Western Animation: Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?
Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? was a Saturday morning cartoon based on the Carmen SandiegoEdutainment Game series. Where on Earth... ran on Fox in The Nineties.In the Earth series, a Brother-Sister Team tracks Carmen, who gradually became more and more of Friendly Enemy than she ever was in the computer games. Earth seems to be set in an Alternate Continuity in relation to the rest of the series, although Broderbund did include some characters from it in Carmen Sandiego: Junior Detective Edition.
This show provides examples of:
The Ace: Lee Jordan, initially. Despite having solved over a hundred cases in four years, capturing Carmen at one point in his career, and having saved Ivy's life in the most dramatic way possible, though, his poor treatment and disrespect towards Ivy (along with sabotaging the Pentagon's computer systems, forcing Zack to pull out of the case temporarily) and Carmen (when he starts working for her after defecting from Acme)deconstructs him into the Jerkass and muchworse.
Action Girl: Ivy, with her multiple black belts. Carmen could also kick a fair amount of ass back in her detective days as well.
AFGNCAAP: The Player. We can see their skin, and it looks white, but that's about it.
Some episodes had a dark-skinned girl as The Player.
A.I. Is a Crapshoot: There's an "evil" twin of the Chief in one of VILE's training facilities.
Alternate Continuity: The Where on Earth...? arc is separate from the rest of the Carmen Sandiego series. The black-haired Carmen in this cartoon has not appeared in any other story; even in the Junior Detective computer game, her canon foes Zack and Ivy were chasing the original, brunette Carmen.
The Face Book game may possibly be the closest version to match Carmen's characterization from the cartoon, not only in described appearance (black hair, light-colored eyes), but also her Back Story as an orphan and aversion to violence.
Beyond TheImpossible Thief: She manages to swipe Mona Lisa's smile and even tries to make off with the Statue of Liberty in the opening. And that's leaving out the things she swiped in her first time travel heist that changed history, or technology to steal musical talent!
Lampshaded in "The Stolen Smile," where the Chief, after saying Carmen has stolen all the world's TV signals, adds quietly, "Don't ask me how she did it."
And yet she tops herself in "By a Whisker" when she steals a beach (forgot which one)which she planned to use as a huge litter box for two white lion cubs. Ivy's response? "The entire beach?!"
Big Sister Instinct: Ivy often has to protect Zack as he's the younger and weaker of the two.
Bilingual Bonus: Sometimes the foreign languages in the show aren't always subtitled, though in the dvd releases that seems to have been fixed.
Brand X: The Illuma Pad toy in Moondreams looks and seems to function very similarly to Hasbro's Lite Brite toys.
But Not Too Evil: Broderbund on the title character; the show's writers responded, ultimately, by making Carmen into an Anti-Villain.
Call Back: When Zack tells Tatiana he could kiss her after solving one of Carmen's clues, she tells him, "I never kiss on the first case." Later in the series Lee Jordan says the exact same thing to Ivy, and Ivy shoots him down with the same exact words Tatiana said to Zack.
Another Call Back: After getting the history of the American Revolution back to normal in "A Date With Carmen: Part 2", Zack set down the Chronoskimmer just for a second — in which it gets swiped. In "Labyrinth: Part 1", Zack recalls the stolen Chronoskimmer and the Chief recalls his British accent from the first time travel incident.
Catch Phrase: Carmen's signoff, "Until next crime."
Chekhov's Gun: The anti-crime sticky foam Carmen had stolen at the beginning in Deja Vu becomes this when the time came for Carmen to make her getaway. Interestingly enough, Suhara knew from the beginning the sticky foam didn't fit Carmen's MO in the episode, and prepared a Batman Gambit, but not without subjecting Zack to some Trickster Mentoring.
Dressing as the Enemy: Zack and Ivy end up dressed as VILE henchmen a few times, and Ivy takes on the mantle of The Tigress to make Carmen jealous of a new thief in town.
Expy: Russian ACME agent Tatiana bears an unmistakable resemblance to Russian Planeteer Linka. They also share the same voice actor: Kath Soucie.
Face Heel Turn: Carmen's Back Story, same as in the game canon. Ditto for Lee Jordan not long after he was introduced. Maelstrom was mentioned to have been a brilliant marine archaeologist before turning to a life of crime.
Faking the Dead: In Follow My Footprints, Carmen faked her own death and left a set of clues for her henchmen and Acme to solve. It was all to figure out who was worthy to be her successor . . . ironic that Zack and Ivy were the only ones to actually solve all three clues.
