AHC/WI: Captain Planet is successful critically and commercially

This is not so much a pop-culture WI as it is a general cultural/social what if.

If you were a child or teenager in the late 80s and early 90s in the United States there is almost no possible way you were not somehow aware of the giant edutainment cheeseball that was Captain Planet. Ted Turner kicked off the show with the intent of raising awareness of environmental issues and one could argue it may have had some impact but for the most part it is remembered for cartoonishly over the top villains as one would expect for a kid's Saturday morning cartoon show.

But what if Ted Turner decides to take a bigger risk on Captain Planet and his main motivation is genuinely to make a show that inspires children across the US to be more involved and interested in the environment and ecology? What if he hires a writing staff that is capable of presenting these issues in a way that kids can understand and follow in the format of a 30 minute animated show and the show is perceived, not as the somewhat cheesy over the top example of 90s animation that it is OTL, as surprisingly intelligent and thoughtful in the vein of Sesame Street (since really there's no other show in the time that fits what I have in mind that I can think of) with a run of say six seasons? What potential butterflies could you see coming from this?

And for the challenge part:

Is there a crew out there who could actually pull it off who would be well-known enough to be tapped for the project?
 
Captain Planet was poorly scripted and indifferently drawn AFAIC.

Propaganda to be effective either needs to be so obvious and on-message there's no arguing with it or so subtle you don't even notice it.

For Captain Planet to succeed, it needs to be more than Ted Turner's mouthpiece. Ted needs to trust s/b else (an external production company, not his personal stooges) to make it happen, sign the checks, and be largely cool with their approach.

The problem with polemics at any end of the political spectrum is that they lose their sense of humor in their sense of holy mission PDQ and that's deadly to the uninitiated.
 
Who was working in animation that you think Turner felt he could turn the project over to and get the results he was going for? It wouldn't surprise me if he went for a bigger player, possibly Buena Vista Television (Disney) or a subsidiary of WB thanks to their well-established names and reputations plus his own connections iin the media world. Are there other animation studios and teams that would have the chops and means to handle the project?
 

Archibald

Banned
oh I remember watching that one on Cartoon Network through my father satellite dish back in '96 or so.
THE POWER IS YOUR !! and yes it was a bit of caricature at time, not very subtle, or not subtle at all...
 
This is ASB rofl.

My gf was friends with an animator on the show who claimed Ted Turner rejected every face they drew for Captain Planet until they (to be smart-asses) presented him with one loosely caricature off of Ted's face.

Guess which one he picked lol

Ted%2BTurner%2BCaptain%2BPlanet.jpg


Is there a crew out there who could actually pull it off who would be well-known enough to be tapped for the project?

alright alright FINE. Hire Genndy. Genndy would spin that crap into gold.
 
It would need to be a lot more post-modernist, showing actual examples of pollution and its effects on the environment (even with ersatz stand-ins for countries and companies) instead of the gross caricatures they employed, and also demonstrating that while a bunch of fancy rings could aid some of the symptoms, it still needs initiative by governments and corporations to stop the processes creating environmental degradation.

Just because a superhero is involved doesn't mean that it has to be shlock; Superman: The Animated Series, made just half a decade later shows how one can still make a near-omnipotent guy a compelling character.
 
More subtlety and less stupidity would be a good way to go. Maybe instead of the ludicrous Eco-Villains, they fight mutant monsters spawned by pollution or use their powers to counteract disasters caused by pollution.

(Think the movie Prophecy, which featured a deformed psychotic bear spawned by mercury poisoning. The episode dealing with shark overfishing leading to a plague of jellyfish could stay. Maybe a disease outbreak caused by a poorly-maintained sewage-disposal "lake" at an industrial pig-farm?)

The polluter types could be horrified by the problems they accidentally caused--one of my writing books said a good "polluter" character is someone who cuts corners for the good of the company, employees, etc. rather than being deliberately malicious. One of the reasons for the ludicrous villains is Ted didn't want to upset kids who worked for environmentally-damaging industries.

