Dora the Explorer

Eric Weiner

***Dora the Explorer*** is an American children's animated television series and multimedia franchise created by Chris Gifford, Valerie Walsh Valdes and Eric Weiner that premiered on Nickelodeon on August 14, 2000, and ended on August 9, 2019. The series is produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studio.

## Plot

The series centers around Dora Marquez, a seven-year-old Latina girl, with a love of embarking on quests related to an activity that she wants to partake of or a place that she wants to go to, accompanied by her talking purple backpack and anthropomorphic monkey companion named Boots (named for his beloved pair of red boots). Each episode is based around a series of cyclical events that occur along the way during Dora's travels, along with obstacles that she and Boots are forced to overcome or puzzles that they have to solve (with "assistance" from the viewing audience) relating to riddles, the Spanish language, or counting. Common rituals may involve Dora's encounters with Swiper, a bipedal, anthropomorphic masked thieving fox whose theft of the possessions of others must be prevented through fourth wall-breaking interaction with the viewer. To stop Swiper, Dora must say "Swiper no swiping" three times. However, on occasions where Swiper steals the belongings of other people, the viewer is presented with the challenge of helping Boots and Dora locate the stolen items. Another obstacle involves encounters with another one of the program's antagonists; the "Grumpy Old Troll" dwelling beneath a bridge that Dora and Boots must cross, who challenges them with a riddle that needs to be solved with the viewer's help before permitting them to pass. Known for the constant breaking of the fourth-wall depicted in every episode, the audience is usually presented to two primary landmarks that must be passed before Dora can reach her destination, normally being challenged with games or puzzles along the way. The episode always ends with Dora successfully reaching the locale, singing the "We Did It!" song with Boots in triumph.

On numerous occasions, television specials have been aired for the series in which the usual events of regular episodes are altered, threatened, or replaced. Usually said specials will present Dora with a bigger, more whimsical adventure than usual or with a magical task that must be fulfilled, or perhaps even offer a series of different adventures for Boots and Dora to travel through. They might be presented with an unusual, difficult task (such as assisting Swiper in his attempts to be erased from Santa Claus's Naughty List) that normally is not featured in average episodes, or challenge Dora with a goal that must be achieved (such as the emancipation of a trapped mermaid). Sometimes, the specials have involved the debut of new characters, such as the birth of Dora's superpowered twin baby siblings and the introduction of the enchanted anthropomorphic stars that accompany Dora on many of her quests.

## Trivia

* In 2013, Nickelodeon announced that it was making a sequel to *Dora the Explorer* titled as *Dora and Friends: Into the City!*. It stars Dora as a 10-year-old who goes on city adventures with the Explorer Girls, accompanied by a male pal named Pablo. The series had two seasons (20 episodes each) and aired on Nickelodeon from August 8, 2014 to February 5, 2017. This show also aired on Qubo a month after the show premiered on Nick Jr., but only aired until the Christmas of that year since there weren't a lot of episodes, but the show returned to Qubo on July 13, 2020 and ran until March 26, 2021 but will return again on New Year's 2022
* On October 23, 2017, it was announced that a live-action film adaptation, titled *Dora and the Lost City of Gold*, was in the works at Paramount Players and was slated for a summer 2019 release. It was filmed in Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia at Village Roadshow Studios directed by James Bobin with the screenplay written by Nick Stoller and Kristin Burr producing. Unlike the TV series, the film was expected to follow the title character as a teenager. Dora's cousin Diego was also confirmed to be a character in the film. On May 2, 2018, Isabela Moner was announced to portray the titular character. The film was released in theaters in the U.S. and Canada on August 9, 2019.
* On February 24, 2021, it was announced that a live-action remake of *Dora* would be in development and debut on Paramount+.
* The double length episodes never debuted on Qubo since there's only been a 30 minute airing of it, until December 27, 2021, Dora got moved to a whole hour so Qubo will start airing the double-length episodes