Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego

History, development and production

The need for the show was facilitated by the Children's Television Act. Said Andy Heyward, CEO of DIC in March 1994, "I would like to say that people felt it was a competitive property in its own right, but I think that Congress pushed it over the top." The script for every Earth episode had to meet the approval of Brøderbund Software, which created and, at the time, owned the Carmen franchise. Their cause for concern was the level of the violence on other FOX children's shows such as X-Men and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Brøderbund did not require this of the creators of the World and Time game shows that aired on PBS, presumably since PBS, as the creator of such shows as Sesame Street, had a long-standing reputation for non-violent, educational children's programming. As with the rest of the Carmen Sandiego franchise, the show's basic premise had the ACME Detective Agency attempting to stop the title thief and her V.I.L.E. gang from stealing artifacts around the world. Specifically, Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? followed the adventures of two teenaged ACME detectives named Zack and Ivy, who were also siblings, but their last name was never stated nor was their mysterious lack of parents or a guardian ever explained. Notably, the show was portrayed as taking place inside a virtual reality computer game of a live-action kid referred to only as "The Player." Although Earth took the premise of the series more seriously than the Brøderbund computer games or the zany World game show, most elements of the series, such as giving V.I.L.E. agents gag names ("Buck N. Bronco," "Dee Tritus," etc.) and having Carmen commit spectacularly impossible thefts, were faithfully maintained. However, Earth often showed how V.I.L.E. perpetrated such spectacular thefts, whereas the computer games left this to the user's imagination and "serious" villains, such as Lee Jordan and Dr. Maelstrom, were not given such funny names. The World game show also explained how such thefts were committed although their explanations were humorously nonsensical. Originally, episodes of Earth were quite similar to the typical "formula" of the computer games. An outrageous theft would be committed somewhere in the world and Zack and Ivy, guided by the Player, would try to retrieve the loot and capture Carmen Sandiego. Though the loot would typically be recovered, Carmen, who usually had some kind of "master plan," would always escape. At the start of the second season, time travel was added into the show when Carmen built her own time machine and travelled back in time to the American Revolution. Time travel would continue to recur throughout the rest of the show's run. However, this structure began to be abandoned as the writers started to explore the nature of Carmen's character. Early on, it was established that Carmen only stole for the challenge of it and that she had her own ethical code, but as it progressed, the show began to increasingly focus on her "good" side and on her weaknesses. By the show's fourth and final season, Zack and Ivy were regularly teaming up with their former nemesis to stop considerably less moral criminals from taking over V.I.L.E. and such. Nevertheless, the show never portrayed Carmen returning to ACME or giving up her thieving ways. Since they obviously continued to approve the scripts, Brøderbund apparently did not have any qualms about this direction, though they did not incorporate it into any of their games. However, the lead characters of Earth were featured in Carmen Sandiego Junior Detective, released in 1995.

Plot

Like the basic plot of the Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? line of video games, Carmen Sandiego and her organization V.I.L.E. have stolen items and it is up to the ACME agents Zack and Ivy (under the guidance of the Chief) to put a stop to her.

Main characters

Notable villains

As Carmen Sandiego became less villainous and evolved into more of an anti-hero, other characters began to fill her original role as the show's antagonist. The following villains are:

Cast

Players

Crew

Episodes

This is a list of Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? episodes.

Theme song

The opening theme song for the show is "Singt dem grossen Bassa Lieder" from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail with new lyrics, pop instrumentation and a backbeat.

Releases

On June 13, 2006, Shout! Factory and Sony BMG Music Entertainment released the first season on DVD. Due to poor sales, no further seasons were released. LionsGate Entertainment has released two of the show's three-part episodes ("Retribution" and "Labyrinth") as full-length direct-to-video films entitled "Carmen's Revenge" and "Time Traveler," respectively. A video of the episode "Timing is Everything" is included with some versions of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Treasures of Knowledge. On July 22, 2011, Mill Creek Entertainment announced that they had acquired the rights to the series and planned on releasing it in its entirety in 2012. They subsequently released Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? - The Complete series on DVD in Region 1 on February 21, 2012. This 4-disc set contains all 40 episodes of the series. They also released a 10 episode best-of collection the same day.

Critical reception

At TV.com, the show has a user rating 8.5/10 based on 137 votes. At imdb, the show has a user rating of 7.2/10 from 750 users. The show was given a rating of 4 stars out of 5 by CommonSenseMedia, noting that "the show’s format -- which includes trivia sessions, vocabulary and even the characters’ use of foreign language—is designed to pique kids’ interest in these subjects". DVD Talk said: "There's something quite special here, among the action and comedy that feel obligatory for a cartoon, and it's all in how intelligence is respected above all else. The writing staff wisely avoids a dangerous cliché. Often in a series of this sort, we'll get one smart character and one average one, the idea being the smart one will explain everything to the average one and, in essence, us, too. But in "Carmen Sandiego," both leads are cracking brilliant, the twist being that they're just experts in different things, explaining ideas to each other but never dumbing anything down. At last, a show that feels that instead of talking down to kids, you should treat them as the smart young folks they are."