There are two types of people in the world: Those who care about politics, and those who care about superheroes. And there are probably people who don't give two shits about either category or care about both, but we'll ignore that for the sake of this journal entry.
The point is, Captain Planet combines both categories, mixes them together, and explodes into...
THIS. Or so I heard anyway. I've never really watched the show, except for this one episode that I didn't really pay any attention to.
You see, to the best of my knowledge Captain Planet is a cartoon from the 1980s, and I was born in the early 1990s. Add in the fact that I grew up in a television-less apartment and had to entertain myself with my Dr. Suess books instead, it took a good many years before I really became aware of Captain Planet.
So why am I talking about it, you wonder?
Well once I heard about it from somewhere online I can't remember, I started looking up information on it.
The basic plot was that Gaia (Heh-heh), the earth spirit, is awoken from her slumber to discover that the humans are destroying the world with pollution. So she decides to send five rings to five special kids all over the globe, and sends them out to stop pollution with the aid of their special new ring powers. The rings are Fire, which sets things on Fire (Duh), Wind, which blows stuff around (Duh), Earth, which uh, controls the earth or something, Water, which probably controls water. And then there's Heart, which apparently makes you feel better and turns you into a mind reader. The five kids with these powers, whenever they can't quite handle the situation, combine their powers to summon Captain Planet, the blue guy you see above.
As well as stuff about the plot, I heard a lot about how hammy and over the top and illogical it was, the last part of which strikes me as a real Well Duh! considering it stars a blue Superhero named Captain Planet, rings that summon fire, etc. etc.
So I thought 'Well Saraez, this sounds interesting. Why don't you check it out on Youtube?'
So I decided I will! Basically, I'll be illegally watching the first episode on Youtube, and you'll be getting my thought process as it happens.
So the first episode starts off promisingly enough, with a dramatic musical sting. I don't know quite how to describe it though. It's very dramatic however, trust me on that part.
Somebody, a male by the sound of the voice, starts narrating to the charming images of car fumes.
It goes something like this...
Our world is in peril. Gaia, the spirit of the Earth, can no longer stand the terrible destruction plaguing our planet.
This is what Gaia looks like btw. Character design is a little different from what I expected, but I think she looks fairly cool. Anyway, back to you Unnamed Narrator.
She sends five magic rings to five special young people.
*Name Saraez didn't quite catch* from Africa, with the power of Earth.
From North America, Wheeler, with the power of fire.
North America? By 'North America' do they mean Canada or the US? Actually, for that matter, what part of Africa does the guy whose name I didn't quite catch come from? And why does he look suspiciously white? Oh well. I guess I'll just pretend for now that Wheeler is a fellow Canuck, and that the African guy is from Egypt, because I don't know any other African places. Oh, and yes, I am aware that the image is a bit f*cked up. He was summoning fire at the time, OK?
From the Soviet Union, Linka, with the power of wind.
Soviet Union... Can you tell that this is an old cartoon? I just wonder if Linka is a valid name anywhere in where the Soviet Union used to be. And how many fart jokes get made about Linka and her 'wind' power.
From Asia, Gi, with the power of water.
Gi, by the way, is pronounced like 'Gee' and I only know its correct spelling from the Youtube commenters. Dear Lord, I hope there won't be too many horrible puns from her name.
And from South America, Matee with the power of Heart.
Sorry for the bad picture. Matee by the way, is surrounded by a burning forest fire in the clip of him, so I'm wondering how he manages to escape it using the power of Heart. Well I do recall from my readings that one of the characters was called Kwami or some such, so I guess it's the African guy.
And here we have all the team in its glory, including an actually black looking Kwami. But wait a second, where's Captain Planet? Well, let's get the Unname Narrator to continue!
When the five powers combine, they summon Earth's greatest champion, CAPTAIN PLANET!
OK, not a very helpful image I captured (I meant to get his face, I swear!) but you can see what he looks like with the picture at the top anyway. So it's OK, right?
