Captain Planet

Our world is in peril. Gaia, the spirit of the

Earth, can no longer stand the terrible destruction

plaguing our planet. Five magic rings. Five special

younglings. Watch over the map. The power of

thunder. North America rules with the power of

fire. From the Soviet Union, Luka with the power

of wind. Ninja E with the power of one! Alchemy!

My teeth! The power of heart! With five powers

combined, they summon Earth's greatest champion,

Castanets! Hello and welcome to the 39th episode

of Tooncast brought to you by the Geekcast Radio

Network. I'm your host, Steve, Joe, and Mike,

and today I'm joined once again by Kevin, Professor

Boss, K -Dog Thompson. Hello. Hello. How are

you? I am doing fantastic. Yes, my Masters of

the Universe DVD came into mail today, so I'll

have to watch that a little bit later. Yes. Uh,

and today we are going to be discussing, uh,

Captain Planet. Oh god. You know, what's funny,

and I'm gonna get this out of the way now, what's

funny about this show, I was a fan of it when

I was a kid. Oh. Well, it came out, what, let's

see. 1990. Yeah, I was 10. Give me a break. Transformers

was gone. Silverhawks never mattered. Thundercats

was gone. You know, there were still turtles,

but I mean... It just... I don't know. Don't

ever say that again. Yeah, Silverhawks never

mattered and the Miami Dolphins suck. Man. So

yes, why don't we just get right into the history

lesson. All right. Captain Planet and the Planetaries,

history lesson coming up here. Captain Planet

and the Planetaries was basically the world's

first environmental superhero, who actually was

originally to be voiced by actor Tom Cruise.

And his heroic quintet, Kwame, Linka, Masi, Lee,

and Wheeler. Each bestowed with special powers,

of course, earth, wind, heart, water, and fire.

We'll get more into that later. And they teamed

up to rid the world of echo villains, Honda Scrooge,

Verma Scum, Duke Nukem, Slice Lodge, Dr. Blight,

and a bunch of others who are polluting and plundering

Earth's resources in this long -running weekly

animated series based on an original idea by

media mogul Ed Turner, founder, obviously, of

SuperStation WTBS and the Turner Network. Simultaneously

premiering on TBS and 223 independent stations

in the fall of 1990, the series was developed

in close collaboration with cartoon studio Deke

Enterprises, which produced the series for the

first three seasons until 1993. Production was

taken over by Hannah Barbera beginning in the

1994 -95 season, the show's fourth and final

season of original episodes, which was retitled

The New Adventures of Captain Planet. Following

the show's 90th debut, the series became a showcase

for Hollywood's environmental activism. Many

major Hollywood stars wanted voices for the series,

which we'll get into later. All working for scale

and each episode focused on different environmental

concerns. In 1995, the series was rebroadcast

on the Cartoon Network that does it for the history

lesson. What are your general memories besides

being a fan of the show like? You know, now that

I'm God, 30 years old. You know, I have at least

two decades or two and a half decades worth of

knowledge as far as like, you know, I really

can't count the full three decades because not

a lot of us, majority of us don't remember what

the hell happened when we were like a year, year

and a half old or whatever. But, you know, when

I'm a fan of something, I'm always a fan of it.

I know that sometimes stuff doesn't hold up.

But when I was 10 this as I said before, you

know Transformers was gone. He -man was gone.

Thundercats was gone. Silverhawks never mattered

You know And you know, we still had turtles and

Whatever other like I think that Disney afternoon

in the in the Nintendo cartoons were we're just

starting around this time as well So I was a

fan of this, I was also, this is probably something

we may have to try to find, may have to add it

to the schedule for Tooncast, I was also a fan

of James Bond Jr. cartoons. But anyway, you know,

10 year old self to my now 30 year old self,

the 10 year old in me still likes it, the 30

year old in me cannot stand it. This show has

got to be the worst fucking show ever. I won't

let you go that far. It's not the worst ever.

I don't like it at all, but it's not the worst

ever. No, that goes to Silverhawks. It's right

in the Dexter's laboratory. No, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no. See, back in the 80s, and I know

you know this, but back in the 80s, we had cartoons,

and then we had Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers.

You don't mix education and entertainment. and

make edutainment that no oh god just no what

the hell um as far as my recollection goes from

when i was a kid i am proud to say that um well

i asked first of all i watched the cartoon i

watched every cartoon where you could have put

anything on tv in the 80s cartoon wise and i

would have at least watched a little bit of it

um i don't know how because i remember being

outside a whole lot too but somehow i watched

every cartoon in the 80s and i guarantee um So

I watched it, but I am proud to say that I didn't

like it as a kid, and I still don't like it as

an adult. I never liked the show. I watched it

enough to know I know the main characters. I

know the, you know, the premise of it. I actually

didn't mind the Captain Planet as a character,

but I don't know. I went straight from Teenage

Mutant Ninja Turtles straight into Chippendale's

Rescue Rangers, you know, like tailspin and those

cartoons that were happening on Disney or Nickelodeon

and stuff like that. I went straight into those.

