About

Planeteers Calling Captain Planet is an exploitable object-labeling meme featuring stills from the 1990s animated TV series Captain Planet and the Planeteers. The image depicts the Planeteers, which represent Earth, Fire, Wind, Water and Heart, summoning Captain Planet, with the meme typically labeling different characters in the image macro with different things that combine to make one thing.

Origin

The animated television show Captain Planet and the Planeteers aired in the United States from September 1990 until December 1992. The show followed an environmentalist theme, with five "Planeteers" using rings to summon the elements of Earth, Fire, Wing, Water and Heart in order to summon the superhero Captain Planet (seen below).^[1]

The earliest known use of the meme depicting this scene is an August 19th, 2016, meme posted to Imgur^[2] by ADMIRALKITTENs in which Captain Planet is depicted as a cup of instant noodles. The post gathered over 50,000 views in seven years (seen below).

Spread

On February 28th, 2019, Redditor^[3] /u/HarrySheepy87 posted a meme to /r/MemeEconomy in which the Planeteers were labeled "opioid, meth, incest, guns and illiteracy" and Captain Planet was labeled "Alabama." The post gathered over 500 upvotes in four years (seen below, left). On June 22nd, 2019, Imgur^[4] user ICapitalizeTheBeginningOfEveryWord posted a meme in which Captain Planet was depicted as Dean Winchester from the CW television show Supernatural and the Planeteers were labeled with various characteristics representative of him. The post gathered over 72,000 views in four years (seen below, right).

On September 13th, 2019, Imgur^[5] user @unsafetydance posted a series of memes including one in which Captain Planet was labeled as the Soviet Union, gathering over 100,000 views in four years (seen below, left). On September 21st, Imgur^[6] user @skapanda616 posted a version of the meme in which Captain Planet was labeled as "Conservative Memes," gathering over 500 views in four years (seen below, right).

Template

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References