YMMV / Dora the Explorer

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • "We have to pull Benny out before the Gooey Geyser goes ker-sploosh!"
  • In the European Spanish version there is the infamous "No tengo pito" scene,^note "no tengo" means "I don't have". where pito could be understood as train whistle or penis.^note In the Mexican Spanish dialect, at least. Suddenly, the whole discussion becomes really awkward. This was averted completely in the Latin American Spanish version, where the term was properly translated to "whistle".^note To be fair, the series was dubbed in Venezuela, which they have their own euphemisms for penis.
• Adorkable: Swiper, of all characters, can be lovably dorky when he isn't stealing stuff. For example, he likes wearing bunny pajamas and reading with his grandma, and has a 'Funny Bunny' plushie. Plus, there's his awkward reaction to Cinderella thanking him.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • A number of Facebook groups have sprung up promoting the theory that Dora is an illegal immigrant and Swiper is a Customs Officer.
  • Due to the meta nature of teaching the kids how to observe objects, a lot of people theorize that Dora is pretending to not notice anything close to her so she can teach others how to do so on their own.
  • Thanks to Berleezy, the theory that Swiper is following Boots around because he stole his shoes is becoming quite popular.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Despite it being framed as a mythical creature, the coquí is a real species of frog with major cultural significance to Puerto Rico, and its singing is based on a legend surrounding its mating call. Granted, real coquís don't carry guitars, and they're significantly smaller than shown on the show, but the point stands.
• Americans Hate Tingle: When this show aired on TV Tokyo, it was constantly the lowest-rated animated show on Japanese television. This is because any preschool shows from the West with Fake Interactivity, including Dora, have never been liked by Japanese children, as they do not like to be talked down to by other people like Dora itself, and any attempts to air shows like this format have resulted in low ratings nationwide than any animation produced domestically. Thus, 'interactive' pre-school shows wouldn't get popular in Japan, until Team Umizoomi became the most popular Nick Jr. cartoon in Japan for a while.
• Archive Panic: Besides the original show in all its 178-episode glory, you also have two spin-offs and a live-action film.
• Audience-Alienating Era: Fans of the show think that it went downhill when the Explorer Stars were introduced in Season 3 (or when they were removed after Season 4).
• Awesome Music:
  • The Ice Witch's villain song in "Dora's Ice Skating Spectacular." It helps that she's voiced by Hilary Duff.
  • The "Dance Fiesta!" CD features some of the better-known songs from the show, as well as amazing covers of hits like "Get on Your Feet", "We Are Family", and "Oye Como Va".
• Base-Breaking Character: The Explorer Stars are rather polarizing. Are they a unique and fresh concept that creates a lot of variety for puzzle solving and provide a great season opener, or are they a concept that caused the show to jump the shark and deserved to be removed after Season 5?
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: In "Dora Saves the Game", after Dora finishes her opening monologue, one of her relatives randomly says "Hi, Dora". Dora doesn't respond, leaving the greeting very out-of-place.
• Bile Fascination: While it's always been popular with its target demographic, the show has also been a huge source of mockery from older audiences. Mainly due to the Fake Interactivity, which for many in the latter category, came across as rather condescending towards the former.
• Broken Base: Many fans think the series went downhill once the Explorer Stars were introduced (Or when they disappeared). Other fans haven't taken very well to the franchise's Girliness Upgrade, with the "tween" Dora being the peak of the iceberg.
• Common Knowledge: "Dora is Mexican" - Dora isn't anything. Officially, she is "pan-Latina," which means that she is Latina, but doesn't have a specific nationality. This was done to make her more relatable to all Latino viewers. People just assumed she was Mexican because of preconceived biases and stereotypes.
• Crossover Ship: Dora tends to get this with Caillou, likely thanks to GoAnimate.
• Draco in Leather Pants: A lot of the fans of the show felt bad for Swiper, since he is just a thief that can be driven away with a warning, and interpreted his behavior as acting out in order to get attention.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Dora's familia doesn't get a lot of attention in the show itself (and were largely phased out starting with Season 5), but many of them have pretty sizable followings among fans, particularly her Abuela and her cousin Daisy.
