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Captain Planet and the Planeteers: Difference between revisions
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[[File:captain-planet2_8052.jpg|frame]]
{{quote|"''Our world is in peril. Gaia, the spirit of the Earth, can no longer withstand the destruction plaguing our planet. She sends five rings to five special young people: Kwame, from Africa, with the power of Earth... From North America, Wheeler, with the power of Fire... From The Soviet Union,<ref>then former Soviet Union, then just Eastern Europe</ref>
The brainchild of Ted Turner (though most of the actual development work on the show was done by [[
The eponymous Planeteers are a [[Multinational Team]] of kids imbued with [[Elemental Powers]] to stop pollution. When they are inevitably unable to deal with problems individually, they [[All Your Powers Combined|combine their powers]] into a single unstoppable entity: ''Captain Planet''.
''Captain Planet and the Planeteers'' (1990 to 1996) underwent several small revisions over the course of its
The
Surprisingly enough, while this was a [[Green Aesop|Green-Heavy]] children-oriented cartoon during [[The Nineties]] (remember we are talking about the [[Dark Age]] here), it was quite popular. Probably it has a lot of to do with how much this show was promoted, since it was clearly [[Adored by the Network]].
The Captain was also [[The Unexpected]] [[Guest Fighter]] on the [[Mascot Fighter]] ''[[Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion]]''.
The show's first season was finally released on DVD (in the US) on April
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* [[All Your Powers Combined]]
* [[Heart Is an Awesome Power]]
* [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?]]
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* [[Actor Allusion]]: One episode had Kwame (LeVar Burton) trying on a [[Star Trek: The Next Generation|futuristic visor]].
* [[Alike and Antithetical Adversaries]]
* [[
** He's also clearly in love with the bad doctor, and is very loyal to her.
* [[All Your Colors Combined]]: The net effect of summoning Captain Planet, since each of the rings has a different color associated with it. Also the [[Trope Namer]].
* [[Allergic to Evil]]: Captain Planet is hurt by Adolf Hitler's hatred, considered to be a form of emotional pollution.
* [[Analogy Backfire]]: One episode dealt with the ethics of putting animals in zoos to preserve their population by having an alien race arrive and put the Planeteers and the extras of the week into a zoo for their own preservation. The aliens made the exact same excuses, such as "it's for your own good," that humans had made for doing so earlier. The analogy falls apart over the issue that placing a species capable of reasoning with you into captivity is slavery. The show simply acts as if preserving an endangered condor in a safe environment and kidnapping people and stripping them of basic human rights is the exact same thing.
** Furthermore, there's another broken analogy in the premise: the humans, Dr. Blight and Hoggish Greedly respectively, earlier in the episode were putting animals in a zoo to make room for a golf course, while the aliens were attempting to save a population and were otherwise not interfering with the Earth itself. Again, there's a vast difference between attempting to rebuild a species on the brink of extinction and just bulldozing their habitat for your own personal gain while dropping them in a zoo to make you feel better about it.
** For that matter, "we have no right to protect species driven to the brink of extinction by human actions" is pretty strange for a [[Green Aesop]] show.
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* [[Artistic License Nuclear Physics]]: Ted Turner does not like nukes, and Duke Nukem is the walking embodiment of why we should never use nuclear technology. Actual technical errors include having mushroom clouds form from any explosion of nuclear materials, including a bomb detonating in space, and a highly innacurate portrayal of a nuclear power plant in one episode, which displayed radioactive particles coming from a cooling tower after Duke Nukem blasted a hole in it.
* [[Author Avatar]]: Eco-conscious TV tycoon Fred Learner in "Who's Running The Show?" {{spoiler|Ted Turner}}
* [[Ax Crazy]]: It's pretty clear that Dr. Blight causes the problems she does for the sheer sick pleasure of it. As noted under [[Cut Lex Luthor a Check]], below, she's devised all kinds of technology that could be used to ''fix'' any number of ecological problems (and this is what Gaia actually did when she became trapped in Blight's body during a [[Freaky Friday Flip]]) but causing pollution and wrecking the Earth is simply more fun.
