History NightmareFuel / CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers

* "[[Recap/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteersS1E24And25TwoFutures Two Futures, Part 2]]": In the dystopian future, after [[TearJerker/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers failing to rouse the other Planeteers to reform the team]], Wheeler decides to visit Hope Island and talk to Gaia. However, he first sees the island as a sleazy pleasure resort akin to Las Vegas or Atlantic City, and then finds ''[[DeadAlternateCounterpart Gaia's dead body]]'' surrounded by toxic waste. And ''then,'' Greedly drops a WhamLine.

* "[[Recap/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteersS2E1MindPollution Mind Pollution]]": One of Skumm's scariest episodes has Skumm corrupting the youth of Washington by selling them his latest concoction; a designer drug called "Bliss" that turns the user into a red-eyed, giggling zombie who feels nothing but joy, even as they badly injure themselves. As for what else is scary about it...
** Boris begging Skumm for more Bliss, in visible agony from withdrawal as he writhes and grovels on the filthy pavement, all whilst Skumm sneers at him and mocks his suffering.
** When Boris offers him Linka's ring in exchange, Skumm makes a counteroffer -- bring him Linka and he'll set him up with a lifetime supply of Bliss. Boris declares defiantly that [[PlatonicDeclarationOfLove he loves his cousin]] and won't give her over to Skumm, and the rat-man retorts that he can just continue in agony. Boris's gaze hardens and you can already tell what he's decided. He gets her ''hooked on the drug herself'' with a contaminated blintz, thus dealing with his lack of Bliss and Linka's disapproval of his addiction at once. It's chilling to think that a person's mind can be so polluted by drugs that they will poison others with the same substance.
** The scene where Skumm whips up his withdrawal-and-Bliss-addled victims into going after the Planeteers. It's like something out of a zombie movie; Wheeler even tries to ward them off with blasts from his ring, but is forced to stop because they ''just keep coming'', and his only alternative is to burn them to death. The following scenes are played very much like a zombie film, with the Planeteers barricading themselves in the Capitol building and continuing to run until there's nowhere to go because the addicted mob ''just keeps coming''.

** Near the episode's end, Zarm forces the Planeteers to "fight" him one by one. When it's his turn, Ma-Ti [[Awesome/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers gives Zarm a little speech]] about the Heart power. However, Zarm [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech ridicules the boy]] and [[WouldHurtAChild prepares to kill him]], ignoring Gaia (close to dying herself) [[AintTooProudToBeg begging him not to do so]]. In short – Gaia was about to see her youngest Planeteer being murdered, and the other kids would have witnessed the deaths of their TeamMom and [[TheBabyOfTheBunch adoptive younger brother]].

** Perhaps the worst thing about the cyber-mutate? It's not just the fact that it's recognizably still human despite its cybernetics, in a situation that had until then been filled with just bizarre, alien-looking animals. It's the fact that if you look very close... it's bristling with weapons, including a draping of bullets and a missile ready to fire. This isn't just the last human alive... it's giving us some all too terrifying glimpses as to just what had happened to humanity as it struggled to survive in this toxic hell.
* "[[Recap/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteersS4E22TeersInTheHood 'Teers in the Hood]]": In most episodes, it would be a villain planning on polluting the Earth, but this one takes a notable approach to real-life gang violence, by teaching the viewer the good way about how it ruins lives. In one scene during the gunfight, the teacher was shot in the process of trying to save a young boy, and the boy sees the shadow of the shooter laughing evilly before running away. Later on, the shooter, Zap, attempts to kill both the boy and Ma-Ti by setting a building on fire over them. It culminates with the sister of one gang member admitting that Zap threatened to ''slit her throat'' if she didn't keep quiet, causing Gi to snap and [[BewareTheNiceOnes attempt to drown Zap]]. It all ends as well as it could -- the teacher survives, and Zap is sent to court -- but it's disturbing to watch ''[[NiceGirl Gi]]'' [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness of all people]] try to murder someone in a blind rage.

* "[[Recap/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteersS1E5DeadlyRansom Deadly Ransom]]": Captain Planet is captured by Blight and Nukem, who shoot down the Geo-Cruiser right in front of him. Granted, we find out the Planeteers weren't inside it, but what thoughts must have crossed Captain Planet's mind? Considering how little he reacted to Blight's plan of dismembering him, he probably assumed the worst and didn't care what happened to him after.
** It's almost canon confirmation of the {{Fanon}} idea that Captain Planet sees the Planeteers[[note]]several of whom have less-than-ideal family situations; special mention going to [[AbusiveParents Wheeler's father]] here[[/note]] [[LikeASonToMe as his children]]; ask ''any'' parent their reaction in that situation and few will deny that they'd be as devastated as Captain Planet was.

* "[[Recap/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteersS1E24And25TwoFutures Two Futures, Part 2]]": In the dystopian future, after [[TearJerker/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers failing to rouse the other Planeteers to reform the team]], Wheeler decides to visit Hope Island and talk to Gaia. However, he first sees the island as a sleazy pleasure resort akin to Las Vegas or Atlantic City, and then finds ''Gaia's dead body'' surrounded by toxic waste.

-->'''Dr. Blight:''' Wow... maybe I went ''too'' far. [[CrossesTheLineTwice NAH!]]

