Captain Planet and the Planeteers/Trivia


 * Adored by the Network: Ted Turner loved this series. This played a part in how Swat Kats got Screwed by the Network (though there were other issues at work there.)
 * The Danza: Joey Dedio as (Joey) Wheeler.
 * Fake Russian: Linka's American Voice Actors, Kath Soucie.
 * Not to mention that "Linka" isn't even a valid Russian name.
 * It could conceivably work as a nickname; you might call a girl named Galina "Linka", for example. But yeah, as a proper name, it's more West Slavic.
 * Well, the opening said she was from 'The Soviet Union' at first and then 'Eastern Europe' in later seasons, so she was most likely from one of the Soviet satellites.
 * Hey, It's That Voice!: The celebrity voices were usually played up, but some of them required a more careful ear: for example, Tom Cruise was Captain Planet for the first few episodes before leaving the series.
 * Funny Aneurysm Moment: The HIV-stricken teen Todd was played by Neil Patrick Harris, who did the role for now-obvious reasons (he also had his "mother", the late great Elizabeth Taylor).
 * Ma-Ti: Scott Menville, who would go on to voice Robin, Lloyd Irving, young Albedo, and some random faceless Mooks.
 * In Brazil, Ma-Ti is Tintin. Kwame is Numbuh One; Linka is Dot Warner.
 * Suchi, Ma-Ti's annoying monkey companion, was also Megatron. Make of this what you will.
 * Kwame: LeVar Burton. Geordi La Forge. KUNTA. KINTE. That guy from Reading Rainbow.
 * Gi: Janice Kawaye. She's also XJ-9 and Ami and Yuzu.
 * Linka is Kath Soucie, better known as Tish from The Weekenders, and has an extensive voice acting career in both animation and video games.
 * Fittingly, the German dub had Captain Planet with Dean Cain's regular dubbing voice, thus making him another superhero. Spain, however, has Kwame as the 1948 Superman.
 * The show also featured Jeff Goldblum as Verminous Scumm, Whoopi Goldberg as Gaia, Martin Sheen as Sly Sludge, John Ratzenberger as Rigger, Meg Ryan as Dr. Blight, James Coburn as Looten Plunder, and Ed Asner as Hoggish Greedly. Oh, and a guy named Tim Curry was the voice of MAL after the first season. However, many of these celebrities only voiced their characters for the first season and cheaper replacements handled them for the rest of the show's run. For example, Sly Sludge was given to Jim Cummings and Dr Blight was given to Mary Kay Bergman.
 * Zarm, the god of chaos and pollution, was Sting, then David Warner, then Malcolm MacDowell!
 * Tony Jay voices a Yeti.
 * Al is Duke Nukem (not that Duke Nukem, though).
 * In the Japanese dub:
 * Captain Planet is Jiraiya and Yazan Gable
 * Joey is Trowa Barton
 * Linka is Sailor Venus
 * Ma-Ti is Mei Kusakabe
 * Gaia is Michiru Saotome
 * Dr. Blight is Haman Kahn
 * Name's the Same: This show's Duke Nukem shares a name with the video game series Duke Nukem, which stars a human by the same name..
 * Also Joey Wheeler from the planeteers shares his name with another famous character named Joey Wheeler.
 * The Other Darrin: Whoopi Goldberg was replaced in Season 3 by Margot Kidder.
 * What Could Have Been: In one episode we actually see that under very specific conditions, it was possible to have a Captain Planet without all five of his elemental superpowers (in this example he only had the powers of Earth and Heart, due to their ring-bearers being trapped on a spaceship). This caused the usual Deus Ex Machina Captain Planet to actually think strategically as he couldn't do everything he normally could . . . . sadly, this concept was never revisited beyond this one episode, but various partial power Captain Planets could have been an interesting concept to expand on.

Miscellaneous trivia

 * A producer was unsatisfied with a number of facial designs for the Captain until one of the artists finally submitted the producer's face as a joke... and to make a longer story shorter, that is why Captain Planet looks like Mr. Boxer (though one would suspect the latter never had a green mullet or the superhero musculature).
 * The episode "Whoo Gives A Hoot" had Looten Plunder win at the end.