* [[Bad Future]]: Wheeler goes here in "Two Futures", where Hoggish Greedly and Rigger [[Take Over the World]], and the other planeteers live a very rough life protecting what's left of the environment.
* [[The Bad Guy Wins]]: In the episode "Whoo Gives a Hoot?", Looten Plunder gets away with his scheme to clear cut a forest where endangered species live. It ends with him laughing in the Planeteers' faces and daring them to try to stop him from doing it again.
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* [[Bragging Theme Tune|Bragging Ending Theme]]: ''Captain Planet, he's a hero / Gonna take pollution down to zero!''
* [[Braids, Beads, and Buckskins]]: One episode contained a Native American who acted and dressed like any other person. But after one hike through nature later with the Planeteers had him letting loose his hair, tossing his glasses, and becoming one with nature.
* [[Broken Aesop]]:
** In the beginning of one episode, Wheeler bought an air conditioner to deal with a heat wave. As noted above, the episode later focused on the damage the chemicals of air conditioners cause to the environment, so in the end the Planeteers dumped it and started...playing with water and a garden hose to refresh themselves, implying that it's better to waste water than using an air conditioner.
** Then there's the premise of the show. It's supposed to be "everyone needs to work hard to save the environment," which is great. Except what happens at least once per episode? The kids basically throw up their hands and say "Let's let Captain Planet do the work." Doesn't that perhaps imply you have to work hard to save the environment, but once things get uncomfortable you can hand the reins over to someone else? While Captain Planet is supposed represent to the power of teamwork, but it's kinda conspicuous how the kids usually just stand around while he does the heavy lifting for them.
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* [[Drill Tank]]: Verminous Skumm and his minions operate one in "Rain of Terror".
* [[Drugs Are Bad]]: "Mind Pollution". Somewhat averted as Skumm's drug Bliss is relatively realistic, in that it does make people feel good for a while, but you must take more and more to get the same high.
** Though dragging down the gritty realism factor somewhat is how its exclusive distribution is through a malevolent human sized rat.
* [[Easter Egg]]: In "'Teers in the Hood", [[Scooby Doo|Shaggy and Velma]] are at their high school. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNp6-Q1NH9M At 2:18.]
* [[Element Number Five]]: Heart.
* [[Elemental Powers]]: "[[Dishing Out Dirt|Earth]]! [[Playing with Fire|Fire]]! [[Blow You Away|Wind]]! [[Making a Splash|Water]]! [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?|Heart]]! GO PLANET!"
* [[Empathic Weapon]]: The rings, which can't work while in heavy pollution.
** Ma-ti's Heart ring was unable to scan exactly what Hoggish Greedly was doing with Wheeler in a distant temple in one episode, because the very fact he was doing something evil blocked away anything else the ring could detect.
* [[Ending Theme]]: Which is a rap. Oddly, only instrumental versions were used for some seasons.
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* [[Five-Man Band]]
** [[The Hero]]: Kwame
** [[The Lancer]]/[[The Big Guy]]: Wheeler
** [[The
** [[The Smart Guy
** [[The Heart]]: Ma-Ti
** [[Team Pet]]: Suchi
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* [[For the Evulz]]: The most common MO when it comes to Captain Planet villains. While technically some of them were also ostensibly gaining money for it, they usually still ended up being more complicated than legitimate alternatives would be. In the episode where Dr. Blight tried to sell an atomic bomb to Hitler, one must wonder how she intended to profit on wiping out her own timeline (she is insane though). Verminous Skumm technically wanted to ruin the world for humans so he and his rats could take over, but his methods tended to make little sense.
** Duke Nukem wanted to irradiate the planet because he thrived in heavy radiation conditions and basically didn't give a flying wet slap about anyone else or their needs.
