Phlogiston Theory

Early in the 90's, Captain Planet came to the rescue of many villainous ecological disasters with the help of the powers of his planeteers: Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, and Heart. The concept that all of these basic elements somehow combined to form something great was not solely invented by Hannah-Barbara screen writers. On the contrary, this concept has been around since the early 18th century. In fact, after these basic elements were thoroughly examined scientists began to turn their attentions to one of the processes that these elements were often involved in: combustion.
Combustion, matter catching fire or rusting greatly puzzled scientists of the 18th century. They noticed that when Wood burned, the ashes it created always weighed less than the wood it started out as. Because of this, they postulated that there must be some element that left the wood. This element was termed "Phlogiston" and thus the Phlogiston Theory was born. The theory stated that when an object was burned, or rusted, that the material that left was Phlogiston and the material that remained was the natural essence or "Calx". Although this theory is now well known to be false, it did leave left a lasting impression on the scientific community and, apparently, even made its way to the cartoon community as well.