It’s Earth Day and most places are celebrating Earth Day this whole weekend. I care about the Earth, because I live here.

But when it comes to pop culture, it seems that “liberal Hollywood” has often done more harm than good in trying to make people more eco conscious. Being preachy, scaring people, and general ridiculousness I think have actually hurt environmental causes, while being real and not taking ourselves too seriously has done far more good.  This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I’d like to share some of my favorite and most memorable eco moments and franchises in history.  I’ve divided them up into The Good, the Bad, and the Weird/Ugly- for stuff that is generally unclassifiable or is awesomely bad or terribly awesome.  By the way, these are not meant as rankings- they’re just the order they popped into my fevered brain.

The Good

1. An Inconvenient Truth – for Al Gore’s reputation of being boring, he made a 90 minute powerpoint presentation entertaining and informative. While some have harped on this documentary for playing fast and loose with the facts, most of what Gore says is actually quite conservative compared to some scientists’ projections.
2. Futurama – speaking of Al Gore, his appearances on this show are masterful and funny. Al Gore’s head appears as the Emperor of the Moon to warn about global warming in Crimes of the Hot. This episode is also noteworthy for introducing one of my favorite side characters, Hedonism Bot. There’s also the episode where Leela tries to save the penguins on Pluto and Bender becomes a penguin.
3. The Simpsons – Both the Simpsons movie and many episodes are rife with environmental messages, most of them fairly ironic. From Mr. Burns winning an award for nuclear power being carbon free after years of radiological pollution to the episode where the Simpsons buy a wind turbine for their backyard and Lisa tries in vain to save a beached whale.
4. 30 Rock – Every year NBC tries to have a weeklong event of “going green” and every year 30 Rock hits it out of the park. Specifically, their episode where Jack Donaghy tries to “cash in” on going green by creating a corporate friendly environmental advocate named Greenzo (David Schwimmer). Oh, and once again Al Gore makes cameos– “A whale is in danger!”
5. Curb Your Enthusiasm – Larry David’s real life wife is/was Laurie David (they filed for divorce a few years ago), an environmental activist and board member of the NRDC. In Season 6, responding to Hurricane Katrina and saying “global warming did this!” they invite a black family to come live with them, eventually leading to Larry’s divorce. There is an entire episode about finding non-enviro friendly toilet paper because it is more absorbent, and in general Larry’s hijinks with Leon (JB Smoove) rank among my favorites in this incredibly good series.
6. Gasland – another amazing documentary, and one which I felt was deserving of the Academy Award this year. Far from preachy, this is fact-based and a little bit frightening. Having seen some of this stuff firsthand, I can testify to the reality of what goes on in the gaspatch.
7. Firefly – “Earth got used up.” is how Cap. Mal Reynolds explains the universe they live in. Kind of makes the case for sustainability, huh?
8. Wall-E – This is more just a beautiful film than anything else, but certainly makes the case for what life would be like with too much trash and the earth being so poisoned it no longer produced plants. Again, makes the case for sustainability.
9. Children of Men – Women have stopped having children in this dystopian vision of the near future. If there is another cause other than environmental, I’d like to hear it.
10. Bambi – This is not preachy, it has no agenda per se, it just presents the beauty of nature, animals, the forests. There’s also a distinct undertone of the disruptive and destructive power of man (he shot Bambi’s mother, after all!) but it’s nowhere as bad as the films we find in…