* [[Freaky Friday Flip]]: Gaia and Dr. Blight switch bodies in one episode, and end up switching powers too. Dr. Blight uses her powers over nature to cause all kinds of ecological chaos...which Gaia then starts fixing using Dr. Blight's technology.
* [[Free-Range Children]]: Do any of their parents care that their children are fighting against evil doers about the world? Only Ma-Ti and Wheeler were explicitly explained as having no parents to speak of (Ma-Ti is [[Conveniently an Orphan]]; Wheeler ran away from home), so what about the others?
* [[Friend to All Living Things]]: Ma-Ti, from ''before'' getting his "lame" heart powers. Linka and Gi are also good with animals.
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** Let's start with the fact the show had two episodes dedicated to population control.
** The AIDS episode mentions unprotected sex and implied homosexuality.
** In "The Great Clam Up", a few of Ma-Ti's quotes about his detective fantasy involving Linka.
** There was one episode where Wheeler and Linka were shrunken and couldn't fit into their clothes. Wheeler finds a way to cover himself, and Linka prepares to cover herself, hidden by her over sized shirt and Wheeler attempts to sneak a peak at her while she's changing.
** The episode where Scumm makes a super drug that causes people to get addicted fast. Mass rioting, violent brawls, and Linka's cousin {{spoiler|dying of a drug overdose.}}
** The episode Utopia features a drive-by shooting, in which a family is shot to death on screen and you can clearly see blood on the floor visible.
* [[Generation Xerox]]: The episode where the bad guys form a [[Legion of Doom]]-type setup (see below) also sees ''a second'' alternate timeline where a new generation of Planeteers drop in to make the save. Look close enough and you'll notice the future Wind user looks a lot like Wheeler and the future Fire user looks a lot like Linka. The characters even point this out, though Linka and Wheeler refuse to ruminate on it.
* [[G-Rated Drug]]: In the episode "Mind Pollution", Verminous Scumm handed some drugs called Bliss to everyone. Of course, it doesn't turn out well for the users.
* [[The Gods Must Be Lazy]]: Gaia could easily restore barren land with her [[Fertile Feet]], but chooses not to because [[An Aesop|humans need to learn to take care of their own world]] ([[Broken Aesop|except when we can't and need magic]]). Fair enough. But why can't she just choose another fire ring user when Wheeler [[Refusal of the Call|Refused the Call]] and went back in time to stop himself from accepting it? Okay, maybe the Planeteers are [[The Chosen One|chosen by a higher power]] that even she can't change. It's a guess, but whatever. Now, explain why she decides to take a hundred-year nap in the middle of the goddamn ''industrial revolution,'' then relies entirely on five teenagers to fix a century of her neglect? What the hell, Earth Mother?
** Addressed in "The Unbearable Blightness of Being," where Gaia!Blight's attempted radical ecological alterations (first on her list being to turn the Sahara into a garden) would ultimately end up being just as destructive as the stuff Blight usually does, addressing why Gaia didn't do that herself. Yet this creates ''another problem'', because the Sahara Desert is a natural part of the environment and of course turning it into a garden would be bad. But there's plenty of places ruined by man that she ''could'' be affecting that she just...doesn't. Like cleaning up Chernobyl, or putting out the coal fires in Centralia or refilling the Aral Sea.
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* [[Human Ladder]]: Wheeler and Kwame in "A Mine Is a Terrible Thing to Waste (part 2)."
* [[Humanity on Trial]]: "Twelve Angry Animals", where the Planeteers get held on trial by several extinct and endangered animals, representing the human race.
* [[Humans Are
* [[Humongous Mecha]]: Hoggish Greedly and Rigger plan to obtain colossal amounts of crude oil in a very short amount of time with a mobile oil rig in the first episode, "A Hero For Earth". It towers over the trees and [[Kick the Dog|almost smashes a rabbit]] who is ant-sized in comparison, but it still proves to be no match for Captain Planet, and Greedly and Rigger move on to operate smaller yet still destructive machines with a pig-motif instead.
