GLaD 22: Carmen San Diego + Just for Fun Friday

On 03/22/2013 at 10:43 PM by Super Step

Bing Image Mad Libz: Gonzaga Bulldogs player Kelly Olynyk takes a break from using the Satanic blood of 90s one-hit-wonder Taylor Hanson to improve his basketball stats, and sets out on another journey to find the wizard Dio somewhere over the rainbow, so that he may be granted three wishes. Actress Olivia Wilde turns out to be under the rainbow instead, and it is revealed that she is the real life Carmen San Diego, using the rainbow's power to travel through time and space and become the world's greatest jewelery thief, to much the chagrin of Inspector Clusoe. After a while, somewhere in space and time, a blog writer runs out of ideas for where all of this is going, and resorts to saying that San Diego and Olynyk live happily forever after.

Where in Time is Carmen San Diego is a history trivia/educational video game that I was never very good at, and always found a bit boring as a kid. Basically, you have to catch criminals by traveling through time and following clues that you get from people you ask to ensure you go to the right place and time to catch your criminal. For instance, let's say you're asking around about where a criminal is going next, someone might describe a historical fact about Holland, and if you can correctly guess that they're most closely describing that place out of the four clues you're given, you advance to find the next clue.

You're not totally on your own, as you can search for data on different time periods and places in the game to help you determine what the best answers might be. Think of it as an index, I guess. In any case, I had to look up most of what I just said, because I sucked at it and din't play it all that much; there was also a PC version I played at school when my mom, being the computer teacher, was working late. I don't remember which PC exactly, it was part of a lab, and not all of the computers in there were the exact same model, plus this game came out for a few of them.

And that is all I know of this game. Here is everything else I know about the character Carmen San Diego (and I actually did watch these shows fairly often).

For some reason, they only had clips from the early 90s version of the game show, and not the mid to late 90s version I watched which looked a bit more polished and had like a blue world map thing going on... yet can not seem to be found online, so maybe my memory's hazy, but I definitely remember the game show, its theme song separate from the cartoon, and that the game show looked nothing like the clips I saw on Youtube. The kids had these little pedestal things with them to place on the map below their feet too, and didn't look like McDonald's workers like the clips I found. Weird.

Well, whatever, time for

Just for Fun Friday

Matt Snee Staff Writer

03/22/2013 at 11:10 PM

I still have the single volume encyclopedia that came with my "Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego" game from back in the day. I was just looking at it recently up on my shelf.

And Olive Wilde is definitely at the end of the rainbow.

Super Step Contributing Writer

03/22/2013 at 11:30 PM

I forgot about that, I wonder if my brother still has his.

Cary Woodham

03/23/2013 at 07:15 AM

I never played the Carmen SanDiego games much, but I do remember the cartoon and game show. The cartoon was on Saturday mornings, and wasn't that bad, really. The game show was on PBS, and had a catchy theme song.

03/23/2013 at 01:21 PM

That's pretty much all I remember too, I just remember the actual look of the game show I watched being different. Maybe the version I watched was also called Where in TIME is Carmen Sandiego, like the cartoon, and that's why I'm not finding it?

Homelessrook

03/23/2013 at 08:11 AM

I watched the cartoon but, never played the game.

Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

03/23/2013 at 01:24 PM

I very rarely played the game either, and watched the cartoon more than anything (also a game show I'm now unsure was titled exactly what I thought it was...)

Thanks for the birthday wish and song!

smartcelt

03/23/2013 at 08:46 AM

Happy Birthday! Hope you have the day off,like I do. Time to have some fun. I really liked the show you talked about. Carmen SanDiego was a cool concept. It taught kids about the world and geography. It never ceases to shock me how little young people nowadays know about geography. Even their basic surroundings are a mystery to some. They could not even show you on a map where Texas is! And these are kids in Oklahoma! Nice music picks today. Especially The Good Natured. And those tubes I do remember. We had some in our music class in elementary school. The metal version of that Britney Spears song was cool,too. I agree about the Usher song. I liked that song because he is just so damn smooth doing it. Lil Jon makes any song better,too. That guy cracks me up!

03/23/2013 at 01:30 PM

I'm freelance, so any days I don't get a call I have off, unfortunately. I'm hoping this blank text message from work's cellphone I got yesterday doesn't mean anything... hmm...Thanks for the birthday wish though!

I suck at geography as well, actually but I could show you where most of the U.S. states are located on a U.S. map and where all the continents reside at least. Howver, if you said to find a specific Middle Eastern country, or one with a not-obvious shape (obvious shape example: Italy's "boot") I might be kind of screwed. lol

I'm glad you liked Good Natured especially, I was really hoping people would hear that one. It's also cool to know someone else had those tubes! lol We didn't have them in music class, but we sure had fun with them at home. Lil Jon has made so much money just saying "yeah!" and "ok" but I like a lot of songs he's on anyway. lol

GamerGirlBritt

03/23/2013 at 04:48 PM

Happy birthday!

I loved that Carmen San Diego game when I was a kid. I played the updated 1996 version though. Only thing is I was really young so I didn't know much about geography so if a citizen said something about Holland, I would literally have to travel to numerous places to find Holland because I didn't actually know where Holland was haha. But that version had the digisketch feature where you could come up with a basic sketch of the suspect. It was great. Now I kinda wanna go find it.

03/23/2013 at 05:39 PM

Well, you got a lot farther than I did probably, in any case. lol I might have a better time of it now.

Thanks for the bday wish!

Surfcaster

03/25/2013 at 08:38 AM

I played Where In The World is Carmen Sandiego for the PC, but I didn't like Where In Time. I found it too difficult! I'd be interested to see how good I'd be at it now, haha. I'd probably be worse!

03/25/2013 at 06:05 PM

Pretty much the same here, my older brother had it on SNES, mom had it in the lab at school, and in both cases I sucked at it. lol I too wonder how I'd be now.

PixlBit