0:00

This. Is Amy Poehler my new movie?

0:02

Disney and Pixar as Inside Out To

0:04

is coming to theaters June fourteen and

0:06

it's making me feel joy and sadness

0:08

and anger everly. Some discuss Rose I

0:10

think a little fear. But

0:13

I'm also feeling these new emotions like anxiety,

0:15

embarrassment, envy, and on we. It's what to

0:17

call the boredom. Okay, that one was

0:19

weird. It's going to be the feel everything

0:22

movie of the summer Disney and Pixar as

0:24

inside Out to A D P G.

0:26

Parental guidance he just and only in theaters

0:28

June fourteenth Get tickets Now. In

0:36

the summer of Nineteen Eighty Eight, something was

0:38

going on with the weather. Around the

0:41

world. Scientists see a disturbing

0:43

pattern. Could two days

0:45

developments create tomorrow's disasters?

0:48

Forty percent of the U was

0:50

facing a severe drought, a wildfire

0:52

and Yellowstone National Park burned eat

0:54

hundred thousand acres. The second biggest

0:57

hurricane and a history of the

0:59

Atlantic had the Gulf of Mexico.

1:01

Acid rain was searing far as

1:03

a whole was growing in the

1:05

ozone layer. And then there was

1:07

the temperature. Nineteen Eighty Eight will

1:09

probably be the hottest year of all.

1:12

On. Top of all of this, regular

1:14

Americans were learning many for the first

1:16

time that we might be responsible for

1:19

all of it. The world is

1:21

in danger. Scientists on are warning that

1:23

the danger is from man himself. Back

1:26

then, this phenomenon was not call

1:28

the climate change. It was referred

1:31

to as the greenhouse effect or

1:33

global warming. And though there are

1:35

many who took it seriously, there

1:37

were others including the Federal government

1:39

who did not. Environmental issues? Are

1:41

they as serious and as frightening

1:43

as the activists in these areas

1:45

would like us to believe? I

1:48

think. Not to the past twenty five

1:50

years, it's warmed up by about four

1:52

cans of degree centigrade. when a letter sound

1:54

like very much heat. I have not seen

1:56

any evidence of a crisis, do you?

1:58

middle school. But.

2:02

There were some people who

2:04

felt compelled to act immediately,

2:07

and so shortly. After that

2:09

blistering summer, a. Plan was

2:11

put into action. It was a

2:14

plan to alter the Earth future.

2:16

A plan to shape the mind

2:18

of an entire generation. To

2:21

help them solve global warming.

2:23

And other environmental

2:25

catastrophes. And

2:29

that class was a Saturday

2:31

morning cartoons. This

2:44

is the code ring. And will

2:46

attack them. And Ninety Nine.

2:49

Dc Animated Environmental. Superhero Captain.

2:51

Planet swooped and a Tv screens

2:53

all. Over the world. He was

2:56

aimed at three to twelve year olds and

2:58

he had the last the goal of turning

3:00

heads into environmental. Warriors In this episode

3:02

will get a look at Southampton

3:04

Planet came to be what he

3:07

aspired to do and how much

3:09

he really got done. Captains on

3:11

it's mission was A or was.

3:13

It also naive how much of

3:15

an impact and even the most

3:17

well meaning fictional. Superhero have

3:20

and very real environmental

3:22

disasters. And can

3:24

we entertain ourselves and our

3:26

children into solving our. Hardest

3:29

problem. So

3:31

today on decoder ring,

3:33

what on earth did

3:35

Captain Planet accomplice. Reboot

3:56

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4:34

Before Captain Planet was on TV, he was

4:36

a twinkle in the eye of a

4:38

major TV mogul. Hi, I'm Ted Turner

4:40

and this is Cable News Network. Ted

4:44

Turner founded the Cable News Network or CNN

4:46

in 1980. He

4:48

was also the founder of

4:50

Turner Broadcasting System or TVS

4:52

and Turner Network Television or

4:54

TNT. He owned Atlantis

4:56

baseball and basketball teams and his motto was

4:59

early to bed, early to rise, work like

5:01

hell and advertise. Well my father and my

5:03

schools told me that you know you're living

5:05

America you might as well make as much

5:08

out of your life as you possibly can.

5:10

Do as much as you can. I mean

5:12

that's all I've tried to do. But

5:15

unlike some of his fellow business

5:17

bigwigs, Turner saw his operation as

5:19

having a higher purpose beyond just

5:21

making money. I think there

5:24

are many things that impact the destruction

5:26

of the environment and I know that

5:28

it's controversial. The media just needs to

5:30

keep this on the agenda. I

5:33

know with CNN, our news media, we

5:35

run environmental stories virtually every day.

5:38

This was unusual for a media outlet

5:41

in the 1980s as

5:43

was Turner's decision to dedicate

5:45

an entire unit of his

5:47

broadcasting operation to environmentalism. All

5:50

the scraps from this process used to end up in

5:52

a landfill. Now all of it's recycled.

