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Captain Planet and the Planeteers: Difference between revisions

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Captain Planet and the Planeteers (view source)

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{{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>, Linka, with the power of Wind. From Asia, Gi, with the power of Water... and from South America, Ma-Ti with the power of [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?|Heart]]. With the five powers combined they summon Earth's greatest champion, Captain Planet.''"|[[Opening Narration]] <ref>Guess Australia is just left out, then. Also Antarctica. And Western Europe, if you want to get technical.</ref>}}
 
The brainchild of Ted Turner (though most of the actual development work on the show was done by [[Di C]] producers Phil Harnage and Nicholas Boxer), ''Captain Planet and the Planeteers'' was an attempt to provide a show which would entertain younger viewers, while simultaneously educating them about taking care of the environment.
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* [[All Your Powers Combined]]
* [[Heart Is an Awesome Power]]
* [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?]]
 
=== This series gives examples of: ===
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* [[Bound and Gagged]]: The Planeteers have this happen so often, it's a wonder they get anything accomplished. The guys get tied up as much as the girls.
* [[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.
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* [[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.
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** [[Team Pet]]: Suchi
** [[The Mentor]]: Gaia
* [[Five -Token Band]]: Writ large, with representatives from (almost) every continent.
* [[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.
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* [[Friend to All Living Things]]: Ma-Ti, from ''before'' getting his "lame" heart powers. Linka and Gi are also good with animals.
* [[Fur and Loathing]]: Although it only shows up a couple of times with Looten Plunder and Dr. Blight, and isn't given any real focus. Both surprising and refreshing for this show.
* [[GaiasGaia's Lament]]: Though Captain Planet takes place in modern times, with mostly current technology and cultures combined with occasional super-science and high-technology, in "A Hero For Earth", Gaia finds out the world is in a terrible state, though still basically in the same condition as the real world, with polluted waters and skies, huge cities, and dying animals, and it could become drastically worse if Hoggish Greedly and Rigger are allowed to drill for oil with their massive machine.
* [[GaiasGaia's Vengeance]]: Not quite. Unless sending a bunch of kids and their superhero buddy to fight evil is vengeance. The one time Gaia became enraged enough to get her ass out of Hope Island and into the greater human world, to Dr. Blight's disappointment, was when a mother wolf was caught in a bear trap. It seems nuclear accidents or potential world-wide wars or changes in history and time are things for teenagers and pun-spewing superheroes to fix, not Earth herself.
** Keep in mind, that the Planeteers and Captain Planet were on the other side of the world at the time, which forced Gaia to leave her domain at Hope Island to help the wolf before she was killed. Her power is strongest at Hope Island and when she left, well let's just say things didn't turn out so well for her after the wolf was saved and escaped.
* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]:
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*** In the same episode, Gaia in Blight's body spends the episode fixing ecological problems with Blight's technology. It seems that while she ''could'' use her own power to fix the world, she'd much rather teach mankind to clean up after themselves instead, and being in Blight's body gave her the chance to show humanity it was possible. Which is better? Her fixing everything for humanity and them learning nothing, if anything making the problem ''worse'' by making humanity [[Holding Out for A Hero|expect her to just clean up after them]] or actually forcing mankind to take responsibility for the problems they created and learn to fix them themselves?
* [[Grand Theft Me]]: "The Unbearable Blightness Of Being" features Dr. Blight kidnapping and switching with Gaia's body. This backfires on her when Gaia spends the episode fixing ecological problems with Blight's technology.
* [[The Great Politics Mess -Up]]: Linka of "The Soviet Union" is one of the good guys (albeit described as from 'Eastern Europe' after the Berlin Wall fell), and Russia was never played in a negative light until a late episode in the show's run (''Missing Linka''), when Linka goes back to her home in Russia to discover that a hastily abandoned and poorly dug iron mine was responsible for spreading sickness through the groundwater table, highlighting the rampant environmental problems in Russia.
* [[Green Aesop]]: The whole show, but especially "The Power is Yours!" sections at the end of each episode.
