Captain Planet

D

Dylsn

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It's Earth Day. I can't think of a better day to discuss Captain Planet. A show so bad it's actually awesome. I'm liberal and am glad that they attempted to teach kids about the environment, but this show was ridiculous. The villains, for the most part, didn't have any real motivations for what they were doing. Our heroes were laughable stereotypes. And Captain Planet's weakness was pollution. So, the guy whose job is to clean the environment can't have a bucket of oil thrown at him? wow.
 
I used to watch this weekdays mornings before school when I was younger.

The show is still on the air. It comes on Boomerang at 5 A.M. CT in the morning.
 
I liked this show back when I was younger, but recently I tried watching some of the marathon that Boomarang aired last week, boy was it bad. In my opinion, this show did not stand the test of time and it was extreamly corny when watching it again after so many years, but the odd thing is that I have tons of old shows on DVD that were corny when watching them again but yet they hold up as being entertaining. Captain Planet didn't. Oh well, it was nice to see the show again after so long, but it isn't something that I would go out and buy, I guess it will just remain a fond memory from the early 90's for me.
 
As someone who was around when this show originally aired I can tell you that it was never good to begin with. Kids only watched it to make fun of it. Making Captain Planet jokes has now been a 19 year tradition.
 
Captain Planet was another one of those shows that I would always try to catch the supremely well-animated opening titles to, then swiftly change to ANYTHING else once they ended. I swear, the intro was more ambitious than the show could ever have hoped to be, especially that moment when they summon Captain Planet, and when he first comes out of the ground, he's made entirely out of mud, soil, and vines, looking (IMO) WAAAAY cooler than he ever did in the series. They should've just stuck with that Swamp Thing-looking Captain Planet, not so much the shiny blue loon with the green mullet. Not that I have anything against mullets, mind you. If Nightwing can get behind it, so can I.

But I did always hate Ma-Ti's incredibly lame ring. I'm not a cynic, but "Heart" is "Dumb." It was basically just hypnosis, as all I ever saw him do was use his ring to make people do what he wanted them to, even when they would NEVER have chosen to do that of their own free will. His ring should have had the power of "Sound Waves", the TRUE 5th element! Or, better than that, "Giant Chainsaw-Wielding Dinosaur Robot." :D
 
Are you seriously gonna tell me with a straight face that you have never heard or read anyone make Captain Planet jokes?

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When I was a kid I knew that this show was a piece of garbage. Now that I'm older...it's even worse looking back on it. I think I only watched it because it was on when nothing else was on. All the good cartoons came before or after it. GAH! terrible show and I would never show children this show if they want to learn about the environment, give them a book instead.

On the flip side, if this show didn't exist then Robot Chicken would have never done one of my favorite bits. Ted Turner as Captain Planet is comedy gold:D
 
I kind of remember watching this show with my dad when I was younger, but I saw an episode on Comcast On Demand a couple of years ago and it was terrible.
 
Comepletly agree with the "Heart" power. I hated Ma-Ti (just learned how to spell it...thanks to you) for that and that alone...let's hope he never gets trapped and with nobody around and has to rely on his ring...He's as handicapped as Superfriends Aquaman.

Heck, I liked the villains of the show and really only watched the show to see Captain Planet get his beat down. This show was full of 90's cheeziness and you can look back on how stupid it was...I mean I can't watch it NOW...but I can remember my childhood and watching it as a child... Oh and the title sequence was the coolest looking Captain Planet has ever looked.
 
I think I've already stressed my opinions on Captain Planet: It'd be more entertaining if it took more pages from the Robot Chicken parody's book and just stuck with Captain Planet randomly kicking villains in the junk while screaming his name. Speaking of which, everyone say it with me now:

"Protect the environment, or I'll kill you. CAPTAAAAAIN PLANET!"
 
The thing about Captain Planet is, they didn't usually go into realistic motivations about why the local people might want to, say, clear cut a forest because they need the land to grow crops. That would be intelligently considering a complex issue. Nope, aside from one or two villains with a greed motive, the only reason ever given, that I could see, for the over-the-top stereotypical villains' desire to harm the environment seemed to be that they were batcrap crazy and just*liked* ruining the earth. Most of them would not even have survived the environmental damage they were trying to cause, so they were apparently suicidal, too.
 
You know in hindsight, they probably should've made the villains aliens or demons or something who are able to live in pollution. All in all, good premise, but poor planning.
 
For the members who read my posts in The Fresh 2008 Captain Planet Discussion Thingy, I did a series called "Deconstructing Captain Planet." I did three parts listing out the characters and their flaws. At the end of part three, I said I was going to cover some of the episodes of the most infamous episodes. What I had in mind were the non-enviroment issue episodes...