• Genius Bonus: Swiper's trademark mask and gloves make him an inversion of the character Zorro, whose name means "fox". Instead of being a righteous thief called a fox, he's a mischievous fox called a thief, or "swiper".
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • It's very popular in India. It has been dubbed in several Indian languages and Dora themed merchandise is ubiquitous in toy stores and stationary shops. The show is also used to teach children English.
  • Not surprisingly, this show is popular in the Spain and Latin America due to the show having a heavy emphasis on Latino culture and having a Latina heroine. And while merchandise is scare nowadays in the show's home country of the United States, you can still find Dora merchandise in Spanish-speaking nations.
  • The show is so popular in Canada that it was one of two Nickelodeon shows (the other being Blue's Clues) to receive a broadcast outside of cable channels YTV and Treehouse TV, with it airing for a few years on TV Ontario, a Canadian free-to-air public broadcast channel. It also seems to be a common recommendation for good kids' shows to watch as a family by Canadian parents. In addition, while Nick Jr. currently only broadcasts the show in the morning hours, Treehouse TV still airs the show once in the morning, noon and night.
  • It is also huge in South Africa and gets better ratings than SpongeBob, sometimes being the most-watched kids program for many weeks in a row in the country and merchandise is everywhere.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In the Japanese dub, Swiper the Fox is voiced by Jun'ichi Kanemaru, who is the current official voice of Sonic the Hedgehog, whose best friend is a two-tailed fox (Tails). Extra hilarity that Swiper disguises himself as a hot dog in a single episode; Sonic's favorite food are chili dogs. This was even lampshaded by Kanemaru himself in his Twitter account.
  • The Season 3 episode "Dora Had A Little Lamb" involves Dora and Boots helping Mary's Lamb from "Mary Had A Little Lamb" (named "Little Lamb") return back to Mary's home inside a giant book of nursery rhymes. A year after the episode's airing, Harrison Chad (Boot's original voice actor) would go on to voice Cardigan the Lamb in the 2003 direct-to-video sequel to Charlotte's Web called Charlotte's Web 2: Wilbur's Great Adventure.
  • When the Season 3 episode "The Lost City" was going to premiere, an ad promoting it as if it were an action movie was created. Fast forward to 2019, and Dora and the Lost City of Gold, a Dora movie with some action sequences, is released in theaters.
  • Dora's tendency to interact with viewers and ask for advice seemed absurd when it aired in the 2000s, but is relevant in the 2020s with the rise of Twitch streaming, with people making entire careers off of what Dora does.
• Mandela Effect: Benny is falsely remembered as having a nose ring.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Sniper, no sniping!" in online FPSes.
  • Taken to extremes with the SNL Maraka Affectionate Parody. And lesser mainstreams with the YouTube Poops.
  • Dora the Explorer: The Search for the Infinity Orb with Ariel Winter, which many people wish weren't just a fake trailer...
    • It no longer is.
  • A supercut of Swiper's catchphrases and "Swiper, no swiping!" has over 1 million views on YouTube.
  • Much like Caillou, Dora is a popular character to use in GoAnimate "X Gets Grounded" videos.
  • The scene where the Grumpy Old Troll has banana on his ear from "Boots Banana Wish" became a meme on the Japanese internet. Some put the line from the episode on the picture of Banana arms from Kamen Rider Gaim.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: Dora the Explorer: Journey to the Purple Planet was very well received and got a 7.0 from IGN.
• Padding:
  • The Fake Interactivity is used to take up time, but specific moments in Season 1 take the cake. "Berry Hunt" in particular has about a minute of Dora and Boots trying to find Swiper and acting like they didn't hear the viewer say they saw him.
  • "Super Spies 2: The Swiping Machine" starts with a 30-second sketch of Swiper demonstrating his Super-Fast Swiping Machine.