* "Numbers Game": Wheeler has a nightmare about him being married to a pregnant Linka and having eight children. He also sees his fellow Planeteers telling him to stop having more children because he is consuming too many resources.

* "A Good Bomb Is Hard To Find": When Captain Planet encounters Adolf Hitler and is briefly weakened ''just by being near him'', you can hear the faint sound of people screaming in the background. Perhaps the captain was hearing the prisoners of war and the concentration camps victims that died under Hitler's orders?

* Sometimes, Gaia shows the potential effects of what an Eco-Villain is doing to the environment on her Crystal Computer to the Planeteers. When the topics of nuclear meltdowns, war, and animal experimentation are shown, the Planeteers get to see some pretty crude things. Episodes like "Planeteers Under Glass", "A Good Bomb Is Hard to Find", and "101 Mutations" deal with such issues. The episode "Old Ma River" also had a short but still unsettling scene where Wheeler and local woman Lita explore a dark, run-down sewage treatment plant.
* Some episodes dealt with poachers. The writers did not beat around the bush about it. The Planeteers come across the mutilated carcass of a panther that was skinned and its body left to rot, and one girl is shown a box containing severed gorilla hands to be used as an ash tray.

* "[[Recap/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteersS1E5DeadlyRansom Deadly Ransom]]": Captain Planet is captured by Blight and Nukem, who shoot down the Geo-cruiser right in front of him. Granted, we find out the Planeteers weren't inside it, but what thoughts must have crossed Captain Planet's mind? Considering how little he reacted to Blight's plan of dismembering him, he probably assumed the worst and didn't care what happened to him after.
** It's almost canon confirmation of the {{Fanon}} idea that Captain Planet looks at the Planeteers (several of whom have less-than-ideal family situations; special mention going to [[AbusiveParents Wheeler's father]] here) as his children; ask ''any'' parent their reaction in that situation and few will deny that they'd be as devastated as Captain Planet was.

** The worst part, overlapping with [[TearJerker/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers Tearjerker]], is when Wheeler [[BecauseYouWereNiceToMe fights his way through the island's death throes and the annihilation of the mouse-people race to try and rescue the kindly scientist who kept him from being enslaved.]] Instead, the scientist and his family choose to die with the rest of their people, fearful that if they were saved, their own descendants might become despoilers in turn. Instead, he warns Wheeler to remember the example of his race, and to prevent humanity from following the same road to disaster. And with that, the island comes completely apart, and the mice-people are consumed in fire, earth and water, leaving nothing to show that they ever existed.

** The scene where Skumm whips up his withdrawal & Bliss-addled victims into going after the Planeteers. It's like something out of a zombie movie; Wheeler even tries to ward them off with blasts from his ring, but is forced to stop because they ''just keep coming'', and his only alternative is to burn them to death. The following scenes are played very much like a zombie film, with the Planeteers barricading themselves in the Capitol building and continuing to run until there's nowhere to go because the addicted mob just keeps coming.
** The capper? Boris throws himself through a window to get at his cousin, cutting himself badly, then ends up '''dying''' from a combination of blood loss and overdosing on Bliss.

** Near the episode's end, Zarm forces the Planeteers to "fight" against him one by one. When it's his turn, Ma-Ti [[Awesome/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers gives Zarm a little speech]] about [[KirkSummation the Heart power]]. However, Zarm [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech ridicules the boy]] and [[ShutUpKirk prepares to kill him]], ignoring Gaia (close to dying herself) [[AintTooProudToBeg begging him not to do so]]. In short – Gaia was about to see her youngest Planeteer being murdered, and the other kids would have witnessed the deaths of their TeamMom and [[TheBabyOfTheBunch adoptive younger brother]].

* "Planeteers Under Glass": Dr. Blight gets her hands on a virtual reality simulator built by another scientist to experiment on the variables pertaining to the environment's growth and destruction. Blight traps the Planeteers and the scientist in the simulator and goes completely to town on the virtual environment, before all her mucking around results in a nightmarish wasteland that eventually destroys itself. However, amid the destruction, from the ashes of a toppled, polluting citadel, rises some kind of... thing. A cybernetic mutant abomination, human on one side, twisted machinery on the other, with demonic mechanical wings, born from all the polluted, poisonous terrain. Silent save for the desperate mechanical whistling of rebreathers audibly failing to coax oxygen from the toxic air around it, the creature falls to its knees, then lifts its remaining fleshy arm to the heavens in a silent SkywardScream of protest... before it turns to stone and dies, then crumbles into pieces. This abomination has no foreshadowing and just appears, almost as if it's an angel of death meant to bring about the simulation's destruction before dying itself.

** And that isn't even the worst part of it. Crossing over with FridgeHorror, this episode shows that with absolutely NO desire for money or power, Blight is readily willing and capable of brutally murdering and torturing ''[[OmnicidalManiac every living thing on Earth]]'', and then casually preparing to destroy '''even more'''.

* "[[Recap/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteersS6E13101Mutations 101 Mutations]]": Apart from Blight and MAL's gruesome treatment of sickly dogs, there's a cyclops puppy and a puppy with two heads, implying that they're inbred or results of some sick genetic experiment. Also, if Joey didn't have those snacks, he would have been mauled. And what if the dogs hadn't been rescued from the fire, or if Lady hadn't saved her puppy? Luckily they all made it out, but then there's the FridgeHorror that some of the sicker dogs would be euthanized.