New Adventures, New Studio.

1993 was the year Hanna-Barbera took over production of "Captain Planet And The Planeteers" from DIC. They renamed it "The New Adventures Of Captain Planet," and boy, were they new indeed.

While the DIC version was bold enough to air episodes devoted to drug addiction, gang wars, and even AIDS, I noticed the H-B version was a bit edgier. Prime examples were "Teers In The Hood," which had the team posing as high school students to investigate a shooting incident, and "Talking Trash," which was truly different. Here, Captain Planet was only there to put out a fire. For the rest of the episode, Wheeler was completely on his own as he patched things up with both his father, and his ex-girlfriend Trish, who'd changed her name to Trash, and joined a gang. I was completely astounded by all this, especially when Trish described the grisly death of fellow gang member Frankie. This, thankfully, happened offscreen, so I was spared the graphic depiction. The other episodes were memorable, too, like the premier "A Mine Is A Terrible Thing To Waste," which saw the return of Captain Pollution, who'd been destroyed outright in "Mission To Save Earth...." or so I thought. There was also an outstanding one that had Gaia ending up homeless, and learning from another woman how to survive on the street. Also introduced were a new set of villains, the aptly named Slaughters. There was also a bit of satire in the episode "Who's Running The Show?" The Eco-Villains took over a TV station owned by Fred Lerner(voiced by Ted Turner, the show's creator). The Planeteers entered the studio disguised as characters from "The Flintstones!" That was a riot! So these new adventures were definitely worth a look.

H-B also continued the ecological theme with the movie "Once Upon A Forest." All I ever saw of this film was the trailer. It did play here in Boston, but it was gone in, I'd say, less than a month. I never bought the video or DVD, out of concern of being disappointed.

So those are my thoughts on the Ecotoons of '93.

Trivia Question 5: What was unusual about the host of the game show "You Bet Your Planet?"

Answer: He was an alien.

For what it's worth, I have Once Upon A Forest in my DVD library. An animated feature film is expensive to produce, and though Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera had amassed some wealth from all their many animated series and theatrical short cartoons, they still needed sponsors for their pet project. Ultimately, they had to pitch the idea overseas, to Cymru / Wales of the United Kingdom. Of course, like Captain Planet, this feature had a "let's save the Earth" aesop, but it doesn't come across in a ham-handed fashion. Instead, a toxic spill threatens the life of a young badger, and her three young friends must journey far afield to retrieve medicinal herbs. While there is a musical number at the midpoint which is superfluous, it does give the three thorny, competitive youngsters a chance to work cooperatively to rescue Bosworth from a mudhole.

I get the reading that EmeraldIsle likes drama and depth to animated features. If so, then Once Upon A Forest has that. Definitely: it was nominated for the 1993 Annie Award, and it took the MPSE Golden Reel Award in 1994.

Actually, I think it was the other way round. In 1989 Rae Lambert, Head of Graphics at HTV (UK ITV region serving Wales and the West Country) devised and designed the characters for an enviromental issues tale called A Furling's Story. Mike Young (creator of SuperTed) then pitched this to Hanna-Barbera on HTV's behalf.

H-B planned to make it as a TV special, and retitled it The Endangered. But new H-B CEO David Kirschner, who had originally devised the plot and characters of An American Tail, thought it could make a feature, and got 20th Century Fox interested. It was Fox executives who changed the title again, to the more kiddie-friendly Once Upon a Forest.

Ah, so that's how it went. Rae Lambert and Mike Young are both known and acclaimed story craftsmen, and animated features almost always come down to "who's going to pay for this?" So, HTV had some funds set aside for project development, Lambert and Young had the concept and character structures, and Hanna-Barbera was tapped as a known and proven production studio. Thank you, sir, for setting my head aright; I knew about the pieces, but had the wrong idea as to how they fit together.