Carmen Sandiego

The red trech coat and fedora hat clad femme fatale and infamous leader of V.I.L.E. (Villains International League of Evil) is A.C.M.E.'s most wanted criminal in the popular multi-media series "Where is Carmen Sandiego?" The series was first owned by "Broaderbound Software" and now a franchise bought out by "The Learning Company". It's creators were ex-Disney artists who were sick of one dimensional female characters they believed made poor role models, and created there own female "Indiana Jones". Carmen is described as a "thorn in ACME's foot" as she is the ring leader for the largest criminal organization on earth; famous for stealing priceless artifacts and historical landmarks. She is extremely gifted intellectually. In recent Carmen games such as "Stolen Drums" it is noted in the game manual that she was a child prodigy and won a substantial amount of money on a game show and used it to travel the world. In the T.V. series "Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego" it is discovered during the "Into the Maelstrom" episodes that Carmen was an orphan who joined ACME when she was only 16 years old under the wing of the original "chief" shown in some of the games and the PBS TV Gameshow series played by Lynne Thigpen. ( Thigpen's phenomenal success in her short lifespan as an actress in the early 90's lead to powerful independant successful black women recieving the slang term "THE CHIEF" by fans of the show as a nickname/title because at the time of the shows popularity it was considered uncommon to have a role model that promoted racial equality and sexual equality. Both Carmen's character and The Chiefs character were very outside the cookie cutter characters at the height of the shows popularity) Before Carmen joined the ACME Agency she was raised at the "Golden Gates Girls Academy". It was closed in the mid 1990's and this is where the "chief" took Carmen under her wing, impressed by her outstanding intellectual capabilities. After only a year with working with ACME, Carmen solved more crimes in record time then anyone at the Agency to date. (As is revealed in "Boyhoods End" episode when Lee Jordan scans for information on young Carmen) When the original human chief passed on, Carmen created her own cyborg "Chief" and computer system (that many fans of the series believe is a tribute or rip-off of Max Headroom) that becomes ACME's main database for information. Carmen often worked with her computer creation as her assistant. She also partnered up with a few other important secondary characters. Suhara, Chase Devineaux, and Jules Argent, and appears to have spent a large amount of time doing case work while zen training in Japan under Suhara's guidance. Recently there has been a resurgance of Carmen fandom and slang terms directly related to her most popular slogans, clothing attire, and non-violent (but rebellous/aggrivating towards normal society) criminal orginization V.I.L.E. thanks to Carmen revival attempts on part of My Space and Deviant ART users, Strongbad fans, and "retro" t-shirt design companies. Some of the most popular slang terms can be seen below.