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Dora the Explorer
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Extended Profile:

Dora the Explorer
 

Dora the Explorer is an American animated television series for preschool-age children that is broadcast on Nickelodeon in the United States. A pilot episode for this series aired in 1999. Dora the Explorer became a regular series in 2000. The show was created by Chris Gifford, Valerie Walsh, and Eric Weiner. The series airs not only on Nick, on Noggin, the Nickelodeon-owned channel for preschoolers. The show had aired on CBS until September of 2006.

Characters

Dora
Dora the Explorer tells the story of Dora Marquez, a seven-year old Latina who ventures forth on various simple but obstacle-filled quests. Dora involves the other protagonists and the viewer of the show in the quest. At the end of each episode, Dora celebrates the completion of the quest with a song ("We Did It") and asks what the viewer's favorite part of the adventure was. In the original episodes, Dora the Explorer was shown to live in a computer (similar to Aelita from Code Lyoko), but now she resides in a jungle with her family.

Dora's exact national origin remains vague because no specific Latin American country is ever mentioned. Though the majority of her exploits seem to point to her being of Puerto Rican descent (As Coqui, an indigenous frog of Puerto Rico is often mentioned). In any case, Dora speaks both Spanish and English (or another language and English in the various dubs). Dora's country of residence (the setting of most episodes) is also vague, though the palm trees and other flora suggest a tropical or semi-tropical area of the Americas. (The name of a recurring Spanish-speaking squirrel character, Tico, hints that the setting may be Costa Rica, whose residents are called ticos.) A good guess is that Dora lives in one of the tropical parts of Mexico which is most commonly associated with the interaction of both Latin American and U.S. culture.

Dora is voiced by Kathleen Herles in the original English version. Dora's name is taken from the Spanish word Exploradora, which means "female explorer." It is also said that her namesake is Dora Barlaz, a science teacher at New York City's Horace Mann School, who was the fiancée of the show's creator when he was designing it. They did not marry.


Boots
Boots is Dora's best friend on the show and a monkey. He is voiced by Harrison Chad in the original English version. Boots is friendly, enthusiastic and wears red boots, hence his name. He is present with Dora on her adventures, unless the adventure is to find or meet Boots, and he helps Dora to solve clues and puzzles. Boots loves bananas. Boots's father, who is variously considered to be an engineer, an architect, or a contractor, is seen in one episode completing an amusement park and another completing a bridge. Boots loves his father, and in the same episode the two share a banana.


Diego
Some more recently produced episodes have introduced Dora's cousin Diego, voiced by Felipe Dieppa. Diego is an intrepid young animal rescue worker and sometimes partners with Dora in her adventures. He proved to be popular enough for Nickelodeon to introduce a separate Diego series entitled Go, Diego, Go! in 2005. Just like Dora, Diego has a best friend who travels with him: Baby Jaguar, who started to talk in the Go Diego Go! series.


Swiper
Swiper is a villainous fox who appears in nearly every episode. As his name implies, Swiper steals or attempts to steal key items that help Dora on her adventures. Swiper never appears without sufficient notice; an ominous "whisking" sound is heard by both the audience and the characters on screen prior to the moment when items are at risk of theft.

To prevent Swiper from success, Dora would need to repeat the phrase, "Swiper, no swiping!" three times. Usually she prevails, and Swiper slinks away saying, "Oh, man!" However, sometimes Swiper gets to the item before Dora has a chance to repeat the phrase. He then gloats, "You're too late!" (and frequently "You'll never find it now!"). He never seems to actually want the object he takes, since he almost immediately throws it away to hide it from Dora (prompting her to ask the viewers at home to help her find it). He seemingly wants only to annoy Dora and keep her from her goal. He has some kind of New York accent, and lives in a burrow on top of Blueberry Hill (no relation to the song).

Swiper is very fast and agile, and something of a master of disguise. He seems to have a great deal of technical knowledge, as he's built a variety of vehicles and gadgets (including a remote-controlled robot butterfly) to help him swipe things. Most of the time, however, he simply relies on his natural stalking abilities — sometimes with the aid of a costume — to sneak up on Dora.