Captain Planet was not something that I spent

time on. I was way too obsessed with Turtles

and then obviously I got into the Disney stuff.

So I wasn't ever really a big fan of this show.

I never owned any of the toys. I watched it occasionally

probably with nothing else on but that was about

it for me. Like you said, it's not awful. I had

a Wheeler action figure. You just keep going

down the list. Shut up! I don't mind if you put

a little tiny education dose in a show. In moderation,

it's fine. But I don't need to be hit over the

head with a frying pan. on the education and

the environmental side of things. You know, if

it would have done it a little bit more incognito

type stuff or more subliminal, I'd be fine with

it probably, but I just can't get over it. It's

the same reason why I don't like, and there's

a whole nother ball of worms here, but it's the

same reason why I don't like Avatar or the movie

as much as everybody else does. It's because

their messages were just way too over the top,

hit you in the head with a frying pan type stuff.

I like to have to think a little bit more and

not be so blatant. Right into the character.

Yeah, let's get into the voice cast here. Um,

I never okay my ten -year -old self never knew

that Gaia at least from 91 to 93 Was voiced by

Whoopi Goldberg. I never caught on to that Until

I watched it a couple episodes recently And I

heard somebody mention that Whoopi Goldberg played

her And then once I think it's after the third

season or like going into the third or fourth

year Margot Kidder, Lois Lane replaced Whoopi

Goldberg as Gaia I don't remember if I remember

if I knew at the time I want to say that I probably

didn't know that it was Whoopi Goldberg just

because I watched a whole lot of Other stuff

that Whoopi Goldberg was in at the time I can't

say that for sure. That might be just me now

kind of reflecting back on it. But that's...

Geyer is one of my biggest problems character

-wise in this show. And I'd have to listen to

some episodes with Lois Lane doing the voice.

But I love Whoopi Goldberg. I love her voice

and everything. But to me, it did not fit that

character at all. Yeah. Like when you see a picture

of someone and then you picture in your mind

what you think it's going to sound like, If you

see a picture of Aya, you're not going to picture

Wippy Goldberg's voice coming out of her. I mean,

the other people weren't as bad, except for,

I do have to mention right off the top, that

obviously the main characters are five different

kids from five different parts of the world,

and they all spoke English, which obviously they

had to for a cartoon, so that kind of bugged

me. And accents were all over the place. Some

of them did a good job with their accents, some

of them didn't do a good job. definitely did

either good or bad, depending on which episode

it was. Some did a good job. I'm not going to

discount some of them, but the voice acting in

this show to me was all over the place. There

was some good, there was some bad. I really liked

David Coburn as Captain Planet. And Captain Pollution.

Yeah, I liked his voicing. I especially liked

what Deek did with the echo effect on his voice

at times, which Ana Barbera decided not to do

for some reason. I liked him, but you have a

weird mix. You have a mix of veteran or really

good up -and -coming voice actors that we're

all familiar with, like Kat Suzy, Scott Menville,

obviously Frank Welker, Chris Summer, Maurice

LaMarche. Jim Cummings, Cam Clark, all those

kind of people. And that's not even talking about

the additional cast, which was like a Who's Who

with Charlie Adler, Michael Bell, Jeff Bennett,

Peter Cullen, Donald Coleman, etc. I gotta say,

one that really shocks me is to see Jordy LaForge

as Kwame. LeVar Burton played Kwame? See, I thought

he did a decent job. Right. I'm not saying that

it's a bit. No, I'm not saying anything against

mr. Burton whatsoever I'm not saying that he

did a bad job as Kwame. I'm just saying I never

knew Because I wasn't harder to tell with him

Yeah, because well the other thing is I never

was that much of a Trekkie when I was a kid I

mean like I watched next generation, but I'm

not like I'm not like Steve Snowball sailor or

somebody Yeah, I'm not I'm not a major Trekkie.

So I I'm I was not a major Trekkie as far as

the original Star Trek, but I was obsessed with

the Next Generation. I actually still VBR it

right now when it's on in repeats in Washington.

