#Environmentalism · IMissIt.com

TV 1990–1996

Captain Planet and the Planeteers

When five kids from around the world got magic rings powered by earth, fire, wind, water, and heart, they could summon Captain Planet—a blue-skinned, green-mulleted eco-superhero bent on saving the planet from corporate villains and environmental destruction. Premiering in September 1990, the show became the unlikely flagship of early-90s kids' environmentalism, complete with a celebrity voice cast that included Whoopi Goldberg, LeVar Burton, and Jeff Goldblum hamming it up as cartoon bad guys. It was earnest, bright, and delightfully weird, with a catchphrase ("By your powers combined…") that felt genuinely powerful when you were nine.

Movies 1992

FernGully: The Last Rainforest

The Australia–US eco-fable where a logger gets shrunk to fairy size — with Robin Williams improvising as Batty Koda months before Aladdin, and Tim Curry oozing menace as the toxic sludge Hexxus. Modest in theaters, immortal on classroom VHS carts.

Video thumbnail — the original rainforest rap with lyrics

Trends 1988–1999

Save the Rainforest

For a stretch of the late 80s and 90s, American elementary school ran on rainforest content: canopy diagrams on every bulletin board, endangered-species reports in every unit, and the hypnotic "Rain Forest Rap" on the TV cart until entire grade levels had it memorized. Saving the rainforest was simply THE cause.