| I could never even come up with the right words or even the number of words taht I could muster up to tell you all how great this 1994 cartoon series really is. A lot of cartoons I liked around this time fell out with me over time but "Where On Earth Is Carmen Sandiego" has held up immensely well over a full decade after first airing on Fox Kids back in early 1994. Based on the computer game franchise released in the 1980s and then several game shows that aired during the 1990s, this cartoon series is about using clues in order to catch the elusive worldly reknown thief named Carmen. In the 1994 animated series, two world reknown ACME detectives named Ivy and her younger brother Zack work for Chief at ACME and are sent on missions to find out what Carmen's plans are and to stop her from succeeding at them and even trying to catch Carmen herself. This episode trilogy however is very different and breaks the mold in the series. First aired towards the later part of the show, this episode is entitled "Retribution" and is broken up into three parts. A vicious and dangerous criminal from the 1980s named Gunner Maelstrom escapes from prison and is on the loose. It turns out that Carmen actually in fact helped put him away in prison when she was and ACME agent back in the 1980s. Maelstrom is plotting revenge against Carmen by stealing Noah's Ark and possibly causing a massive flood in doing so and ruining Carmen's reputation as the world's greatest thief. Carmen, however is no longer playing cat and mouse with the ACME detectives here. This time ACME must work with Carmen in order to stop Maelstrom from causing destruction and from destroying several landscapes with his evil plot before it's too late. This cartoon series is the best type of cartoon that I've ever come to watch when a kid. Back then I loved it for it's adventurous fun and the overall tone of the show but today as an adult, there are so many more reasons to absolutely love this show. Now I love this show not only for it's fun and excellent character development but also the more education parts educate children through very cartoony (in a good way) fashion to make learning about world history, geography, and other science through very fun charicatures and this is a really smart move to do this because it seems like most shows just use dull methods to teach about history etc. and this likely makes it boring for kids. That's not the case with WOEICS. I could never come up with enough words or the right words to do this show any scrap of justice. DIC animations did such a stunning job on this series and it's a great tragedy that most networks, or any at all, don't even air this series anymore. Many may say "That's so 1994" but this is not something for the trends!! This series is not only fun but also highly educational for young kids to see and that they should re-air this onto the networks again. If they don't decide to do so, then the best option is to release this entire series on DVD. It can be done by releasing the individual seasons on their own set or releasing the entire cartoon series entitled "Where On Earth is Carmen Sandiego: The Complete Series" because this show is a timeless classic. Many may throw pies in my face for saying this but I would even go far enough to say that it is sometimes better than the "X-Men" cartoon series from around the same time. |