The Complete Run Of Captain Planet Is Finally Getting A Physical Release

If you’re one of the many folks who have been experiencing superhero fatigue in recent years, it may actually be that it’s not the superheroes themselves that you’re tired of. Instead, it might simply be that you’re over all these empty spectacles that don’t have anything to say. Entertainment is good, but entertainment with substance is better. Fortunately for you, the complete run of the early 1990s cartoon Captain Planet, including all six seasons, is being released on DVD for the first time on October 15. Preorders are live now at Amazon.

$77

The spirit of the Earth, Gaia (Whoopi Goldberg), has awoken at the end of the 20th century and is pretty unhappy with the way human civilization seems intent on exploiting the Earth as much as possible without any regard for the health of the environment or of the people who have to live in it. Gaia attempts to correct this by giving a group of teens, one from each continent, superpowers that will allow them to fight against pollution and summon Earth’s greatest defender, Captain Planet.

There is no info about any extra features on this DVD set, so don’t expect much from them beyond the episodes themselves. And while you may be tempted to hold out for a Blu-ray edition, that seems unlikely–there have never been any official HD editions of Captain Planet, and streaming copies that are available are all in SD quality only. For the foreseeable future, this DVD set will be the definitive release of the Captain Planet series when it launches on October 15. It’s currently priced at $77 on Amazon, but the preorder price typically drops before release–if you order now, Amazon will give you the lowest price that it hits before launch day.

Captain Planet is remembered fondly today for its very pointed endorsements of environmentalism and environmentalist efforts in the real world–it may be that Captain Planet would be much more difficult to get off the ground in the present day, given how politicized the discussion over man-made climate change has continued to grow in the decades since Captain Planet first aired.

Captain Planet premiered in 1990 with a pretty star-studded voice cast, which included Whoopi Goldberg, Meg Ryan, Martin Sheen, Jeff Goldblum, LeVar Burton, Ed Asner and Dean Stockwell. The series ran for six years, though technically it’s split into two different shows–Captain Planet and the Planeteers for the first three seasons, and then The New Adventures of Captain Planet for the final three seasons. The reason for the split is that Hanna-Barbera took over production after Season 3, and so the distinction is mostly a legal one.

And here’s a fun nerd fact: one of the many villains in Captain Planet is a character called Duke Nukem. This particular baddie is pretty much just The Thing from the Fantastic Four and has no relation to the video game character that was created around the same time the series premiered. There’s actually a version of the original Duke Nukem game in which he’s called Duke Nukum because of this–but since the Captain Planet villain hadn’t been trademarked, the video game protagonist got to keep his original name.