But I could tell Whoopi Goldberg a lot easier

than I could tell LeBar Burton. But to get back

to my point, it has all those voice casting,

voice artists, voice over stars that we're used

to. But then it also has this mix of Hollywood

whoo -hoo type bull crap, which to me usually

doesn't work in cartoons. When you have people

like Meg Ryan and Martin Sheen and Sting and

Diana Warwick and Ted Turner and Elizabeth Taylor

and stuff like that, the mixture just doesn't,

I don't think it just goes well. Plus, the problem

with that is when you have those big stars on,

especially the bad guys, if you look at the bad

guys who started, Tim Curry, Jeff Goldblum, Meg

Ryan, Martin Sheen and Dean Stockwell, who all

eventually gave up their roles to more established

voice artists. But when you have those stars,

what happens is they record the ensemble, if

it's an ensemble show which this was, they record

the ensemble with someone else filling in for

those people because they're never available

because of their schedule. And then the stars

come in at their convenience, record their lines,

and it gets put into the place of the original

whoever was filling in the line. Right. Which

I think leads to some I mean you in my opinion

it you get a better product when everybody's

in an Ensemble and they're all recording together

and playing off of each other And and when you're

doing this where you have it, but then you're

replacing someone blind with some celebrities

lines it just Not that you could tell as a kid,

but looking back. It's just kind of I don't know

that's what to me leads some inconsistency in

the voice acting in this show Oh yeah, well I

mean I'm just looking at the voice list on some

of the characters that lists when they voiced

them and like the original, like the original

Sly Sledge was Martin Sheen. From 90 to 93 and

then I believe they replaced him with Jim Cummings.

Yeah, with Jim Cummings. From 93 to 93. Yeah,

I mean, you know. This is a thing that's got

verminous scum by Def Goldblum replaced by Maurice

LaMarche. I would be tempted to watch some of

the later episodes in the show to see if the

voice acting is a little more consistent. Now

of course my 10 year old self knew nothing of

this voice replacement but I'm so glad that they

had Uh, what's his name? Uh, Coburn, David Coburn.

Doing both voices of Planet and Pollution. I

thought that was so cool. Cause alls he did was

kinda like top like this and not really country

but failing and attempting to do like a skater

dude type of voice. He's like, come on dudes,

we gotta get some pizza! You know? Um... But

uh... Yeah If it wasn't for the if it wasn't

for the voice actor replacement I Think it would

have been a really great show as far as the voice

cast goes Yeah, the show over all No What about

the actual characters that, you know, we kind

of established with the voice acting, but there's

a thousand people involved in the voice acting,

but just breaking it down to the actual individual

characters, did you have one, you said you had

the Wheeler figure, was that your favorite character?

Probably my ten -year -old self thought it was

because he was from North America, forget the

fact he was from fucking New York, would have

much rather liked if he was from Boston, but

you know... I think it was because he was from

where I was from, being in North America, whatever.

Well, let me just real quick break down, just

in case people aren't aware of Captain Planet,

just so we can match up the right one with the

right one. Right. Kwame is from Africa, and his

power is Earth. Wheeler is from North America,

his power is fire. Link is from, well, what they

say the Soviet Union in later episodes, they

say Eastern Europe, but the Soviet Union didn't

exist anymore. It has the power of wind. Is it

a G or a G? I can't remember. It's G. G is from

Asia. It has the power of water. And Nazi is

from South America somewhere? Yeah, South America.

The Amazon, the rainforest. And his power is

heart. You have fire, wind, earth, water, and

heart. I can I know the heart thing is kind of

a controversy amongst people who either Love

the show or hate the show But I can kind of explain

it away a little bit I watched I was looking

on YouTube before we did the recording And I

found the very first episode on YouTube, where

they are all assembled and Gaius... It's kind

of like now, where... Oh, what was it? The live

-action Power Rangers movie, where Dalcia is

telling them all their new powers. Same deal.

You know, Gaius says that Mati is... which Mati's

name looks like Mai Tai, but... She says that

the reason why he has the heart power, the heart

power is to connect the entire team. Yeah. And

then he can basically read all their thoughts,

which I think is a huge plot device. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. And he's basically the power that keeps

them all together and stuff like that. You spoke

a couple things. You mentioned a couple things.

You mentioned YouTube, first of all. And there

is a funny video that you can check out. where

someone has gone through that, I don't remember,

I think they've spliced parts of different episodes.