Full Name Ultimatum: Mild version, since Zack and Ivy don't seem to have last names - Zack is rarely called by his given name (Zachary) unless he's done something to royally piss off Ivy.
Fun with Acronyms: Back in Carmen's detective days, the Chief was better known as the Computerized Holographic Imaging Educational Facilitator.
Guest Star Party Member: Non-video game example (Fanon Dis Continuity notwithstanding). In some episodes Ivy and Zack will request the assistance of other Acme detectives when they need help, other times the Chief will tell them who they'll be working with.
It gets reversed in Skull and Double-Crossbones, where Zack and Ivy are the Guest Star Party Members.
*The closest explanation Sarah herself provides is that she got tired of being Carmen's "main brain".
Magical Computer: The Acme Mainframe can do damn near anything, including teleporting the detectives the whole way to the Moon at one point.
Magic Countdown: In Follow My Footprints, Zack and Ivy have 60 seconds to catch Sarah Bellum on the Moon, and if the Chief missed with the C5 they'd all be stuck there. As the mainframe's going into its final countdown, the Chief pops up to have a Big Damn Heroes moment, but that takes longer than the 5 seconds remaining.
Master of Disguise: Carmen occasionally dons various outfits and costumes depending on what she's trying to accomplish. Gets turned Up to Eleven in the Halloween Episode when she disguised herself as Ivy, even fooling Zack. Carmen's henchman Frank M. Poster was also described as this trope.
Monumental Theft: In this series, it was slightly toned down. As in, "This blank sheet of printer paper weighs slightly less than this sheet with the word "Hello" printed on it."
The Nineties: The show's internal chronology places the events of the series in the 1990s, when it was produced.
Nobody Here But Us Statues: Done in the Louvre Museum in the very first episode. Subverted when the guards spot them instantly and capture them, and Ivy berates Zack for coming up with such a stupid plan.
No Fourth Wall: The characters are not aware that they're characters on a tv show, but they are aware that they're characters in a computer game, and speak directly to the player often.
No Honor Among Thieves: Carmen gets betrayed by her henchmen no less than three times during Season 2 alone.
Not Herself: Zack and Ivy wonder if Carmen has lost her mind when some of her crimes border on pure destruction, especially with the theft of the Spruce Goose and torching the Amazon rainforest. They become even more suspicious with some of the clues they receive, saying it wasn't like Carmen to leave extremely easy clues. It was actually Sarah Bellum impersonating Carmen, during the midst of a Villainous Breakdown.
Not Me This Time: The only time that Ivy and Zack actually catch Carmen is when she didn't do what they caught her for.
Not so Different: Both Lee Jordan and Maelstrom tell Carmen that she is no better than them, despite her "lofty moral superiority."
Subverted in that Carmen never says this to Zack and Ivy, even though she considers them her successors.
Old Shame: The Chief would like to forget he once had a body.
One Steve Limit: Subverted. There are three characters who share the name Lee, the first one is Lee Jordan, the second is Lee Galease, and the last one a Guest Star Acme Detective who works in Macao. Granted, the Guest Star Detective's name could be spelled a variety of ways and might even be his surname, not his first name, but short of closed captioning, his name spelling remains unknown.
Parental Abandonment: Zack and Ivy's parents are never seen, also Carmen is apparently an orphan.
The latter was foreshadowed in a Season 1 episode. It also provides a Red Herring Twist subplot near the end of the series, where Carmen learns she might be the long-lost daughter of the wealthy industrialist she's stealing from.
Public Domain Soundtrack: Used "Singt dem grossen Bassa Lieder" by Mozart as the opening theme but with a more "modern" sound and obviously different lyrics. The ending theme was sometimes an instrumental version.
Punny Name: Good Lord, and how. Sara Bellum, Ace Bandage, Clara and Cora Net, Paige Turner, Phill M. Critic, Al Loy, every one of Carmen's henchmen who wasn't a Faceless Goon had a job-specific name.
The Real Remington Steele: Played with. Sir Nigel Fenwick, an inspector working for Scotland Yard, appears briefly in A Higher Calling, but Zack and Ivy don't actually meet him until much later in the series. Who they thought was Sir Nigel Fenwick in By a Whisker was actually Carmen's henchman Frank M. Poster impersonating him. They meet the real deal in Birds of a Feather
Recurring Dreams: Carmen suffers from nightmares in the episode Shaman Spirits.