5:55

That's the voice of Barbara Pyle narrating one of the

5:57

many environmental documentaries that aired on one of the world's

5:59

largest TV series. of Turner's networks. Pyle,

6:02

a photojournalist by training and

6:04

ardent environmentalist herself, was personally

6:06

selected by Turner to be

6:08

the vice president of environmental

6:10

policy at TBS. Barbara

6:12

had a bit of a maverick reputation, and

6:15

she was also very closely connected with

6:17

Ted. Nick Boxer was

6:20

thrilled to start working for Barbara at Turner

6:22

in 1984. I mean,

6:24

I grew up in a progressive environmental

6:26

thinking family. We recycled. My parents made

6:29

me aware of environmental things, and it's

6:31

always been a passion of mine. Barbara

6:34

specifically asked Nick to join her

6:36

at what they started referring to

6:38

as the Turner Environmental Division. I

6:41

came up with the name. If you look at

6:43

the acronym, it's Ted. That

6:46

was my inside joke. Ted

6:49

was a pet project of Ted

6:51

Turner's, but corporate green initiatives

6:53

were not yet common. An

6:56

executive at Turner's own companies

6:58

wondered why the CEO insisted

7:00

on funding nature documentaries,

7:02

something a vice president once said to

7:05

Nick's face. As I'm walking across

7:07

the room, he says to me, Nick, you

7:09

are everything that is wrong with Turner. And

7:12

I was very taken aback and kind of stunned.

7:15

And he said, don't get me wrong. You do

7:17

good work, but it is no

7:19

business being on Turner Broadcasting. To

7:23

the executive's point, Barbara and Nick's

7:25

department didn't bring in a lot

7:27

of money. Their documentaries about subjects

7:29

like overpopulation and wildlife preservation

7:31

and global warming didn't

7:34

get high ratings. But Ted

7:36

Turner remained committed to trying to make a

7:38

difference through television, and

7:40

eventually not just through eco films.

7:43

I'd always had an interest in cartoons. When

7:46

we ran them in the early days

7:48

of TBS, they got good ratings. This

7:50

is Ted Turner reading from his autobiography.

7:53

Kids were attracted to cartoons. And I

7:55

got the idea that We should make

7:57

one that would teach them about the environment.

8:00

I. Thought it would make a lot of

8:02

sense threshold and early. And. Help them

8:05

understand their role in taking care of

8:07

our planet. Ted. Said at one

8:09

point in today's children are the ones who are going

8:11

to inherit the problems. They're the ones you're going after.

8:13

Save the Planet. So. One day and

8:15

nineteen eighty nine at the Cnn building

8:18

in Atlanta. Ted pulled knicks boss Barbara

8:20

Pile aside and told her he had

8:22

a new assignment for the environmental decision.

8:24

Barber turned her team with the details.

8:27

Ted. Wants to do and environmental so

8:29

for children. And. He wants to

8:32

call Captain Planet. Those The

8:34

entire pets. We said to

8:36

Barbara, Well so what is Captain Planet.

8:39

It. Was like nobody knew. He. Was an

8:41

environmental superhero, but that was pretty much

8:43

it. There. Had never

8:45

been a kid sell about the environment

8:48

before. Barbara neck did not make. Children's

8:50

television to this point but they

8:52

could see the past Facilities it

8:54

was exciting was a chance to

8:56

reach whole different audience was a

8:59

chance to approach these issues and

9:01

a different way and you know

9:03

is an opportunity to empower children.

9:06

So they dell then Barbara and

9:08

Neck would be the show's creators.

9:10

And their first assignment was taking

9:13

Ted Turner's to Word Breeze and

9:15

turning it into a fully. Formed

9:17

south with a premise and character.

9:20

We started coming from ideas and

9:22

I just started sitting on my

9:24

own and writing stories since the

9:26

whole point was to so that

9:29

kids can make a difference. They

9:31

created a set aside teenaged. Characters

9:33

called the Planet Tears A multi

9:36

cultural group of young heroes recruited

9:38

by a figure named him to

9:40

sleep for the Planet. Ruined

9:50

Yes, that's about the size of

9:53

it. When Nick started thinking

9:55

about how the planet Years would interact

9:57

with the title character, To. Realize

9:59

there was. The problem. In. The traditional

10:01

Superman story with Lois Lane and Jimmy

10:04

Olsen. They. Would go out and get

10:06

in trouble and the superman become said. And.

10:08

I said we can't do that with the

10:10

planets years because the whole idea is to

10:13

empower children if they're constantly being rescued by

10:15

Captain Planet. and how are we empowering children

10:17

were not. Nick molded over

10:19

and came up with a simple solution.

10:22

Get. Rid of Captain Planet I went

10:24

to Barbara and said I think we

10:26

should make the show The planet tears.

10:29

I feel like that would really

10:31

empower kids, and maybe Captain Planet

10:33

is sir problematic in that sense.