They've basically gone through and created a

whole episode where Machi gets replaced and fired

from the Planeteers. And they do a really good

job of finding clips that the people's mouths

actually fit with whoever is recording their

voices over it. Or else they're taking bits and

pieces of it and making it into sentences. But

it's funny because they fire him and they replace

him. And he's like, well, you need five, people

to someone catching a planet so you need me and

they're like no we replaced you and then they're

like who do you replace me with and they're like

oh another fire so they had so then they did

the thing where they say the earth win fire and

they do another fire like they call it off twice

and it's just like some truck driver guy that's

featured in one of the episodes it's really funny

you can see a lot of stuff like that because

a lot of fans don't like the fact that he had

heart but i understand the purpose of it You

also mentioned though the first episode, I love

how Gaia, she's seeing what's happening and she's

like underneath this like her little cave type

thing and starting to melt or whatever and she

has a line that says I need young people to help

now. I'm like what? I'm like you're like this

magical goddess type person and then there's

a problem and you're like Who can I find to help

me? Oh, I need young people. Such a lame line

to me. Alright, now I understand your point,

but I can not really explain it away, but I can

kind of go around it in saying that adults, as

adults, we are very close, for the most part,

a lot of people, including myself, I know myself,

depending on what it is, I'm a very close -minded

person. I'm a very selfish person. Don't get

me wrong. I am but And I think that's what they

were kind of going for where you know, you know,

maybe you can make the analogy Oh, well, she

needs a bunch of young people because they're

the most gullible and you know honestly, yeah,

you know in the in the heroes character descriptions

you have Mati who is only 12 years old you have

gee who is 16 linka is 16 And Kwame is 16, the

oldest one is Wheeler at 17, and Wheeler is the

most immature one out of the group. That's true,

because he's from North America, they had to

make him the most immature. Oh, well, true. But,

you know, what I'm saying is, they're all, like,

not pre-, uh, mid -teens. You know, they're not

quite adults yet, so, you know, maybe you could

say that she was gonna manipulate them and, I

don't know, rape them sometime? I don't know.

You know, whatever. I don't know. I also like

when they're introducing the characters, when

they introduce Mati and he's in the rain forest,

I think it's Mati, it's either him or Kwame,

but I'm pretty sure it's Mati. They go to each

person's home place where they first get discovered

or whatever. He scares a tiger just without anything.

There's a tiger that's going after this animal

and he jumps in between them and the tiger runs

off. I'm like, man, that kid's got something.

so they have power there before you have the

damn ring uh... but even with that i think my

key and i think my team's probably my favorite

even though i don't like his power necessarily

uh... i think it was more of a plot device type

thing but i think it was all we need a fifth

power and we're going to use the basic on that

so we have come up with something weird uh...

well i think my was probably my favorite character

out of the five planeteers and either Either

gee or Wheeler was probably my least favorite

probably gee You know watching that first episode

I don't know if it was the poor YouTube quality

or if it was the way the show was actually intended

gee she Looks like her voice Or her the animation

is lip -synced around the actor or whatever because

it looks it looks like she's she's talking like

japanese like i'm saying all this stuff but yet

my mouth is closed you know the the animation

on her her close -up sucks uh... if i was going

to pick probably a favorite hero character it

would probably be like uh... like number one

favorite it would be a tie between captain planet

and sushi well yeah i think that i get the main

part I can't complain, that's my favorite character

by far on the whole show. Which one of the five

original Planeteers is your least favorite? Uh,

Linka, because she wouldn't give out. I like

Linka better than Dee for some reason, I don't

know. Well, no, I like Linka, but, you know,

come on, give Wheeler a break every now and then.

I didn't really have a connection with Kwame.

He seemed to be like the lone one. I don't know,

I really don't have a worst favorite hero. I

think it boils down to the horrible writing is

what it boils down to. Yeah, I think I like Mati

just because of the voice actor which is Scott

Mendel which obviously I didn't know at the time

and I think he did a really good job with it.

I like his accents on it and I just like that

about Mati. As far as the bad guys go, could

they have come up with names for these guys?

All right, well, I mean, you know, again, going

with the environmental edutainment thing, you

know, it's kind of like combining pollution with

the seven deadly sins, maybe? I don't know. Yeah,

hoggish greedly, loot and plunder. Sly Sludge,

Duke Nukem obviously, Verminous Skull. They're

just bad names. I was wondering which one came

first. I can find out. That's what I was wondering.

