Ted Turner Decries 'Solid Waste' of Newspapers, Wants More Reruns of 'Captain Planet'

The Hollywood Reporter relayed that CNN founder Ted Turner granted an interview to Bloomberg TV Friday and unsurprisingly, he still aches to run CNN, where he wants to see "less fluffy news and more international news," especially about China. "Less talk, more news," he said. But he also still wants to run Cartoon Network, where he could bombard the children with his old eco-propaganda cartoon, Captain Planet:

As for Cartoon Network, Turner tells anchor Betty Liu, "If I had control of it, I'd put 'Captain Planet' on at a top time period so that kids would see the environmental superhero instead of just Superman."

Turner also believes that newspapers are an outdated pile of solid waste:

"You're chopping all these trees down and making paper out of them and trying to deal with all the waste paper. It's the biggest solid waste problem that we have."

This came up because Turner also said he "buried the hatchet," as Liu put it, with his old corporate foe Rupert Murdoch about 18 months ago. He dropped him a note the other day telling him he was doing a good job with the Wall Street Journal.

"He didn't write me back. He might not have gotten the letter," he says.

If you're too young to remember Captain Planet and his motto "The power is yours!" there is this press release from 1989 to sum it up:

"Captain Planet follows the adventure of five youngsters from five continents who have been assembled by Gaia, the Spirit of the Earth, to save the planet. Helping them in their mission is 'Captain Planet,' a super-hero who uses the power of nature itself -- including the unstoppable force of the earthquake, the irresistible onslaught of the tidal wave, the flight of the eagle and the electrifying shock of a lightning bolt. Among the threats they will face together are overpopulation, global warming, toxic waste, acid rain and the depletion of endangered species." -- From April 11, 1989 Turner Broadcasting System announcement of a new cartoon series.

The theme song had the words "Captain Planet, he's our hero / Gonna take pollution down to zero." Gaia the Earth mother was voiced by Whoopi Goldberg. The IMDb page is here. Memories of the show shared here.