Sibling Rivalry: Zack and Ivy went their separate ways in Split Up when Ivy wanted to handle the case via old-fashioned detective work, Zack felt his security system was more than enough to handle Carmen's thefts, and the two simply could not cooperate together with their constant bickering.
Tech Marches On and/or Magic Floppy Disk: The Acme Detective Agency's entire database, Chief AI and all, can supposedly fit on a single standard CD. Granted, it was one of Carmen's own pieces of tech that pulled it off but still, she effectively stole The Other Wiki and put it on a CD.
Teen Genius: Zack, and according to her backstory, Carmen.
This was lampshaded when the detectives travel to the future during Carmen's second time travel heist. After being dumped into yet another ridiculously precarious location, Zack complains that having been 100 years since they left, you'd think they could have worked out the kinks by now.
A Date With Carmen: Carmen swipes things from the American Revolution, and causes it to fail. The Chief turns British and the USA is still a colony. A little later on in that heist, she swipes Ben Franklin's key and takes out electricity (along with both time machines) until it's returned.
Timing Is Everything: Mason Dixon steals a ride in Carmen's time machine, and screws up the past to the point where Carmen's just a low ranking member of VILE with poor self-esteem.
Tempting Fate: Happens every now and then. Zack is generally the instigator when it looks like things can't get any worse.
There Are No Therapists: This would explain why Carmen is talking to a hypnotist after the traumatic events of the series finale, instead of...you know...a shrink.
Thirteen Is Unlucky: Pretty much the plot of Curses, Foiled Again - everything in the episode takes place on Friday the 13th.
Time Machine: Two of them: the Chronoskimmer, which looks like a PDA or remote control and is used along with the C5, and Carmen's timepod, which looks like a more traditional time machine.
Title Drop: The Player drops the title of "Music to My Ears" in his end talking with Carmen Sandiego.
Translation Convention: Averted. Instead of everybody around the world speaking English, people in non-English-speaking countries actually speak their native language (often with subtitles). Fortunately, Zack knows a large-but-never-specified number of languages and can almost always translate.
Universal Driver's License: Played with in Zack's case, interestingly enough. He can barely drive the C-5 car, but seems to have no problems operating single (or double, at most) passenger hovercrafts and vehicles, even if it belongs to VILE.
Villain Exit Stage Left: Zack and Ivy always get to Carmen just in time to watch her escape, after which one of them says something like, "Maybe next time!" Yeah, right.
Villainous Rescue: Carmen saves Zack and Ivy's bacon numerous times, but it especially applies to her defeat of Maelstrom and Lee Jordan.
Villains Out Shopping: Literal example in Moondreams, where Carmen and two of her henchpeople went to a toy store and actually paid for a toy. Subverted when the Chief mentions an uptick in VILE activity around the world and that Carmen was possibly planning something in the works.
When I Was Your Age: Carmen points out she didn't have all the fancy technology Zack and Ivy take for granted back when she was an Acme detective. The flashback in Retribution, Part 1 shows how justified she was.
Where Does She Get All Those Wonderful Toys: Zack and Ivy undoubtedly wonder that of Carmen, and the master thief herself said something like that of Maelstrom in a flashback episode.
Worthy Opponent: Carmen is sometimes depicted as genuinely liking Zack and Ivy, and enjoying the ongoing battle of wits she has with them.
Zack and Ivy seem to have some form of respect for Carmen as well, even letting her have a Mercy Lead in one episode.
Xanatos Gambit: One episode has Carmen creating a huge diamond, which she then uses to scramble the laser that somehow runs ACME's main computer system, effectively shutting it down. Zack then reconfigures it so that, instead of scrambling the system, the diamond increases the computer's efficiency, letting them almost catch her. Toward the end, Ivy mentions that Carmen must have known that was a possibility, and she and Zack are left wondering if she did the whole thing to give herself more of a challenge.
Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? was a Saturday morning cartoon based on the Carmen Sandiego Edutainment Game series. Where on Earth... ran on Fox in The Nineties.In the Earth series, a Brother-Sister Team tracks Carmen, who gradually became more and more of Friendly Enemy than she ever was in the computer games. Earth seems to be set in an Alternate Continuity in relation to the rest of the series, although Broderbund did include some characters from it in Carmen Sandiego: Junior Detective Edition.
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