Post #4 – Captain Planet and…..Adolf Hitler?

This week’s entry is about a Youtube video I discovered from a 1995 Captain Planet episode.  This one is guarenteed to stand out and raise some eyebrows because it features one of the most infamous and hated men through-out all history, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.  It warns against the dangers of hatred, as well as the dangers of nuclear warfare. The video embedded above is just the segments with Hitler from the episode “A Good Bomb is Hard to Find”, but if this interests you, the entire episode can be seen on Youtube here.

After travelling back in time to 1945,  Dr. Blight is demonstrating her atomic bomb to a group of generals in what appears to be a medieval castle, including a possible Josef Stalin look-alike, and a blatant Hitler caricature.  “Hitler” is impressed by a demonstration of the bomb and is to about purchase it, but the Planeteers emerge to intervene.  Hitler pulls a pistol on everyone, and tries to steal the bomb from Dr. Blight (who ironically expresses regret that she trusted him).  She trips, and accidentally sets off the timer for the bomb.  The Planeteers call Captain Planet to intervene, who becomes temporarily paralyzed by the hate and prejudice radiating from “Hitler”.  He manages to regain control of himself, and sends the bomb far out into outer space (and cracks one of his signature one-liners/groaners : “I’ve heard of neutron bombs, atomic bombs, even smart bombs, but there’s no such thing as a good bomb!”).  Captain Planet returns to see the Americans occupying the castle, and at the end of the clip the gang returns to the present.  It’s unclear what happens to Hitler.

One of the most striking things about this clip is obvious: it features Hitler.  Well, it isn’t exactly like Hitler – he’s missing the distinctive Charlie Chaplin mustache and he’s never mentioned by name, but for our intents and purposes he’s similar enough to be called Hitler.  A exact depiction of Hitler would be too upsetting to too many people, would distract us from the episode’s message, and might even be illegal in some countries.  But beyond that, it’s a very unusual episode because it treats prejudice and hate as a pollution of it’s own.  Captain Planet‘s episodes generally revolve around environmental topics, like the preservation of the ozone layer, of the importance of recycling.  It’s interesting to note that Captain Planet feels physical pain while in the fuhrer’s presence. Hitler’s hate is so strong it is a tangible, destructive threat to Captain Planet.  This isn’t the only Captain Planet episode to tackle the ‘pollution’ of hate, but it is certainly the boldest statement about it.

This episode is also very critical of nuclear warfare.  After the initial bomb test, a German scientist expresses his concern about that the toxic radiation that will poison the villagers.  ”Think of it as the weapon that keeps on killing”,  MAL responds.  In many ways nuclear weapons are ‘the weapon that keeps on killing’, the long-term effects are usually at least as deadly as the initial 24 hours of a blast, as we observed during the United State’s 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when the bombs were only a fraction as strong as the ones produced later during the Cold War.  In my personal opinion, the most likely doomsday scenario for mankind would be a nuclear war between two superpowers.  Captain Planet definitely nailed this message right on the head.

On a completely different note, a couple things about this episode really bothered me that I feel obligated to criticize.  First: this episode also gets on my nerves because the Americans are incorrectly seen invading Hitler’s castle, instead of the Soviets.  I also found the fact that Hitler is seen ruling from a castle to be fairly annoying.  In the writer’s defense, setting the episode in Hitler’s bunker wouldn’t be as versatile and would probably be a bit too depressing, but using a medieval castle instead is a little too silly.

Also, why did Captain Planet throw the bomb into outer space without any second-thought or remorse?  That may have been the most simple and obvious solution at the time, but he expresses absolutely no remorse that his solution to preventing the radioactive fallout from falling on Earth was to instead chuck it off into space for someone else, somewhere else to eventually worry about.  It seems to completely contradict everything the show stands for.  There could be a whole Captain Planet episode in the future devoted to convince people against doing what Captain Planet did.

It may surprise many people that one of the most hated men history is the subject of a Captain Planet cartoon.  Indeed, Hitler’s name incites a lot of strong emotions from a lot of people, and seeing him in a childrens show obviously appears to be extremely controversial and unlikely.  The writers took a massive gamble, but this episode turned out to be a very tasteful and bold critique against the dangers of excessive prejudice and nuclear warfare.

This week I commented on Carlyn and Katherine’s posts.

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