If an Eco-Villain is absolutely necessary, perhaps we have something like the Brotherhood of NOD crossed with Magneto--pollution-spawned mutants who view themselves as the next stage of evolution and want to obliterate normal humanity. Or perhaps a long-term bin Laden figure the team keeps from making off with Soviet "loose nukes" who tries repeatedly to take revenge. Acknowledging the dangers of international terrorism is too un-PC for someone like Turner, but if it means better ratings...

And for the love of all that's holy, having a Masai kid lecturing the viewers about not eating red meat when his tribe derives most if not all of its food from cattle was asinine. I recognized that as ridiculous when I was a kid.

And wasn't Wheeler the American kid always depicted as being a hotheaded moron? Maybe have him be right at least sometimes. Americans are going to tired of being portrayed as idiots.

And Hitler with a Fu Manchu? Jeez.
 
The chap who went on to create Babylon Five was writing animated scripts a few years this before moving onto Murder She Wrote. Maybe he has a bit of a different career path and gets a position as one of the show's writers?
 
ASB, plain and simple, as long as you keep it even remotely comparable to OTL Captain Planet.

Bear in mind, this was a show that was so on-the-nose with its propaganda, I mean political message, that it made GI Joe look positively subtle. It was the 1990s version of those terrible 1950s children's PSAs - just take a look at the episodes about AIDS or gang violence. Just what you'd expect from a cartoon glorifying a bunch of teen-aged ecoterrorists.

Plus, what more could be done with the show? It was financed by a multibillionaire media mogul who sank tons of cash and publicity behind it, and to subsidize it four three seasons. It had an all-star celebrity voice cast. It actually had decent production values for the early 1990s. It had EVERYTHING in its favor, and it was still a failure.

The big issue with the entire show - hamfisted botched PSA message aside - was that the show was basically the worst kind of superhero - Captain Planet was an empty, invulnerable hero who was always right, fought cardboard cutout villains, and tells kids to go eat their veggies and recycle. Worse, he's so awful the only good versions of the character I've seen are parodies where he's the bad guy. There's a reason why the most popular episode of the show is the one where the bad guys create Captain Pollution who proceeds to kick thier asses :p

Remember, this was the show with the biggest Russian woman stereotype this side of a Mail Order Bride catalog, and where one of the villains (the one voiced by Jeff Goldblum) was like something dreampt up by Goebels. To this day, I'd wager half the people who suffered through the show would burn down a rain forest just to spite Ted Turner.

So in short, ASB.
 
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Verminous Scum, a rat/human hybrid who wants to wipe out humanity so his people can rule the Earth. Who looks like this.

Given this is Captain Planet we're talking about, I'm just happy they didn't give him a Yiddish accent.

I never got an "Evil Jew" vibe off him. He actually reminded me of Ganondorf.
 
I bet...

The timing is just perfect to give it to Radomski and Timm. This is near the end of Tiny Toons and right before Batman: TAS.

Ted's going to push for more of an OTL show, but if he's willing to compromise at all Captain Planet could be an excellent character with some depth in a world right on the brink of apocalypse.

It might be interesting to see a CP from the ruined future earth, the hybrid son of a member of the last strain of humanity with only minor mutations and an alien from the race sent to reterraform earth. The rings from the future therefore cleanly use natural resources (and magic) to summon this time traveler when they can't prevent the fall of earth themselves. When not summoned, Captain Planet is anguishing in stasis between past and future, consciousness and unconsciousness...

Something between what MerryPrankster said and what we got OTL is possible, with a hint of Batman: TAS; which probably isn't butterflied and could be more successful.

I particularly liked the bin Laden character idea and the Magneto suggestion.

Captain Planet as an alien hybrid Chrononaut from post-apocalyptic earth is probably out there, but I'd watch it.
 
