So I got to join the delightful peoples of Fan Fiction Comedy in their cracking show at this year’s MICF. It was great fun. I decided to write a piece about the greatest cartoon series ever created, Captain Planet and the Planeteers.
Here its, I hope you like it.
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Captain Planet 2020: No One Gives A Fuck Anymore
Gaia took a long drag on her fifth durry of the morning, scratched her crotch and stared out across Hope Island’s sludge-ridden beach. Somewhere in the distance she could hear a seagull choking on the plastic rings of a 6-pack.
Serves him right, little piece of shit, she thought to herself. She’d always considered seagulls to be the lepers of the avian world, always limping around and whinging like Nature’s arseholes.
If she was Mother Nature, then seagulls were her miscarriages.
Gaia hadn’t shaved her legs for months now, her armpits for years. What was the point? The world was in environmental turmoil, thanks to climate change, rampant pollution, lax government regulation and that guy who organized Clean Up Australia Day dying from Hep C.
The one day he forgot to wear gloves…
Everything had gone to pot. Gaia wasn’t even being voiced by Whoopi Goldberg anymore; Whoopi was just too busy saying weird non sequiturs on The View and contributing to global warming with all those Hot Topics.
The Planeteers had lost their way. Wheeler was now a pyromaniac with a crippling heroin addiction. Linka had become a mail order bride and had been sold to a rich property developer in Iowa. Their replacements in the team hadn’t proved to be much chop; sure, Al Gore seemed impressive, but he charged an exorbitant appearance fee for every mission they went on, and Bindi Irwin was just giving everyone the shits. She was always so passive aggressive towards Gi, even though Gi had clearly explained that her ring only allowed her the power to control the element of water, not the actions of all sea creatures.
There were other tensions in the group, too; Kwame had made it quite clear he didn’t trust Ma-Ti’s monkey Suchi, as he resented all monkeys for bringing the scourge of AIDS to his people. Gi had never forgiven Kwame for that drunken holiday he’d taken to Japan in January of 2011, when his Earth power ring got “stolen” and was “misused”.
Ma-Ti still hadn’t come out, even though Gaia had found that thick black dildo in his room.
“It’s…a weapon!” he’d said at the time. “After having nothing but this Heart power for all these years, I just want to be able to really fuck someone up!”
Gaia had just scoffed and retired to the Crystal Chamber to play Call of Duty, muttering “Stinking wetbacks” under her breath as she did so.
Because what not many people knew about Gaia was that whilst she was the mother of all living things and the essential life force of the Planet Earth incarnate, she was also crazy racist.
Kwame came running down onto the beach, calling out to Gaia.
“Well, if it isn’t Jay-Z,” she said.
“Please, stop calling me that, my name is Kwame and I have the power of Earth, because I am the black one.”
“I know what powers I gave to whom based on what slightly racist criteria, Martin Luther King!” Gaia spat back. “Now why are you bothering me? I was about to have a nature wank.”
Kwame ignored the beginnings of a stiffy and ploughed on: “Our pollution detector’s been alerted, there’s pollution approaching Hope Island!”
And sure enough, a huge ship suddenly appeared on the horizon, spewing forth putrid smoke into the atmosphere, leaving a thick black trail of oil behind it, all the while being fuelled by dolphin fetuses and the tears of caged chickens. As the other Planeteers – Ma-Ti, Gi, Al Gore and Bindi – joined Gaia and Kwame on the beach, they could see just who they were up against. Lining up along the prow of the boat were the worst Eco-Villians the world has ever known: the giant rat man Verminous Scum, Duke Nukem, Looten Plunder, Dr Blight (the evil genetic scientist who, although clearly evil, was still somehow sexually alluring, even to a 6-year-old homosexual growing up in Warrnambool Victoria), Sly Sludge (who was being voiced by Martin Sheen!!) and Hoggish Greedly.
Gaia had always secretly felt a bit sorry for Hoggish Greedly; surely, she thought, if your surname is ‘Greedly’, and you have a baby, and that baby looks like a pig, well…don’t call it Hoggish. That’s hardly giving your kid the best chance in life right off the bat, is it?
