Pretty much on the ball, except that I don't believe there's too much insidious indoctrination going on, except maybe "Beg your mum to buy our toys for you!". They're trying to sell a product to you, and to your parents. That product is their show, which they get paid for by advertisers. Toy lines and merchandising is just money in the bank. Parents that limit their children's TV time and monitor their programing... that's not their target audience. They're targeting the kids who watch a ton of TV and who's "busy parents" use it as a surrogate babysitter. They do quite a bit of painstaking research and test samples to find the best ideas that are both what the broadest spectrum of parents want or find acceptable and something that will be interesting to the child.
Of course, this breeds mediocrity and products sterile of originality or independent vision. Nobody ever created anything of artistic worth by trying to please everybody... which is basically what's happening. It was as true in our day as it is now.
Personally, I didn't care for Captain Planet either. Again, this show was just a cash-in on the "Earth Day" craze which was going around. At the time, it wasn't sure if it was just a fad or a trend. Someone saw an opportunity for profit, and cashed in. You find environment friendly messages in many shows today, but they're not nearly as prominent because it's no longer a new concept to the masses that would create such an opportunity again.
And honestly, that show was full of ^@#$. Thinking that Captain Planet's ecosystem only bore a vague surface recognition to our own. It didn't have anything to do with the way the world actually regulates itself is, and what effects our activity is having on it. Hell, science is still figuring this stuff out as it goes along... and it's not like science at the time was really correlating with CP either.
Having your kid watch Captain Planet as a means of teaching them how the ecosystem works and how to manage it is like trying to teach them about Homo Floresiensis by letting them watch "The Hobbit".
And considering how many YEC's are around, I'm still not sure if I want to blame the Flintstones for some measure of responsibility.
Originally posted by thefutureisuncertain
i learned about physics from looney tunes.....wille e. coyote vs roadrunner as an example....an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by another force......coyote runs off cliff....continues forward momentum(inertia)...until her starts falling (gravity takes over)....
Dude, then you learned physics wrong. I know it was a joke... but still.
Also... maybe it's just kinda the topic that got me thinking... but does anyone else think that the "livid" smilie should be renamed "Goku" or "9001"?
(btw: I never liked DBZ)
[edit on 2-2-2009 by Lasheic]
but the question is which one, the one with the Ape or the one based on the Movies 
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