  • "Dora's Dance to the Rescue" began with a Framing Device of Dora and Boots dancing in the woods and recalling the episode as a flashback, which may have been added to take up enough time for the episode. Said scene was not acknowledged for the rest of the episode.
  • The bonus Map segments in place of the three-picture sequence in Season 4 was probably put in on purpose to fill in the remaining runtime after the removal of the star-catching format from Season 3.
• Periphery Demographic: While not as big of one as some other shows aimed at younger kids, there are some older viewers who unironically enjoy watching it (primarily to make a MST out of it, but still).
• Periphery Hatedom: Even before the days of GoAnimate, internet forums have long mocked Dora's blindness, accused her of being an illegal immigrant and flanderized the cast into....
• Ron the Death Eater: The entire cast of the show is often portrayed as a first class Dysfunction Junction when used in GoAnimate's "grounded" videos. Dora is a Bratty Half-Pint who causes trouble at the drop of a hat, Dora's parents resent her very existence and hate it when she goes exploring, Boots regularly sells Dora out when she gets in trouble with him, Abuela is a heavyset apathetic Jerkass, and even Swiper, on the off-hand chance that he appears in a video, is far more violent than he is canonically.
• Rooting for the Empire: While it is a toss-up on if Swiper will actually succeed in swiping something from Dora, some viewers admit they prefer having him do so, if only because they like the minigames that happen when he succeeds.
• Signature Scene:
  • Dora transforming into a true princess in "Dora's Fairytale Adventure".
  • All of the dances in "Dora's Dance to the Rescue", but especially the Everyone Can Dance Dance.
  • Dora transforming into a mermaid in "Dora Saves the Mermaids".
  • The ballet performance in "Dora's Ballet Adventure".
• Signature Song: Some of the double-length episodes have these.
  • "We Love to Sing" and "We're Sailing to Treasure Island" in "Dora's Pirate Adventure".
  • "Fairytale Land" from "Dora's Fairytale Adventure".
  • "Everyone Can Dance" from "Dora's Dance to the Rescue".
  • "Nochebuena" from "Dora's Christmas Carol Adventure".
• Sweetness Aversion: This show can qualify as such due to its very light-hearted nature, bright color palette, constant use of songs, and Fake Interactivity, which makes it a large source of mockery in pop culture; even if the writing isn't as childish as shows like Barney or Teletubbies.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Some parents' reaction to 'Tween Dora'.
  • Dora no longer being portrayed as a Show Within a Show has caused some issues.
  • The "star catching" gimmick introduced in Season 3 was unliked by some viewers. It was thankfully toned down in Season 4 before becoming gone completely as of Season 5.
  • The removal of the picture pop-up sequence in Season 4. Fans were relieved when it returned in Season 5.
• Viewer Gender Confusion:
  • Backpack is a girl. She doesn't have the most feminine voice, she lacks any Tertiary Sexual Characteristics, and her coloring (light purple) is seen as a neutral color. There may be some Fridge Brilliance at work here; "Mochila" in Spanish is a feminine-gender word.
  • Surprisingly, Dora herself got this in the early days. She lacked a lot of the Tertiary Sexual Characteristics associated with girls and had a rather gender-neutral haircut. In the last few years this has been averted, as the series has become less and less unisex.
• Woolseyism:
  • Most dubs of the show (including the Spanish dubs) replaces every single instance of Spanish with English, effectively using the show to teach kids how to speak English instead. Which is understandable, given English's status as the most spoken language in the world (if you count both native and non-native speakers). There are exceptions to this however, such as Gaelic (which teaches Spanish), Serbian (also teaches Spanish), Turkish (which teaches both English and Spanish), and Kannada (which teaches Hindi). In Israel, however, the localizers got some flak for overlooking the "teaching the primary minority language" aspect — in other words, localizing the Spanish to English instead of Arabic — despite the fact that almost all foreign dubs did so.
  • In fact, when the Israeli kid-sitcom HaPijamot parodied the show, the parody was pitched - in-universe - using the reasoning that if Dora teaches English, Jora teaches Judæo-Iraqi.

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