Happy Earth Day

William, shouldn't you be studying? Yes. Probably.

Dakota is watching the Captain Planet Marathon on Boomerang before her ice skating lesson. I remember when this cartoon first came out, it was just the zenith of cartoons that successfully propelled the sale of toys (GI Joe, Transformers, and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe) had given way to more players entering the space with lower production value cartoons and toys for a higher price (Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Inhumanoids, Galaxy Rangers, C.O.P.S.). Enter Captain Planet. I have some gratitude for the makers of this show. There would be times when I would try to procrastinate studying by watching TV and it would be Captain Planet, within 2 seconds, I would be back to studying.

I never gave it much thought as to what, precisely, it was about Captain Planet that annoyed me. My gut reaction was "Don't tell me what to think, Orwellian Propagandist!"

Dakota is not so picky.

Actually the show manages to pack in a huge amount of relatively sophisticated (if biased) discussion about environmental issues pitting the Planeteers against misguided capitalists and various one-dimensional bad guys. One the annoyingly preachy scale of television, Captain Planet scores less than a full blown "7th Heaven" but higher than "the original Star Trek"

In the particular episode that was on happened to deal with "Clear-cutting" in the lunber industry. Although the episode took certain (ahem) liberties with how an ALJ (Administrative Law Judge) will conduct a regulatory adjudication, the fact that they the competing interests joust over adminstrative procedure in order to prevent the other side from submitting decisive subtantive material was surprisingly interesting. Then, suddenly, the Planeteers get backed into a corner and invoke their magical power to summon Captain Planet, the most annoying Deus Ex Machina ever, and the whole episode was ruined.

The memories all came flooding back: Wasn't there something vaguely rascist and ethnocentric about the ham-fisted way that the writers tried to be "inclusive"? Why have the essential elements be "Wind, Fire, Water, and Heart"? If you want your cartoon to be educational, teach science not alchemy! And not to put to fine a point on it, Captain Planet himself is a freaky, wussy, smart-alek.

Having said all that: I feel that I should do my part to raise awareness. Be aware that Arbor day is April 28. Whew, all of my middle-class guilt is washed away in one big empty guesture.