10:36

And. She said. Ted. Created

10:38

Captain Planet. This. Is his

10:40

thing. It will not fly. So

10:43

Nick went back to. The drawing board and

10:45

he came up with a compromise. There.

10:47

Would be a Captain Planet of

10:49

the planet Years wouldn't be powerless

10:52

without him. Instead, Captain Planet salary

10:54

will be fueled by the kids.

10:57

Teamwork and their magic rings.

10:59

Each them controls an element

11:01

of nature. Or. Fire, Wind

11:03

and water. And the

11:05

fifth element. Was. Hard. Since.

11:12

While the other planet years could

11:15

create tornado as or islands from

11:17

scratch. It was hearts. That. According

11:19

to Gaia herself was the most

11:21

important. The. Planet here who wielded

11:24

it. Marty. From South America used

11:26

to bring people together, communicate

11:28

over. Long distances provide the empathy

11:30

and care real people need to.

11:33

cites. Or the environment

11:35

has. Begun.

11:40

Armed with their magic rings and

11:42

their hearts, the platitudes could fight

11:44

baddies all by themselves when the

11:46

going. Got really tough. They'd put

11:48

this this together and conjure Captain

11:51

Planet. Our

11:54

house, but. He

11:58

was the power of scene was. And that's

12:00

why would they use their rings to summon

12:02

Captain Planet? But when they do that, they

12:04

also give up the power of the rings

12:07

to they give up their own personal power

12:09

to create a collective power and it's greater

12:11

than themselves. So

12:13

they had the premise and the planet

12:15

years. We have a lot of other

12:17

details to secure out, many to do

12:19

with Tapped Into Plan as himself he

12:21

can just be a normal superhero. Punching

12:24

sad guys. That was actually a

12:26

rule. Just for the record, Captain

12:28

Planet was not allowed to functioning,

12:31

but this more peaceful crusader could

12:33

solve the trickiest problems. Fly

12:35

through the air. basically do the

12:37

impossible. And of course he

12:40

had to look the part. It

12:42

was hard because we didn't really

12:44

want Captain Planet to look like

12:46

any. We're

12:49

supposed to be that he was

12:51

made of like stones and ice,

12:53

almost faceted, The. Animation Company

12:55

drop them potential character designs and

12:57

sent over a stack of the

12:59

final contenders for Barbara Pile to

13:01

deliver to Ted Turner himself. We.

13:03

Were actually in central park at the

13:06

boat pond and this a building over

13:08

there and see when and meet with

13:10

him and I was walking around outside

13:13

see comes out silicates. Ted picked the

13:15

picture. And to shows us that

13:17

was a drawing of Miss. Captain.

13:21

Planet doesn't look exactly like

13:23

make he has. Blue skin and

13:26

green hair and he wears his

13:28

underwear over a sites but there

13:30

is a resemblance and was I

13:32

ask you how nice? Oh my

13:34

god it was pretty crazy. Do

13:36

a very strong jaw I can

13:38

see at as this kind of

13:40

flattering on this. they had given

13:42

me residuals for that. The

13:47

captain planet had a lox. But

13:49

he still needed a voice. The acting is

13:51

t the starches. You know they have to

13:53

be over the top a ham it up.

13:56

And really be characters rather than.

13:58

People. isn't that Marcia

14:00

Goodman was the senior VP of talent

14:03

at the animation company Making Captain Planet,

14:05

and she was in charge of casting

14:07

and directing the voice actors. And my

14:09

coworker got a call and the person

14:12

said, Hi, I'm Tom Cruise.

14:14

I'd like to do the voice of Captain

14:16

Planet. And she said, yes, sure. And she

14:18

hung up. And

14:21

then he called back. He said, no, this is really

14:23

Tom Cruise. I

14:25

feel the need. The need

14:28

for peace. Tom

14:31

Cruise was shooting Days of Thunder,

14:33

I believe. And he took a

14:35

helicopter over from where they were

14:38

filming to Universal Studios. There

14:40

were like four or five of us and

14:42

Tom Cruise. And he agreed to do it.

14:45

Cruise recorded six episodes of Captain

14:47

Planet. But then the realities of

14:50

being Tom Cruise set in. Tom

14:53

Cruise was fine, but he just couldn't

14:55

keep up with our schedule. He had

14:57

other priorities like being a movie star.

15:00

So the six episodes he'd done had to be

15:02

re-taped, which meant Captain

15:04

Planet still needed a voice.

