Channel J: Greg, Let’s Go To The Map!

“The third and final round had the winner of round two try to catch Carmen Sandiego by correctly identifying several locations on a continental map in 45 seconds. It was an exciting way to end an episode, but it maybe gave an unfair advantage to certain players by giving some of them the much more familiar North American continent to run around on and some of them the much less familiar African continent. Asia and Europe were crap shoots, especially with how suddenly the world changed during the taping of the first season.” –Quarantine Control #50

 

Remember this?  It’s time to actually audit this statement.

In 2021, I insinuated on this blog that contestants had an easier time winning a trip in Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? if they were identifying places in North America compared to players identifying places in Africa in the final round, but was this really the case?  Just how many people ended up winning trips on the show and did it matter which map Carmen was hiding in?

At first, it looked like maybe I would have to rewatch every episode of the show, and people have been uploading them to YouTube from taped broadcasts over the years, but some enterprising souls on the Carmen Sandiego Wiki have done all of the work for me.  All I need to do is compile the data and analyze it.

As of this writing, only the fifth season episode, Racquet Racket, is missing.  Every other episode has been posted online at some point in time, resulting in a near complete episode list.

There were several changes to the final round over the years.  One major change was that in season one, only seven locations needed to be identified, then the next four seasons required eight and didn’t extend the time contestants were given, suggesting that they were trying to make things a little harder.  There were also two episodes in season one where the contestant had 60 seconds, but the rest of the series gave the contestant only 45 seconds, possibly because 60 seconds was far too long if they didn’t want to give away so many trips.  Both of these episodes resulted in trips being given away.

That said, there were episodes where the contestant who made it to the final round got absolutely none of the locations right, so an extra 15 seconds would not have made any sort of difference there.  In fact, anyone who only marked 5 or fewer locations correctly within those 45 seconds would probably not have won the trip anyway if they were given a full minute instead.

There were other changes made between seasons.  Subtle changes were necessitated by the changing geography of the world.  The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics broke apart during the series’ run as well as Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, but if you don’t count the changing geography of the world, the biggest map change in the final round happened in season three, when they began testing players on their knowledge of the entire North American continent rather than just the United States, so contestants actually had to give a shit about Canada if they wanted to win their trip.

With all that said, how did the contestants do on each map?  Notably, the very first winning contestant that the show broadcast had won on an Africa map, and the first six contestants to be broadcast playing on a United States map could not locate seven places in their own country in 45 seconds.  The last two contestants to be given the United States map and the first two contestants to be given the expanded North America map did win their trips.  The last time Africa was used in the entire series (assuming it wasn’t the continent featured in the missing episode), the contestant won their trip.

Also, they probably didn’t have to worry about how many trips they gave away under their more lenient rules.  Out of 65 episodes each, they only gave away 14 trips in season one despite the lower requirements, 15 trips in season two and 17 in season three.  Seasons four and five only featured 50 episodes each, but despite this reduced episode count, they gave away 23 trips in season four and 18 in season five.  Overall, contestants did the best in season four, very rarely identifying less than half of the required locations.

In all, the United States was used 26 times, with North America being used 50 times after that.  Out of those 26 attempts on a map of the United States, only 9 contestants were able to catch Carmen Sandiego, and of the 50 attempts to catch her on the full North America map, 21 were successful.  By far, the best season for North America was the fifth and final season, with contestants consistently able to identify at least six out of eight locations on the entire continent.  This almost happened in season four as well, with just one episode where the contestant only identified four locations correctly.  The worst individual performances on the North America map happened in season three, with two contestants only able to identify three locations.  As for the basic United States map, there was a contestant in season one who only identified two locations, somehow doing worse on just his own country than contestants who had the entire continent to work with.

That was North America, but what about South?  Over the course of the entire series, South America was only used 40 times.  I can only speculate as to why this was, but I assume the relatively fewer countries on the continent in comparison to Europe and Asia, as well as how geographically notable several of its countries were, including some rather iconic shapes like Brazil, Argentina and Chile, made it seem like maybe it would’ve been too easy to win a trip.  That said, only 15 out of 40 contestants actually won a trip, and the worst performance on the map happened to a player in the final season who only was able to identify two locations, but this was during a season where five out of nine contestants won their trip and an additional two missed their trip by one.

More geographically complex than South America, Europe was used 67 times, and out of those times, they awarded only 19 trips.  The worst performance by far came during season one, where only one contestant won a trip even though they only needed to identify seven locations.  Then, in season two, only two contestants won, and I feel sorry for the three in season two who were only able to find seven out of eight locations because if they had played in season one, they would’ve won their trip.  One of the few players to score a zero in the final round played on a Europe map in season three and someone scored a one in season five.

Incidentally, it’s crazy how often Europe showed up despite the geography of the continent changing so much during the series’ run.  It was stated in interviews that they worked overnight to alter their maps in order to be as geographically accurate as possible, and although I don’t know if that extended to their physical map for the final round, I get the impression that it just might have.

Like with Europe, contestants were scoring low early in the series when playing Asia, with both a one and a zero recorded in season one.  Incidentally, both of the episodes where contestants were given 60 seconds were on Asia maps, but you either knew the countries or you didn’t.  It seemed like the contestants who were given 60 seconds probably didn’t need the extra help, and the contestants who scored abysmally wouldn’t have been able to win their trip no matter how much time they had.  In all, Asia was played 52 times, and trips were given away 12 times.  Even if you didn’t count the two episodes where contestants were given a more generous amount of time and subsequently won, that’s only a 20% win rate, much lower than any other continent discussed so far.

But was it lower than Africa?  Did contestants actually know the continent or was I correct in 2021 about contestants being at a disadvantage?  The continent was used 59 times, and only 11 contestants successfully won a trip, resulting in a win rate even lower than Asia’s.  It should be noted that the best season for Africa was the fourth, and it was also the season where they used it the least amount of times.  Out of seven contestants, four of them won their trip, two of them only found half of the locations they needed and one of them was only able to identify one.  It was very common to see players score half or fewer of the required locations on the Africa map, with a score of one achieved in season three once, scores of one and zero both achieved once in season two and a score of one achieved twice in season one.

In all, scores of zero were achieved three times, once each on Europe, Asia and Africa.  87 trips were given away over the course of 295 episodes (possibly 88 depending on what happened in the missing episode).  Overall, Africa was consistently the lowest scoring map and the United States was one of the highest scoring maps, with that distinction extending to the North America map starting in season three.  While there were definitely contestants who did unexpectedly well on the less successful maps and contestants who did unexpectedly poorly on the more successful maps, the overall data matched my assessment from Quarantine Control #50.  It’s almost like I did the research three years ago instead of now!

I wonder what else I said in that column.  Hmm.

“The final round [of Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?] required players to make their way through six time portals in 90 seconds. Each time portal required answering a question correctly with two possible answers given. Getting a question wrong meant performing a physical task to open the gate. If the player could get through all six gates, Carmen Sandiego would be captured.

It seemed to me like a sufficiently quick player would be able to get two of the questions incorrect and still capture Carmen, possibly three if they were fast enough, unlike in World where players had to get a specific number of locations correct or they wouldn’t win. Perhaps Time was developed with the promise that more players would capture Carmen, since there were many episodes of World where players lost by mere inches.”

Ah yes.  Come back tomorrow and I’ll audit that statement, too.