THE POWER IS YOURS!
Alright, you can shut up now, Unnamed Narrator.
So here's the title of today's episode. A HERO FOR EARTH. Gi, I wonder who that could be. I also wonder how the story can be 'by' Nicholas Boxer, and yet written by an entirely different person.
So we see a cute bunny rabbit hopping through the forest and peaceful music is playing and-HOLY s**t A GREAT BIG MECHANICAL THING JUST STEPPED INTO THE PICTURE.
So from out of nowhere, a Giant Mecha that may not be entirely feasible in real life starts running around and nearly trods on a cute widdle bunny wabbit. So what is up with the Giant Mecha, the audience asks?
Well we get a shot of more mecha, and the sound of an evil laugh, which quickly becomes very unsinister when the laughing person starts snorting like a piggy-wiggy.
Well whad'ya know, it IS a piggy-wiggy! If piggy-wiggys were big, humanoid, ugly, with pointed elf ears, and orange mohawks. Hmm... I wonder if this guy is evil?
Anyway, Piggy-Wiggy then declares that with this 'land-blaster' he'll (At least, I presume it's a him...) be able to drill for oil anywhere. Personally, I think the mecha looks more like something an Anime fan would draw and think it looks cool then something you'd drill for oil with, but since I don't know much about the oil industry (Besides that it's apparently going to hell) I'll just take Piggy-Wiggy's word for it.
Piggy-Wiggy's sidekick, a guy who's ugly but in a more subdued way then Piggy-Wiggy and thus un-noteworthy, says, in an annoying squeaky voice, 'Yeah boss! Yeah!' His voice actually sort of reminds me of Meowth from the Pokemon anime dub, which is kind of weird. Although I haven't seen it in years, so who knows, the voice may be very different in reality. Anyway...
Oddly-Meowth-Sounding-Guy says 'Even in a wildlife santuary'. Now, for those of you who aren't watching the show right now, I would like to let you know that the machine is big, easily visible, and probably making a lot of noise. I think somebody's going to notice if they start drilling in a wildlife sanctuary.
Or not. Piggy-wiggy says, in a barely understandable voice, that by the time anyone gets there they'll have their tank full of oil and be gone. Still, I somehow doubt their mecha will be hard to trace. Piggy-wiggy then starts to dig for oil anyway, declaring that he'll be so rich, he'll be in 'Hog-heaven!' Whatever that means.
But all this drilling suddenly makes a crack form in the roof of a building!
It turns out, below the spot where Piggy-wiggy and Sidekick are drillin' for oil, Gaia's somehow got a dry, lit bunker where she lies fast asleep (Or dead, considering she's not snoring) on a comfy stone slab.
Then a drop of water falls onto her cheek from the crack, waking her up. Because apparently the VRRRRRRRRR sound of the drill isn't loud enough, but the sound of a drop colliding with her cheek is.
Well, if the drill and the drop weren't enough to wake her up, the leakage afterwards surely would have.
"My Goodness." Gaia comments. "Can't the spirit of Earth take a little nap?" Um, no? Well anyway, she uses her magic to seal up the hole and remove the water, then hops right back onto her comfy slab and falls asleep again, never realizing that the Earth is in the process of being destroyed right now while she sits on her lazy a**, napping instead of fulfilling her duty as spirit of the Earth... whatever that is.
Kidding, actually. After she seals it up and looks at it all smug, the leak opens up again. And Gaia is absolutely befuddled by this.
Hmm... What would be the more appropriate emoticon? =o OR O-O?
So she touches the great big mirror thingy in the background of the above picture. Rather then show anything helpful, such as 'There are two guys in a giant mecha drilling for oil above your bunker' it shows a drill pulsating with an evil aura, which I suppose could be helpful but I doubt Gaia is going to know the context.
