History Franchise / CarmenSandiego

* EvilGloating: Oh, how Carmen loves this. In any game where you receive messages from the Chief on a VideoPhone, expect Carmen to occasionally break into your communications for gloating purposes.

''Her itinerary's loaded with moving violations''\\

%%* EpisodicGame: ''Adventures in Math'' on UsefulNotes/WiiWare.

** Series/SaturdayNightLive's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgWWube0M1c Where in the World is Kellyanne Conway]], where they recreate the sets, costumes, Rockapella (lead by Creator/ChrisPine), and having actual child actors perform live as the Gumshoes; [[spoiler:only to comedically end the sketch after two minutes, after the Gumshoes refuse to participate in trying to find Kellyanne Conway!]]

* AffectionateParody: Website/CollegeHumor's [[http://www.collegehumor.com/video/753627/where-the-fck-is-carmen-sandiego Where the Fuck Is Carmen Sandiego?]], how the game show would look like with a whopping dollop of grimdark.

* AwesomeMcCoolName:
** Carmen Sandiego herself, for starters.
** Chase Devineaux from the ''Word Detective'', ''Math Detective'', and ''[=ThinkQuick=] Challenge'' games.
** Shadow Hawkins from ''Treasures of Knowledge'' is actually a subversion; the [[AllThereInTheManual manual]] for ''Secret of the Stolen Drums'' reveals Shadow's real name is [[GenderBlenderName Shannon]].

* AffablyEvil: [[UpToEleven And how!]] She steals all kinds of items, and it's implied that she's doing this primarily for the thrill of it, but she's given a fairly endearing personality.

** Judging from the logo seen in the 1996 versions of ''World'' and ''USA'', ACME's motto is literally, "dedicated to the pursuit of Carmen Sandiego." Also, some game manuals make reference to an "ACME Institute of Carmenology."

** Judging from the logo seen in the 1996 versions of ''World'' and ''USA'', ACME's motto is literally, "dedicated to the pursuit of Carmen Sandiego."

Carmen Sandiego is an international thief, and it's down to the Interpol-esque ACME Detective Agency to stop her plans. Fortunately, she plays CriminalMindGames with her pursuers to provide the obligatory AlphabetSoupCans. But don't worry; she's a FriendlyEnemy--at least [[DependingOnTheWriter some of the time]].

* BadassInANiceSuit: Carmen Sandiego's signature red BadassLongcoat and [[NiceHat fedora]].

* NiceHat: She's never seen without her wicked-cool fedora.

* PeekABangs: In ''WesternAnimation/WhereOnEarthIsCarmenSandiego'', when she's not wearing her [[NiceHat signature fedora]].

** The World Trade Center towers. Needless to say, that one's [[FunnyAneurysmMoment a whole lot less whimsical-seeming now]].

Plans to make a live-action movie starring the character by both Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media (both Sandra Bullock and Jennifer Lopez have been suggested to play the role) have been in {{development hell}} since the late 1990's. However, it was announced in 2017 that Creator/GinaRodriguez (''Series/JaneTheVirgin'') had been tapped to portray the character in (and serve as a producer for) a live-action film to be produced by Creator/{{Netflix}}, which also spawned an animated series in 2019 with Rodriguez in the same role.

%%* FetchQuest: ''Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase Through Time'', ''Word Detective'', ''Math Detective'' and ''Treasures of Knowledge''

** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Carmen_Sandiego_characters#Robots Robots]]

%%* UpdatedRerelease

* CopyProtection: Horrible, horrible copy protection. Arguably some of the most frustrating of all time. You can play all you want, but to get promoted and even have a chance to capture Carmen, you have to enter certain words from certain pages of the included travel guides every few cases. Sound easy enough? Then remember that these games were incredibly common in schools...where the manuals would often get ''lost.'' And even the teachers couldn't exactly summon new copies of a travel guide (now often several years, if not a decade out of date) at will...

* CopyProtection:
** Horrible, horrible copy protection. Arguably some of the most frustrating of all time. You can play all you want, but to get promoted and even have a chance to capture Carmen, you have to enter certain words from certain pages of the included travel guides every few cases. Sound easy enough? Then remember that these games were incredibly common in schools...where the manuals would often get ''lost.'' And even the teachers couldn't exactly summon new copies of a travel guide (now often several years, if not a decade out of date) at will...
** At least with ''World'', the reference was an Almanac; most of the information in one of those can now be found on {{Wiki/Wikipedia}}. ''Europe'' used an atlas and asked questions about what color country X on page Y was. ''[=USA=]'' what the last word on page Y of the Fodor's travel guide was. Have fun guessing!

* ''Where in Europe Is Carmen Sandiego?'' (1988)

** In ''Where in Europe'', the item stolen "from" Belgrade is the Begova Mosque, which is actually in Sarajevo. Nowadays, Belgrade and Sarajevo aren't even in [[{{UsefulNotes/Yugoslavia}} the same country]] anymore!

