Off Topic: Captain Planet slaughters the buffaloes for fun and profit

[J Lee]

Found this on the Internet this morning: It's a long piece on Ted Turner's western ranchland holdings and all the envornimnetally unfirendly things he is doing on them, despite his 15-year crusade as a protector of our natural resources, including, of course, ordering the creation of the insufferable "Captain Planet" cartoon series.


The story (http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020120-1417390.htm) is from the conservative-leaning Washington Times, so keep in mind they have their own issues with Ted over a lot of things besides this, and the story itself doesn't have any direct mention of Turner's "Captain Planet" crusade. But it just goes further in pointing out the hypocracy of the man who got Speedy and most of the Indian cartoons banned from Cartoon Network and still does the tommahawk chop at Atlanta Braves games (we don't know if Ted says any racially insensative things to his Mexican-American ranchhands down on the big spead in southwestern New Mexico, but based on his "PC for thee but not for me" attitude on environmentalism and Indian sensativity, odds are the answer is 'yes').

[Pulpman]

Ted Turner is a hypocrite and a nitwit when it comes to politics, but the man is a programming genius (when he doesn't let ideology go to his head, resulting in abominations like "Captain Planet"). I, for one, hope he is able to mount a comeback at AOL Time-Warner and save his old networks from Jamie Kellner.

Turner's selling out to Warner Bros. has been a real mixed bag. On the one hand, we wouldn't have gotten "Justice League" without the direct ties between Warner and Cartoon Network. On the other, Warner has gutted Toonami (for the time being).

[don Jaime]

You ever have buffalo meat? It is goo-ood. The burgers and a little jerky are all I've ever had, but they were fantastic, and I've been told by people who tried it that buffalo is steak is as tender as it is delicious.

[all41]

Turner is an absolute nut.
I don't know about sensitive remarks to ranch hands in New Mexico but he's a religious bigot.
At a CNN meeting on Ash Wednesday, he noticed people with ashes on their foreheads. He wondered aloud if they were "Jesus freaks" and told them they should be working for "Fox News".
The left preaches about the evils of so called "Hate Speech". The problem is that their definition of hate speech is essentially anything they don't like or agree with.
So as not to go too far off topic, Turner's corporate culture of "PC for you but not for me" attitude is still in full blossom at Turner cable channels...Cartoon Network not least of all.

[Matthew Hunter]

His atheist attitude bothers me...he will say nasty things about Christianity (and that comment about Ash Wednesday is only the tip of the iceburg, I have seen a compilation of his collected nasty religious comments one time, and some are worse than that), but he won't let a cartoon rodent poke fun at Mexicans. I don't mind him being careful about what he airs on TV, that's business for you, but he's such a hypocrite about it. If you're going to be politically correct, at least be consistent about it and don't make yourself look like a...well, as the Costello mouse would put it: "JACKASS, JACKASS!" And if Kellner's the one who made the WB so unwatchable, then I don't know if he's not worse...but I think maybe Kellner's a bit better behaved on a moral scale, even if his taste in TV sucks. What really bothers me, though, is that I can no longer watch a TV show and be sure that it will be on again next week, or that an old cartoon will still have a certain scene still intact, or whether a movie will still air...it's all so crazy behind the scenes. Everything is corporate politics, it doesn't seem to be about entertainment anymore.
-Matthew

[Matthew Hunter]

Oh, and buffalo meat IS good. I had a steak one time and it was delicious.
-Matthew

[killercroc]

It was a truly surreal experience. He was the keynote at National Wildlife Federation's annual meeting in 2000. He's going along talking about the environment and stuff and all of the sudden he says, "Talk about messing up the environment, a nuclear war would surely do that." Everyone in the audience cracked up, thinking he was joking, but he wasn't. He just looked bewildered.

This was right after the Jane breakup, and he seemed a tipsy. He tried to mingle with the crowd, but his support staff did their best to keep him from it. I guess they know he's wacky.