Power Outage : They are the season’s hottest toy--even Santa can’t get his hands on the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. This has led desperate parents to acts of bribery and threats of bodily harm.

At the end of every episode of “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers,” our adolescent heroes in the crayon-colored leotards celebrate their victory over Rita Repulsa, the Empress of Evil. As the rangers cheer, the inconsolable Rita holds her head and howls, “I have such a headache!”

As Christmas approaches and hope fades that there will be a Power Ranger toys surge before Saturday morning, the screams of parents with headaches can be heard throughout the land.

Power Rangers, if you haven’t heard, are the season’s super-hottest toys. Not since the Cabbage Patch doll riots of 1984 has a plaything been so short in supply and so high in demand, say industry observers.

And never, it would appear, have parents, godparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, baby-sitters, and yes, even Santa, been so desperate.

“According to the many calls we’ve had here at the company, an extraordinarily large number of children are dying this holiday,” says Mary Woodworth of Bandai America, the Cerritos-based toy maker. “To me, that is very sad that people are so desperate they would say a child is dying just to get a toy. Of course, if it’s true, it’s even more horrible . . .”

“Bribes? Oh yes, that too. I personally haven’t been offered any money, although I think the congressman who called was getting ready. But we do have confirmed reports of bribes. I can’t say how high they’ve gone, but the offers have been extremely substantial.”

The toys are being scalped for two, three, even four times their up-to-$10 cost by entrepreneurs advertising in the back of newspapers. They are being sold out of car trunks by roadside hustlers. And in states where they are still on the shelves, Power Rangers are being lifted out of shoppers’ baskets.

All this for plastic figurines with such low price tags? For some, it seems, the price of a child’s happiness (that is, a parent’s peace of mind Christmas morning) is never too high.

The toys are a merchandising spin-off of the top-rated Fox television show, “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.” In some areas of the country, the show has claimed a 99% (and yes, that’s out of 100%) share of the market for kids, 2 to 11, a substantial number of whom still believe in Santa Claus.

Well, kids, even Santa can’t conjure up enough of this toy, which is the sleeper toy of the season.

“I have to tell you that this is a very difficult situation. I have been telling the children that we’ll try, but that sometimes toys are hard to get, even for me. I tell them that sometimes the elves are overworked . . . “ confides Santa Claus ( nee Grant Christensen), 66, from his sleigh in the middle of the Santa Anita Mall.

But when he talks about “the good little boys and girls who won’t find what they asked me for under the tree Christmas morning,” this Santa’s eyes redden and fill with tears. “It’s just a cold,” he sniffs, “but it does make me sad.”

Santa’s not the only one overwhelmed by morphin mania, although his reaction may be softer than most.

At a Target store in the San Gabriel Valley, for example, a clerk had his life threatened by relatives.

“These people said they would beat him up if he did not get the toy for them by Christmas. So he got it,” said the store manager, who insists her workers are waiting in lines like everybody else for the toys. “If we weren’t so honorable, though, we could make big, big money selling these things right out of the storeroom.”

Most Southern California toy store workers say they do not expect any more Power Rangers to arrive before Christmas. (Company spokesmen say their Thai factory is running 24 hours a day to meet demand.)

For the last few weeks, several area stores have been answering their phones with a cheery, “Toys-R-Us-We’re-out-of-Power-Rangers!”

The rangers are five teen-agers--three boys, two girls--who are empowered with the spirits of dinosaurs to do battle every day after school with Rita Repulsa. Using secret coins to unlock their cosmic computers, the kids “morph” themselves into Spandex-clad super heroes and vanquish Rita’s bad guys.

Does it matter that half the TV show is filmed in the United States with live teen-agers and the other half in Japan with celluloid monsters from old Godzilla outtakes? No. And does anyone care that Rita’s words are rarely in sync with her lip movements? No.

For devotees, it matters not that the plots are predictable, the robots clumsy and the action low-tech. According to a toy analyst for Standard & Poor’s, the campy, low-budget show--and, thus, the toys--has everything it takes to win a child’s heart: “dinosaurs and teen-agers with attitudes.”

So, what’s a parent to do?

“Some are drawing pictures of the toy and putting that under the tree Christmas morning,” says Woodworth. “Others are writing sweet notes from Santa promising the toy at a later date and stuffing the notes in their kids’ Christmas socks.”

But psychologist Brian Sutton-Smith, a University of Pennsylvania pioneer in the research of toys as culture, thinks he has a better idea.

“Why doesn’t somebody just tell these kids the truth? Santa doesn’t make everything by magic; he needs people to help him. OK, so the kids might get angry or whatever, but hey, children handle things. They’re not necessarily ruined for life!”