I didn't know if one took off of the other one

or what I would I was in my mind I was thinking

that this came first and the video game took

off of it But maybe it's the maybe it's right

first. I really don't know and then We should

say what the bad guys you also had obviously

that we said before Captain pollution who? At

one point basically dr. Blight feels the planet

tears rings and creates duplicates of them so

then to combat earthling heart water and fire

we have a deforestation ring a radiation ring

a smog ring, a toxic ring, and a hate ring. Obviously,

you can match up each one, deforestation or radiation

with fire, I guess, kind of. Smog with wind,

toxic with water, and hate with heart. And then,

of course, the five bad guys could summon Captain

Pollution. So that basically does it for the

main characters. Obviously, there's lots of little

side characters here and there. Yeah. Because

it lasts you know four or five seasons long or

however long it was so there's going to be a

lot of different different people that play just

one part You know one episode shots or whatever,

but those are the main main characters August

greedly He's the one featured at the beginning

and he does kind of like a pig like human But

they're all one thing that this show got away

with that no other show in the 80s could basically

if you think about it shows in the cartoons in

the 80s were up against the parent brigade basically.

And if you had violence, you usually got, people

came after you so you couldn't have violence

in your cartoon. And there was a lot of things

that you couldn't do. Captain Planet got away

with doing all of it because there's this environmental

show. And the parents and everybody would stay

away from them. One thing that usually was a

no -no in cartoons that would get people all

upset is when you had all the good guys, pretty,

for lack of a better word, and all the bad guys

being these grotesque, ugly people. That was

usually something that got all the adult groups

at you because they didn't want kids to think,

you know, pretty people are good and ugly people

are bad, I think. But Captain Planet did it,

and they did it big time, and nobody said boo

because, oh, we're promoting the environment.

But if you look at these bad guys and picture

them, they're grotesque looking, and then you

have all the planetiers in Captain Planet and

all that, which are these You know, more clean

cut, trimmed up, you know, like Captain Planet's

buff and all that stuff. And so that's one thing

that makes this show kind of unique. It also

has a lot more violence than most cartoons that

the 80s did and 90s, early 90s because of the

fact that nobody cared about the violence because,

oh, we're doing a good thing and we're talking

bad about pollution. Well, according to Wikipedia,

now, Captain Planet came out in 90, right? The

show debuted in 90, yeah. According to Wakey,

Duke Nukem the video game, the very first game,

premiered in 91 on Anastos. So, they probably

stole the name from Captain Planet. Interesting.

Yeah, I kinda thought that's what it was, but

I didn't know. Maybe there was some type of,

maybe Ted Turner owns both things, I don't know.

What doesn't Ted Turner own? He owns the whole

world, doesn't he? Oh, goodness. Do you have

any comments about the bad guys? I liked a lot

of the voicing on the bad guys. Obviously you

have Ed Asner as Hoggish Greeley, which kind

of surprised me. Yeah, this premiered on September

10th, 1990, so the video game came afterwards.

I don't know. It's just one of those things where,

yes, it is an awesome voice cast. It's great

that they got even those major celebrities. Of

course, they had to replace them later, but the

show itself just sucks. We're almost to the show

itself. Yeah, I know. When are we going to the

behind the scenes segment? Yeah, going into production

a little bit, obviously a feature of the show

is every episode's ending, which most 80s and

early 90s shows had the promotional piece at

the end. Usually I had a pair of 30 second clips

known as planetary alerts in which the characters

inform the viewers in ways that they can help

the environment by joining organizations or writing

government officials to voice their opinion on

specific issues. Like that's gonna happen. Yeah,

the clips basically contained moral messages

directed to the viewers, delivered by, obviously,

Captain Planet, Gaia, or other characters. But,

I don't know, it's just... I don't know. If that

would have been the only time they would have

done it, that's fine, because most shows did

something kind of like that at the end, but it

wasn't the PSAs really that bothered me at the

show. It was the fact that the entire show was

a PSA. the entire show with one big long promotional

thing on it. The theme, ending credits theme,

is also considered one of the most memorable

parts of the series due to its catchy main chorus

and rock trend about theme songs. Well, alright,

I think this is one of those shows, it's kind

of like... I would hate to see GoBot versions

of The Planeteers, but this is one of those shows

like GoBot's where the theme song... Well, it's

not the best theme song of all time. It's the

best part of the show. You know, a formula for

hate. The episode entitled a formula for hate

in 92 was unique for the series in that it did

not deal with environmental pollution or destruction.

It was also the first episode in American children's

animated series to directly deal with the AIDS

HIV pandemic and also the first to directly mention

sex on children's show. In the episode, Verminous

Scum brainwashes a local community into thinking

the virus can be spread through casual contact,

thus causing people to hate and fear a young

man infected with HIV named Todd. Blaze Charities.

I find there's something very wrong where Captain

Planet is known for the first American animated

cartoon ever to bring up sex or AIDS or HIV.

