Carmen Sandiego caught at last

V.I.L.E. leader brought to justice after 30-year crime spree

Carmen Sandiego’s globe-trotting crime spree has finally come to an end, thanks to the diligent efforts of one internet sleuth. 

That’s what I’d say if this were a news story. What we have here instead is an amusing article by Todd Van Luling about his attempts to track down the only actress ever to play Carmen in live-action. This took more effort than you might expect, due partly to the PBS show’s obfuscation, and partly to the fact that most of this happened in a pre-internet world. 

The Carmen Sandiego series of games started on the Apple II in 1985 as a way to teach children about geography. Players could talk to people in various cities around the globe who would give them hints they would have to interpret to find out where to go next.

The game proved popular enough to spin out into many sequels themed around different school subjects like history, math, and even music. They were ported to pretty much every system available at the time, and Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego? even got an NES version.

In 1991, the Public Broadcasting System used the concept of the video games to create a geography-themed game show for kids called “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” This show was quite successful, and even spawned a history-themed sequel called “Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?” Prior to it, the villains and Carmen herself were represented by animated cartoon figures, but for Where in Time, the characters were played by live actors.

The article linked above details the author’s efforts to identify and locate the actress who played Carmen on this later show. It’s worth reading, but if you want to skip right to the end, he did manage to track her down.

Anyway, show’s over, and you know what that means.  DO IT, ROCKAPELLA!

My 20-year quest to find Carmen Sandiego [Huffington Post]