Carmen Sandiego

File:Carmenlogo.jpeg

A former logo of the Carmen Sandiego series used in the 1990s.

Carmen Sandiego refers to a media franchise of edutainment computer games, television programs, books and other media featuring a thieving villainess of the same name. The basic premise of the franchise has the user or protagonists being agents of the ACME Detective Agency, which attempts to thwart and capture V.I.L.E. ringleader and former ACME agent Carmen Sandiego. The series initially focused on teaching geography and history, though it later branched out into mathematics, English and other subjects.

Originally distributed in the United States and Canada, most of the computer games are now available to international audiences. With the exception of Carmen Sandiego: Junior Detective Edition, all the games in the series are aimed at preteens although the geography and history games are often difficult enough for adults since much of the trivia learned is not widely known. Many entries in the series contain elements of various genres, including mystery, comedy, science fiction, spy-fi and fantasy.

The computer games

Broderbund games

Origin and history

Carmen Sandiego was originally conceived in 1983 by ex-Disney artist Gene Portwood, Mark Iscaro, Dane Bigham and Lauren Elliott at Brøderbund Software. The concept for the product evolved from a game the Carlstons (founders of Broderbund) played as kids, using the world almanac and maps to play quiz games.

The game was created by Gene Portwood and Lauren Elliott, with additions from David Siefkin. Siefkin wrote one of the first scripts for the game, which included treasures stolen from countries around the world, clues taken from the World Almanac, and a villain named Carmen Sandiego, whose name he adapted from the name of nineteen-forties singer and actress Carmen Miranda. Siefkin left the project soon afterwards to become a foreign service officer, serving as a diplomat in several of the countries featured in the game. He is listed in the game manual as 'contributing author.'

Another early draft version of the game was based in England, chasing Henry the VII around town collecting treasures.

Catherine Byrd was the first project manager at Broderbund Software and the original project manager of the game. The game was programmed by Dane Bigham. Graphics and clues were by Gene Portwood and Lauren Elliott. The final name and scenario of the game came out of a number of meetings between the development group.

The first Carmen Sandiego software game, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, was released in 1985 for the Apple II computer and was subsequently ported to other systems. The first seven games were each awarded one or more SPA Excellence in Software Awards, particularly for their educational effort. The Brøderbund-produced games were as follows:

• Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (1985)
• Where in the U.S.A. is Carmen Sandiego? (1986)
• Where in Europe is Carmen Sandiego? (1988)
• Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego? (1989)
• Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe (1990)
• Where in America's Past is Carmen Sandiego? (1991)
• Where in Space is Carmen Sandiego? (1993)
• Where in the U.S.A. is Carmen Sandiego? (1994)
• Carmen Sandiego: Junior Detective Edition (1995)
• Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (1996)
• Where in the U.S.A. is Carmen Sandiego? (1996)
• Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego? (later retitled Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase Through Time) (1997)
• Carmen Sandiego Word Detective (1997)
• Carmen Sandiego Math Detective (1998)

The original "formula" for the series

The first game in the series, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, established a formula that was followed very faithfully in all Carmen Sandiego products for over ten years. This formula involves a series of missions in which the user tracks and apprehends each of Carmen's underlings. Each case begins with the user being alerted that a ridiculously spectacular theft has been committed. Immediately transported to the scene of the crime, the user must find clues to infer the suspect's next stop and to create a warrant describing the guilty party's attributes. The culprit travels through a series of different destinations in an attempt to shake off any pursuers so the user will have to continue tracking the thief for some time. The game continues in this manner until the user catches up with culprit, at which point the thief is arrested and, if the warrant is correct, put in jail. As more and more thieves are arrested, the user rises up through ACME's ranks and the cases the user is assigned become more difficult. On the last case, the perpetrator turns out to be Carmen Sandiego herself and once she is arrested the program is completed.

With Carmen Sandiego Word Detective, Carmen Sandiego Math Detective and especially the third version of Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego? (now sold as Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase Through Time) Brøderbund began to abandon this formula. Word Detective and Math Detective involve the user infiltrating V.I.L.E. hideouts around the world and therefore maintain the globe-hopping element of previous games. Where in Time/Great Chase Through Time, however, nearly completely abandoned the series' original formula and has the user spending each mission in one time period, where the goal is to first create makeshift solutions to any historical problems that the theft has caused and second to find the thief Carmen has dropped off. The last mission of Time in which the user tracks down Carmen is similar to the traditional formula, although the user does not construct a warrant.