* [[Healing Shiv]]: Molten rock and raging fires will roast just about anything that comes into contact with them, except Captain Planet. Since fires and magma flows are part of the Earth's natural ecosystem, Captain Planet can actually ''recharge'' himself by getting set on fire or swimming through molten rock. Lightning bolts are also shown to be capable of restoring Captain Planet's energy with no damage done to him (in fact, Gaia used this once to trick Dr. Blight into accidentally healing him when he was almost dead).
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** There was also the episode where they formed that alliance under Looten Plunder and created evil versions of the kids' rings, which enabled them to summon Captain Pollution.
* [[Let's Meet the Meat]]: An interesting example. Despite its clear animal-rights agenda, ''Captain Planet'' never explicitly promotes vegetarianism nor condemns eating meat, and also doesn't shun hunting when it's done safely and smartly. In one episode, a man ate a bear's meat and wore its fur, but also honored its spirit, and in another, a man chided Linka, as she was angry at him for hunting animals for sport, even though she herself was eating a lamb kebab.
** Ted Turner owns [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted%27s_Montana_Grill:Tedchr(27)s Montana Grill|Ted's Montana Grill]], which serves, among other things, bison meat.
* [[Mad Scientist]]: Dr. Blight. Duke Nukem counts to a lesser extent.
* [[Master of Illusion]]: Zarm; Gaia to a degree.
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* [[Misapplied Phlebotinum]]: ''None'' of the Planeteers ever used their rings to their full potential. If they did, Ma-Ti alone would be enough to end most crises without bothering to summon the our mullet-wearing hero.
** Keep in mind that Captain Planet represents the kids' powers combined ''and magnified''. He wields the rings' powers to a higher extent than the rings themselves.
* [[Mix -and -Match Critters]]: The animals in "Planeteers Under Glass". And did we mention that there is also a [[Hybrid Monster|flying cyber-demon]] during [[Apocalypse Wow|the time that the Apocalypse Class is]] spiked up to [[Apocalypse How|Class 6]]?
* [[Morality Pet]]: Hoggish Greedly's son, to a small degree, as well as Dr. Blight's daughter, who was supportive of the Planeteers from the very start.
* [[The Moral Substitute]]: It's an action cartoon, with an environmental message.
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* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]: The villains have the kind of [[Meaningful Name|Meaningful Names]] that should trigger warning bells for any sane person. Would ''you'' invest in a company with a CEO named Looten Plunder? Or take environmental consulting from Sly Sludge? Would you let a man named Hoggish Greedly drill for oil and mine for coal by your home city? Or let a woman named Dr. Blight...within 50 feet of you?
* [[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 ''[[Its a Wonderful Life]]''.
* [[Nobody Poops]]: Somewhat averted. Ma-ti mentions that manure is a good fertilizer in one Planeteer Alert. If it mentions a kind of mammal solid waste, it implies that humans void as well.
* [[No Fourth Wall]]: "Hog Tide", in which Captain Planet sings a part of the show's theme song.
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* [[Oireland]]: The Belfast sequence in "If It's Doomsday, It Must Be Belfast" is probably the single most offensive take on this.
* [[Omnidisciplinary Scientist]]: Dr. Blight. She's worked with Sly Sludge to make garbage disposing machines, created the world's largest oil refinery and made incredibly powerful rocket fuel for the President of the United States, made several time-traveling devices, experimented on countless animals and plants, and she's even hacked governmental computers to change national parks into waste dumps. Since she can pretty much create anything, she's the subject villain of many episodes. The only villain seen more frequently than her is Hoggish Greedly.
* [[Our Zombies Are Different]]: Verminous Skumm ends up creating two plans that than involve corrupting humans into zombie like beings. The first time, he poisoned the water supply of a South American village with a fluid he manufactured called "Rat Rot". It turned the humans who got into contact with it into rat-humanoids like Verminous Skumm, but also made them feral and mindless. The other time, he produced a drug called "Bliss" and sold it on the streets of Washington D.C., which would give the user a high feeling and make [[Red Eyes, Take Warning|their eyes glow red]] and eventually cause them to go insane with addiction.
* [[Parental Abandonment]]: The kids live in the Hope Island with Gaia as their [[Team Mom]]. Wheeler was the only one explicitly stated to have living parents. Also, Ma-Ti is specifically shown to be an orphan raised by his grandfather. Linka's brother appears in an episode, making the lack of parental mention that much more noticeable.