Now that KG said it, Verminous Scum does sound a lot like my idea for a "Magneto" villain--he's the product of pollution, waste, etc. and he thinks his kind will inherit the Earth.

I'd give him a different name though. Jeez. Subtlety is a good thing. "Lord Vermin," perhaps? It could be something he's adopted for himself to scare his enemies.

Alternatively, buy the rights to the Skaven. They're not "mainstream fantasy creatures" like Orcs, dwarves, etc. so them making an appearance would actually be kind of cool. Make them the product of a Food of the Gods-type story.
 
The timing is just perfect to give it to Radomski and Timm. This is near the end of Tiny Toons and right before Batman: TAS.

Ted's going to push for more of an OTL show, but if he's willing to compromise at all Captain Planet could be an excellent character with some depth in a world right on the brink of apocalypse.

It might be interesting to see a CP from the ruined future earth, the hybrid son of a member of the last strain of humanity with only minor mutations and an alien from the race sent to reterraform earth. The rings from the future therefore cleanly use natural resources (and magic) to summon this time traveler when they can't prevent the fall of earth themselves. When not summoned, Captain Planet is anguishing in stasis between past and future, consciousness and unconsciousness...

Something between what MerryPrankster said and what we got OTL is possible, with a hint of Batman: TAS; which probably isn't butterflied and could be more successful.

I particularly liked the bin Laden character idea and the Magneto suggestion.

Captain Planet as an alien hybrid Chrononaut from post-apocalyptic earth is probably out there, but I'd watch it.

That sounds excellent. On paper, Captain Planet seems like it should work. The only reason why it didn't is because the execution was abysmal, but the bones of a good, or at least watchable, show are there.
 
It would need to be a lot more post-modernist, showing actual examples of pollution and its effects on the environment (even with ersatz stand-ins for countries and companies) instead of the gross caricatures they employed, and also demonstrating that while a bunch of fancy rings could aid some of the symptoms, it still needs initiative by governments and corporations to stop the processes creating environmental degradation.

Just because a superhero is involved doesn't mean that it has to be shlock; Superman: The Animated Series, made just half a decade later shows how one can still make a near-omnipotent guy a compelling character.

More subtlety and less stupidity would be a good way to go. Maybe instead of the ludicrous Eco-Villains, they fight mutant monsters spawned by pollution or use their powers to counteract disasters caused by pollution.

(Think the movie Prophecy, which featured a deformed psychotic bear spawned by mercury poisoning. The episode dealing with shark overfishing leading to a plague of jellyfish could stay. Maybe a disease outbreak caused by a poorly-maintained sewage-disposal "lake" at an industrial pig-farm?)

The polluter types could be horrified by the problems they accidentally caused--one of my writing books said a good "polluter" character is someone who cuts corners for the good of the company, employees, etc. rather than being deliberately malicious. One of the reasons for the ludicrous villains is Ted didn't want to upset kids who worked for environmentally-damaging industries.

If an Eco-Villain is absolutely necessary, perhaps we have something like the Brotherhood of NOD crossed with Magneto--pollution-spawned mutants who view themselves as the next stage of evolution and want to obliterate normal humanity. Or perhaps a long-term bin Laden figure the team keeps from making off with Soviet "loose nukes" who tries repeatedly to take revenge. Acknowledging the dangers of international terrorism is too un-PC for someone like Turner, but if it means better ratings...

And for the love of all that's holy, having a Masai kid lecturing the viewers about not eating red meat when his tribe derives most if not all of its food from cattle was asinine. I recognized that as ridiculous when I was a kid.

And wasn't Wheeler the American kid always depicted as being a hotheaded moron? Maybe have him be right at least sometimes. Americans are going to tired of being portrayed as idiots.

And Hitler with a Fu Manchu? Jeez.