Yeah, they shouldn't have done that. I understand

that they may have got some props for it or whatever,

but first of all, it's a show basically dealing

with all, we've talked about it, it's established

the main characters as all being teenagers. And

I don't know that this episode, maybe Todd's

portrayed as being older, but the fact that they're

basically showing a teenage show dealing with

a cartoon -wise, I don't need sex and AIDS in

a cartoon. And you know, save that for something

more live action drama type stuff, you know what

I mean? And then obviously we had the shift into

later seasons which was called New Adventures

of Captain Planet. Just want to sum up basically

what happened here is you had a shift from Deke

to Hanna -Barbera which had just been acquired

by Turner, just like everything in the world

has been acquired by Turner. And the main differences

here is basically they go back into the past

of each character A little bit more, they shift

Blinka from being from Eastern Europe instead.

They switch a bunch of voice actors, obviously,

like we talked about before. The animation style

is a little bit different. Obviously, they use

the same character models from Geek, but it's

usually a more colorful, more vibrant animation

that you get from Hannah Barbera with this one.

They had different outfits. Sound effects were

different. For example, like we talked about

Captain Planet's echo and his voice disappears

in the Hanna -Barbera's version. And also they

changed the soundtrack. The original Captain

Planet had more of a synthesized rock soundtrack

and it was replaced by more orchestral pieces

by Hanna -Barbera. And then of course the main

shift of all the voice actors like we talked

about before, especially Gaia and stuff like

that. And then the opening narration was voiced

now by Captain Planet instead of like Kwame like

it was. Those are the main changes that happened

between Deacon and Hanna Barbera. Some were good,

I think. Some were bad. I like the voice acting

switches. I don't necessarily like that they

took the echo out of Captain Planet and I don't

like the shift in the musical soundtrack, but

it is what it is. Outside of Ted Turner, I don't

recognize any writers or directors on this. Yeah,

uh, you know, we're gonna move into the actual

show. Okay, is there any possible way you can

give this a five second plot? Yeah, basically.

Basically you have people, you have bad guys,

which are ugly, grotesque villains who are trying

to, you know, make money or be greedy or get

some type of ends and because of that they're

causing the world to be polluted or they're releasing

oil or toxins into rivers, etc. So basically

Gaia has summoned these five kids from five different

parts of the world. They get rings representing

their powers. And here's the kicker, if they

ever come across a problem that's too hard for

them to handle, they can combine their powers

with our powers combined and call on Captain

Planet. Weird that every single problem they

come across is too hard for them to handle. need

to call Captain Planet. Captain Planet comes

in and does crazy stuff like, for example, in

the first episode where oil has been leaked into

an entire, like, river, he somehow gets all the

oil to suck back into some type of thing that's

humanly impossible. The physics wouldn't allow

what he's doing, but he's Captain Planet, so

that's cool. So basically he comes in, saves

the day, and then we go to our next episode,

which is basically repeat at nauseam the same

thing over and over and over and over and over

again. So that's the plot of the show. I've got

a couple of problems I've got to get off real

quick. First of all, the fact that every problem

is too hard for them to handle, so the Planeteers

are really worthless pieces of crap. I have a

problem with the original episode that when she's

talking about all this and she's introduced,

she brings them all together, that none of the

kids want, every one of the kids wants in. Every

one of the kids basically wants to be involved

in this thing. You would have thought that there

would have been one kid that was like, screw

this, I want to go play video games or something

like that. And that's not a big deal. My biggest

problem is, like I said, that the whole thing

is a TSA. Even in, for example, again, the first

episode, they're in a car or somewhere and they're

driving, or they're in a spaceship, that's what

they're in, they're in a shuttle ship, I don't

know what you want to call it, going to where

this pollution is happening. And like one of

the kids said, fasten your seatbelt for safety.

Like seriously, no kid would have said that.

Again, it goes to the writing dude. Yeah, it's

just so over the top. The writing sucks and it's

just a half hour PSA. Every single episode is

a half hour of straight PSAs. I like the other

one too. When Whatchamacall gets his power of

earth, Kwame, the first thing he says, when he

has the power to create mountains and volcanoes

and earthquakes and stuff like that which he

does originally like when he first uses it he

splits the earth and then basically basically

creates a chasm he's like this is the first thing

that comes out of his mouth I will be able to

plant many trees well now okay alright the thing

with that is though because like I said I watched

the first episode not too long ago just recently

here when she's Before they before she brings

them together when she's going into their little

worlds or wherever the hell they are We see Kwami

planting trees by him, so, you know digging into

the ground and so I I think that's where that

would Would come from granted. It's a shit line

But that's like getting the power of fire And

like saying something good about it nobody thinks

good when if they have the power of fire That's

that that's one of my problems with this show

at least with the first the very first episode

Apparently once they had the power ring on if

they said the name of the the name of their power

it will automatically activate without them like

intentionally trying to use it like there's like

four times where a wheeler says oh we're gonna

you know we're gonna put out this fire or whatever

his ring just automatically it you know activates

and and sets the the plane on fire and shit and

like what the hell man i got my last my last

issue first of all go back to these plant kids

not only Are they so pathetic that they have

to basically call Captain Planet every episode?

