#Mr planet series

For these efforts and others, in 1997, Pyle became the first media figure to receive the Sasakawa Environment Prize, which is awarded by the United Nations.

#Mr planet series

A decade earlier, Pyle had produced “The Day of Five Billion,” a television special about the moment when the population of the Earth would exceed that number while “Captain Planet” was on the air, she also helmed “People Count,” a documentary series that profiled individuals working to improve their communities. Kids around the world thought of themselves as Planeteers. Each ring grants its bearer the ability to control an associated element at will (Heart summons a mixture of kindness and telepathy) meanwhile, the kids can “summon Earth’s greatest champion, Captain Planet” using “their powers combined.” Captain Planet’s only weakness is pollution itself his stated purpose, as the theme song says, is to “take pollution down to zero.”ĭuring its run, from 1990 to 1996, “Captain Planet” aired in more than a hundred countries. In the show’s mythology, Gaia, the spirit of the Earth, has sent five magic rings-representing Earth, Wind, Water, Fire, and Heart-to five young people around the globe. Captain Planet, by contrast, is summoned by committee.

Pyle went on to co-create and develop the animated television show “Captain Planet and the Planeteers.” Superheroes are usually bachelors who act alone, then retreat to their caves. Pyle recalls asking Turner what he meant, and he replied, “That’s your problem.” One day in the late nineteen-eighties, the media mogul Ted Turner suggested an idea for a television show to Barbara Pyle, who was at that time Turner Broadcasting’s vice-president of environmental policy.