Captain Planet

Yesterday I watched a few episodes of Captain Planet that was part of a marathon for the upcoming Earth Day. I watched around three episodes. The first two were typical of the show, cartoony, preachy, and kiddy. Fortunately I stuck around for the third episode. The third episode was a very mature and realistic episode. I felt like it was a perfect episode of what the show is about. The show is all about environmental activism. The episode was about deforestation. The group of kids come to a logging town where a rich businessman is tearing down the forest. While hiking through the forest they discover that endangered species of animals live in the forest. The kids go to the authorities to tell them that they have to make him stop cutting down the forest. They are told that they need proof and that they need to file some paper work. They are also told that they only have three days to show the proof that is needed and the paper work completed. Half of the group goes to file all the paperwork while the other half goes to get pictures of the endangered animals. With the group that is doing the paperwork they show that it is a difficult process with wrong agencies, wrong color ink, and the long processing periods. This is one of the parts I really liked. It showed that in activism there is a lot of hoops you have to jump through to get what you want accomplished. The group trying to get pictures of the endangered animals are unsuccessful of getting the pictures in time. The group is unsuccessful of getting what they needed in time and when they go back to the forest it is all torn down. I thought this was a great lesson to teach kids, especially in the field of activism. It taught kids that even if you try your hardest you still might not be able to get what you want. The great activists are the ones who keep on coming back no matter how successful or unsuccessful they are. I was surprised that they would make an episode where the good guys lose but I am glad they did make it. The other great aspect of this episode was that it only had captain planet in it for around one minute. This helped make it a more mature episode. Overall I think The show should have had a few more episodes like this that make it feel more real.