In one episode it was revealed that Swiper likes puppies, and in another that he likes Cowboy cookies. In yet another episode, Dora filled in for a delivery bird who was injured; Dora delivered stickers to Swiper, which were sent by his grandmother. In the episode "Swiper the Explorer," Swiper helps Dora on her quest to help Baby Fox find its mommy, and Swiper holds the baby fox almost all through the episode.

The interaction between Dora and the antagonistic fox also reveals the kindness and grace of Dora's character. In several episodes, Swiper finds himself captured, trapped or in some sort of trouble. Despite his history of mean-spiritedness toward Dora, Dora always unquestioningly helps Swiper just as she would her other friends, Benny, Isa, Boots and Tico.


Fiesta Trio
Whenever Dora and Boots are successful in a given portion of their quest (quests are usually divided into three portions), the Fiesta Trio appears from seemingly nowhere to congratulate Dora and celebrate for a brief few seconds with music. The Fiesta Trio is a group of three small animals: a grasshopper, a snail, and a frog.


Other characters
The Grumpy Old Troll lives under a bridge and requires Dora and Boots to solve a riddle to cross it.Other recurring human characters include:

Dora's mother (Mamí).
Dora's father (Papí).
Dora's grandmother (Abuela).
There are a number of minor, recurring animal characters such as:

Señor Tucan.
Isa the Iguana.
Benny the Bull, who loves to eat, and often rides in a hot air balloon.
Baby Jaguar, who doesn't speak (in this series) but seems to be just as intelligent as the other characters.
Tico the Squirrel, who only speaks Spanish and is usually seen driving his little yellow car.
The Grumpy Old Troll (pictured).
Additionally, the show features a number of anthropomorphic voice-activated objects, notably:

Dora's purple Backpack, which provides whatever Dora needs to complete her quests. The backpack is a magic satchel, which has been known to produce large items, including multiple ladders, two complete space suits — one each for Dora and Boots — and other items that simply could not fit inside it.
The Map, which provides travel guidance and advice.
Sometimes there are also locomotives, boats, and automobiles with speaking roles. In addition, some episodes include talking trees, gates and walls.
Newer episodes feature flying stars, which Dora and Boots catch and put into the star pocket on Backpack. The stars are always excited about going into the star pocket, which was shown in one episode to have much more space inside that one would think, similar to Backpack herself. Normally among these stars are one or more Explorer Stars, which have special powers that Dora uses to overcome obstacles. In the first episode of the 2003-04 season (the first show to feature the stars), Dora and Boots are navigating a boat across a sea when they encounter a pack of sharks in their path; at which point they use a "springy star" to cause the boat to literally leap over the sharks. [3]


Plot
The episodes of Dora the Explorer almost always follow the same never-changing pattern:

Dora has something she wants to do or somewhere she needs to go.
Dora has three places to go, with the third place as the destination.
Dora and Boots meet Swiper somewhere along the way, sometimes succeed at saying 'Swiper no Swiping' three times, sometimes Swiper successfully swipes Dora's item and hides it. Dora and Boots always find the hidden item.
Dora will meet one of her friends at each of the locations detailed by the Map.
Dora always succeeds in passing the obstacles.
In the English version, Dora will ask the viewers to help her by giving advice (jump, run etc.), locating items (especially those stolen by Swiper) and often shouting commands to the characters in Spanish (especially Tico and Sr. Tucan, who can only speak Spanish).
Every character that appeared on the episode sings 'We did it' at the end except for Swiper (unless Swiper has taken some positive role in the episode, such as the episode where he rescues a lost baby fox).
Dora asks viewers what their favorite part was. She (and usually Boots) then proceed to tell the viewer which part of the adventure she most enjoyed. Any other major character can also be included in this section.
During the closing Credits, viewers are either asked to find a character, hiding in a location, or follow instructions to achieve an objective.
 

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