Perhaps this is why, in 2012, Hoggish had changed his name to ‘Clive Palmer’.
Surrounding the Eco-Villians were hundreds and hundreds of members of the Chinese government, because in the 21st Century, they were the big players in the pollution game and they had Looten Plunder by the balls.
Upon seeing the Chinese, Gaia shot Gi a death stare.
“Hey look, rice paddy – it’s Yellow Fever time!”
“Shut up, Gaia! Za’ is no’ ve-iy naice!”
“Hey Gi, whereabouts in Asia are you from again?” asked Al Gore.
“Zey have never been spa-cific!”
“Alright, Plane-Queeers,” snorted Clive Palmer as the giant ship loomed over our heroes. “We’re here to finish you CIA-funded bleeding-heart Greenies off once and for all!”
“Give it up you pathetic worms,” cackled Dr. Blight. “We’re going to destroy you like we destroyed The Body Shop.”
(The Body Shop franchise had been obliterated by Dr Blight and her cronies in 2015. Now everything was tested on animals, even if it didn’t need to be. Even pogo sticks! And butt plugs!)
“You’ll never defeat us, you polluting pricks!” bellowed Kwame.
Gaia nodded. “Rosa Parks is right! This is our planet and it deserves to be protected!”
Gi turned to the group. “What shall we do? Should we each in turn pointressry use our respective pawaas wis middring effect before inevitabry carring on za title character who fix all our problems?”
Verminous Scum scoffed. “No you bunch of retards, just get to the good bit! Sssssssssss!”
Kwame raised his ring. “Let our powers combine. EARTH!”
Gi joined him. “WA-TAH!”
As did Al Gore: “SLOW, TARGETED PROGRESS THROUGH STRATEGIC LOBBYING!”
And Bindi: “OBNOXIOUS ENTHUSIASM!”
And Ma-Ti: “HEART!”
Lazer beams shot out of the rings and entwined together in a sparkling orgy of awesomeness.
“WITH YOUR POWERS COMBINED…I AM CAPTAIN PLANET!”
“GOOOOOOO PLANET!”
The silver, green-mulletted, wise-cracking defender of the Earth rocketed into the sky and stared down at the vessel of Eco-Villians. They aimed their sludge and their ooze and their nuclear toxins at him, but he simply blew it all away by making a huge gust of wind with his mouth (which he secretly liked to refer to as his “blowjob power”).
“I’ve had enough of you big fat meanies; particularly you, Xing Xu Xen!” he said, pointing to the corrupt Chinese Minister for Environment. “Time to put a stop to all your high-falutin’ pollutin’!”
“You’ll never stop us, Captain Planet!” yelled Sly Sludge (who was being voiced by MARTIN SHEEN!!!).
“Oh no?” replied the superhero. “What if I use my greatest, most terrifying power of all?”
“What’s that, Captain Planet?!” asked Bindi, worrying it was going to involve stingrays.
“What’s my greatest power of all, Bindi? Oh I don’t know, just a little thing I like to call….THE CARBON TAX!!!!”
As the legislation rained down from the sky, Clive Palmer’s face exploded and Dr Blight got cancer and Verminous Scum withered and died and Looten Plunder became a junkie living on the street and Sly Sludge lost his voice. All the pollution on Hope Island and indeed the world instantly vanished and everyone started laughing and having sex.
“Gooooo Planet!” cheered the Planeteers. Even Gaia smiled to herself.
“You DID it, Captain Planet!” said Bindi, running over to her hero to give him a big fat hug as he softly came down to earth.
“No no, Bindi,” smiled Captain Planet, “we did it. Together. Remember, kids; the power is yours.”
“The power is ours?” said Bindi. “Do you mean the power to fly through the air and control all the elements and withstand swimming through lava and the power to communicate with animals and also superhuman strength and speed?”
“…well, no. But you can recycle. And let’s face it – that’s just as kick-ass.”
And then they all went to watch Widget The World Watcher.
