Captain Planet: A Good Bomb is Hard to Find

Especially when this show is a dud.

Turner: 1995

Ah, Captain Planet. If only every cartoon could deliver such joyous amounts of fail. Yep, we're talking about the Cap and his posse of planet protecting global goofballs once again. When last we left our heroes, they tackled the HIV virus, and the predjudice of a bloodthirsty town that was ready, willing, and able to lynch a kid infected by it. But thanks to our strange blue man in a red speedo, the town soon learns the error of it's ways. Now, you're wondering, what could possibly be a bigger challenge to the Planeteers than a deadly virus?

Why, Adolf Hitler and the A-Bomb of course.



If this is your facial reaction to that little revelation, I wouldn't blame you. Yes, having dealt with pretty much every major and minor environmental threat, it was time for the show to deal with the greatest villain in world history, the friggin fuhrer. But if that wasn't enough, we have to deal with the A-Bomb (not from A-Ri), a crippled kid, and plenty of paradoxes, each more maddening than the last.

So let's waste no more time, and let's see how the captain makes this happen. Let's review this thing.



We open our episode with our villain du jour Dr. Blight finishing up her time portal, with her computer sidekick MAL (Voiced by Tim Curry), constantly being a whiny bitch. Upon activating the portal, she is greeted by the future version of herself, with her annoying sidekick GAL (Voiced by Kath Soucie). Future Blight is pissed that in her time, the world is rid of bombs and all kaboom-related material. So the two come up with a plan to build a nuclear warhead, and sell it to the highest bidder. But since you can't just walk into a store and buy plutonium, the time gap gals steal some from a truck. Gaia briefs the Planeteers about the purloined plutonium, and they head off to stop them.



However, the weather starts to get rough, as the Blights' ship's too heavy to handle the storm. Both Blights fight over who keeps the plutonium, but then quickly reconsile, and enter their handy dandy time portal, with plutonium in tow. The Planeteers are also stupid enough to fly in a lightning storm, and almost crash. But before they're goners, they summon our favoirte blue fashion victim, who keeps the ship in the air. Upon landing, the group gets confronted by German soldiers. Cap makes short work of them, as the planeteers escape. Gaia warns our heroes of the Blight duo's plans, as Cap decides to take a break for now.



Our heroes land one a minefield. and are saved by a one legged girl named Tai Li, a victim of said minefield . She decides to aid our heroes in the fight against the Blights and their bomb. Meanwhile, the bomb is complete, and the Blights are ready to sell it to "The Fuhrer"



Oh, I'm sorry, I meant Adolf Fu Man Chu.

Which brings us to the big question, why are we making such a drastic change to the image of one of the biggest pricks in history? Hell, it's not like the kids who watch this show don't likely have a grip on who Adolf Hitler was, or weren't going to soon enough. So unless there's Fox News really does own the rights to Hitler's likeness, why are we lacking in the infamous Hitler stache? Now, before you can say "maybe it's not supposed to be Hitler", deep down, you know that's who this is supposed to be. The fact that they play up how evil the sumbitch is pretty much sums up all the evidence needed to confrim that that is indeed the Adolf we all know and not love.




The blights give the Nazis a demonstration of what the bomb can do by blowing up an abandoned village. Despite the concern of the bomb being too powerful, The Fuhrer is impressed enough to bid 75 million deutschmarks for their bomb. Meanwhile, the Planeteers find Blight's ship, and force MAL to activate the time machine. However, since the time machine is damaged, they won't have much time in the past. The Planeteers enter the time machine, but not before sticking a magnet on MAL, set to scramble his memory if they don't return.

Our heroes arrive as The Fuhrer wins the bidding war over the nuke. The Fuhrer holds a gun on them, while turning on the Blights in the process. However, Future Blight accidentally activates the countdown on the nuke. The Planeteers summon Captain Planet, who arrives just in time.



However, the mere sight of the Fuhrer begins to weaken Captain Planet. Apparently evil of his magnitude is one of Cap's weaknesses. But we all know it's probably really that caterpiller on The Fuhrer's face. However, despite The Fuhrer's "Super Evil", Captain Planet still manages to get the bomb into space, possibly destroying a planet or so due to the magnitude of the blast.

The US military shows up to arrest the nazis, as the Planeteers return to the present with the Blights in tow. Tai Li gives one of the soldiers a letter before leaving, warning about the dangers of the minefields. However, in a twist, the military get a hold of the Blight atomic bomb recipe. So, technically, the bad guys sorta won? Dr. Blight is responsible for the Hiroshima Bombing? Adolf Hitler honestly thought that mustache was a good idea?



Tai Li never loses her leg?

Man, the paradoxes this episode is causing are staggering.

And that's "A Good Bomb is Hard to Find". This episode is surprisingly stupider than the aids ep. From the plot itself, "The Fuhrer", the multiple time paradoxes, and the fact that the villains technically win in the end, this episode is a confusing mess. I understand the environmental messages behind the ep. The minefields, nuclear bombing, the evils of war. All really good messages. But they could've been handled much better than in a strange world war II plot such as this. A good bomb IS hard to find, and apparently so is a good episode of Captain Planet.

But I guess it could be worse. This episode could've been a really dark story about drugs or something...