Anyone remember Captain Planet and the Planeteers? (Generation of twenty-year-olds are now all going "FUCK yeah!"). Even by the standards of the late 80's and early 90's, it was one of the more dreadful series-s, or whatever the plural of series is.
If you're scratching your head in wonder, let me bring you up to speed. Captain Planet was about five apparently randomly-selected kids from five different countries who are given fantastically powerful energy rings. Now, let's not dwell on how completely irresponsible that is. I suppose what I remember most about the series is how easily the theme song was corrupted for short-lived playground amusement. I can still remember a small legion of ten year olds singing "CAPTAIN PLANET / HE'S AN IDIOT / GONNA TAKE POLLUTION UP TO A MILLION". A million of what was never specified, but hell, we were kids. It was almost as much fun as changing the lyrics of the Lightning Seeds' "Lucky You" to "Mucky Poo".
Getting back to these rings. Each of these rings represented a different element, except one, which represented a muscular organ of the circulatory system. Let's go through them and see what I can remember about them.
Earth - they handed this over to the African bloke, presumably because earth is traditionally brown and so are Africans. This could basically create and control rocks. It was extremely useful when making Japanese gardens, but I wonder... what constitutes 'earth'? Metals are made of ore that come from the Earth, could he control metals as well? Could he create T1000-style stabbing weapons from thin air? Probably not, 'cos no-one was allowed to stab anyone in this sort of cartoon series.
Fire - this was given to Wheeler, the completely irresponsible American git who was a total cunt and I will hear no argument. His is the only name I can remember, as it was also the name of my 'house' at grammar school. As I recall, within five minutes of getting his ring he set fire to something by accident. That should probably have been the time whoever organised this elite band realised the importance of a proper selection process.
Water - There were two girls in the team (natch). One of them had water, and the other had wind. I can't remember which one was which, or their nationalities. There was definitely one from Eastern Europe. For some reason I thought the other was Western Europe, but Sarah assures me the other was from 'Asia'. That was all they gave, 'Asia', so presumably she was Indo-Chino-Japanese-Afghani.
Wind - When we were making up that schoolboy parody of the opening sequence, it was stretching a little bit to pretend that 'earth' referred to poo and 'water' referred to wee, but anyone could see the humour value in 'wind'. The creators of the series must have known that we'd be taking the piss out of it. If they'd called it 'air' we'd've been in trouble, but I guess 'air' isn't as dramatic. Any schoolboy who recites the line "From wherever, whatsername! With the power of WIND!" and does not immediately follow it with a loud raspberry has got something seriously wrong with them.
Heart - They had to take a fairly broad selection of kids from all over the world (the only requirement being that they spoke fluent English, apparently), and with only four rings that wouldn't have been as broad as they liked. So they invented another one to have a greater international appeal. This was some South American kid, and he had the wholly unspecific power of 'heart'. Why stop there? They could have invented a few more. "From Western Europe, Roland! With the power of FISH!" "From Australasia, Barry! With the power of DANCE!" 'Heart' was apparently 'the most special power of all', 'special' I suppose in the same sense as 'special school for special children'.
When the power of these five rings were brought together, they summoned forth a green-haired demigod by the name of CAPTAIN PLANET, who I think was Wheeler's mentor, as he had an American accent and was the biggest cunt in the universe. This show suffered from the Power Rangers/Sailor Moon problem, that being "Why didn't you do that in the first place" syndrome. There was really no point in doing anything prior to summoning the omnipotent all-powerful superhero, but they did it anyway, presumably for smacktardy reasons.
The villains in Captain Planet never had a fucking clue. They never figured out that if they committed crimes that DIDN'T involve damaging the environment, like extortion or gang rape, then the Planeteers couldn't lift a finger. But no, it was always pollution for pollution's sake. There was one prat who somehow got hold of an oil tanker, and deliberately caused a massive slick just for the sake of malice. Why did no-one point out to him that he could have sold that oil to petrol stations, make a huge profit, be operating entirely within the law and wouldn't have to get punched in the stomach by a wise-cracking twat in his underpants? They could've robbed a bank and used the money to pay for a dolphin sanctuary, that would've confused the fuck out of those pesky meddling kids.
One of these retards was some woman who'd had half her face burnt off, and another who looked an awful lot like The Thing from the Fantastic Four. My theory is it was a dare on the part of the show's writers.
WRITER A: Who shall we have for the villains?
WRITER B: I'm bored. Let's just rip them all off from Marvel and DC comics.
WRITER A: Okay!
WRITER B: Hey, wait, I wasn't serious!
WRITER A: Ooh, chickening out now, are you?WRITER B: I am not!WRITER A: Pussy pussy pussy!
WRITER B: Shut up!
WRITER A: Dares ya.
WRITER B: Don't dare me, 'cos I'll do it.WRITER A: Double dares ya!WRITER B: You're in trouble now, 'cos I'm gonna do it!
WRITER A: Triple dares ya
!WRITER B: OH BOY YOU'RE IN TROUBLE NOW!
I guess I'm done on this subject now. Nighty night, and remember: Save electricity, pick up litter, and never trust people who run oil tankers and big corporations!
From
http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/archive/Jul14-19.htm
