TV - Dora the Explorer

☻☻☻☺☺
(three smiley faces out of five)
Dora the Explorer is a cartoon airing on the Nickelodeon networks for young kids aged two to five or so. Dora is a seven-year-old Latina girl who travels the world with her monkey friend Boots on various adventures.

In each episode, Dora and Boots have a quest to fulfill, which usually involves helping a person or animal, and in each episode the antagonist is Swiper the fox. Swiper’s mission is usually to try and take whatever object Dora and Boots need that episode, whether it’s something they’re trying to deliver to someone else, or, for instance, a shape that they need to fix the road or bridge in front of them so that they may continue on their quest. Luckily, Dora has a magic backpack that can produce almost anything Dora and Boots might need to help them on their quests, from skis to wagons.

Dora the Explorer does a good job of teaching fairness and kindness to others, and it does a great job of injecting a little bit of Spanish into small kids’ vocabularies. The show often tries to teach kids about shapes and colors, and there’s often a pause in the dialogue that’s meant to allow little kids to be able to verbally interject their answers to Dora’s questions. The show also tries to get little kids to get up and move around while touching on the fact that there are different cultures all over the world.

But because this blog is about children’s shows that adults can also enjoy, this show receives only three smiley faces out of five.

Dora’s voice is nasal to the point of bordering on maddening. Boots is cute if you’re three, but not when you’re twenty-three and especially not if you’re thirty-three. He’s just a sidekick who’s kind of … there. There’s nothing particularly clever or funny about Boots.

Same goes for Swiper. About the only amusing thing Swiper says is “Oh, man!” when his moderately evil plan is foiled. When Dora and Boots succeed on their missions, there is this bizarre little mariachi band made up of a grasshopper, a frog and a slug that play a quick happy tune, and that’s about the only thing that ever makes me crack a smile.

The other recurring characters that pop up are just as uninteresting, and the guest characters are usually weird, but not in a good way.

Dora’s plotlines do tend to be odd—for example, Dora and Boots often get caught up in a fairy tale—but still not unusual enough to be inventive. The dialogue is almost never clever or witty.

Because of Dora’s popularity, it’s probably going to be difficult to keep your preschool to kindergarten aged kid away from this show. But it’s certainly not going to hurt him or her, either. Just try to unload the dishwasher or fold some laundry in the next room while it’s on.