Which I understand why, because everyone wants

to see Captain Planet, but couldn't they have

ever had something that could have solved on

their own? But not only that, they have these

count rings, and you gotta think, okay, if your

planet's here in your home doing your own business

or whatever, you don't need the ring because

nobody's causing any problems. If you're in a

pollution -type environment, the rings lose their

effectiveness when they're surrounded by pollution

and toxins. So you've given the kids a ring that

is supposed to help fight pollution that is rendered

useless when covered in pollution. Like, doesn't

that kind of defeat the purpose of having the

superpower ring if it's going to lose its power

when it's around the thing that it's supposed

to be combating? True, yes, but there's a slight...

It depends, because I know in the first episode

when they were trying to clean up the oil spill

or whatever, Guy used hers and there was clean

water right by there. But you're right, if they

were like, say, Captain Pollution was sitting

on top of all five of them, their rings would

not work whatsoever. and then they can't summon

Captain Planet. Tell me a set of five, these

are the five heroes of the show, tell me any

other show where the heroes are less of, you

know what I mean, like these are the most pathetic

heroes I've ever seen. They are. There's never

a show where the heroes have less power or less

effectiveness. Oh exactly, and I think it goes

back to the fact that they're kids. I mean, not

to say that young adults or teenagers are incapable,

but I mean, come on. It's just like, ugh, I don't

know. That being said, the scenes when Captain

Planet come, when they actually say the best

lines written in this whole show, because most

lines are terrible, and that's why we've never

heard of any of the writers of this show. The

one line that they did get right is when they

do skew the summons and they say, you know, with

our powers combined and they call in Captain

Planet and that whole sequence, especially the

way Beak did it, was probably my favorite part

of the show. When they bring Captain Planet in

there, first of all because I was looking forward

to Captain Planet because I thought he was cool

and he had a cool voice, stuff like that. So

that sequence was basically the only good part

for me of the whole show. Right. Without that,

the writers... fucked, and most of that, everything

else, fucked. That's my two cents on it, but

it's still better than Dexter's Laboratory. No,

it's not. And again, you really can't compare

this show to Dexter's Laboratory, but anyway,

going into the music, you know, like we said

before, the theme, the intro outro theme is pretty

much the, is easily the the best part of the

show. And of course, the segment that Kevin said,

people who worked on the series music were Tom

Morrill, Thomas Chase, and Steve Rucker. Going

into the legacy segment, as for toys, as with

many popular cartoons, Captain Planet had a toy

line released by Tiger Toys in 1990. The line

ran for several years, long enough to tie it

into the new adventure series. The toys were

repackaged and sold by Grand Toys in Canada and

Kenner throughout Europe. The toys were of average

possibility with the common five points neck,

shoulders, and hips of articulation. Finding

a comprehensive list of what was released is

difficult since not all toys shown in the initial

retailer catalog were even released. The collector's

market is small, the toys being somewhat rare

on eBay. The Captain Planet Foundation still

sells a small number of them online, however.

Okay, wait, there's a Captain Planet Foundation.

That can't be doing very good. Okay, wait, there's

a Captain Planet Foundation. Why the hell didn't

they go to help Haiti? Anyway, there may have

also been further foreign variations of certain

toys, which even may be more difficult to catalog

various toys from. The New Adventures waves are

not as likely to be well known. All five Planeteers,

five Eco -Villains, Commander Clash, several

versions of Captain Planet, each with a different

gimmick or paint scheme, were released along

with several vehicles. A toy ring with lights

and sound and interchangeable lenses for the

five elements was also released. Four small vehicles

were also sold through a Burger King promotion.

Okay, wait. They sold... ring with lights and

sound and interchangeable lenses I never saw

that I'm gonna have to go to eBay and look it

up after we finish this cuz I never saw that

either before I go off the toys I did have the

Wheeler figure again you know I was 10 so Call

me some slack here. I'll give you slack for that

one. You know, call me some slack here, you know,

so... I mean, you know, when I was 10 years old

Dick Tracy came out, I had a bunch of Dick Tracy

figures. Dick Tracy was awesome though, and their

play sets, I'm going to go off on a completely

different tangent, their play sets were kick

ass. Yeah. I never had them, but I had a friend

that had them and I was so jealous because they

had so many little like trap doors and things

like that. Dick Tracy toys were awesome. As far

as the comics... Marvel Comics published a short

run comic series to tie into the show. However,

the comics were a separate continuity while not

effectively part of the Marvel Universe. Issue

number four's cover was parody of the cover to

Fantastic Four issue number one. For video games,

five different Captain Planet video games exist.

