Where On Earth is Carmen Sandiego Sing-Along

Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? is an American animated television series based on the series of computer games. It should not be confused with the PBS game show Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?. The Earth show was made by DIC Entertainment and originally aired Saturday mornings on FOX. Its episodes have subsequently been repeated on both the Fox Family Channel (now known as ABC Family) & the Pax network (now known as ION Television). The series won an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Animated Children's Program" in 1995.

The first season of the series is now available on DVD. Lions Gate 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" & "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.

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. Zack and Ivy 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 the computer game of a live-action kid referred to 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. Towards the end of the first 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. The lead characters of Earth were, however, featured in Carmen Sandiego: Junior Detective Edition, 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.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Youtube
• Sing-Along
• Carmen
• Sandiego
• Ivy
• Zack
• The
• Chief
• Player
• ACME
• Detective
• Agency
• VILE
• Criminal
• Thief
• Criminals
• Thieves

[StefanoFan27]

god i miss this show.

[DisneyVillain]

The first season is on DVD

[Luigifan66]

@DisneyVillain WHERE!?!?!?!

[DisneyVillain]

@Luigifan66 huh?

[Camodric123]

I miss this show!!! They should of made a movie.

[soseztheleadr]

Good memories.  ^^

[wickedfeylady]

This is an utterly epic theme song, thank you Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart!

[jigglysinger]

Dude, i'd FLIP if they were making a live-action film for this.

[Luigifan66]

@DisneyVillain Where can I find the show on DVD.

[punkgirldrummer]

AM I the only one who thinks this show was fucking hard to figure out?

[SailorBarsoom]

The game show had an epic theme, and then this is also epic. Even the theme from "Where in Time..." isn't bad.

Agree with those who want a movie. Maybe one which explains why she left ACME.

[DimeraFan28]

I Think That Carmen Sandiego Is By Far, The Best Cartoon Villianess In The Cartoon World.

[AmiMizuno2]

@Camodric123 they really are they just can't decide on who should play caremen

[ImpOfDoom]

"Wherever she is it must be the land of EPIC."

:)