Just as Gaia begins to wonder if the magic mirror is malfunctioning, it shows her the bottom of the mecha, and she gets the idea. "Ah." She says. "It's those poor silly humans again." I told them that mass genocide was a bad idea and they'd be getting a time out if they tried, but they didn't listen very well. I would have put them in the time out chair, but they looked at me with such big pleading eyes, I couldn't help but forgive them.
She then starts looking up images of polluted sewer water, coming to the conclusion that she must have napped 'too long'. But how long was she napping?
Judging from how she says, 'But how much damage could they do in a century?' (Um, Gaia has been in her current job how long?) she's been napping since... about 1870 or so, depending on when the cartoon is set. Although she didn't show much of a reaction to the mecha, so I have no idea what was up with that.
After flipping through a few more pollution images, she concludes that it's 'worse then she thought' and that 'Earth is dying'. So does she use her Gaia powers to de-evolve all the humans into relatively un-intelligent monkey-amphibians?
Nope, but hey! We wouldn't have much of a story if that were the case, I suppose.
So she floats the rings over and sends them out into the world. Oh, and for those of you marveling at the length of this entry? We're about three minutes into the cartoon.
First we see Kwami, farming in a wasteland in Africa somewhere. He finds the ring with one of his gardening tools. In Asia, Gi is playing with a dolphin, and she finds her ring after the dolphin spits it out. In the tough streets of Toronto, Wheeler comes across a thug about to beat the crap out of a hobo. Wheeler kicks the thug, and the thug runs away screaming at the sight of him.
Seriously. Apparently all dem Toronto bois know that Wheeler's one cool Badass ********' that you don't want to ******** with.
Anyway, the hobo's fire barrel spits out Wheeler's ring, which he then catches, apparently without being burnt by the hot metal, because I guess he's just that badass.
In the Sovient Union, Linka is standing at the top of a great big dramatic cliff playing a piano hanging around her neck, seriously, and a bunch of chirpy birds comes along, one of whom has the ring around its beak. And in South America, Matee scares off a leopard, like Wheeler, through sheer intimidation of just being there, rescuing a monkey, who hands him his ring.
They all try their rings on at the exact same time.
Instantly, through the power of MAGIC they are all teleported to a coastal location, including Matee's monkey for some reason. Although Wheeler's hobo doesn't tag along. Poor b*****d probably thinks he's a loony now that he saw Wheeler vanish.
Gaia floats over and greets them with "Welcome to Hope Island" having apparantly exited her underwater bunker since they're outdoors now. Wheeler then essentially says, albeit in a slightly annoying voice, "What the hell just happened?". We then flash forward a bit, presumably to after the characters stopped freaking out, as the Planeteers (The kids, I mean) proceeds to say, "OK, so let's get this straight for the audience. Your name is Gaia, and you're the spirit of the earth. And you brought us here to help us save Earth from being ruined. Did everyone get that?"
Linka wonders how a bunch of kids can help, but this perfectly valid question is interrupted because Wheeler decides this is the perfect time to hit on Linka. Eh, I can't complain because I'd probably end up imagining romantic pairings between the characters even if they did go the asexual route.
Gaia fortunately brings them back on track, and explains to them who has what power, which, is you've been following along so far, you'll probably be able to guess. And how do they use these powers? Well if Linka's demonstration is anything you can go by, you wiggle your hand and shout out "WIND" or whatever, and then "STOP" when you want to stop using these powers. So the rings are voice-activated and controlled. So I wonder, if I ripped out any of their vocal cords, would they be able to use their rings anymore? Do multiple languages work?
Actually that brings up another point: So far Gaia, Wheeler, Linka and Gi have all spoken fluent English, and Kwami and Matee show no sign of not understanding them, even though they all come from different parts of the world. Perhaps Gaia's rings are designed to seek out people who already speak English, so she doesn't have to explain what's going on to five different hysterical kids in five different languages.