* [[Personality Powers]]: Each Planeteer receives control of an element related to their personal environmental passion and their personality.
* [[Pig Man]]: Do you really have to ask? * snork* * snork* {{spoiler|In case you didn't watch the show, it's Hoggish Greedly.}}
* [[Plaguemaster]]: Verminous Scumm. Duke Nukem counts, however, his motives are mostly focused on spreading around radiation and nuclear waste.
* [[Politically -Correct History]]: The multi-racial American army depicted in the Hitler episode. The U.S. military was for the most part racially segregated during World War II.
** Averted in the Wild West episode, where only Wheeler, Gi, and Linka are permit to go into a shop, while the others have to stay outside.
* [[Political Correctness Gone Mad]]: The show itself.
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* [[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]]
* [[Red Eyes, Take Warning]]: "The Conqueror", where Zarm happens to do this a lot while prompting the Planeteers to take his Gauntlets of Conquest.
* [[Redheaded Hero]]: Wheeler.
* [[Refusal of the Call]] In a two-part episode ("Two Futures"), Wheeler decides he'd have been better off not being a Planeteer (in a [[Shout -Out]] to ''[[Its a Wonderful Life]]''), so he goes back in time and convinces himself to refuse the Fire ring. This results in a hellish present (see "Bad Future", above) where there are no Planeteers. Wheeler then has go to back and stop himself... from stopping himself.
** This episode is a prime example of the writer's mantra: "Wheeler is always wrong." Gaia informs Wheeler that this terrible world is all his fault...even though she could have fixed the entire mess by giving the ring to someone else. But apparently, she had no backup candidates in mind, and openly refuses to try and find any, essentially preferring to let the world go to Hell rather than do the extra work. And this, too, is blamed on Wheeler. Furthermore, in the [[Bad Future]], Gaia herself has been killed by pollution, meaning she effectively let herself die because she wasn't willing to find someone to take Wheeler's place. It doesn't help that the reason the Planeteers broke up is they couldn't create Captain Planet without a fifth member. So without a pun-spewing genie in their corner, they couldn't handle it.
* [[Reed Richards Is Useless]]: The team could eliminate most pollution by simply releasing the technology they use in their own vehicles and equipment (since we're told it doesn't pollute at all).
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* [[Secret Test of Character]]: Greedly's grandfather, green industrialist Don Porkaloin, fakes his bloody death and leaves a bogus fortune to his grandson to test if Greedly could be taught to be environmentally conscious. [[Captain Obvious|Nope]].
* [[Sensitive Guy and Manly Man]]: Ma-Ti and Wheeler.
* [[Shout -Out]]: Captain Planet's designs look similar to [[X Men|Colossus]]. Mostly Colossus's older design.
** Wheeler does several shout-outs to certain shows and movies.
{{quote| '''Linka:''' "How can you think about pizza with what is happening to those turtles!?"<br />
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** 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.
* [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?]]: [[Trope Namer]]. Ironically, [[Atop the Fourth Wall (Web Video)|Linkara]] pointed out in his review that Heart was actually [[Heart Is an Awesome Power|more useful than the other elements,]] especially Fire, as it could allow [[Telepathy|reading of minds]]. It also worked [[Spider Sense|as a communicator]], and [[Friend to All Living Things|could control wild animals]]. It also gave Ma-Ti the chance to see through the illusions casted by the [[Master of Illusion]] Zarm. Basically, if Ma-Ti were ''evil'' or [[Anti-Hero|more ruthless]] in the use of his Ring, he could potentially [[Brainwashing|brainwash]] almost anybody he wanted by manipulating the good in their hearts and using that to his advantage. Good thing (for us!) that Gaia was [[Genre Savvy]] and picked a more innocent, younger Planeteer...
** In the alternate future created by Wheeler not joining the Planeteers, Ma-Ti does exactly that... using the power of Heart to brainwash people passing by into giving their money to the less fortunate.
** It also works with Heart's opposite power: Hate. In a time travel episode, [[Adolf Hitler]] emanates so much Hate his mere presence harms Captain Planet the same way toxic substances do.
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