15:07

Good afternoon, America, the

15:09

world, Planet Earth is David Coburn,

15:11

the voice of Captain Planet. In

15:15

1990, David Coburn was a scrappy 21

15:17

year old actor looking for his big

15:19

break. He'd had a few small roles,

15:21

but he was constantly auditioning when he got

15:23

called in to read for the part of

15:26

Captain Planet. I came into the audition at

15:29

a studio in Burbank, California. I had

15:31

one scene to play in which Captain

15:33

Planet gets covered in toxic goo. And

15:36

the Planeteers wash him off with some

15:38

fresh water. And he stands up and

15:41

says, thanks, Planeteers. And I

15:44

shook myself off like a wet dog. I

15:46

went, thanks, Planeteers. That's

15:49

what got me the job. David was

15:52

thrilled, but he thought it was just a random

15:54

gig. I didn't know it was the

15:56

lead in an environmental cartoon series created

15:59

by Ted Turner. to help save the world

16:01

and teach kids about saving the planet. I didn't know

16:03

that at the time. What was the moment you were

16:05

like, this is not just some other regular voice gig?

16:07

When they told me you're replacing Tom Cruise and you have

16:09

six episodes to redo before you start recording with the rest

16:12

of the cast, I was like, oh. The

16:16

rest of the cast by this point

16:19

was pretty starry too. Whoopi Goldberg agreed

16:21

to voice Gaia. LeVar Burton had signed

16:23

on to play the West African planeteer

16:25

Kwame. Look at that thing.

16:27

It is dumping trash on that point of the town. The

16:31

idea was to enlist celebrities, especially

16:33

for villains and guest characters. We

16:35

wanted it to be a big

16:38

splash. The villains

16:40

all represented problems like pollution,

16:43

radiation, and overconsumption. And

16:45

the big names kept coming. They got

16:47

Meg Ryan to play the evil Dr.

16:49

Blight. Martin Sheen was the

16:52

nefarious Sly Sludge. Jeff Goldblum

16:54

was verminous scum. Some

16:57

people just got no appreciation for Phil.

17:01

As you can tell by all the famous

17:03

people signing on, Captain Planet had become something

17:05

of a cause celeb. People,

17:07

or famous people anyway, were excited

17:10

about it. This opportunity to try

17:12

and change the world with a

17:14

cartoon. It just needed

17:16

one finishing touch. A key

17:18

element of any kids' show. Captain

17:21

Planet, he's our

17:23

hero. Gonna take pollution down

17:25

to zero. The

17:28

very 1990s theme song was also

17:30

written by Nick Boxer. One weekend

17:32

I'm sitting there and something came

17:34

into my head and I started

17:37

writing and I wrote, Captain Planet,

17:39

he's our hero. Gonna take pollution

17:41

down to zero. He's

17:43

our powers magnified and he's fighting

17:45

on the planet's side. Yeah,

17:48

and then it goes on and on. You

17:50

pay for this, Captain Planet! So

17:55

from Ted Turner's Original pitch, just

17:57

those two words, Captain Planet

17:59

and. Nothing else. Nick and

18:01

Barbara had created a whole set

18:03

of characters and away they work.

18:05

Together that given them voices and

18:07

the seem song. And it's

18:09

a temper of nineteen ninety. The. Gave them

18:12

a from the your party. His

18:14

know about what happened in a violent

18:16

protests and other the he says hello

18:19

my and Lawless and Blossom was really

18:21

with a who's who of then child

18:23

Santa com a callow from the Wonder

18:26

years Jodie Sweetin from Full house where

18:28

they few. At

18:44

the party head Turner got up on

18:46

stage and it's arrests. And.

18:50

He made clear how

18:52

grand and grandiose his

18:54

expectations. Were for the series.

18:56

Hopefully this program will make a

18:59

big difference if it doesn't solve.

19:01

There isn't much future for the

19:03

species because most the experts say

19:05

we don't change things, the planet

19:08

or pretty well uninhabitable and another

19:10

thirty or forty years so let's

19:12

keep our fingers crossed. Then all

19:14

of the captain planet Atlanta two

19:17

years can save the planet. Thank

19:19

you very much. These

19:24

are extraordinary expectations to put

19:27

on a kids cartoon. especially

19:29

one kids hadn't even seen

19:32

He. Would have been planted

19:34

be able to live up to them. This,

19:36

it's lasted into living room. Is

19:47

now a game. Changing product. Used for a

19:49

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19:51

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19:53

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19:55

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19:57

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21:08

It's making junk food healthy or

21:10

the latest wellness trend. Sued Innovation

21:12

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21:14

but when it sales, it sales

21:16

miserably. On each episode of Laundries

21:18

Podcast The Big Flop. Comedians.

21:20

Joined host Nice a Brown to chronicle

21:22

one of the biggest pop culture sales

21:25

of all time and try to answer

21:27

the age old question who thought this

21:29

was a good idea In the late

21:31

nineties and oil substitute called Lustrous exploded

21:34

onto the market in the worst possible

21:36

way. The idea was that you could

21:38

eat as many snacks as he wanted

21:40

without getting any weight, but there were

21:43

a few catches. It didn't really work

21:45

and it also gives consumers horrific digestive

21:47

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21:49

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22:00

joining Wonder APs. Captain

22:04

Planet and the Planeteers premiered on Saturday

22:06

morning, September 15th, 1990. In

22:10

the debut episode, the Planeteers have

22:12

to confront a terrible oil spill,

22:14

inspired by the real Exxon Valdez

22:16

catastrophe. It is

22:18

horrible! The whole gas plant has

22:20

been destroyed! Those poor

22:23

animals! We must help them! The

22:26

Planeteers call on Captain Planet to clean up

22:28

the oil, which he does by creating a

22:30

whirlpool that sucks it into the sea floor,

22:32

and then he seals it all up with a giant rock. This

22:39

is not the most sophisticated or

22:41

plausible of solutions, and

22:43

that gets directly at the

22:45

difficulty of making Captain Planet.