  • Mind Pollution: The drug episode which teaches you that...
  1. Drugs turn you into a zombie
  2. Drug dealers are giant rat men.
  3. People will die from drugs without any sign of a overdose.
  • A Formula For Hate: The episode that that tackles the HIV/AIDs issue... For grade school kids. Also, according to this, ignorance about AIDs is caused by the same rat men who were drug dealers as part of a convoluted plan to take over the world. And people in Louisiana are dumb and can be easily swayed by a narm-eriffic speech.
  • If It's Doomsday, This Must Be Belfast: Tries to cover hatred in such as South Africa, Northern Island, and the Middle East by having Verminous Skumm giving detenators to a nuclear bomb to two of each race at war. But instead depicted did such outlandish things like Catholics & Protestants more like a street gang and saying that the Jews and Palestinians will get along if they both remember that Abraham was the father of their faiths.
And...
  • 'Teers In The Hood: The only one here without a villain, thus making this a C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER! While it's probably the most realistic, it's not really the best thing to show to kids. Also, not every innocent bystander is shot in a gang gunfight on purpose nor miracously recover from said shot. Also, Shaggy & Velma cameo for some reason.
But the thing is, I was beaten to the punch by the Nostalgia Critic, among others. So instead I'll cover the basic formula of each episode.

  1. The villain of the episode begins his/her evil plan in some part of the world.
  2. The Planeteers head there to investigate, they meet someone who just so happens to be an eviromentalist and is the ally for the episode.
  3. The moral is hit heavily on our heads.
  4. The Planeteers get into some trouble and call Captain Planet to bail them instead trying to solve the problem themselves.
  5. After a few minutes, he goes back into the rings. Usually because he got hit with some toxins and wusses out.
  6. The moral is hit heavily on our heads again.
  7. More stuff happens, usually the villain's plan goes overboard. So the Planeteers call Captain Planet again to save their butts.
  8. The moral is hit heavily on our heads one last time as the episode ends on a joke. Usually some stupid gag about Wheeler getting licked by an animal or something.
Also, with each villain his/her own modus operandi...
  • Hoggish Greedly: Wreck the eco-system he's in, usually with his pig themed vehicles.
  • Dr. Blight: Mess with nature with SCIENCE! Her episodes seem to be the ones the writers can do whatever they want, which is probably why she has the most appearances.
  • Looten Plunder: Scam people or frame animals to look bad so they can be hunted.
  • Verminous Skumm: Spread his homemade diseases onto humanity or just be a jerk.
  • Duke Nukem: Turn the world into a nuclear wasteland. Heck, one episode had him and his wormy sidekick go to Antartica to open factories that make air conditioners and refrigerators just to break the ozone layer and feast on the sun's UV rays... Yeah.
  • Sly Sludge: Rip people by saying he can dispose of their trash easily. But usually using something like dumping it in a volcano or using a shrink ray that he apparently commisioned Blight to build offscreen.
  • Zarm: Make people try to eachother using his powers. Simple yet effective.
There have been a few exceptions, notably the team-up episodes. Also, there were episodes that didn't have a real villain. In those, we got such situations as Wheeler dreaming he's on an island of rat people and Wheeler, Ma-Ti, & Kwame having a misadventure on the Missippi River.

One thing that's really annoying is that most of the episodes are titles that are lines in the episode. Example, one episode called "A Good Bomb Is Hard To Find," aka the Hitler episode, at one point Blight comments "A g bomb is hard to find." ...Yeah, it's pretty lame.

Before I end, I like to make some slight updates to part one...

First, there was an additional villain introduced during the Hanna-Barbera episodes, the Slaughters. (No relation to Sgt. Slaughter) A family of poachers, they only appeared in like three episodes so they were pretty much forgetable.

Also, in the rarely seen sixth season, Argos Bleak, Plunder's henchman for years, is replaced with the Pinehead bros, Oakey & Dokey. They were lumberjacks and, of course, incompotent. Which is surprising considering Bleak was compotent enough to get his own episode. Amazingly though, they did help Plunder give the Planeteers their only defeat. Plunder planned to demolish an old-growth forest. The Planeteers tried to proof that it has endangered animals, therefore Plunder shouldn't be able to tear down. But in the end, Pineheads were able to steal the pictures Wheeler took and Plunder wins the court case due to lack of evidence. He even gloated to Planeteers that he's gonna chop down more and challenges them to try and stop him. That was one dark ending.

BTW, here's the links a few links...
The Nostalgia Critic's take on Captain Planet, including A Formula For Hate & Teers In The Hood. Warning, some foul language is used.
A recap of Mind Pollution.
A recap of If It's Doomsday, This Must Be Belfast at Random Action Hour.

If there's a part 5 to this, I'll probably give my thoughts on how I would do Captain Planet.
 
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