A video game based on the series was produced

for the NES by Mindscape called Captain Planet,

the game which involved a good deal of shooting.

Perceived four reviews from game critics. Thus

a Sega Mega Drive Genesis version of the game

was cancelled a separate side -scrolling game

was developed by Nova logic for the Mega Drive

Genesis, but only saw release in Europe and Australia

David Perry and Nick Bertie developed a ZX spectrum

and Amistad CPC game using the license a three

-level shoot -em -up A game was also released

for the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST written

by Tony Crowther. This was a platform game and

was briefly bundled with Amiga 500 Cartoon Classics

packs released in 91. Tiger Toys, owners of the

action figure license, also created an LCD handheld

game. I never had any of these. No, I never did

either. I never saw any of them, never played

any of them or anything. Nope. Several VHS tapes

were released, usually with single episode each,

a DVD with four episodes, and bonus features

exist, but only available as part of a Planeteer

pack purchased from the Captain Planeteer Foundation.

Writer Michael Reeves reimagined the Captain

Planet concept in a script he wrote for a theatrical

movie in 1997 entitled Planet or Dark Planet.

The script was darker than the series and set

in a post -apocalyptic time period. The script

was met with acceptance but got quote got lost

in the shuffle when Turner and Warner Brothers

merged. I guess it's good. In late 2007 as far

as Mr. Ted Turner was in talks regarding a Captain

Planet movie in early 2008. Warner Brothers denied

that a movie was planned. And lastly, what? I

wouldn't be surprised if we see it at some point.

No, I wouldn't be surprised either. In February

2009, the Mother Nature Network, I hope I don't

have that on my cable, began airing episodes

of Captain Planet and the Planeteers on its website.

According to the site, it's showing 20 episodes,

as well as unreleased footage through February

2010. Okay. Oh crap. Well, at least this episode's

over. I knew it was gonna be a pretty much crap

shoot for this episode, but... Oh God, I need

a nap now, Jesus Christ. This is definitely making

its place or making an effort to be at the top,

the bottom, excuse me, the bottom of all the

cartoons we cover over the course of Tooncast.

It is definitely going to be one of the top and

the worst. It's probably going to be easily my

worst out of everything we cover, so it's just...

Just goes to show you Well, you know, I'm sorry,

well if you're not gonna let that go then Yes

Anyway All right, so final thoughts on Captain

Planet. Captain Planet, cool character, kind

of cool theme song, god -awful terrible cartoon

that nobody should ever watch. You should never,

if it ever comes out on DVD, don't buy it. It's

a waste of time, it's a waste of money, and all

you need to do is watch one episode on YouTube

and you basically see them every episode because

that's what every episode is. The only episodes

that I actually liked were the ones with the

pollution team because that act when when blight

made the alternate ring because that actually

gave them a threat i know that's kind of like

the the general plot line for for other stuff

oh we have this good guy team that has all these

things why don't we steal those things make copies

and make bad versions of them i get that But

I thought that those episodes, those two episodes

or three, however many episodes there were of

the pollution team and Captain Pollution, I did

like that. But other than that, no, this show

sucks. Thank you for joining us here on Tooncast.

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Tooncast, which you'll join us next time when

we will be reminiscing on We'll actually be starting

the Hannah Barbera spotlight with Huckleberry

Hound. I think it's Huckleberry Hound. I don't

know. Mine says Grape Ape, but we took Grape

Ape off. Dammit. For now, I am TFG1Mike with

Magnum PI. Saying them all words of Optimus Prime.

Transform and roll out and thank you for listening.

Until next time. You guys should soooo start

cataloging the different voices. Yeah. For the

differences. For the voice compare. For which

one? For all of them. Like, all the Captain Planet

stuff. Oh, yeah. I was just thinking about that

when we were doing it today, that there were

absolutely different voices for them to start

doing that. Wind! Watch him! Go Planet! By your

powers combined, I am Captain Planet! Captain

Planet! He's our hero Gonna take pollution down

to zero He's our power magnified And he's fighting

on the planet side Captain Planet He's our hero

Gonna take pollution down to zero Gonna help

him put us under Bad guys who like to lose and

plunder You pay for this Captain Planet You can

be one too, for saving our planet is the thing

to do Looting and polluting is not the way Here

at Captain Planet, as they say The power is yours