22:49

The show needed to inform a

22:51

new generation about pressing environmental

22:54

problems. Everything from strip

22:56

mining to deforestation to nuclear

22:58

waste, while also being

23:00

a fun cartoon. How do

23:02

you tell a story for children

23:04

that addresses these issues and

23:06

is compelling and fits what animation

23:08

is? Nick Boxer, the

23:11

co-creator of Captain Planet again.

23:13

Animation works very well for

23:15

straight entertainment, you know, Roadrunner,

23:17

Coyote, just hijinks,

23:20

sight tags, things like that, you

23:22

know, or very simple morality plays.

23:25

Captain Planet had to be

23:27

informative without being boring, detailed

23:29

without being scary, accurate,

23:32

but also wrapped up in just 22 minutes. It

23:35

was really incredibly challenging

23:38

and kind of fraught with all sorts of unforeseen

23:41

perils. You can

23:43

see how they tried to thread this needle

23:45

in an episode called Greenhouse Planet. It begins

23:48

with the planeteers watching the news. They

23:50

see the president, who sounds an awful lot

23:52

like then president George H.W. Bush,

23:55

giving a speech about the opening of

23:57

a new power plant. they

24:00

watch start to spew pollution

24:02

into the atmosphere. We

24:04

have just made the hugest oil find

24:06

in history, and burning this low-cost oil

24:08

will be a big help to our

24:10

troubled economy. But what about

24:12

the carbon dioxide that will release? It

24:15

acts like an invisible blanket heating up

24:17

the whole planet! It's

24:19

a real and serious problem, but it needed

24:21

to be lightened with some hijinks. The

24:24

oil the president is talking about

24:26

is being turned into rocket fuel,

24:28

and when the planeteers go looking

24:30

for him at the power plant,

24:32

they inadvertently get shot into outer

24:34

space on a rocket. Mr.

24:36

President, can you hear me? Mission

24:39

control cannot turn you around! Please

24:42

respond! Stuck on this

24:44

spaceship heading to Venus, the planeteers

24:46

lobby the stubborn president about the

24:48

dangers of greenhouse gases, with a

24:51

final push from Captain Planet himself.

24:53

Heard all this before about the

24:55

too-much-carbon-dioxide thing. Mr. President, if you

24:58

see what you're risking, maybe you'll

25:00

change your mind. Captain

25:02

Planet offers a vision of a world wracked by

25:05

climate change, with terrifying

25:07

post-apocalyptic imagery of mutant animals

25:09

and roving bands of several people.

25:11

For humans, it would mean farmland

25:13

turned to deserts, the collapse of

25:16

entire economies, hunger on an unimaginable

25:18

scale. But it probably won't be

25:20

that bad. Maybe. Or

25:23

maybe it'll be worse. It

25:26

was always a balancing act. The

25:28

idea wasn't to scare kids, but it was

25:30

to say these are real problems, and you

25:32

should be aware of them in a way

25:34

that's not traumatizing, but makes you care

25:36

about them. And one

25:38

way to make messy, complicated,

25:40

real environmental issues less traumatizing

25:44

is to solve them. We were really

25:46

trying to push boundaries, and how do

25:48

you deal with these kind of problems

25:50

without showing the consequences of the problems?

25:53

You had 20 minutes to tell a

25:55

whole story and resolve it. Most of

25:57

these problems obviously can't be resolved. Twenty

26:00

minutes, let alone a year or two years.

26:03

So. For example, in the episode

26:05

about greenhouse gas emissions, The planet

26:07

here is finally convinced the President to

26:09

set that power plant down. So

26:12

com tell me more about the solar

26:14

stuff and then when power says. He

26:17

my lips Mr. President May

26:19

was. This

26:21

happens in episode after episode.

26:23

A blunt conversation about everything

26:25

from Aids to land mines

26:28

to overpopulation is that doesn't

26:30

absolve. With the county,

26:33

That remind them for we do sausage

26:35

emissions before they create their own small

26:38

monster. This. Overall

26:40

approach surprisingly granular and

26:42

realistic about environmental dangers

26:45

with a happy ending.

26:47

Had. Appeal within a month of

26:49

it's for Me or Captain Planet

26:52

was syndicated on a hundred and

26:54

eighty stations in the United States

26:56

and sixty others worldwide, and the

26:58

response was positive. Captain Planet was

27:00

heralded. As a Superhero for the

27:03

Nineties and praised by educators. And

27:05

kids to. People

27:09

To Save the Environment. Something.

