Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?: Difference between revisions

''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]].

 

 

* [[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 {{spoiler|(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)}} [[Deconstruction|deconstructs]] him into the [[Jerkass]] and ''much'' [[The Sociopath|worse.]]

* [[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.

* [[Call Back]]: When Zack tells [[Guest Star Party Member|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 [[Jerkass|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.

* [[Faceless Goons]]: Any generic VILE henchman.

* [[Faking the Dead]]: In ''Follow My Footprints'', {{spoiler|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.}}

* [[For the Evulz]]: Carmen.

* [[Friendly Enemy]]: Carmen.

** {{spoiler|Frank M. Poster}} also engages in this trope as well. See [[The Real Remington Steele]] below.

* [[Limited Wardrobe]]: Everyone on the show- ACME detectives and VILE henchmen alike- suffers from this.

* [[Mad Scientist]]: Sarah Bellum. She eventually has a [[Villainous Breakdown]] stemming from a [[Noodle Incident]] that was never fully explained.<ref>*The closest explanation Sarah herself provides is that she got tired of being Carmen's "main brain".</ref>

* [[Magical Computer]]: The Acme Mainframe can do damn near anything, including teleporting the detectives the whole way to the Moon at one point.

* [[Mission Control]]: The Chief.

* [[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."

* [[Motor Mouth]]: Carmen's attorney, Lee Galease, is one.

* [[Mundane Utility]]: Zack and Ivy have occasionally used the Acme Mainframe to play trivia games or just to keep score when playing indoor sports.

* [[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 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."

* [[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 [[Jerkass|Lee Jordan]], the second is Lee Galease, and the last one a [[Guest Star Party Member|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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_(surname) surname], not his first name, but short of closed captioning, his name spelling remains unknown.

* [[Orphan's Plot Trinket]]: Carmen's locket, unseen until the series finale.

* [[Parental Abandonment]]: Zack and Ivy's parents are never seen, also Carmen is apparently an orphan.

* [[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.

* [[Unintentional Period Piece]]: It's really, '''REALLY''' Nineties.

* [[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.

* [[Villain Protagonist]]

* [[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 Trope|justified]] she was.

* [[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.