Captain Planet and the Planeteers Wiki
Register
Advertisement
The Ark
Season 02, Episode 06
TheArkBlight (22)
Dr. Blight preparing to run over The Planeteers
Air date October 19, 1991
Episode guide
Previous
The Predator
Next
Isle of Solar Energy

The Ark is the sixth episode in the second season of Captain Planet and the Planeteers.

Main Characters[]

The main characters featured in this episode are:

Plot Synopsis[]

 While the Planeteers are trying to stop Greedly and Dr. Blight's deforesting golf cart from turning the Indian rainforest into a golf course, an Indian community goes against the Planeteers' wishes, since Greedly paid them. That night, while the Planeteers and an Indian tiger tracker named Mohan try to save the tigers, two of the tigers and the Planeteers and Mohan are taken out of nowhere. The Planeteers exchange greetings with a strange creature, a 70,000-year-old alien named Klek-torr (pun on the word: Collector), and realize they are aboard an intergalactic menagerie on her spaceship, which she calls the "Space Ark ". The notice the place has many magnificent and extinct animals from several worlds including Earth. Among the extinct (due to anthropogenic threats) creatures present in the exhibits are the mammoth, mastodon, giant ground sloth Megatherium americanum, woolly rhino, saber-toothed tiger, giant monitor lizard Megalania priscus, dodo, great auk, elephant bird, and passenger pigeon. But as the Planeteers get acquainted to the place they soon realize that they are not visitors, but a collection.

Episode Summary[]

None yet.

Planeteer Alerts[]

First Planeteer Alert
Alert

Gaia: Zoos are one way of preserving endangered species, but the best way is to protect the habitats where these animals live.
Linka: Even our homes are built in wild animals' territory.
Ma-Ti: So if you want your yard to be an animal sanctuary, leave an area uncut.
Kwame: Trees and brush provide shelter and food to animals, such as birds and foxes.
Gi: By building a blind, you can watch them, but they're wild and can be dangerous.
Captain Planet: We can live at peace with all of Earth's creatures. The power is yours.

Second Planeteer Alert

Captain Planet: I'm Captain Planet.
The Planeteers: And we're Planeteers!
Captain Planet: You can be a Planeteer, too, by helping to make our world a better place to live for everyone who shares our planet.
Ma-Ti: Including our wild animal friends, like Sneezer, who are being killed to make jewelry, souvenirs and fur coats.
Gi: So tell your friends NOT to buy things that required an animal to give its life.
Gaia: We must unplunder our planet.
Captain Planet: The power is yours!

Significant Moments and Facts[]

•The 'elephant bird' whom Linka points out has more the physique of the moa, Dinornis maximus, another extinct giant flightless bird, from New Zealand. The actual elephant bird, Aepyornis titan, was bulkier, slightly shorter in height, and lived in Madagascar. Also, the great auk is not to scale with it; the auk should be only about a sixth of the moa's height, rather than a third.

•The correct name for the saber-toothed 'tiger' is saber-toothed 'cat'. Smilodon fatalis, the type species, was not closely related to tigers.

•The 'mastodon' whom Klek-torr points out in her Ice Age exhibit is actually the shovel-tusker Platybelodon grangeri (rather than Mammut americanum, the familiar American mastodon), another extinct relative of the elephant. Platybelodon lived during the late Miocene, around 9 million B. C. E. (which means that its extinction had nothing to do with humans). Furthermore, the raccoon-like mammal seen alongside some of the alien creatures resembles the arctocyonid mammal Chriacus, from about 55 million B. C. E.. Klek-torr claims to be no older than '70,000', but given what her exhibit features, she is clearly much older than this. It's possible that on her home planet, organisms age about 50 million times more slowly than they do on Earth. Perhaps Klek-torr is actually 60 million (in Earth years), and not 'only 70,000', as she claims. This way, it would still make sense for her to say that dinosaurs were 'a few million years before her time', since they became extinct in 65 million B. C. E. (birds have survived to the present day). Wheeler asks Klek-torr if she says any dinosaurs; she apparently doesn't realize that birds are descended from theropod dinosaurs. Also, she has actually been exploring the galaxy for millions of Earth's years, not just thousands. As Klek-torr collected the various animals, she presumably fed them things from her planet that slowed their aging, as well, beginning after they'd reached adulthood.

*A pun on "My, I've seen".

Sources:

•Cox, Barry et al. "Birds". The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Creatures: A Visual Who's Who of Prehistoric Life, illustrated by Malcolm Ellis, edited by Douglas Palmer, 2013 edition. 1998, Marshall Editions Ltd., pp. 176 and 178.

•Cox, Barry et al. "Mammals". The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Creatures: A Visual Who's Who of Prehistoric Life, illustrated by Steve Kirk et al., edited by Douglas Palmer, 2013 edition. 1998, Marshall Editions Ltd., pp. 222, 234, 240, and 287.

•Day, David. "Birds". The Doomsday Book of Animals: An illustrated account of the fascinating creatures which the world will never see again, 1981, The Viking Press, pp. 67-68.

•Day, David. "Mammals". The Doomsday Book of Animals: An illustrated account of the fascinating creatures which the world will never see again, 1981, The Viking Press, page 220.

Quotes[]

Mohan: I am the best tiger tracker this forest will ever see.

Wheeler: Mohan, you're the last tiger tracker this forest will ever see. Their home is history.

Mohan: Do not worry. The tigers will be fine in a zoo.

(he departs, and Gaia appears)

Gaia: (to the Planeteers) I wish that were true. But the truth isn't so pretty. Take a look at your Planet Vision.

(she shows them an image of a pair of tigers in a zoo, with their natural habitat roughly recreated)

Linka: Kaneshna!

Gaia: A good zoo tries to recreate the animals' natural home. But if all the wilderness is destroyed, these magnificent animals...

(she shows them an image of at least seven tigers in another zoo, in a bare, concrete cage)

Gaia: ...will end up in cramped, concrete prisons. Still, for the tigers of this forest, it's this--or extermination.

Gi: (notices the alien creatures featured in an exhibit on Klek-torr's spaceship, the Space Ark) You must have incredible animals from hundreds of worlds!

Klek-torr: Not as many as you think, Gi. Of all the miracles in the Universe, the rarest is life. That's why it's so precious to me. And even where life occurs, it is not always secure.

Wheeler: (of Klek-torr's Ice Age exhibit) Klek-torr, this is way cool! Hey, you got any dinosaurs?

Klek-torr: A few million years before my time. Wait a minute. How old do I look? I'm only 70,000, you know.

Gi: You don't look a day over 40,000.

Klek-torr: Well...thanks, Gi.

Klek-torr: (points out another exhibit of hers, which features extinct birds) This exhibit came from my last trip to Earth, 400 years ago.

Linka: Look! A great auk! An elephant bird! A passenger pigeon!

Ma-Ti: Linka's hobby is birds, Mohan. She knows them all.

Linka: Oh, and a dodo!

Wheeler: (laughing) Good name for it! What a dumb-lookin' thing!

Linka: Oh, nyet, Wheeler. It is...most beautiful. I never thought I would see any of those birds alive. They were hunted to extinction years ago.

Gallery[]

Advertisement