Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?


Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? is a 1994-1999 American animated television series based on the series of computer games. The show was produced by DIC Productions L.P. and originally aired Saturday mornings on FOX during the Fox Kids Network block.
The series won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Animated Program in 1995 and in the same year was spun off into a Where in the World-styled video game entitled Carmen Sandiego Junior Detective. Its theme tune bears a close resemblance to the chorus 'Singt dem großen Bassa Lieder' from Mozart's opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail.

History

Production and broadcast (1994–1999)

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 distributor of such shows as Sesame Street, had a long-standing reputation for non-violent educational children's programming. The lead characters of Earth were featured in Carmen Sandiego Junior Detective, released in 1995. 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. The Rainbow Animation Group, and Han Yang Productions contributed some animation for this series.

Home media releases

originally released the series on VHS through their Fox Kids Video label, which contained two episodes each.
In November 2001, Lions Gate Home Entertainment and Trimark Home Video released two VHS tapes titled "Carmen's Revenge" and "Time Traveler," consisting of the show's three-part episodes in a feature-length format. "Time Traveller" was also released on DVD, and alongside the "Labyrinth" episode, also came with a demo of "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Treasures of Knowledge". A video of the episode "Timing is Everything" was included with some versions of the mentioned game.
In September 2003, Sterling Entertainment released "Into the Maelstrom" and "No Place like Home" on VHS and DVD. Into the Maelstrom contained the three part "Retribution" episode, while "No Place like Home" contained the episode "The Remnants" and the 2-part episode "Can You Ever Go Home Again?". The DVD versions contained "When it Rains..." and "Follow my Footprints" as bonus episodes respectively. NCircle Entertainment reissued both DVDs in 2007.
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.
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 four-disc set contains all 40 episodes of the series. They also released a ten-episode best-of collection the same day. These releases have been discontinued and are now out of print.
On June 6, 2017, Mill Creek re-released the complete series on DVD in Region 1.

Plot

Following the plot of the Carmen Sandiego franchise, Earth sees international thief Carmen Sandiego lead the organization V.I.L.E. in stealing treasures from around the world and leaving clues behind for ACME agents Zack and Ivy, under the guidance of the Chief, to find in order to capture her. In this version, Carmen Sandiego is a former agent of ACME who left when she sought a greater challenge and has a strong code of ethics when stealing items. The Player is a live-action unseen character who bookends acts by communicating with Carmen; it is implied that to them the television series is a video game that they are playing from a computer.
While Carmen is originally presented as the show's antagonist, she becomes more like an anti-hero as the series progressed where she even helped Zack and Ivy against mutual enemies.

Characters

Main characters

The following are ACME detectives who help out Zack and Ivy:
The following are agents who work for Carmen Sandiego's organization V.I.L.E.:
As Carmen Sandiego became less villainous and evolved into more of an antihero, other characters began to fill her original role as the show's antagonist. The following villains are:

Cast

The show was given a rating of 4 stars out of 5 by Common Sense Media, noting that the format of the show – which includes trivia sessions between acts, vocabulary definitions, and the use of foreign languages—is "designed to pique kids' interest in these subjects". DVD Talk noted that the show exceeded the obligatory action of comedy of a cartoon, by respecting its audience with an intelligent sensibility rarely seen in children's television.