Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? It seems like Gina Rodriguez could tell us but she’s probably not going to until it comes time for the live-action movie to come out on Netflix. There’s not a lot of chatter as to just when the movie is going to be coming to Netflix but there is talk of a new, rebooted animated series of the same show coming in 2019. Kids that were growing up in the 90’s should be able to get excited about this since back then Carmen Sandiego was something that was quite popular and the theme song was almost infectious when it got inside your head.
Next to Where’s Waldo? this series was something that kids of varying ages could get into and have a lot of fun with. Back in those days computers and games were still all the rage but they were much simpler and tended to make kids actually learn something in order to figure out the clues and find out just where Carmen had gone to. Nowadays it’s not too much different but the need to look up from whatever system or device that a kid is playing with isn’t a big priority. Carmen Sandiego was a big part of childhood and inspired an animated series in the 90’s that almost seems like a dim memory now since it couldn’t quite keep the same level of interest as the many other cartoons that it had to contend with on Saturday mornings and throughout the week. The action-filled and sugary-sweet cartoons that tended to not challenge kids as much were already holding sway at that point and unfortunately Carmen, who stayed strong for some time, didn’t have much of a chance to contend with them.
But love for the show never really went away since people still remember it and the idea was still out there to make something of it. In fact it’s still been in the back of peoples’ minds for long enough that every now and then it seems like someone just has to mention it as a bit of nostalgic pleasure or perhaps to make a point that at one time kids’ cartoons and games actually seemed stimulating and jogged the cognitive process. Of course it can be argued that a lot of the media available to kids today still does that, but it’s also easy to argue that a lot of the media available is also sensationalist and violent junk that doesn’t instill a lot of learning past hand and eye coordination when working a controller. Carmen Sandiego made kids think, and really that seems to be what some people want to return to in terms of teaching their kids. A live-action film of it wouldn’t be so much of a learning experience as it would be an homage to something that people really loved at one time.
It seems that 90’s were a bit simpler when it came to the interests that kids had, and it’d be nice to see representation of that in some form.
Follow Us
