Kids Shows Reviewed By An "Adult" - Dora the Explorer

DORA THE EXPLORER

A Review by: James Best, full-time parent and part-time man

As I see it, there's only a few theories for this show.

A) Everyday Dora goes in her backyard and retreats to her delusional world of weird places and quests because her parents are crackheads so she chooses to live in her fantasy.

B) Dora's giant football shaped head has made her an outcast among her people so she takes solace in the arms of a talking backpack and monkey.

C) Dora's weird life is real and she's some sort of oblivious child god on her planet that spends her days solving her world's bonkers problems.

I can't pick one so let's examine all three.  Because this show makes no sense and Dora speaking to me creeps me the golly jeepers out.  Her unblinking psycho stare makes me think she's going to crawl out of my TV a la The Ring.

THEORY 1:  DORA THE NEGLECTED 

Where are her parents?  This girl's like 6 years old.  Did the streets make her bilingual? Was this just language survival?  I can only assume she plays outside because her parents are running a crackhouse or meth den.

Sadly, by the looks of her skull shape, she's a crackbaby but I'm proud of her for using her mind to escape the situation.  Is the monkey real? I don't know.  If Boots is real, it begs the question: How did these junkie parents get her a real live monkey?  Probably a drug trade.  Maybe a customer appreciation gift from one of their Columbian drug lords.  If the monkey isn't real, then why imagine a monkey companion?  Why not just imagine herself into the show Full House?  A nice family structure full of catchphrases seems more enjoyable than drug parentage.

This Dora makes me sad.  But it's probably the most realistic.  There's no way good parents would let her out their sight for this long every day.  I'm afraid she even dreamed up her cousin Diego.  Or worse, Diego is real, is totally in a gang and that's why you don't see him much.

I hope the series ends with a call to Social Services.

THEORY 2:  DORA THE OUTCAST

Or she has no parents.  She's like a box-car child.  If the box-car children lived in some wacky magic land with talking mountains and maps that won't shut up about what they are.  "I'm the map I'm the map I'm the map..." Try to say that inside a paper shredder, Map.

Dora lives in crazy world.  Bags have mouths but no discernible need to eat.  Monkeys wear boots and foxes wear masks.  Dora can always wear shorts and swamps cry and snails have feelings that Dora spends her indigent life saving.  Dora's so lonesome she sometimes plays a version of Russian Roulette with a troll.  If she solves the riddle, she lives.  If she doesn't, he'll smash her into a puddle of sadness.

And yet she never stops smiling. Hope looks good in a bob haircut.

Now, again, she could be imagining all of this.  Her rejection from society might only be bearable by imagining herself out of her own hell-world.  There's even an episode where her "Mami" rubs it in her face about how replaceable Dora is by having twins right in front of her.  Dora can't cry though because her giant head barely has enough moisture to keep it alive.

Dora wanders the globe in a sort of hypnotic haze, trying to impress everyone with her Spanish language skills. She's like an ambassador to crazy. She lives off magical food and sleeps wherever she can find somewhere to lay her map down as a bed mat.  Sometimes her "cousin" Diego drops by to rub it in how good his life is and how normally shaped his head is.  She keeps the monkey not for friendship but for warmth and maybe some monkey stew if things get real bad.  

Street urchins have no friends.

THEORY 3:  DORA THE CHILD-GOD

Ok, let's say Weird World is real.  Stars actually talk to Dora and Backpacks are sentient.  Anthropomorphic cows and trumpet playing bugs and Gooey Swamps and Candy Condominiums and whatnot are all real and Dora spends her whole day roaming around on self-imposed quests. Why? Because she's some sort of fickle child-god who rules over this silly world.

What else could be the explanation?  

1st)   She's creepily omniscient.  She talks to you from your TV.  There's no film crew following her so what is she speaking into if we're supposed to believe this narrative?  Portals through time and space, duh. Dora Demi-God knows you're out there and talks to you.  

2nd)  Have you noticed how like no time passes while she's on her adventure?  It's because she's bending time/space like a boss.  Have you tried to climb a mountain?  It takes time.  Not for Dora though. Suspect.  Unless you're a child-god.