* [[Hurricane of Puns]]: Captain Planet, in the heat of battle.
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** Especially notable in "The Big Clam-Up", where Ma-Ti is the only one to spot the obvious trap that is the tip to go to a restaurant on Pier 13 at midnight, and is thus able to save the others, who were definitely carrying the [[Idiot Ball]] at that point (and also when they talked to a mime who was obviously Verminous Skumm and didn't figure it out).
** Blight picks it up big time in "The Unbearable Blightness of Being": Dr. Blight creates a machine that allows her to switch bodies with Gaia, does so and starts using her powers to destroy the environment for the hell of it...yet apparently gave no thought whatsoever to the fact that after the switch, ''Gaia is now in her body:'' not only is Gaia free to wander around her base (it would be as simple as locking yourself in a cage during the switch, Blight!), but Blight ''didn't even inform MAL of this''. Naturally, not only does Gaia use Blight's gadgets to fight back ''with MAL's assistance'', she even tricks him into continuing to do so ''after they switch back'' claiming it's "all part of her plan".
* [[If You Kill Him You Will Be Just Like Him]]: In "'Teers in the 'Hood", Gi gets called out on this by Wheeler as she attempts to drown the gangster who shot one of her teachers. A fair example, as the Planeteers have never actually killed anybody.
* [[Incredibly Lame Pun]]: Pick ''any'' villain on the show, their name will qualify: '''NO EXCEPTIONS.'''
* [[Ink Suit Actor]]: Dr. Blight bears a strong resemblance to her original voice actor, Meg Ryan. The same can be said with varying degrees of accuracy about the other eco-villains and their respective voice actors.
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* [[Multinational Team]]: The planeteers are all from different countries.
* [[My Significance Sense Is Tingling]]: One of the other few real advantages of Ma-Ti's Heart power.
* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]: The villains have the kind of [[Meaningful Name
* [[Nebulous Evil Organization]]: The Eco-villains occasionally organize with each other, though they're more likely to appear alone. None of them are really nice to each other, though Sly Sludge usually uses Dr. Blight's technology. See also the "[[Legion of Doom]]," trope above.
* [[New Year Has Come]]: Right at the end of "Two Futures (Part 2)". Linka brings out an accordion and sings out "Auld Lang Syne", and in a few moments the Planeteers join in the song, in a [[Shout-Out]] to ''[[It's a Wonderful Life]]''.
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* [[Non-Human Sidekick]]: Suchi the monkey.
* [[Noir Episode]]
* [[Obviously Evil]]: Played straight with Hoggish Greedly, Sly Sludge, Verminous Skumm, and Duke Nukem. Averted by Looten Plunder, who was actually good looking and well dressed. Subverted by Dr. Blight, whom other than the scars in half of her face (which were always covered by her hair) was an attractive woman. YMMV on whether Zarm plays this trope straight, averts it, or subverts it.
* [[Off-Model]]: That guy's eyes just moved!
** Sometimes they'd forget to draw the captain's boots.
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*** Of course, this is arguably an example as well, since in all likelihood Gi wouldn't have been terribly welcome either; but typically historical discrimination against Asians is not as much of a "hot button issue" as that against blacks and "native" races. Heck, depending on what sort of town it was, ''Linka'' might not have been welcome, since her accent would mark her as an obvious first-generation immigrant (with discrimination against immigrants of races and origins now considered simply "white" receiving even less attention than discrimination against Asians).
* [[Political Correctness Gone Mad]]: The show itself.
* [[Politically-Incorrect Villain]]:
** Hoggish Greedly in the episode "OK at the Gunfight Corral". He hired a bunch of racist white men to attack the local Native Americans so he could claim their land as his and sell it to Sly Sludge, but otherwise he never even commented on anybody's race.
** Verminous Skumm harrassed and lied about a boy who had HIV, and he gave nuclear detonators to people fighting in the [[The Troubles]], [[The Apartheid Era]], and the [[Useful Notes/Arab-Israeli Conflict|Arab Israeli Conflict]], in an attempt to discredit the entire human race. Both episodes went down in infamy, unsurprisingly.
