Captain Planet

{{title-italics}}[[File:Captain-planet-and-the-planeteers.jpg|thumb|right|165px|''Captain Planet, he's a hero<br>Gonna take pollution down to zero!'']]{{media}}
{{cquote|By your powers combined, I am Captain Planet!}}
'''''Captain Planet and the Planeteers''''' was a cartoon series from the American animation revival of the early 1990s. It was created by {{wpl|Ted Turner}} and originally broadcast on his syndicated cable channel TBS.

With a stellar voice cast — at various times, Levar Burton, Ed Asner, Margot Kidder, Whoopi Goldberg, Meg Ryan, Sting, Jeff Goldblum, James Coburn, David Warner, Malcolm McDowell, Martin Sheen, and Tim Curry all did voice work for the show — it presented formulaic episodes of Sunday school environmentalism to an audience of American children. The original series ran for three seasons from 1990 to 1992. A later series, ''The New Adventures of Captain Planet'', ran from 1993 to 1996.

==Premise==
Gaia (Whoopi Goldberg or Margot Kidder), personification of the spirit of the Earth, musters a 
[[hard green]]
 [[tokenism|carefully]] [[multiculturalism|multicultural]] team of Planeteers, teenagers granted [[magic]] rings that give them superpowers based on the [[alchemy|alchemical]] elements (plus [[Sympathetic magic|one extra]], [[Hippie|just because]]). They are:
*'''Kwame''' (Levar Burton), an [[Africa]]n from Ghana, given the power of Earth;
*'''Wheeler''' (Joey Dedio), an [[United States|American]] from Brooklyn, and the least responsible Planeteer, given the power of Fire;
*'''Linka''' (Kath Soucie), a [[Soviet]] (later [[Russian]]), given the power of Wind;
*'''Gi''' (Janice Kawaye), from [[South Korea]], given the power of Water;
*'''Ma-Ti''' (Scott Menville), a [[Native American]] from the Amazon basin of [[Brazil]], given the power of Heart.{{efn|[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway Some people think] that Ma-Ti got the short end of the stick in this deal, however, his power is effectively ''mind control''. Wheeler, on the other hand, has a flamethrower in a kid's show where people aren't allowed to be injured, making his power arguably the least useful.}}
Each of the Planeteers has a variety of powers from their respective element based magic rings (freezing ray, fire manipulation, animal [[telepathy]], etc.) which they can combine to summon Captain Planet (David Coburn)—a blue-skinned, green-mulleted environmental Übermensch. Captain Planet, more powerful than all of the Planeteers acting separately, possesses flight, super strength and basically any other superpower the writers need to fit the episode's plot. Despite his great strength, Captain Planet is not invincible; [[pollution]] and toxic waste are his Kryptonite, and he can be weakened by being doused in the stuff.{{efn|In the episode ''A Good Bomb Is Hard to Find'' a [[time travel]]ling Dr. Blight summons [[Adolf Hitler]], who is such a polluting figure that he is able to weaken Captain Planet simply by glowering at him.}} When Captain Planet has prevailed, he returns the powers to the five Planeteers with the slogan "The power is yours!"

While Captain Planet is typically only called when things become most dire for the Planeteers, nearly every episode features his eventual calling to dispose of the polluting malcontent, rescue the Planeteers and save the day, leading one to wonder: why don't the Planeteers just summon the Captain at the first sign of trouble?

==Problems==
Apart from [[pseudoscience|pseudoscientific]] themes like the [[Gaia hypothesis]] and alchemy?

Enlisting children in environmental causes has long been a project of the environmental movement.<ref name="Pike">Pike, Deidre. (2012) ''Enviro-Toons: Green Themes in Animated Cinema and Television''. (McFarland; ISBN 0786490020), p. [http://books.google.com/books?id=pQKuF2Q3EwsC&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=Captain+Planet+as+propaganda&source=bl&ots=hm5uTPEb5X&sig=FtXDGhwEZtjVoOmbe5rVp46WdqY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0dp4VN-9AszIsASqqoLYDA&ved=0CEMQ6AEwBjgU#v=onepage&q=Captain%20Planet%20as%20propaganda&f=false 13]</ref> On the other hand, actual environmental issues take place in a real world without superheroes. Captain Planet and the Planeteers could not fight real world polluters without potentially leading children to ask uncomfortable questions about Mom and Dad's jobs. That might lead to undesired [[blowback]].