27:15

Like the Perfect handsets said

27:17

it back so fast that

27:19

it's way below zero. Even

27:22

a lot. Closer

27:25

ties. Overall, I'm

27:27

in a got a very good reception.

27:29

We were number one in syndication. We

27:31

got a couple of Emmy nominations. There

27:34

was. Even Captain Planet merchandise, though

27:36

in nothing like the volume of

27:38

shows like Transformers and See Man,

27:40

which had been created by toy

27:42

companies explicitly. To hoc product you're doing

27:44

so this is don't have over consumption

27:46

So we creed and a lot of

27:49

guidelines as the how you could merchandise

27:51

the product so he said you can't

27:53

make one time use products he couldn't

27:55

make sort of birthday party stuff that

27:57

was captain planet that was throw away.

28:00

You. Could make a costume that was

28:02

cloth but you couldn't A paper

28:04

plates Things had to have recycled

28:06

materials. You had to use reduced

28:08

amount of packaging material. Maybe.

28:11

Inevitably for sell at that such a

28:13

big complicated pop acts. It. Did

28:15

have it's clinics to. Nyc.

28:18

Says internally a turn us the

28:20

show standards about merchandise raise some

28:22

of the same misgivings their been

28:25

about the environmental division and it's

28:27

nature documentaries the company just couldn't

28:29

pass in. Other. More

28:32

overt critiques. Came from environmentalists

28:34

themselves who found the so

28:36

too simplistic. And then there

28:38

was the business community. Whether

28:40

Exxon Valdez, his Pr team

28:42

complaining about the oil spill

28:44

episode, or individuals taking issue

28:46

with the villains corporate sense.

28:50

Either fine, all for my

28:52

factory. From Tales of Time

28:54

I heard of those Allison

28:56

said to profit from sub

28:58

it. Even

29:01

more largely. Conservatives accuse the

29:03

So of having an agenda,

29:05

saying that it was quote

29:08

a propaganda tool aimed at

29:10

indoctrinating America. as the use. Indoctrination.

29:14

Is a fraught. Word. But the fact

29:16

is. The. So did have

29:18

an agenda. It stated purpose

29:20

was to impart wisdom and

29:22

guidance to the next generation

29:24

in the hopes they take.

29:26

Action On Environmental Crises.

29:29

And. Certainly in the short term seem

29:32

to be. Working at least on

29:34

the people working on the

29:36

show itself. I was

29:38

got the choice to smoke cigarettes and I'd throw my

29:41

cigarette butts out the window. all I was driving.

29:43

That's David Coburn again the voice of

29:45

Captain Planet. i didn't sort mattress

29:47

and never had a low energy light

29:49

bulb i grew up in the sixties

29:52

seventies was a huge consumer but when

29:54

captain planet got same as it really

29:56

was of the time to be throw

29:58

cigarette butts out your window. I

30:00

drive home from work sometimes and the kids on

30:02

my street called me Captain Planet. I

30:05

had to change. How did the

30:07

kids on your street know you were Captain Planet? I

30:10

told them. David was proud

30:12

of being Captain Planet, as

30:14

were many of the people involved. We had

30:17

a lot of talent who

30:19

worked, I think, extra hard

30:21

because this was this great

30:24

opportunity to be able to do something,

30:26

you know, doing well while doing good.

30:29

It was difficult to tell at the

30:31

time, though, how much good the show

30:33

was doing with the target audience.

30:36

Children. Nick describes it as

30:38

a kind of bubble in that regard. They didn't

30:40

know how kids were being affected by, say,

30:43

their episode about landmines in which one

30:45

child dies and another has

30:47

a limb blown off, or

30:49

how the one about overpopulation

30:51

in which an entire civilization

30:54

of rats crumbles and dies,

30:56

with sinking in with six-year-olds.

30:59

They didn't even know how effective the call to action

31:02

at the end of each

31:04

episode were. Where we'd give

31:06

something for children to do,

31:08

you know, recycling, volunteering for

31:10

park cleanups, turning the

31:12

lights off in the house. Do not

31:14

dump chlorine bleach, solvents and other toxic

31:17

materials down your drain. And

31:19

heat things like motor oil and batteries out

31:21

of your trash. Telling

31:23

park cleanups, not dumping bleach

31:25

and batteries. These are all

31:27

individual actions, and they're helpful.

31:30

But the show was aiming for

31:32

something bigger and longer term. It

31:35

was trying to plant a seed, and

31:37

it tried for six seasons and 113

31:39

episodes. And

31:43

then on May 11, 1996,

31:45

kids tuned in for an episode about the

31:47

evils of puppy mills and

31:50

saw what would be the final

31:52

episode of Captain Planet. Can

31:55

you tell me how it came to an end? With

32:00

a whimper than a bang. By.