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** Verminous Skumm has a Toxics Ring, evil version of Gi's Water Ring.
** Dr. Blight has a Hate Ring, evil version of Ma-Ti's Heart Ring.
*** Even comes with their own [[Evil Counterpart]] for Captain Planet, Captain Pollution.
* [[Pungeon Master]]: Captain Planet, Wheeler, and most of the villains.
* [[Reckless Gun Usage]]: In one episode, Wheeler had been showing off his gun-twirling skills with a loaded revolver. The gun went off but [[Animation Age Ghetto|since it's a cartoon]], it hit the sign, making it fall and hit Ma-Ti on the head.
* [[Recruit Teenagers with Attitude]]
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* [[Slap Slap Kiss]]: [[Belligerent Sexual Tension|Linka and Wheeler]], of course.
* [[Small Reference Pools]]: We have Linka from Europe, Wheeler from North America, Kwame from Africa, Ma-Ti from South America, Gi from Asia . . that's all the continents, right? Oceania? Never heard of it . . . (Oh yeah, and the Soviet Union is a continent, isn't it?)
** But it never did say that they were from every continent just that they were just five special young people.
* [[Space Whale Aesop]]: Don't use nuclear power or a man with yellow, rocky skin will attack you with radioactive blasts.
** [[Comically Missing the Point|Since when does]] [[Fantastic Four|The Thing]] [[Comically Missing the Point|have radioactive blasts? And he's more orange than yellow...]]
* [[Speaks Fluent Animal]]: Possibly the one really useful power given by Ma-Ti's Heart ring.
* [[Step Three: Profit]]: Hoggish Greedly and Looten Plunder can pretty much cause wide-scale ecological damage and get big profits just by changing a few things around them after signing a few contracts...if they even do that. Sly Sludge also seems to get money by dumping trash and toxic waste in ''populated areas'', like in "Kwame's Crisis".
* [[Strange Minds Think Alike]]: In one episode, we saw Verminous Scumm working in his lab, humming "I've Been Working On The Railroad" to himself. Later in the same episode, Cap is singing his own version of the
* [[Strawman Political]]: Too many to list, but taken to ''ridiculous'' extremes with Looten Plunder. In one episode in the future, he even promised tax-cuts for the rich while running for President, because "The more you have, the less you should share!". Hoggish Greedly counts too, being a [[Deep South]] style CEO who partially represents the damage caused by obtaining and using fossil fuels.
** Just in case anyone doubts the veracity of any of the above, here's the tagline from Plunder's TV ad when he was campaigning:
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* [[Villains Never Lie]]: An often parodied weakness of the show is that the supporting cast [[Idiot Ball|always seem to fall for the villains' deceptions, despite their conspicuous names and menacing appearances.]]
* [[Villains Want Mercy]]: In one episode, Dr. Blight begs Captain Planet to save her from being trampled to death by a genetically altered steer (that she created) stating, "You have to save me! It's in your hero code!" Cap admits she's right and does save her.
* [[Weaksauce Weakness]]: Captain Planet is weakened by not only the very thing he exists to fight (pollution) but also what he exists to protect (raw natural resources, mostly oil and even gasoline). This wouldn't be so bad, but he basically falls every time he's attacked with pollution, and the (human) Planeteers can resist pollution better than he can.
** Though in a display of [[Genre Savvy]], the planeteers were able to invert this with [[Evil Twin|Captain Pollution]] and were able to repulse his initial attack by... spraying him with water. Captain Pollution was also shown to be vulnerable to fresh air and concentrated sunlight.
** Also, volcanoes put out millions of tons of what can be termed as pollutants. Toxic gas, carbon dioxide, particulates... and yet lava heals him.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:The Nineties]]
[[Category:Rainbow Group]]
[[Category:Western Animation]]
[[Category:Cartoon Network]]
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