![]() In 1987, five years before "A Formula for Hate" aired, the family home of the Ray brothers, hemophiliacs aged 8 through 10 infected with HIV from contaminated blood products, had been torched by arsonists furious at the Ray family's legal efforts to enroll their children in a local Florida school. Many were healthy enough to attend daycare facilities and schools raising concerns among parents and educators at a time in which little was known about the communicability of the virus. At the time of the episode's broadcast in 1991, an estimated 3000 children were infected with the virus in the United States (1). The twenty-minute episode ends with a brief sermon by Gaia and the program's familiar refrain, " Remember the power is yours!" This episode is one of the earliest occasions that a cartoon addressed the issue of HIV/AIDS directly to children, broadcasting a message of compassion and understanding. ![]() The Planeteers and Captain Planet stage a rescue and bring him to a basketball game in which they educate the public on the realities of HIV transmission. Following a hallucinogenic sequence of tormenting dreams, he makes the decision to return home and face his bullies only to discover his canoe has drifted away thanks to Skumm. ![]() Let's make this quick: Todd, bullied by his classmates and rejected by his community, makes a baffling choice to … wait for it … escape by canoe to a bayou swamp cabin. Skumm has "discovered the formula for hate" and has discovered a foolproof plan for world domination. And once it spreads far enough, we can take over the earth. If they don't think, they stay stupid about AIDS and it can spread. Once we let people know the kid has AIDS, we can panic the whole town. Meanwhile in his sewage lair, Skumm makes photocopies of Todd's face with the word AIDS in bright red letters splashed across it, a sort of scarlet photocopy. Whoa now! Can we say HIPAA violation? In the episode, Todd's physician explains to the young man and his mother - shakily voiced by guest star Elizabeth Taylor, the actress and longtime AIDS activist who passed away in 2011 - that HIV is spread through "using drugs with needles, unprotected sex or from that blood transfusion you had a few years back," surely a pivotal, uncensored moment in children's animated cartoons. Skumm has broken into a physician's office, rifled through patient medical records and chanced on Todd's record and his recent HIV diagnosis. ![]() The plot rundown is as follows: Verminous Skumm, one of the hallmark villains of the series, has discovered that a high school basketball star by the name of Todd Andrews, voiced by Neil Patrick Harris!, is infected with HIV. The 11th episode in the third series of the six-year program aired an episode, "A Formula for Hate," on Novemthat focused on a HIV-infected youngster rejected by his community. The quintet also found time to spread a public health message and drop some HIV/AIDS knowledge on its young viewers. Protecting the various ecosystems of the planet from floridly named villains - including Hoggish Greedly, Sly Sludge, Looten Plunder, and Duke Nukem - were not the only weekly missions encountered by the Planeteers. Image: 1990 Program TBS Productions, Inc. Captain Planet and the Planeteers title card from the first episode. ![]()
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