** Later games had the coat completely open and over a black bodysuit. The 2019 cartoon uses this outfit but shows both her eyes where traditionally at least one would be hidden from view, often by her hat.
%%* DifficultyLevels: In ''Word Detective'', ''Math Detective'' and ''[=ThinkQuick=] Challenge''.

* TheGreatPoliticsMessUp: The older games were made before the fall of Communism, making them pretty inaccurate now. There are also some non-Communism-related examples of Geography Marching On. It'd almost be impossible to count how many ''Carmen'' games show the World Trade Center towers in New York, but it's a lot (they're even in the opening credits of the ''Where on Earth'' cartoon). When the name of a currency is given as a clue, it will be inaccurate for any country which has since adopted the Euro. And so on. A geography game just can't stay accurate forever, you know.

''Tell me, where, in the world, is, Carmen Sandiego?''

** Some versions combine this trope with the in game suffix "-Net." At default it's "Acme Crime-Net," but it could also be "Time-Net" and in the game show it was often used as ACME (fill in the blank)-Net.

* ''Where in America's Past Is Carmen Sandiego?'' (1991)

* DrosteImage: Setting the Chronoskimmer to the West in the 1976-2000 time period while playing ''Where in America's Past'' [[http://fycarmensandiego.tumblr.com/post/39278175880/a-rather-meta-location-image-from-where-in yields this location image]].

* DaChief: There were a couple throughout the series, but perhaps the two most famous are Lynne Thigpen and the [[FunWithAcronyms Computerized Holographic Imaging Educational Facilitator]], both of which originated in the TV shows.

* ''Where in the U.S.A. is Carmen Sandiego?'' (1986, remade in 1992 and 1996)

* FiveFiveFive: The phone numbers in the deluxe versions of ''World'' and ''USA'' are all prefixed with 555.

* CoatFullOfContraband: One of the generic henchmen ''Where In The [=USA=]'' was a very sneaky, sleazy-looking guy who opened his trenchcoat to reveal sparkling, gleaming watches.

* ItsRainingMen: In ''Where in the USA'', the intro animation shows a bunch of Carmen's mooks parachuting down to San Francisco--and one of them [[FunnyBackgroundEvent getting his parachute caught on the spire of the Transamerica Pyramid]].

* LandmarkingTheHiddenBase: At the end of the 1996 version of ''Where in the USA?'', you not only capture Carmen, but also discover the location of her secret base. It turns out to be under the U.S. Capitol Building. Perhaps she chose the location due to the [[SleazyPolitician convenient supply of crooks nearby]].

** ''Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego'' varied in how realistic the thefts were. They ranged from entirely possible like the hand crank to the first Model T, the recipe for Coca-Cola, and the Indianapolis 500's checkered flag, to the ones practical but for the sheer scale like the Red Sox's socks, the Delta Queen Riverboat's paddlewheel, and Time Square's billboard, to more ridiculous such as all of the hour hands from the American Clock & Watch Museum, all of the water in crater lake, and all of the sand on Waikiki Beach, to the absurd like Monticello, Abraham Lincoln's log cabin, and The Breakers, to the ''very'' absurd such as the Space Needle, all of the maple syrup in Vermont, and every lobster bib in all of Maine. Even above those, they somehow managed to steal the Mason-Dixon Line.

* MusicalAssassin: In ''Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego?'' and likely similar games, Renee Santz fits this trope; when she comes in to arrest the perp, she's playing a toe-tapping tune on her saxophone, up until the musical notes sweep the perp off their feet and pin their hands and feet to the ground.

* ProductPlacement: [[http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising/whites-co-promo-goes-after-kids-amtrak-24237 Back in 1998]] there was an Amtrak-skinned version of ''Where in the USA'', titled ''Where in America...The Great Amtrak Train Adventure''. It basically added in Amtrak-themed clues and Amtrak-dressed cartoon employees as additional witnesses. It also included a promo advert for Amtrak in the in-game database.

* YouALLLookFamiliar: The bystanders in the 1996 versions of ''Where in the World...'' and ''Where in the USA...'' reuse the same character models.

* PunnyName: It seems that getting into V.I.L.E. requires you to have some sort of pun in your name, as this tends to come up with every goon you capture. This is absolutely ubiquitous in the Brøderbund games; The Learning Company apparently didn't like them as much. For the Facebook game, it's initially [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] as most of the crooks have mundane names (or ''your own friend's names''; see BigBadFriend above). It's played straight once you start solving the Hard cases that PunnyName criminals start showing.

* ''WesternAnimation/CarmenSandiego'' (2019-present, an animated series)

** Also averted in the 2019 cartoon when [[spoiler: the [[PlayfulHacker computer expert in Carmen’s gang, Player, hacks into ACME’s files to confirm Shadow-san’s account of what happened to Carmen’s father]], and discovers that the Chief’s real name is Tamara Fisher.]]
* OddballInTheSeries: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_in_North_Dakota_Is_Carmen_Sandiego%3F Where in North Dakota Is Carmen Sandiego?]], a game proposed by a North Dakota school board, which was never sold through retail -- though retail copies were sent to the education officials who worked on it.