32:02

This point, there are more than

32:04

enough episodes for syndication. The series

32:06

was getting expensive and Turner Broadcasting

32:09

was being sold. A lot of

32:11

it's environmental programming upscale back and

32:13

so they quietly declined. To

32:15

renew Captain Planet. Overall.

32:18

I'm in. There was a certain sense. Over

32:21

the years of accomplishment by south

32:23

a little let down. In

32:26

Tv terms, to last for

32:29

more than a hundred episodes,

32:31

as Captain Planet did, represents

32:33

an unqualified success for a

32:35

cartoon. The Captain Planet was

32:37

never just a cartoon. It.

32:40

Was a cartoon with a mission. To

32:43

see that has planted. It. Was

32:45

supposed to grow. According to

32:47

call creator Nick Boxer, Ted Turner

32:50

always wanted it to be an

32:52

agent. Of change. At one point

32:54

he said if one child is

32:56

changed by this it'll have been

32:58

worth it. When

33:00

we come back, we're going to jump

33:02

forward in time to see if the

33:05

So succeeded. In what

33:07

that success actually looks

33:09

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discover.com/credit Card. A

35:00

like d as grew up in the

35:02

Philippines in the late nineteen seventies and

35:04

early eighties under the dictatorial regime of

35:06

Ferdinand Marcos. This was during

35:09

martial law and in martial

35:11

law be cancelled. All.

35:13

These cartoons that had

35:15

a narrative of rebels

35:17

winning against you know,

35:19

the oppressor. That. Included

35:21

he lacks favorite cartoon Volt.

35:24

His Five, a Japanese animated

35:26

series featured robots are rising

35:28

up against the dictatorship. Jordan's.

35:30

Your love for smoking. When

35:33

the Philippines own dictator flat in Nineteen

35:35

Eighty Six cartoons came back to the

35:37

country in a big way. In

35:40

Nineteen Eighty Seven, Santa

35:42

Barbara started an operation

35:44

in the Philippines, making

35:46

cartoons. They began to

35:48

animate many classic properties right there

35:50

in Manila. Yogi Bear, Scooby Doo,

35:53

The Flintstones it like Watch them

35:55

All. And when Ted Turner acquired

35:58

Hanna Barbera, Captain Planet started. The

36:00

made in the Philippines to monitor

36:02

getting some fitness. this is go

36:04

down for a closer look. It

36:07

was unlike anything. A. Lack of

36:09

seen before. you know in the

36:11

Philippines were used to having somebody

36:13

fly in right? Superman would come

36:16

to save the day and very

36:18

american stories And and suddenly here

36:20

was this story where everyone could

36:23

be a planet Here. Since.

36:32

I said oh my gosh, and

36:34

on brown heroes we never see

36:37

brown heroes. And so this is

36:39

from a narrative of being saved

36:41

or being the recipient of help

36:43

into something where we can finally

36:45

be heroes. It's

36:48

like a lack was eavesdropping on

36:50

what the Captain Planet Creative team had

36:52

been trying to do, receiving all the

36:54

messages the show intended. I mean

36:57

I I really felt that each

36:59

one of us can be part

37:01

of the changed. I really believed

37:03

in my role of one day

37:05

becoming Captain Planet Philippines. His

37:08

whole life he likes that time in

37:10

nature of hiking, exploring, swimming. He went

37:12

to college hoping to do something that

37:14

help people and then climbing mountains in

37:17

the Philippines yeah than a piss any

37:19

in a remote village. One of the

37:21

things. That they realize us I

37:23

was travelling was the lack of

37:26

power have access to electricity. Every

37:28

few weeks rural villagers in the mountains

37:31

the Philippines without the height down to

37:33

the city by huge drums of kerosene

37:35

and then bring them back up. Fuses,

37:38

Fuel. It was dangerous,

37:40

expensive, and toxic. So.

37:42

A lack team up with a solution. I.

37:44

Started teaching them how to build solar

37:47

lights by hand. Simple things that they

37:49

can repair instead of having a breakdown

37:51

every two years. Elect went

37:54

on to found an organization com leader

37:56

of Light which has brought solar light

37:58

is thirty country so far. And

38:00

he knows exactly who he credits

38:02

for his career. It starts with

38:05

this role model that

38:07

I would see every day on our TV.