Instead of tackling the realities of these issues with nuance, many of the issues tackled in the show were a result of the superhero's rogues' gallery of villains, given obviously evil names like "Hoggish Greedly", "Verminous Skumm", "Duke Nukem" (no, not {{wpl|Duke Nukem}} that one{{efn|Apogee Software initially released the first ''Duke'' game under the title "Duke Nukum" to avoid any potential trademark conflict with the ''Captain Planet'' villain,<ref>[https://www.apogeeent.com/devblog/duke-little-known-facts Duke Nukem - Little known facts]</ref> but when they found out that the Duke Nukem name wasn't trademarked, they were able to keep the moniker for themselves. Perhaps coincidentally, both ''Captain Planet'' and the ''Duke Nukem'' games have mutant pigs for villains: Hoggish Greedly for the former and Pig-Cops for the latter.}}), and "Dr. Blight". Even if some of them had motives as profit or mere short-sightedness, most of these "Eco-Villains" enjoyed the environmental destruction they caused for its own sake, along with allegorically representing eco-vices like greed, poor sanitation, and [[mad scientist|mad science]]. True to the superhero genre, Captain Planet's triumphs over all of these Eco-Villains were both guaranteed and complete but disconcertingly temporary.

Other cartoons, from the 1955 short ''Goofy Gophers and the Lumberjerks''<ref name="Pike" /> to Hayao Miyazake's ''Princess Mononoke'' (1997)<ref>Smith, Michelle J.; Parsons, Elizabeth (February 2012). "Animating child activism: Environmentalism and class politics in Ghibli's Princess Mononoke (1997) and Fox's Fern Gully (1992)". ''Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies'' (Routledge) 26 (1): 25–37.</ref> have dealt with environmental issues in a more nuanced manner that eschews polluters marring nature from sheer meanness. But nuance is overrated. At its best, ''Captain Planet'' becomes hilarious by its relentless bludgeoning message.

Ted Turner, like many others in the 1970s and 1980s, had an abiding dislike of [[nuclear energy]]. He puts forward this point of view in episodes like "Meltdown Syndrome". Another issue dealt with is overpopulation and the importance of birth control, ironic considering that Turner himself [[Hypocrisy|has 5 children]].

Some episodes veered away from environmental themes, to the sorts of sermons that were a mainstay of [[Very special episode|1990s children's programming]]. The second season episode "Mind Pollution" is standard [[War on Drugs|anti-drug]] [[propaganda]] remote from environmental concerns. [[Crime woo#Hysteria over nonexistent or rare crimes|Street gangs]] and their alleged evils, none of which loom large as environmental problems, were the subject matter of no less than four episodes.{{efn|"Utopia", "Talkin' Trash", "Teers In The Hood" and "One of The Gang"}} The episode "Utopia" in particular featured a grisly (for cartoon standards) depiction of a drive-by shooting which targeted a family; [[hypocrite|hypocritically]] enough, while Ted Turner expressed objections to depictions of realistic violence and death in children's media (which indirectly contributed to the cancellation of the cult classic ''{{wpl|SWAT Kats}}'' due to its darker and edgier themes), said graphic content is portrayed front-and-center in the show, parental complaints be damned.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZoTfIe6zlk A scene from Captain Planet]</ref> The episode "A Formula for Hate" is not focused on environmental themes, but at least seeks to calm fears about the contagiousness of [[AIDS]]. The "If It's Doomsday, This Must Be Belfast" episode features nukes being given to opposing sides of the [[Israel]]-[[Palestine]] conflict, [[apartheid]]-era [[South Africa]], and [[The Troubles]] (who have infamously bad accents) in service of a "can't we all just get all along?" message. There is also a hilarious episode called "A Good Bomb Is Hard to Find" where the Planeteers go back in time and encounter [[Hitler]] (with a Fu Manchu-style moustache no less, apparently because Hitler is too evil to be portrayed in his original form), and his hate is so powerful, it ''counts as pollution''. No, seriously.

On the other hand, the series also gained at least some [[wingnut]] criticism, with the same sort of anti-[[woke]] rhetoric – which would become a recurring talking point in recent years – used to lambast the show. [[L. Brent Bozell III]] accused ''Captain Planet'' of "seeking to scare children into political activism",<ref name=":0" /> along with accusing the show of having "[[Left wing|leftist]] slants";<ref>{{Cite news |date=1991-06-22 |title=Rightists Battle Sabers Over 'Bias' |pages=49 |work=St. Louis Post-Dispatch |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/110565354/rightists-battle-sabers-over-bias/ |access-date=2022-10-02}}</ref> Barbara Pyle responded, saying "I don't think 'Captain Planet' is scary ... it shows kids that every action counts ... I consider [environmental issues] bipartisan."<ref name=":0">{{Cite news |date=1991-09-22 |title=Captain Planet, earth friend or business foe? |pages=44 |work=Asbury Park Press |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/110507962/captain-planet-earth-friend-or/ |access-date=2022-10-01}}</ref>

==External links==
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20090216115120/http://turner.com/planet/index_splash.html Official Turner ''Captain Planet'' site]
* [http://www.captainplanetfdn.org/ Captain Planet Foundation] 
* [http://www.toonopedia.com/caplanet.htm ''Captain Planet''] at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. [http://www.webcitation.org/66nzi51XV Archived] from the original on April 9, 2012.
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Captain_Planet_episodes List of ''Captain Planet'' episodes], Wikipedia

==Notes==
{{reflist|2|group=note}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

[[Category:Environmentalism]]
[[Category:Television programmes]]

Categories: Environmentalism, Television programmes