Style of humor

The games created by Brøderbund featured silly humor and especially a distinctive style of word play with extensive use of puns, rhymes and alliteration. This style of word play was also present, in varying degrees, in all three of the Carmen Sandiego TV shows.

Gag names ("Hardley Worthit," "Rob M. Blind," "Ruth Less," etc.) were quite frequently used in the series, often to the point where Carmen herself seemed to be the only person without such a name. Clues about the suspect's next destination often used extended puns (example: "I pumped her for information, but her unrefined answer only suggested a crude plan to visit oil wells near Ahvaz.") or rhyming couplets. Even as the games began to abandon their original formula, this word play was still retained. For example, a news report on massive blackouts from Carmen Sandiego Math Detective quotes an official as saying, "we're taking a dim view of the situation."

Although Carmen's V.I.L.E. agents were often portrayed as cartoonish buffoons, they seemed to be capable of "stealing" landmarks, cities, national parks, notable exports (such as "stealing all the sushi from Japan") and the like. Her thieves have also been known to steal geographic features and even nonexistent map features such as the Mason-Dixon line. Some thefts were even non sequiturs based on word play, such as "robbing the banks of the Nile," or plays on the word "steal" such as "stealing the show."

Learning Company games

After Brøderbund was purchased by The Learning Company in 1998, the Learning Company apparently sought to redesign the series. Under The Learning Company, the series seems to beplay its premise more seriously and uses character-based humor. Since The Learning Company has only created two Carmen Sandiego games, one of which is no longer sold, this change is evident mainly through marketing and which Brøderbund products The Learning Company has chosen to continue to sell.

The first title released by The Learning Company was Carmen Sandiego's ThinkQuick Challenge, a quiz game with a similar tonality to Carmen Sandiego: Word Detective and Carmen Sandiego: Math Detective, including the reappearance of Chase Devineaux. The new structure of Time was apparently to The Learning Company's liking since their new version of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, fully titled Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Treasures of Knowledge, was similar.

The Learning Company has apparently decided to return the series to its original focus on geography and history, discontinuing Word Detective, Math Detective and their own ThinkQuick Challenge.

The Secret of the Stolen Drums

In 2004, Bam! Entertainment released Carmen Sandiego: The Secret of the Stolen Drums to the GameCube, Xbox and PlayStation 2. It is so far the only game of the franchise to use real-time 3D computer graphics, although many previous games had used pre-rendered 3D graphics. It was also an action game and while geographical facts were included, learning them was not necessary to complete the game. Although The Learning Company evidently licensed the use of the series as well as some of their own characters from Treasures of Knowledge, this game is not distributed by or sold under The Learning Company name.

Television programs

Carmen's character has also appeared in three television shows, two of them game shows that aired on PBS. The first was Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, which aired from September 1991 to September 1996. This series won a Peabody Award and many other awards for children's television. It was followed by Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?, which was on until September 1998. The third show was an animated series titled Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?, which debuted in February 1994 on Fox and ran for four seasons.

Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?

Main article: Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (game show)

The World series was staged in a slightly off-skew detective office, part of the ACME agency with Lynne Thigpen portraying the Chief and Greg Lee portraying himself as a special agent in charge of training new recruits. Greg was helped in this training by various live and animated characters. Among the most popular were the members of the a capella house band and comedy troupe, Rockapella, who also sang the show's theme song.

The game was played in three rounds: the first round was Q&A, and the two contestants ("gumshoes") with the highest scores proceeded to a second round. In this round, they had to find, in order, the loot, the warrant and the cartoon crook. The winner of the second round went to the third round. As host Greg Lee shouted the names or places in a region of the world the player had to place a marker on the corresponding place on a giant map of that area. A successful contestant would win a trip anywhere in the lower 48 states, later anywhere in North America.

Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego?

Main article: Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego (game show)

The Time series, hosted by Kevin Shinick, refocused the show on history, but was otherwise similar to the previous show's format, even featuring Lynne Thigpen returning as the Chief. Rockapella, however, was replaced by a dance group, The Engine Crew. The final round of this show involved answering various history related questions to open six "time doors"; if a question was answered correctly, the player walked through the door. If it was answered incorrectly, however, the player had to turn a crank, pull a lever, or do some other task that ate into the 90-second time limit. If they got through all the doors, they received a personal computer as their prize.

Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?

Main article: Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?

Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? is a Saturday morning cartoon series made by DiC that originally aired on FOX. It featured the adventures of Zack and Ivy, two teenage siblings who worked as ACME agents and, aided by the Max Headroom-like Chief, had to stop Carmen (voiced by Rita Moreno) and her gang from stealing artifacts. The series won an Emmy in 1995. Its episodes have subsequently been repeated on both the Fox Family Channel and the Pax network. The series has now been released on DVD.

Other media

In the late 1990s, the Metro Washington Park Zoo in Portland, Oregon, (now the Oregon Zoo), in conjunction with Broderbund, ran a summer-long event entitled Where in the Zoo is Carmen Sandiego?, which functioned as a full-immersion live-action Carmen game in which zoo patrons were the investigating detectives. Actors were hired to play Carmen's henchmen, who could be found around the zoo, and on occasions a costumed Carmen appeared, as well, but never in a location where patrons could interact with her. Clues were given out at various stations by members of the ZooTeens volunteer group.

Where in the Universe is Carmen Sandiego? is a movie that was made to be played in a planetarium. It is less like a traditional movie, and more like one of the Carmen Sandiego game shows featured on PBS with the live audience as the detectives. This movie also featured Lynne Thigpen as the Chief and was based on Where in Space is Carmen Sandiego?. Where in the Universe is Carmen Sandiego? II is a sequel to Where in the Universe is Carmen Sandiego?. It marked Thigpen's last appearance as the Chief before her death.

Efforts were made at least once, in 1997, to produce a film featuring the character, possibly starring Sandra Bullock as the titular thief. [1]

References in popular culture

• The World game show was parodied on Saturday Night Live, in the May 6, 1995 episode hosted by Bob Saget. Saget played the host of a kids' geography game show called Where in the World is San Diego, California? and became panicked when one of the contestants (Molly Shannon) knew the answer before the show even began.
• Carmen was the "spokesperson" for Amtrak in spring 1998.
• She had a cameo role on the show Animaniacs during the "Acquaintances" episode.
• Rockapella's "Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?" has been performed by the punk rock band, Tilt.
• In the Homestar Runner Halloween cartoon, "The House that Gave Sucky Treats", Strong Bad comes as Carmen Sandiego (Homestar thinks he's the Spanish Inquisition). He asks, "Where in the world is my candy?" A bonus feature on a Homestar DVD reveals that Strong Bad received the most votes when viewers were asked to vote for their favorite costume.
• For a while, a search on the Google search engine for "Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego" resulted in the engine citing her location as Cairo, Egypt.
• CollegeHumor has created a short video entitled Where the F*** is Carmen Sandiego?, which parodies the World game show, playing it as a hardboiled detective drama.

Other notes

• The title character's last name is often misspelled as two words ("Carmen San Diego") in the media. Although it is derived from the city of San Diego, the character's family name is nonetheless officially written as one word ("Carmen Sandiego").
• A portion of the title song's lyrics were modified in 1993 from "Czechoslovakia" to "Czech and Slovakia" to reflect the split of the eastern European country.
• The compilation album Toon Tunes: Action-Packed Anthems lists Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? (the DiC cartoon series) on their playlist, but the CD actually contains the theme song for Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (the PBS game show).
• A similarly structed geography game entitled Adventures Around the World was released by Penguin Software / Polarware just a few months after the first Carmen Sandiego title. One of the owners of the company claims that Broderbund heard about the still-in-development Adventures Around the World title while Broderbund and Polarware were in talks for a licensing and distribution deal, then proceeded to copy the idea and release their own version as Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.
• Carmen Sandiego is mentioned in the children's series "The Grim adventures of billy and Mandy". In episode 54: "The Taking Tree" Billy says, "Not only did I find Captain Fathead, but I found Carmen Sandiego and Waldo."

See also

• List of Carmen Sandiego products
• List of Carmen Sandiego characters

External links

• V.I.L.E. Headquarters: A Carmen Sandiego Revival Organization
• Carmen Sandiego series at MobyGames
• TV-Series 1991-1996: Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? at IMDb
• TV-Series 1994-1998: Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? at IMDb