While I had caught sporadic episodes of the game show "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?", I have just recently gotten some videos of the show and been able to watch many more episodes.
Of course, Greg Lee (agent in charge of training new recruits/host) does a wonderful job. He is always cheerful and encourages the audience to cheer for the performances given, raising up the level of excitement of the audience. I would say hands down, he is the best game show host ever.
The first round is absolutely awesome, with a huge variety of question formats, with questions that are relevant and pertinent to geographical locations. There are some times when the questions are given with one give-a-way bit of info (i.e. it's in the north) and two other bits that are quite difficult to discern. That detracts from the geographic aspect of the challenge.
The second round is always kind of a disappointment, as it is merely a game of concentration, which kind of detracts from the game, as the person who was best at answering questions and with the most geographical knowledge has no advantage in this round, as this round is mostly luck.
And Rockapella is awsome, not only in the music they supply, but also in their little musical call outs during the second round the loot or such is found. And of course their particpation in the skits greatly adds to the show.
Also, I have to mention the Chief (Lynne Thigpen) who also does a good job, but I often get the impression that her segments are prerecorded.
I get the impression that each scene was done in one take, as some of the gumshoes' reactions are a bit off, or not particularly appealing for television. Still with Greg Lee, Lynne Thigpen and Rockapella, I think this show must have been AMAZING to watch in person for the studio audience.
Some of the cultural information is fascinating, most often given in explanations by the Chief.
The third and final round is always a point of contention with me, as the time limit is so short that any mistake means the gumshoe will lose that round. Also, the African map contains so many countries that it ridiculously difficult, While the South American map is quite easy (for some one who knows geography). The European map includes a large portion of Russia, which the gumshoes have to run over, wasting a lot of precious time. I wish the gumshoes had at least a minute to complete this round, or were able to either move the group of marker's closer or carry more than one marker at a time. Also, while I feel that is is beyond most people's geographical knowledge, there is no map that includes the Caribbean islands, which does them (the islands and the chance to educate) a disservice.
I would prefer to see the maps broken up in to geographic regions, rather than continents. Such as: East Africa, Southern Africa, The Middle East, Western Africa.
So far, in the episodes that I have watched Osaka has been in two questions. Both times, the questions were so obscure "Japan's second largest city (who would know that?) I couldn't really blame all the contestants for getting the questions wrong (which they did, all of them). Strangely, when Osaka appeared in the second round, it has a number of nondescript landmarks (the post office?) and a place called Takuten Park, which I had never even heard of, even though I changed trains every day for 5 years basically right in front of it.
On a side note, I have no interest in "Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?", which seems odd, as I am a big fan of animation. First, that series drifts a bit from the question format of the original game, and greatly dilutes the educational aspect. Strangely enough, "Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego" is one of the only times where Carmen Sandiego is prominently featured as a character. In most other iterations she appears in image only and all her speaking lines are from "recorded" messages.
And I don't understand why there is only a "Carmen Sandiego: Adventures in Math" game out now. I know that the whole Carmen Sandiego concept is based on "education", but there are plenty of math games out there, but a dearth of geography games.
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