If you are a 90's kid like me, you'll probably remember this theme song:
"Earth!! Fire!! Wind!! Water!! Heart!! When you powers combine...I AM CAPTAIN PLANET!!"
"Captain Planet...he's our hero....gonna take pollution down to zero...He's our powers magnified and he's fighting on the planet's side"
Looking back, I'm pretty sure being a "Planeteer" was far more fun than being a "Belieber" or whatever other things teenagers are into these days.
The reason for this sudden nostalgia? Well, watching the re-run of this cartoon a few days back made me realize how simply and elegantly it gets the message of saving the environment into my mind, something beyond the scope of any Environmental Studies textbook. Sure as an adult, you do see the scientific inaccuracies and the blatant stereotyping, but then again, that's not what the 8-10 year-old me saw. Who would've thought that such "heavy concepts" could actually be made fun? It also brought about the idea of people from different corners of the world with different powers could come together to fight a mutual opponent. It essentially introduces you (somewhat metaphorically) to some of the changes that are either under way or need to be made to find solutions to some of the biggest threats facing humanity today.
I may have talked only about Captain Planet here, but there were just so many more, it wouldn't be possible to include them all here. So here's to a generation fortunate enough to grow up in an era of such meaningful cartoons. Trust me friends, do revisit your favorite cartoons some day. I did, and was surely pleasantly surprised.
