Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?

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Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?
Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego%3F (television logo).png
Genre
Developed bySean Roche
Directed by
  • Joe Barruso
  • Stan Phillips
Voices of
ComposerTom Worrall
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons4
No. of episodes40 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers
ProducerMichael Maliani
EditorMiriam L. Preissel
Running time30 minutes (with commercials)
Production company DIC Productions, L.P. [2]
Original release
Network Fox (Fox Kids) (1994–1998)
Fox Family Channel (1998–1999)
ReleaseFebruary 5, 1994 (1994-02-05) 
January 2, 1999 (1999-01-02)
Related

Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? is an American live action/animated television series based on the series of computer games. [3] The show was produced by DIC Productions L.P. and originally aired from February 5, 1994 to January 2, 1999, on Saturday mornings during FOX's Fox Kids Network block. Reruns aired on the Qubo television network from June 9, 2012 (alongside Animal Atlas ) to May 26, 2018. [4]

Contents

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 song uses the melody from the chorus "Singt dem großen Bassa Lieder" ("Sing Songs of the Great Pasha") from Mozart's opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio).

History

Production and broadcast (1994–1999)

We optioned 'Carmen Sandiego' three years ago. Originally our intent was to do it as a straight animated cartoon. The Fox Saturday morning series was based on the computer game designed by Bay Area-based Broderbund Software. As we developed it, it became a mixture of CGI, classical cel animation, computer graphics, live action, film clips, different styles of cel animation. The bed of the show is a mystery show with two kids searching for a thief, but there's so much stuff going on in mixed-media bags. The show is doing very well, and we think it's going to open the door for a lot of innovations.

DIC Entertainment president Andy Hayward in interview with Variety. [5]

The script for every Earth episode had to meet the approval of Broderbund, 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 . Broderbund 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. [6] [7] 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 (later renamed Galaxy World, Inc., [8] not to be confused with the Italian studio Rainbow S.p.A.), and Han Yang Productions contributed some animation for this series.

Home media releases

Fox Video 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, Carmen's Revenge and Time Traveler, consisting of the show's three-part episodes ("Retribution" and "Labyrinth") 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. [9]

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 two-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.

In June 2006, Shout! Factory and Sony BMG Music Entertainment released the first season on DVD. [10] [11] Due to poor sales, no further seasons were released.

Mill Creek Entertainment 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 forty episodes of the series. [12] They also released a ten-episode best-of collection the same day. These releases have been discontinued and are now out of print. Mill Creek re-released the complete series on DVD in Region 1 in June 2017. [13]

PIDAX, a German company, released the complete series on DVD for Region 2 in 3 Volumes in 2019 in English and German.

The whole series is available to stream on Paramount+ in some territories.

Plot

Following the plot of the Carmen Sandiego franchise, Earth sees international thief Carmen Sandiego (voiced by Rita Moreno) lead the organization V.I.L.E. in stealing treasures from around the world and leaving clues behind for ACME agents Zack (voiced by Scott Menville) and Ivy (voiced by Jennifer Hale), under the guidance of the Chief (voiced by Rodger Bumpass), to find, in order to capture her. In this version, Carmen Sandiego was a former agent of ACME who left to seek a greater challenge, and has a strong code of ethics when stealing items and why she went rogue. The Player is an unseen live-action character who bookends acts by communicating with Carmen; it is implied that the television series is a video game that they are playing from a computer. Mostly the recurring bit in the series, where Zack and Ivy finds Carmen and she gets away and Zack and Ivy retrieves the stolen items that Carmen stole and mostly her henchmen are usually captured. The player and Carmen have a couple words at the end of the episode and will play again soon and someday Zack and Ivy will capture her.

While Carmen is originally presented as the show's titular antagonist, she becomes more of an anti-hero as the series progresses; she even helps Zack and Ivy fight against mutual enemies.

Characters

Main characters

ACME detectives

The following are ACME detectives who assist Zack and Ivy:

V.I.L.E. agents

The following are agents who work for Carmen Sandiego's organization, V.I.L.E.:

Other villains

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:

Episodes

SeasonEpisodesOriginally aired
First airedLast aired
1 13February 5, 1994 (1994-02-05)September 24, 1994 (1994-09-24)
2 8February 4, 1995 (1995-02-04)March 25, 1995 (1995-03-25)
3 10September 16, 1995 (1995-09-16)December 23, 1995 (1995-12-23)
4 9September 9, 1996 (1996-09-09)January 2, 1999 (1999-01-02)

Cast

Additional voices

Critical reception

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". [14] 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. [15]

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Carmen Sandiego: To Steal or Not to Steal is a 2020 animated interactive television special directed by Jos Humphrey and co-directed by Kenny Park and Mike West, written by Duane Capizzi, May Chan, Sam Nisson, Susan O’Connor, Greg Ernstrom & Becky Tinker and starring Gina Rodriguez and Finn Wolfhard. It is part of the 2019 Netflix series Carmen Sandiego. The film was removed from Netflix on December 1, 2024.

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