Nightmare Fuel / Captain Planet and the Planeteers

Spoilers Off applies to all Nightmare Fuel pages, so all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

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General

• Sometimes, Gaia uses the Planet Vision to show the Planeteers the potential effects of what an Eco-Villain is doing to the environment. When the topics of nuclear meltdowns, war, and animal experimentation are shown, the Planeteers get to see some pretty crude things. Episodes like "Planeteers Under Glass", "A Good Bomb Is Hard to Find", and "101 Mutations" deal with such issues. The episode "Old Ma River" also had a short but still unsettling scene where Wheeler and local woman Lita explore a dark, run-down sewage treatment plant.
• Some episodes dealt with poachers. The writers did not beat around the bush about it. The Planeteers come across the mutilated carcass of a panther that was skinned and its body left to rot, and one girl is shown a box containing severed gorilla hands to be used as an ash tray.
• Most episodes with Verminous Skumm, whether he was trying to conquer cities with his rat army, or giving out drugs that warp people's minds causing them to go insane, and end up with fatal consequences.
• Dr. Blight is a sexy scientist... until you get a peek at the other side of her face, usually covered by her hair. The show pulls no punches in depicting how a woman with severe burn scars, including a missing eye, would look. However, she likely has a glass eye, since it's not always shown as an empty socket.

Season 1

• "Deadly Ransom":
  • Captain Planet is captured by Blight and Nukem, who shoot down the Geo-Cruiser right in front of him. Granted, we find out the Planeteers weren't inside it, but what thoughts must have crossed Captain Planet's mind? Considering how little he reacted to Blight's plan of dismembering him, he probably assumed the worst and didn't care what happened to him after. In fact, it's almost canon confirmation of the Fanon idea that Captain Planet sees the Planeteers^note several of whom have less-than-ideal family situations; special mention going to Wheeler's father here, as his children; ask any parent their reaction in that situation and few will deny that they'd be as devastated as Captain Planet was.
  • Earlier, upon seeing Captain Planet tortured by Nukem, Gaia reacts with a loud, terrified gasp, as she raises a hand towards her mouth and instinctively takes a few steps forward. Given that she usually manages to stay calm and collected in the face of a crisis, such a strong emotional reaction from her is a sure sign things are very bad. Especially since she does have all her powers at her disposal in this episode, yet still can't do anything to help her friend.
• "The Conqueror": When Zarm's earthquake shakes loose the remains of a missile silo right over Gaia and Ma-Ti, the two run for their lives. Soon, however, Gaia trips and falls to the ground, while the debris is still coming down all around her. The next shots – one particularly big block of concrete toppling over, and Zarm's crystal ball rolling into view by itself, as Gaia has let go of it – suggest she might have gotten crushed and buried under the ruins. The tone of Gi's voice as she calls out Gaia's name doesn't help.
• "Population Bomb":
  • Wheeler finds himself lost on an island colonized by a race of humanoid mice — like Verminous Skumm, but closer to the size of rats standing on their hind legs. Through overpopulation, they have devastated their island's ecology, and the mass starvation and corruption has led to their falling under the rule of a brutal fascist dictatorship, one that wishes to begin conquering other lands to feed itself. The island's dictator attempts to quell dissent by turning an experimental super weapon on his own people, and the result is a catastrophic earthquake that literally rips the entire island apart, killing the whole race.
  • The worst part, overlapping with Tearjerker, is when Wheeler fights his way through the island's death throes and the annihilation of the mouse-people race to try and rescue the kind scientist who kept him from being enslaved. Instead, the scientist and his family choose to die with the rest of their people, fearful that if they were saved, their own descendants might become despoilers in turn. He only warns Wheeler to remember the example of his race, and to prevent humanity from following the same road to disaster. And with that, the island comes completely apart, and the mice-people are consumed in fire, earth and water, leaving nothing to show that they ever existed.
• "Two Futures, Part 2": In the dystopian future, after failing to rouse the other Planeteers to reform the team, Wheeler decides to visit Hope Island and talk to Gaia. However, he first sees the island as a sleazy pleasure resort akin to Las Vegas or Atlantic City, and then finds Gaia's dead body surrounded by toxic waste. And then, Greedly shows up and coldly confirms it.
  Wheeler: Not you, Gaia! You're the Spirit of the Earth!
  Hoggish Greedly (from behind Wheeler): She WAS the Spirit of Earth. Past tense, kid.