All of this very neatly summarizes the problems with the show: the villains were over the top and unbelievable, there was too much soap-boxing and clear editorializing going on, and there was a lot more that could have been done with Captain Planet and the Eco-Villains. As BATS and Superman later in the decade would show it is VERY possible to do a kid's superhero cartoon intelligently, with depth, and touching on reality in some ways.

If you're going to have recurring characters like the eco-villains they need to be more than cardboard cut-outs. Dr. Blight, for example, was supposed to represent the evils of unethical and uncontrolled technology which sounds like it could be good in theory but in practice you ended up with the mad scientist who got us the Fu Manchu Hitler episode. A better approach would be more a well-meaning researcher who misses the bigger consequences of their actions rather than some cackling Dr. Frankenstein parody. The lack of understandable motivation beyond, "kill the planet" hurt what could have been a lot of interesting possibilities.

Another one that could work was the corporate executive character who could have been a recurring villain fitting in the mold of a man who stubbornly believes what they are doing is going to make people's lives better by bringing them jobs, technology, etc and keeps running afoul of the Planeteers for one reason or another and is convinced they're a bunch of backward Luddites or something. Even if you do keep the Eco-Villains they'd work much better as occasional antagonists in the same fashion Batman shuffled a lot of more mundane and one-off villains into the Rogue's Gallery.

On the invincible hero part I agree you'd need to have someone handle Captain Planet like Superman. He needs to be less of a catch-all deus ex machina and be stuck more in situations where his powers aren't enough to do the job. Most importantly I think it would be a huge improvement if the show regularly has the kids themselves be the ones who save the day instead of always needing Captain Planet to do the job.

The chap who went on to create Babylon Five was writing animated scripts a few years this before moving onto Murder She Wrote. Maybe he has a bit of a different career path and gets a position as one of the show's writers?

The timing is just perfect to give it to Radomski and Timm. This is near the end of Tiny Toons and right before Batman: TAS.

Ted's going to push for more of an OTL show, but if he's willing to compromise at all Captain Planet could be an excellent character with some depth in a world right on the brink of apocalypse.

It might be interesting to see a CP from the ruined future earth, the hybrid son of a member of the last strain of humanity with only minor mutations and an alien from the race sent to reterraform earth. The rings from the future therefore cleanly use natural resources (and magic) to summon this time traveler when they can't prevent the fall of earth themselves. When not summoned, Captain Planet is anguishing in stasis between past and future, consciousness and unconsciousness...

Something between what MerryPrankster said and what we got OTL is possible, with a hint of Batman: TAS; which probably isn't butterflied and could be more successful.

I particularly liked the bin Laden character idea and the Magneto suggestion.

Captain Planet as an alien hybrid Chrononaut from post-apocalyptic earth is probably out there, but I'd watch it.

These are some fun possibilities, especially if you can get Timm & Radowski involved in the project. What if you managed to swing all three?

Also one major point that's been made is Ted Turner's ego and the level of control he demanded over the project. How do you remove or sufficiently mitigate that factor so it becomes possible for an actually decent show to be made? Assuming that happens what kind of butterflies would this have on the discourse on the environment and environmentalism? Would Bush Sr's "up to our necks in owls" quote continue to be a signpost for when the Republicans and Democrats diverged sharply over the environment or an outlier and exception to the rule?
 
Have Ted Turner get into a car accident and be in rehab for several months?

Alternatively, he was actually on lithium for awhile. Maybe play with his prescriptions some?
 
Have Ted Turner get into a car accident and be in rehab for several months?

That could do the job nicely for an easily butterflied into existence approach. Serious car crash+project already has money in it+long-term rehab and possible long-term damage expected=someone else is given the helm of the project and by the time Ted's out the show's a hit and he can't really meddle with success.

MerryPrankster said:
Alternatively, he was actually on lithium for awhile. Maybe play with his prescriptions some?

There is something awfully tempting about Ted Turner being on a different set of drugs leading to a much better end product. You could have him go on a bender with Jack Nicholson, Keith Richards, and Hunter S. Thompson :D
 
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