"Hola! Soy Dora!" "And I'm Boots..."
Dora the Grown Up is a web series written by Eric Moneypenny as a part of the AOK Ruins Your Childhood series. This parody of Dora the Explorer focuses on Dora at the age of 24, and the hardships she goes through as a young adult, alongside her animal companion, Boots.The show premiered 2017 and has ten episodes so far.
This show provides examples of:
- Accent Slip-Up: Dora will occasionally slip out of her overly chipper Spanish accent into an American one whenever she gets overly stressed.
- Characterization Marches On: While Dora has always been a Womanchild in this series, early on she was at least trying to be nice to the other characters (like not knowing how to break up with her boyfriend at the time, because she didn't want to hurt his feelings) and her hurting others was a result of her acting as if she is in an episode of the original series, rather than in a more realistic world, giving in to temptations or simply not thinking things through and she showed guilt when she pissed others off. She was also passive and kind of distant towards Boots early on rather than abusive and there was no indication of her forcing him to do any work. As time went on, she became such a Jerkass, that there was a Christmas Carol parody of her learning about kindness, but she didn't change.
- Clashing Cousins: Downplayed with Dora and Diego. Dora gets compared a lot to her more successful cousin Diego. It has put a wrench in their relationship.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Implied with Boots. Many times Dora will ask the audience things like "Have you ever had a bad experience with edibles?" and Boots will say "I have".
- Deadpan Snarker: Dora's parents will often mockingly imitate her childish speech patterns, seemingly having been driven nuts by it for years and years and unwilling to put up with it anymore. Examples include asking if she bought food or if she has money in that same questioning tone, complete with the drawn-out 'you'.Dora's mother: Do you see any food here that you bought?Dora's father: Do you have $10.99 a month?
- Drowning My Sorrows: After losing her job and getting evicted from her house, Dora goes to the bar to take shots. Boots tags along with her.
- Everyone Has Standards: Dora is quite a Jerkass and Womanchild, but even she can't stand Caillou.
- Gambling Ruins Lives: The eighth episode has Dora resorting to gambling to pay her electricity bill; she wins the lottery, but Swiper robs her winning ticket. She latter uses her emergency credit card to gamble online rather than pay her bill, and she only decides to pay it when her electricity goes out right before she can blow her money.
- Gratuitous Spanish: Parodied, as many times Dora speaks some bad Spanish and sometimes says lines like this one:Dora: We are in Las Vegas! Las Vegas!
- Growing Up Sucks: A recurrent theme. For example, in the second episode, Dora loses her job, disappoints her parents, gets a mediocre job as a driver, gets evicted, and goes to drown her sorrows at a bar.
- Hairstyle Inertia: Dora still has her childhood bob haircut.
- Interspecies Romance: This time, between a human and an object, with Diego and Click.
- Lingerie Scene: When Dora and her friends go to Vegas for a bachelorette party, they visit a club featuring male strippers. Dora says she want's to be a stripper, too, gets on stage next to the stripper performing for them, and takes her top off. Of course, Swiper turns up and swipes the top, leaving Dora in just her bra for the rest of the scene. She and her friends then get thrown out because patrons are required to wear shirts.
- Mushroom Samba: In episode 10, Dora and her friends get high on mushrooms.
- No Fourth Wall: Dora frequently breaks the fourth wall, but other characters aren't aware of the audience so from their perspective, Dora is talking to herself.
- Precision F-Strike: Dora, after Swiper steals the bride's bouquet in episode 7.Dora: I am sick of that f***ing Swiper!
- Smoking Hot Sex: In Episode 6, after sleeping with her ex's friend, Dora's smoking a cigarette.
- Stepford Smiler: Dora has a miserable life and nothing but deadbeat jobs, but she's still a Plucky Girl. More evident on the "We Did It!" song at the end of each episode, where Dora will cheerfully sing and dance, even in episodes in which nothing pleasant happened to her.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Like in the original show, Dora talks to the audience, but other characters notice this, which at times puts Dora in trouble.
- In the first episode, Dora asks the audience if they have ever been in a relationship that isn't right for them, but won't break up because they're afraid to hurt the other person. In front of her date, that hears everything.
- In the second short, Dora breaking the fourth wall leads her to be fired from her job and evicted from her house.
- In episode 7, she almost ruins her best friend's wedding because she asks the audience out loud if she should reveal that the groom cheated on Dora's friend... with Dora herself.
- Swiper has now became a more efficient villain and Dora saying "Swiper, no swiping!" won't stop him from stealing.
- Swiper, No Swiping!: Averted. Dora telling Swiper to not steal stuff now has no effect, which causes much misery to Dora over the course of the series. In episode 8, when Swiper is about to steal Dora's winning lottery ticket, she even begs to Swiper not to steal it, and even tells him that she is willing to divide the money with him, and do other "favors", to no avail.
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: While she's not as mean as Caillou, Dora is irresponsible, impatient, and frequently blind to the feelings of others.
- Womanchild: Dora is extremely immature for a 24 year old and is financially irresponsible to where she has to move back with her parents in episode 9. Lampshaded by Dora's mother in episode 2:Dora (to the audience, while on the phone with her mother): Have you ever been compared unfavorably to a more successful family member?
Dora's mother: No Dora, I haven't! Have you ever had a child who refuses to grow up?