Kwami tests his power, making a crack in the earth and sealing it, and Wheeler tests his, by setting a surprisingly large fire on the floor. Gaia is surprisingly calm about the raging inferno, and Gi extinguishes it with her power. Actually, for that matter she floods the place and soaks everybody except Gaia, who levitates.
And Matee's power... turns out not just to be mindreading in fact! In fact, he proceeds to use his powers to do the following:
1. Calm down his monkey
2. Make his monkey hug Wheeler.
3. Read everybody's thoughts.
4. 'Feel their feelings' whatever that means.
5. Psychically communicate with Linka.
Neat-o. Apparently Matee is, according to Gaia, the most powerful because without a heart to guide them the other powers are useless. So Gaia declares them the Planeteers, and they all cheer, because having powers is really cool, even if explaining it to their parents will be aaawkward.
After Wheeler proceeds to nearly set himself on fire again, Kwami suggests they practice their new powers. However, Gaia says "Screw sensibility, the audience won't want a training montage. We're already losing their attention!"
So they are told to go out, because a CRISIS IS AT HAND! Remember that Mecha we saw earlier? Neither do I. But it's off stealing oil, and...
OK, I don't know anything about the oil industry, but any idiot can tell you that that Mecha is an incredibly inefficient machine for stealing oil, judging from the crapton of liquid money it's shown to be leaking. Add in the whole 'loud and attention grabbing' bit, and the Planeteers really shouldn't have too much difficulty with these idiots.
Oh yeah, and according to Gaia, the names of Piggy-Wiggy and his sidekick are "Hoggish Greedly" and "Rigger".
o_O
Anyway, Rigger proves himself to potentially not to be a complete a*****e by asking Hoggy if the leaking oil's going to hurt all the animals by the coastline. Hoggy however, plays the villian and says he doesn't care.
So the Planeteers go flying off in their planet-plane, which apparently Gi gets to drive 'cuz she's the one with the driver's license.
I'm not entirely sure how a driver's license means you can fly small aircraft, but apparently in this crazy alternate 80s dimension it does.
Wheeler comments that it's been a very weird day. Gi, you think?
<Part 2 to come soon. It takes a while to upload all the pictures.>
The point is, Captain Planet combines both categories, mixes them together, and explodes into...
THIS. Or so I heard anyway. I've never really watched the show, except for this one episode that I didn't really pay any attention to.
You see, to the best of my knowledge Captain Planet is a cartoon from the 1980s, and I was born in the early 1990s. Add in the fact that I grew up in a television-less apartment and had to entertain myself with my Dr. Suess books instead, it took a good many years before I really became aware of Captain Planet.
So why am I talking about it, you wonder?
Well once I heard about it from somewhere online I can't remember, I started looking up information on it.
The basic plot was that Gaia (Heh-heh), the earth spirit, is awoken from her slumber to discover that the humans are destroying the world with pollution. So she decides to send five rings to five special kids all over the globe, and sends them out to stop pollution with the aid of their special new ring powers. The rings are Fire, which sets things on Fire (Duh), Wind, which blows stuff around (Duh), Earth, which uh, controls the earth or something, Water, which probably controls water. And then there's Heart, which apparently makes you feel better and turns you into a mind reader. The five kids with these powers, whenever they can't quite handle the situation, combine their powers to summon Captain Planet, the blue guy you see above.
As well as stuff about the plot, I heard a lot about how hammy and over the top and illogical it was, the last part of which strikes me as a real Well Duh! considering it stars a blue Superhero named Captain Planet, rings that summon fire, etc. etc.
So I thought 'Well Saraez, this sounds interesting. Why don't you check it out on Youtube?'
So I decided I will! Basically, I'll be illegally watching the first episode on Youtube, and you'll be getting my thought process as it happens.
So the first episode starts off promisingly enough, with a dramatic musical sting. I don't know quite how to describe it though. It's very dramatic however, trust me on that part.
Somebody, a male by the sound of the voice, starts narrating to the charming images of car fumes.
It goes something like this...
