Twenty years later, an animated Carmen Sandiego returns

Where in the world has Carmen Sandiego been lately?

She’s been the subject of an ongoing series of video games since 1985. She was featured in two game shows, one a Peabody Award winner and the second an Emmy Award winner, featuring Rockapella and late actress Lynne Thigpen (Homicide, Law & Order, Tootsie, Shaft) as The Chief, from 1991-97. And she had an Emmy Award-winning animated series that ran for five years, with the last episode airing 20 years ago this week. The animated series starred Oscar-winning actress Rita Moreno (West Side Story, The Electric Company, Jane the Virgin) as the voice of Carmen, and a host of bad guys, including a recurring villain voiced by Tim Curry. The games and shows have had changing names: Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego? But the constant has always been Carmen.

A new animated series is coming to Netflix later this month, bringing back the character with some updates. Netflix’s Carmen Sandiego will deliver two ten-episode seasons starring Gina Rodriguez as the voice of Carmen. Rodriguez’s most recent voice work can be heard in Ferdinand and Smallfoot, and she’s appeared in front of the camera in genre series from Law & Order to Longmire, and her best known role in Jane the Virgin. The updated Carmen is first seen younger than her past personas. Law enforcement agencies see her as a master criminal. She becomes a modern-day Robin Hood traveling the globe and stealing from the crime organization V.I.L.E., giving stolen goods back to its victims. The series will follow her escapades, and viewers will learn not only where she is but… Who in the world is Carmen Sandiego?

The series will feature the voice talents of Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things, It, Supernatural, The Addams Family) and Sabrina Carpenter (Horns, The Hate U Give). The first trailer has Carmen updated from all-out criminal to something like a member of the team in the television series Leverage (“The rich and powerful take what they want. We steal it back for you. Sometimes bad guys make the best good guys”).

Take a look at the English and Spanish trailers for the new series Carmen Sandiego: