Go Planet!: Episode 1: A Hero For Earth

I mentioned back when I re-reviewed "A Formula For Hate" that more would be on the way when it comes to Captain Planet, and finally after giving it much thought, I figured that it's time to finally cover this series from front to back. Ted Turner and Barbara Pyle's bizarre yet endearing kids series about five children from different parts of the world and their green haired, blue skinned hero that helps them stop the various eco-scum of the week. And that's what the premise of this blog is for. It's Go Planet! The blog that looks at every episodes of Captain Planet. From the good, to the bad, to the most infamous ones that, admittedly, I already covered, but after about a decade since my old Tooncrap reviews, I can re-review them with a more educated set of eyes.

Now, this will be a super fresh rewatch and review since I haven't actually watched all of Captain Planet since its initial run in the early 90s. I wasn't a super fan of the show, but I did watch it every afternoon and thought it was a fine enough show. I even vividly remember seeing "A Formula For Hate" when I was a kid and, though I had heard the term aids and HIV, this was the first show that let me understand it a bit more, or at least as far as a show still aimed for children could be. Other than that, I haven't touched much of the series, living in that mindset that the show is just another cheesy product of the 90s, which it is. But let it not be known that I love me some cheesy stuff. Look at most of the stuff I've covered on this blog. So, let's begin like all good shows do, with the pilot story.

 First let's talk about the opening. I love the animation in this opening. Very fluid and energetic. It's your basic narration intro, not the amazing theme song, which is bizarrely put into the end credits instead. It gives you your basic information on the show, the characters and Captain Planet. Essentially, our world is in peril with all that darn pollution and Gaia, the spirit of the earth, can't stand the destruction, so she sends five magic rings (which coincidentally look like they were ripped from another Dic show, Dinosaucers) to five teenagers from different parts of the world. Kwame (Africa) representing the power of earth, which allows to move and shift the ground. Wheeler (USA) with the power of fire, which emits a blast of flame. Linka (Soviet Union, later Eastern Europe) with the power of wind, which can emit powerful gusts. Gi (Asia) with the power of water, which can control powerful bursts of water. And Ma-Ti (South America) with the power of heart. I once said that Heart was a fail, but while it doesn't have any power blasts, it can still be used to communicate with animals, and sense danger. So, kind of a win.

When their powers combine, it brings us Captain Planet, a wisecracking superhero with the power of flight, along with the combined powers of the rings. His only weakness (besides Hitler) is pollution, which when covered will drain his powers. Once he's cleaned though, he's ready to go. To take on teh likes of Hoggish Greedly, Dr. Blight, Looten Plunder, Verminous Skumm, Sy Sludge and Duke Nukem. And with the preamble out of the way, let's get into that first ep.

We open the first episode in an animal sanctuary as we get our first villain of the show, Hoggish Greedly (voiced by Ed Asner) and his sidekick Rigger, trampling over a forest in their giant walking driller robot called the landblaster. They're out for oil, and plan to strip the sanctuary of it post haste.

Unbeknownst to them, they just so happen to drill right above the home of the spirit of the earth Gaia (Voiced by a very monotone Whoopi Goldberg), who is peacefully sleeping. In fact, it turns out she's been knocked out for a good century, and she awakens to see that the human race has done a fine job messing up the planet. She decides that it's time to send out the five rings to five special people across the globe.

Kwame.

Gi.

Wheeler (who is such a bad ass that he punches a punk and sends him in retreat. Cuz he's the American and he's the tough guy, right?). 

Linka.

And Ma-Ti.

The five kids are instantly warped to Hope Island, Gaia's home base. They're understandably confused about why they're here, and how five random kids with thick, thick accents are supposed to save the earth. Wheeler, being the creep he is, particularly is aroused by Linka's accent. Get used to Wheeler being a creep. That's going to be prevalent. They also get to know their powers and test them, to varying degrees of success. And of course, before they can get a chance to practice their powers, Gaia sends them off to deal with the mess of oil that Hoggish Greedly is polluting over the ocean coastline.

The planeteers head off on their super toyetic plane the Geo-Cruiser to Greedly's landblaster, with Gaia saying that they have her support. Just that she doesn't have to actually go out and do anything. You five teenagers are expendable enough. She also hints that they should combine their powers when the time is right. The planeteers make it ot the landblaster, only for Greedly to blast them with a hose full of crude oil, sending them crashing to the ground. Their solution? Use Wheeler's fire to blow a window out and have Linka make a tornado to stabilize them with Kwame coming in by creating a mini-island to land. Gotta admit it took them all of ten minutes to get the gist of these powers.

Greedly and the planeteers interact as Wheeler threatens to kick his curly tailed butt. However Greedly, the smarter of the two says that if they try anything, he'll spray the oil hose all over the creatures of the coastline. So, they decide to take Gaia's advice and let their powers combine.

And the world welcomes the first appearance of Captain Planet (oddly without boots). While the planeteers deal with the animals and Greedly tries to get away, Captain Planet starts things off by sucking up the oil underwater, cleaning things up. He then follows that up by tearing apart the landblaster and easily taking out Rigger.

But oh no! Greedly figured out his one weakness somehow. He covers Captain Planet with pollution, sending him falling out of the landblaster to the ground below. He didn't figure out however that if he's just washed off, he can be restored to his full powers. He finishes destroying the landblaster as Greedly sneaks off, vowing revenge the next time they meet. And thus we end episode one with the planeteers cleaning up the animals and Wheeler complains about it.

We get our first Planeteer Alert PSA, which ends every episode. This one seems more a hodgepodge of things you can do to help the planet. Clean oil spills, turn off the lights when you don't use them, carpool, etc. The power is yours and this episode is over.

It's a pilot episode, so I can't say it really did anything outside the norm. We get enough time to learn about these characters, as basic as they are, and enough time with a simple enough conflict to battle. It's still cheesy, and Captain Planet is still a very corny character, but the message is still a very good one nonetheless. And with 113 episodes to cover, we will definitely be getting into some of the meatier and even more insane episodes. But for what this was, it was a decent enough way to kick this off.