Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?
| Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? |
|
|---|---|
 |
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| Genre |
Action/Adventure Mystery Crime Edutainment |
| Developed by | Phil Harnage |
| Written by |
Kimmer Ringwald Sean Roche Doug Molitor Michael Maurer Matt Uitz Reed Shelly Phil Harnage |
| Directed by |
Michael Maliani Joe Barruso |
| Voices of |
Rita Moreno Rodger Bumpass Jennifer Hale Scott Menville |
| Composer(s) | Tom Worell |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 4 |
| No. of episodes | 40 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Michael E. Uslan Benjamin Melniker Andy Heyward Robby London Michael Maliani |
| Producer(s) | Andy Heyward Robby London Michael Maliani Benjamin Melniker Michael E. Uslan |
| Editor(s) | Miriam L. Preissel |
| Running time | 30 minutes (with commercials) |
| Production company(s) |
Brøderbund DIC Entertainment (DHX Media) |
| Distributor |
The Program Exchange (1994–present) 20th Television (UK airings; 1994-present) |
| Release | |
| Original network | Fox |
| Original release | February 5, 1994 – January 2, 1999 |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows |
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? |
Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? is an American animated television series based on the series of computer games. The show was produced by DIC Entertainment/Program Exchange and originally aired Saturday mornings on FOX during the Fox Kids block. Its episodes have subsequently been repeated on the Fox Family, PAX and the short-lived girlzChannel. Reruns of the series currently air on The Worship Network and Qubo. 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.
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.
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