38:10

Every day, do what you can to clean

38:12

up our planet. Then you can be a

38:14

hero too. The power

38:16

is ours! ILAQ

38:20

is not the only person who attests

38:22

to being changed by Captain Planet. To

38:25

all the 90's kids I grew up with, Captain

38:27

Planet, we're going to talk about this show. Zinnials

38:29

will tell you that 90% of us care about

38:31

the planet because of this show. These

38:38

are just some TikTok testimonials to

38:40

the cartoon. It's still lingering in

38:42

the public consciousness, or

38:44

the millennial consciousness anyway. Nick

38:47

Boxer, the series co-creator and the

38:49

inspiration for Captain Planet's very

38:51

face, has heard first-hand stories

38:54

of the show's influence many

38:56

times over. 25

38:58

years later, I'd be in a grocery

39:00

store and I'm wearing a Captain Planet t-shirt. Someone would

39:03

say to me, where did you get that? That was

39:05

my favorite show when I was growing up. I

39:08

can't help them but say, yeah, actually

39:10

that was my show. They're like, oh

39:12

my god, when I was a kid, that got

39:14

me to grow up recycling. It made me think

39:16

of the world in an environmental way. That was

39:19

so formative for me. The

39:21

show was formative for Nick too. But when

39:24

I asked him about it, it wasn't quite in

39:26

the way I expected. Did the

39:28

show change your thinking in any way

39:30

about the environment? Yeah, it

39:32

did. It made

39:34

me less optimistic. Nick

39:38

Boxer is proud of Captain Planet. He's

39:41

proud when he meets the grown-ups who

39:43

he helped inspire as kids. But

39:46

he and we know more than we did back

39:48

in the early 1990s. Captain

39:51

Planet may have done what it set out

39:54

to do, to get kids

39:56

to care about the planet. But

39:59

it's been nowhere. near enough.

40:02

I just feel like Captain Planet, like anything

40:04

else, is just a drop in the bucket.

40:06

And it takes a lot of drops to fill that bucket.

40:09

My question is, can we generate enough drops?

40:12

The tough truth is that those

40:15

kids who grew up watching Captain

40:17

Planet and who were changed by

40:19

it, my generation, have also lived

40:21

through and contributed to the largest

40:23

greenhouse gas emissions in the history

40:25

of humankind. And here

40:28

we are, adults ourselves now,

40:31

still hoping like the adults that came

40:33

before us, that the next

40:35

generation will be able to do something

40:37

about it. I don't think

40:39

that the kids of today will have the

40:41

time to solve the problem. We

40:44

adjust. Until we

40:46

can't adjust anymore. It's

40:49

because Nick cares about kids and cares

40:51

about the Earth that he and

40:53

his wife decided not to have children of their own.

40:56

And we love children. She's a

40:58

school teacher, and we sort of thought we would have

41:00

kids. But there's also, I think, a part of me

41:02

that because of what I did, said,

41:04

how do I bring a child into this

41:06

world that I can't see a great

41:09

future for? The whole

41:11

Captain Planet project has some of the

41:13

same flaws as a Captain Planet episode.

41:16

I was also supposed to wrap

41:18

up with a too easy, happy ending. The

41:20

ills of the world were dressed not

41:22

by some cartoon characters, but

41:25

by a cartoon series. Captain

41:28

Planet is a bittersweet artifact from

41:30

a different time, one more

41:32

hopeful but also naïve and full of

41:34

hubris. When you can

41:36

imagine that a kid's cartoon could

41:38

save the world, or that the

41:41

widespread dissemination of facts would result

41:43

in widespread agreement about what to

41:45

do with them. When

41:47

empowering, the next generation felt

41:50

like a purely inspired notion.

41:53

Not like kicking the can down the road, asking

41:55

kids to do what their grown-ups would

41:57

not. For

42:00

to be inspired Lethal. Need to

42:02

be engaged and given knowledge and direction about

42:04

how to help the wounded. World their

42:07

inheriting but. of Captain Planet

42:09

accomplished what it meant to if

42:11

the see this show planted. really.

42:13

Bloomed the former children.

42:16

Now adults who watched it back

42:19

in the nineteen nineties have an

42:21

obligation to keep pinning their hopes

42:23

for a different future. On

42:26

no one but themselves. I

42:29

mean, I just don't understand. How

42:31

people to look at the world and

42:34

not see what we're doing to our

42:36

planet? How they cannot see

42:38

what they're doing to themselves. Watching.

42:41

Tv is easy. It's everything

42:43

else that's hard. He

42:45

has to pass on something more useful

42:47

and inspiring. Than just reruns.

42:58

Find. An employee

43:01

at it. This.

43:04

Is decoder ring. I will have

43:06

haskins if you. Have any cultural

43:08

mysteries you want us to decode. Please

43:10

email us. At the cornering and

43:12

sleep. Com This episode was reported

43:14

and produced by Olivia Brierley. It

43:17

was edited by Evans hung decoder

43:19

ring is. Produced by Me

43:21

as in Haiti, Shepherd and

43:23

Max Friedman. Derek John his

43:25

executive producer Marriage, Jacob his

43:27

senior technical director. Thank

43:30

you to Eugene Linden Sector

43:32

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43:34

Marker Claire Reynolds. And College

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and fire up our laptops to

45:13

speak to you. From presidential immunity

45:15

to social media content regulation to

45:17

domestic abusers' gun rights, we will

45:20

be here unpacking the news for you.

45:22

Listen to Amicus wherever you get your

45:25

podcasts. Beep.

45:28

Beep.