Our world is in peril. Gaia, the spirit of the Earth, can no longer stand the terrible destruction plaguing our planet.
This is what Gaia looks like btw. Character design is a little different from what I expected, but I think she looks fairly cool. Anyway, back to you Unnamed Narrator.
She sends five magic rings to five special young people.
*Name Saraez didn't quite catch* from Africa, with the power of Earth.
From North America, Wheeler, with the power of fire.
North America? By 'North America' do they mean Canada or the US? Actually, for that matter, what part of Africa does the guy whose name I didn't quite catch come from? And why does he look suspiciously white? Oh well. I guess I'll just pretend for now that Wheeler is a fellow Canuck, and that the African guy is from Egypt, because I don't know any other African places. Oh, and yes, I am aware that the image is a bit f*cked up. He was summoning fire at the time, OK?
From the Soviet Union, Linka, with the power of wind.
Soviet Union... Can you tell that this is an old cartoon? I just wonder if Linka is a valid name anywhere in where the Soviet Union used to be. And how many fart jokes get made about Linka and her 'wind' power.
From Asia, Gi, with the power of water.
Gi, by the way, is pronounced like 'Gee' and I only know its correct spelling from the Youtube commenters. Dear Lord, I hope there won't be too many horrible puns from her name.
And from South America, Matee with the power of Heart.
Sorry for the bad picture. Matee by the way, is surrounded by a burning forest fire in the clip of him, so I'm wondering how he manages to escape it using the power of Heart. Well I do recall from my readings that one of the characters was called Kwami or some such, so I guess it's the African guy.
And here we have all the team in its glory, including an actually black looking Kwami. But wait a second, where's Captain Planet? Well, let's get the Unname Narrator to continue!
When the five powers combine, they summon Earth's greatest champion, CAPTAIN PLANET!
OK, not a very helpful image I captured (I meant to get his face, I swear!) but you can see what he looks like with the picture at the top anyway. So it's OK, right?
THE POWER IS YOURS!
Alright, you can shut up now, Unnamed Narrator.
So here's the title of today's episode. A HERO FOR EARTH. Gi, I wonder who that could be. I also wonder how the story can be 'by' Nicholas Boxer, and yet written by an entirely different person.
So we see a cute bunny rabbit hopping through the forest and peaceful music is playing and-HOLY s**t A GREAT BIG MECHANICAL THING JUST STEPPED INTO THE PICTURE.
So from out of nowhere, a Giant Mecha that may not be entirely feasible in real life starts running around and nearly trods on a cute widdle bunny wabbit. So what is up with the Giant Mecha, the audience asks?
Well we get a shot of more mecha, and the sound of an evil laugh, which quickly becomes very unsinister when the laughing person starts snorting like a piggy-wiggy.
Well whad'ya know, it IS a piggy-wiggy! If piggy-wiggys were big, humanoid, ugly, with pointed elf ears, and orange mohawks. Hmm... I wonder if this guy is evil?
Anyway, Piggy-Wiggy then declares that with this 'land-blaster' he'll (At least, I presume it's a him...) be able to drill for oil anywhere. Personally, I think the mecha looks more like something an Anime fan would draw and think it looks cool then something you'd drill for oil with, but since I don't know much about the oil industry (Besides that it's apparently going to hell) I'll just take Piggy-Wiggy's word for it.
Piggy-Wiggy's sidekick, a guy who's ugly but in a more subdued way then Piggy-Wiggy and thus un-noteworthy, says, in an annoying squeaky voice, 'Yeah boss! Yeah!' His voice actually sort of reminds me of Meowth from the Pokemon anime dub, which is kind of weird. Although I haven't seen it in years, so who knows, the voice may be very different in reality. Anyway...
Oddly-Meowth-Sounding-Guy says 'Even in a wildlife santuary'. Now, for those of you who aren't watching the show right now, I would like to let you know that the machine is big, easily visible, and probably making a lot of noise. I think somebody's going to notice if they start drilling in a wildlife sanctuary.
