Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Saturday Morning's Forgotten Heroes: The New Adventures of Captain Planet (1993)

In 1993, after three seasons, Captain Planet underwent a minor cosmetic change. The series basically was the same, but with the New Adventures label attached, and there was a change in animation studios, from DIC to Hanna-Barbera. Unfortunately, Ted Turner never saw the opportunity to have the good Captain (David Coburn) meet some of H-B's adventure heroes, like Jonny Quest, for example.

This version lasted two seasons. The first intro is from 1993, narrated by Coburn (LeVar Burton was the narrator in the DIC series). Unfortunately, someone decided that the basic intro, after 4 seasons, had to be replaced. The end result of this bone-headed decision was a lame-a-zoid rap by B52's lead singer Fred Schneider:



The disembodied mouth was originally used in the episode, "You Bet Your Planet", which was a send-up of Family Feud, with Gene Wood putting words in the mouth, his first cartoon work in 30 years. Nothing says jump the shark like bad rap.

One good move was a time travel story that posited a possible future in which Wheeler and Linka had eventually gotten married, after all that flirting. Too bad no one's bothered to consider revisiting Planet, who marks his 25th anniversary next year.

Rating: B.

2 comments:

magicdog said...

This show was/is a joke. It was environmental (emphasis on the mental!) propaganda. None of the crap used in storylines was true - or completely taken out of context.

That so called, "future episode" was based on Thomas Malthus' theory of too many people not enough resources. Obviously, he was long since disproven thanks to modern techniques in farming and other areas.

If I could reboot the show (and TPTB won't allow it!) I'd remake the show into a G rated version of Penn & Teller's "Bulls**t", in which villainous environmental hoaxes are discovered and disproven each week!

There was only one good scene in this whole show - and it had nothing to do with the main cast or the storyline. It was an in-joke slipped in by one of the background artists. While our heroes are in a HS hallway discussing a plan, one needs to carefully look over their shoulder to see a pair of students chatting in a corner. Those students were Shaggy and Velma from SDWAY!

Check it out here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNp6-Q1NH9M

They appear at 2:17.

Good one guys!

hobbyfan said...

Have to watch for it. Thanx.