Season 2

• "Mind Pollution":
  • Skumm corrupts the youth of Washington by selling them his latest concoction; a designer drug called "Bliss" that turns the user into a red-eyed, giggling zombie who feels nothing but joy, even as they badly injure themselves.
  • While Boris begs for more Bliss, in visible agony from withdrawal as he writhes and grovels on the filthy pavement, Skumm just sneers at him and mocks his suffering.
  • When Boris offers him Linka's ring in exchange, Skumm makes a counteroffer – bring him Linka and he'll set him up with a lifetime supply of Bliss. Boris declares defiantly that he loves his cousin and won't give her over to Skumm, to which the rat-man retorts that he can just continue in agony. Boris's gaze hardens and you can already tell what he's decided. He gets Linka hooked on the drug herself with a contaminated blintz, thus dealing with his lack of Bliss and her disapproval of his addiction at once. It's chilling to think that a person's mind can be so polluted by drugs that they will poison others with the same substance.
  • The scene where Skumm whips up his withdrawal-and-Bliss-addled victims into going after the Planeteers is like something out of a zombie movie; Wheeler even tries to ward them off with blasts from his ring, but is forced to stop because they just keep coming, and his only alternative is to burn them to death. The following scenes are played very much like a zombie film, with the Planeteers barricading themselves in the Capitol building and continuing to run until there's nowhere to go because the addicted mob just keeps coming.
  • The capper? Boris throws himself through a window to get at his cousin, cutting himself badly, then ends up dying on screen from a combination of blood loss and overdosing on Bliss.
• "Summit To Save Earth, Part 2":
  • Zarm shows the Planeteers a smog-covered Paris and some birds trying to escape. One unfortunate bird instantly dissolves into bones.
  • In the climax, Zarm forces the Planeteers to "fight" him one by one. When it's his turn, Ma-Ti gives Zarm a little speech about the Heart power. However, Zarm ridicules the boy and prepares to kill him, ignoring Gaia (close to dying herself) begging him not to do so. In short – Gaia was about to see her youngest Planeteer being murdered, and the other kids would have witnessed the deaths of their Team Mom and adoptive younger brother.
• "Utopia": A family watching a movie at home gets caught in a drive-by shooting. All that's visible of their bodies is their arms, but the spreading pool of blood makes it abundantly clear that they were killed.

Season 3

• "The Deadly Glow": Several people in a small village become contaminated by atomic cesium. This has actually happened in the real world due to simple human greed. In particular, this episode was based on the Goiânia accident. Even worse is that when the Planeteers found the kids, they were seconds from "seeing how it tastes".

Season 4

• "Talkin' Trash": Wheeler returns home in New York... and suffice to say that episode is just one fear after another. Notable incidents include Trish hanging from a helicopter and one of Wheeler's best friends being killed after "winning" a Game of Chicken.
• "Planeteers Under Glass":
  • Dr. Blight gets her hands on a virtual reality simulator built by another scientist to experiment on the variables pertaining to the environment's growth and destruction. Blight traps the Planeteers and the scientist in the simulator and goes completely to town on the virtual environment, before all her mucking around results in a nightmarish wasteland that eventually destroys itself. However, amid the destruction, from the ashes of a toppled, polluting citadel, rises some kind of... thing. A cybernetic mutant abomination, human on one side, twisted machinery on the other, with demonic mechanical wings, born from all the polluted, poisonous terrain. Silent save for the desperate mechanical whistling of rebreathers audibly failing to coax oxygen from the toxic air around it, the creature falls to its knees, then lifts its remaining fleshy arm to the heavens in a silent Skyward Scream of protest... before it turns to stone and dies, then crumbles into pieces. This abomination has no foreshadowing and just appears, almost as if it's an angel of death meant to bring about the simulation's destruction before dying itself.
    Dr. Blight: Wow... maybe I went too far. NAH!
  • Perhaps the worst thing about the cyber-mutant? It's not just the fact that it's recognizably still human despite its cybernetics, in a situation that had until then been filled with just bizarre, alien-looking animals. It's the fact that if you look very close... it's bristling with weapons, including a draping of bullets and a missile ready to fire. This isn't just the last human alive... it's giving us some all too terrifying glimpses as to just what had happened to humanity as it struggled to survive in this toxic hell.
• "'Teers in the Hood": In most episodes, it would be a villain planning on polluting the Earth, but this one takes a notable approach to real-life gang violence, by teaching the viewer the good way about how it ruins lives. In one scene during the gunfight, a teacher, Mr. King, gets shot in the process of trying to save a young boy, Ronnie, who sees the shadow of the shooter laughing evilly before running away. Later on, the shooter, Zap, attempts to kill both Ronnie and Ma-Ti by setting a building on fire over them. It culminates with the sister of one gang member admitting that Zap threatened to slit her throat if she didn't keep quiet, causing Gi to snap and attempt to drown Zap. It all ends as well as it could – Mr. King survives, and Zap is sent to court – but it's disturbing to watch Gi of all people try to murder someone in a blind rage.

Season 5

• "Numbers Game": Wheeler has a nightmare about being married to a pregnant Linka and having eight children. He also sees his fellow Planeteers telling him to stop having more children because he is consuming too many resources.
• "Who's Running the Show?": Blight, Greedly, Nukem and Skumm take over a TV station in order to broadcast eco-unfriendly programming. One of their children's cartoons has a dog's skull being opened up, and having radiator fluid being poured into it!

Season 6

• "A Good Bomb Is Hard To Find": When Captain Planet encounters Adolf Hitler and is briefly weakened just by being near him, you can hear the faint sound of people screaming in the background. Perhaps the Captain was hearing the prisoners of war and the concentration camps victims that died under Hitler's orders?
• "101 Mutations": Apart from Blight and MAL's gruesome treatment of sickly dogs, there's a cyclops puppy and a puppy with two heads, implying that they're inbred or results of some sick genetic experiment. Also, if Joey didn't have those snacks, he would have been mauled. And what if the dogs hadn't been rescued from the fire, or if Lady hadn't saved her puppy? Luckily they all made it out.

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