Or not. Piggy-wiggy says, in a barely understandable voice, that by the time anyone gets there they'll have their tank full of oil and be gone. Still, I somehow doubt their mecha will be hard to trace. Piggy-wiggy then starts to dig for oil anyway, declaring that he'll be so rich, he'll be in 'Hog-heaven!' Whatever that means.
But all this drilling suddenly makes a crack form in the roof of a building!
It turns out, below the spot where Piggy-wiggy and Sidekick are drillin' for oil, Gaia's somehow got a dry, lit bunker where she lies fast asleep (Or dead, considering she's not snoring) on a comfy stone slab.
Then a drop of water falls onto her cheek from the crack, waking her up. Because apparently the VRRRRRRRRR sound of the drill isn't loud enough, but the sound of a drop colliding with her cheek is.
Well, if the drill and the drop weren't enough to wake her up, the leakage afterwards surely would have.
"My Goodness." Gaia comments. "Can't the spirit of Earth take a little nap?" Um, no? Well anyway, she uses her magic to seal up the hole and remove the water, then hops right back onto her comfy slab and falls asleep again, never realizing that the Earth is in the process of being destroyed right now while she sits on her lazy a**, napping instead of fulfilling her duty as spirit of the Earth... whatever that is.
Kidding, actually. After she seals it up and looks at it all smug, the leak opens up again. And Gaia is absolutely befuddled by this.
Hmm... What would be the more appropriate emoticon? =o OR O-O?
So she touches the great big mirror thingy in the background of the above picture. Rather then show anything helpful, such as 'There are two guys in a giant mecha drilling for oil above your bunker' it shows a drill pulsating with an evil aura, which I suppose could be helpful but I doubt Gaia is going to know the context.
Just as Gaia begins to wonder if the magic mirror is malfunctioning, it shows her the bottom of the mecha, and she gets the idea. "Ah." She says. "It's those poor silly humans again." I told them that mass genocide was a bad idea and they'd be getting a time out if they tried, but they didn't listen very well. I would have put them in the time out chair, but they looked at me with such big pleading eyes, I couldn't help but forgive them.
She then starts looking up images of polluted sewer water, coming to the conclusion that she must have napped 'too long'. But how long was she napping?
Judging from how she says, 'But how much damage could they do in a century?' (Um, Gaia has been in her current job how long?) she's been napping since... about 1870 or so, depending on when the cartoon is set. Although she didn't show much of a reaction to the mecha, so I have no idea what was up with that.
After flipping through a few more pollution images, she concludes that it's 'worse then she thought' and that 'Earth is dying'. So does she use her Gaia powers to de-evolve all the humans into relatively un-intelligent monkey-amphibians?
Nope, but hey! We wouldn't have much of a story if that were the case, I suppose.
So she floats the rings over and sends them out into the world. Oh, and for those of you marveling at the length of this entry? We're about three minutes into the cartoon.
First we see Kwami, farming in a wasteland in Africa somewhere. He finds the ring with one of his gardening tools. In Asia, Gi is playing with a dolphin, and she finds her ring after the dolphin spits it out. In the tough streets of Toronto, Wheeler comes across a thug about to beat the crap out of a hobo. Wheeler kicks the thug, and the thug runs away screaming at the sight of him.
Seriously. Apparently all dem Toronto bois know that Wheeler's one cool Badass ********' that you don't want to ******** with.
Anyway, the hobo's fire barrel spits out Wheeler's ring, which he then catches, apparently without being burnt by the hot metal, because I guess he's just that badass.
In the Sovient Union, Linka is standing at the top of a great big dramatic cliff playing a piano hanging around her neck, seriously, and a bunch of chirpy birds comes along, one of whom has the ring around its beak. And in South America, Matee scares off a leopard, like Wheeler, through sheer intimidation of just being there, rescuing a monkey, who hands him his ring.
They all try their rings on at the exact same time.