The Bad

1. The 11th Hour – Everything that Inconvenient Truth was, this wasn’t. So preachy, so much an attempt to terrify folks about climate change, and just generally not a good film.
2. FernGully: The Last Rainforest – I don’t know what’s worse: “>Robin Williams as a rapping fruitbat or Tim Curry as a pollution monster rhyming “acid rain” and “chow mein.”  Truly, truly terrible.
3. The Day After Tomorrow – What 11th Hour is for documentaries, this is for disaster dramas. I don’t know what has more holes- the plot or the supposed “science” behind it.
4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze – TMNT as a franchise has some definite earth-friendly themes. But this live action sequel was just too far. Featuring a music video cameo by Vanilla Ice and a message against toxic waste, it was offensive on too many levels.
5. Captain Planet – Ok, seriously? A cartoon about a superhero who protects the environment? And somehow actually manages to win despite having the worst superpowers ever. His enemies got so desperate they created “Captain Pollution” to fight him. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-fP1zqvfcE Yeah, it’s terrible. Not to mention the undertone of racism in the toon. Don’t believe me? Ok, the Planeteers were an American guy, a (hot) Russian blond girl, an Asian girl, an African guy, and a Brazillian guy. Their powers were earth, wind, fire, water, and “heart” and who got which powers? The good superpowers (fire and wind) went to the Aryan nation kids, while earth and water went to the African and Asian kids, and the Latino got the shaft with the power of heart. Even in the eco-friendly world, it’s always whites first.
6. Happy Feet – This one is just the worst of many examples of awful movies, ostensibly for children, with a heavy-handed and ridiculous eco message. You want kids to appreciate penguins and want to save their environment? Let’s watch March of the Penguins, or that youtube video of the laughing baby penguin. Just take them to the zoo and they’ll fall in love with them. If anything, this would turn kids off of liking penguins. I’m also looking at you, Surf’s Up, and you just barely didn’t make this list because of my love of Jeff Bridges.

The Weird/Ugly

Ok, these ones aren’t bad, per se. They might be misguided, or fallen flat, but can be enjoyed with a certain amount of kitsch or irony.

1. Dif’rent Strokes – 80’s sitcoms were the best at having “very special” theme episodes, and none was better at this than Dif’rent Strokes. While not as memorable as Nancy Reagan telling Willis and Arnold to Just Say No to drugs, and it’s not iconic as when Arnold almost got molested in the bike shop, there was an episode where Kimberly decided to wash her hair with rainwater and it turned green because of “acid rain.” httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GSkg1Mmo7Y
2. The 1990 EarthDay Special – ABC aired a tv special featuring tons of celebrities talking about saving the Earth. It’s like the Star Wars Christmas special of environmentalism- and both feature Bea Arthur! One of the best moments is when brother of the Ghostbuster Egon Spengler shows up- Elon Spengler of the Wastebusters. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-mK907DpKU
3. Waterworld – What a terrible movie, and so awesome in its badness. And apocalyptic in its warnings about the melting icecaps and covering the earth in water. Ok, prob not happening in our lifetime, but Dennis Hopper driving on a jetski!!!
4. Michael Valiant – Heroes on Hotwheels – I remember this VHS tape from when I was younger. All star driver Michael Valiant’s racing team was entering into an eco race- and they built flying cars based on magnetism!!! All right! And their opposing team used ethanol-based cars and then halfway through the race turned back into regular polluting fuel. Of course now we now ethanol is a wash with gasoline for being eco-friendly anyway. And then there’s also some people dumping toxic waste. I swear I am not making this up.  To prove it, we have youtube: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWQjh-YmP58
5. South Park – I get the feeling Trey Parker and Matt Stone care about the earth but just hate environmentalists. Usually the satire works- claiming “smug” emissions from driving hybrid cars is as bad as smog from regular cars? Ok, not true, but point taken. And then they impale eco-activist Paul Watson through the head with a harpoon, Stan takes over the Sea Shepherds, and Cartman sings “Poker Face.”
6. Audi Green Police – environmentalists are too often accused of trying to police people’s lives. This commercial takes that to the extreme, but I don’t mind the sentiment- because it shows that actually be environmentally friendly is fun, cool, and even stylish. And shows what most environmentalists will tell you- that we can do what we need to do using existing technology, and that being eco-friendly doesn’t mean using zero petroleum products (ie, this is for a high efficiency diesel car- which you could also convert to biodiesel, doncha know…) And it’s done to the tune of a prog rock anthem, so no arguments from me. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxTNZUhesZk
7. Crying Indian Commerical – Keeping with the commercials theme: This is a classic, and while heavy-handed, it’s worth remembering as more than just a reference the Family Guy made one time.  httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a7K2uCJvvg
8. Ecco the Dolphin – I played this game for hours and hours and hours on the Sega Genesis. A pretty fun game, but I never quite understood how it was teaching environmentalism when you had to fight/avoid sharks, jellyfish, etc.

I know I am missing probably a ton here. I didn’t even touch Swamp Thing or the Toxic Avenger because I just don’t know that much about them.

And the rest of you? What’s bad, what’s good, what’s eco friendly? Do you have a favorite preachy 80’s sitcom? An arc of a comic book? What am I missing?