Rangers joke – both the people who are using it and the people who are asking if it's actually said in the movie."

As a refresher, "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" was a popular television series that got its start in the 1990s, depicting the adventures of super-powered "teenagers with attitude" that, when pressed into combat, would shout "It's Morphin' Time!" as they proceeded to (wait for it) morph into their superpowered alter-egos. At first glance, this would indeed seem like the obvious inspiration for the Morbius catchphrase, because while "Power Rangers" is still a massive media franchise — and one with a surprisingly complex timeline — the original series was a major cultural behemoth back in its heyday. According to Time, "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" television show averaged around 4.8 million daily viewers in the first season, and 6.9 million during its second season, which is an absolutely bombastic reception. The show managed to generate around $1 billion in merchandise in 1995, and that was just in the United States. 

Considering just how popular the "Power Rangers" were, it would make sense for them to be the driving force behind "Morbin' time." However, there's another very likely place that the phrase might originate from, and it's straight from the Marvel Universe.