Instantly, through the power of MAGIC they are all teleported to a coastal location, including Matee's monkey for some reason. Although Wheeler's hobo doesn't tag along. Poor b*****d probably thinks he's a loony now that he saw Wheeler vanish.
Gaia floats over and greets them with "Welcome to Hope Island" having apparantly exited her underwater bunker since they're outdoors now. Wheeler then essentially says, albeit in a slightly annoying voice, "What the hell just happened?". We then flash forward a bit, presumably to after the characters stopped freaking out, as the Planeteers (The kids, I mean) proceeds to say, "OK, so let's get this straight for the audience. Your name is Gaia, and you're the spirit of the earth. And you brought us here to help us save Earth from being ruined. Did everyone get that?"
Linka wonders how a bunch of kids can help, but this perfectly valid question is interrupted because Wheeler decides this is the perfect time to hit on Linka. Eh, I can't complain because I'd probably end up imagining romantic pairings between the characters even if they did go the asexual route.
Gaia fortunately brings them back on track, and explains to them who has what power, which, is you've been following along so far, you'll probably be able to guess. And how do they use these powers? Well if Linka's demonstration is anything you can go by, you wiggle your hand and shout out "WIND" or whatever, and then "STOP" when you want to stop using these powers. So the rings are voice-activated and controlled. So I wonder, if I ripped out any of their vocal cords, would they be able to use their rings anymore? Do multiple languages work?
Actually that brings up another point: So far Gaia, Wheeler, Linka and Gi have all spoken fluent English, and Kwami and Matee show no sign of not understanding them, even though they all come from different parts of the world. Perhaps Gaia's rings are designed to seek out people who already speak English, so she doesn't have to explain what's going on to five different hysterical kids in five different languages.
Kwami tests his power, making a crack in the earth and sealing it, and Wheeler tests his, by setting a surprisingly large fire on the floor. Gaia is surprisingly calm about the raging inferno, and Gi extinguishes it with her power. Actually, for that matter she floods the place and soaks everybody except Gaia, who levitates.
And Matee's power... turns out not just to be mindreading in fact! In fact, he proceeds to use his powers to do the following:
1. Calm down his monkey
2. Make his monkey hug Wheeler.
3. Read everybody's thoughts.
4. 'Feel their feelings' whatever that means.
5. Psychically communicate with Linka.
Neat-o. Apparently Matee is, according to Gaia, the most powerful because without a heart to guide them the other powers are useless. So Gaia declares them the Planeteers, and they all cheer, because having powers is really cool, even if explaining it to their parents will be aaawkward.
After Wheeler proceeds to nearly set himself on fire again, Kwami suggests they practice their new powers. However, Gaia says "Screw sensibility, the audience won't want a training montage. We're already losing their attention!"
So they are told to go out, because a CRISIS IS AT HAND! Remember that Mecha we saw earlier? Neither do I. But it's off stealing oil, and...
OK, I don't know anything about the oil industry, but any idiot can tell you that that Mecha is an incredibly inefficient machine for stealing oil, judging from the crapton of liquid money it's shown to be leaking. Add in the whole 'loud and attention grabbing' bit, and the Planeteers really shouldn't have too much difficulty with these idiots.
Oh yeah, and according to Gaia, the names of Piggy-Wiggy and his sidekick are "Hoggish Greedly" and "Rigger".
o_O
Anyway, Rigger proves himself to potentially not to be a complete a*****e by asking Hoggy if the leaking oil's going to hurt all the animals by the coastline. Hoggy however, plays the villian and says he doesn't care.
So the Planeteers go flying off in their planet-plane, which apparently Gi gets to drive 'cuz she's the one with the driver's license.
I'm not entirely sure how a driver's license means you can fly small aircraft, but apparently in this crazy alternate 80s dimension it does.
Wheeler comments that it's been a very weird day. Gi, you think?
<Part 2 to come soon. It takes a while to upload all the pictures.>
<3