3rd)  Swiper is the devil. Yeah, that's right.  Dora's world is clearly demarcated by good and evil.  Helping is Good.  Swiping is Evil.  Swiper is clearly a Satan archetype and he's punished over and over by Dora's omniscient knowledge of where all the crap he stole got hidden.  She calls him out every time, "BAD SWIPER."  Totally the devil.

Let's face it, Dora is a God.  The whole world bends to her will.  She's never hurt by lava or wild animals or child advocate groups.  Sometimes she has butterfly wings or swings through the jungle without tiring her tiny toddler arms.  Even weirder, her world doesn't speak Alien, it speaks English and Spanish.  She's too powerful and she needs to be down by another god.  I nominate Thor.

OVERALL:  It's not the worst show out there but it's annoying as crap.  Halfway into your second episode, you'll be praying for your tv to set on fire.  I'm sure it teaches stuff and yeah, it's great that there's a Hispanic role model for kids.  Oh wait, we already had one.  His name is Luis Guzman.  So this show has zero value.  Turn on some Luis.

Kids Shows Reviewed by an "Adult" - Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood

DANIEL TIGER'S NEIGHBORHOOD

A review by: James Best, full-time parent and part-time man

DISCLAIMER:  Let’s assume I don’t know this came from Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood and all the characters are homages to puppets and characters he created.  Let’s just assume I sat down having no prior knowledge and experienced this show for the first time.  As some parents probably will.

PEOPLE PROBLEMS

First off, what’s going on with the animal/human mixing in this town?  We have anthropomorphic tigers, cats, and owls and then a bunch of human royalty.  Let's just gloss over the fact that the only black man in the town doesn't even have a name.  It's just Music Man.  And then there's Mr. McFeely.

His name is Mr. Mc-Feely.  In this day and age, maybe we don’t name the Postman who hangs with the kids Mr. “Mcfeely”. (Again, I know the reference.)  Would you take your kid to a teacher named Mr. Grabs or Ms. Badtouch?  No.  The parents of this town need to get a new postman or pool their money to get his name legally changed.  Mr. McPostman would work.  Or Dave.

Now the animal people wouldn’t be bad if it was consistent.  If they were all animal people or all people people.  But the mix is off-putting.  Especially because of the varying clothing rules.  Tigers and Cats go topsies only.  Owls go buck apparently.  Do you know what is cute? Owls in swim shorts. Picture it.  And you're loving it and I'm not wrong.

Also, Daniel the tiger boy has a pet fish.  Which means there’s a weird hierarchy in the animal kingdom.  The pantless human/animal hybrids dominate the weaker non-jacket wearers.  The Tiger family are oppressors.  They're keeping the other animals down.  All their words are lies.

CRAZY TOWN

So the theme song says we’re riding along with Daniel in his make-believe world.  So is the town make-believe or is it real?  Because it’s got a lot of problems up front.

1.     ROYALTY – Prince Wednesday lives with his brother, Prince Tuesday and their ancient dad, King Friday and his lady, Queen Sara Saturday.  The only thing I can assume in this name/day progression is that there was a Princess Sunday and Monday but they’ve been exiled or beheaded.

So the town’s governed by a monarchy? That’s bullcrap. If I was a tiger family, I would eat those dudes and take over the castle.   How does that town even support a castle? There’s like five businesses.

2.     BUSINESSES - This town must exist on an outside customer base.  It’s like a tourist town. The Post Office and School are government run so basically the whole town’s economic structure is a Museum, Music Shop, and a Bakery run by a dude named Baker Aker who is obviously in the Witness Protection Program. He’s living in make believe if he doesn’t think the mob is going to track him down with a stupid name like that.

3.     TROLLEY – Have you seen the size of the town? I’ve seen dollhouses that need more public transportation.  That trolley is killing the town revenue. The King is running this place into the ground.  The Princes need to get their patricide on and get some franchises in there.  Then Daniel could have an episode trying to talk Bill the Sad Applebee’s Manager off the castle wall. It would be classic.

Yeah, it’s a great show and teaches lots of values but the elements are weird.  I always want Daniel to slash one of the Princes and yell, “You think you’re better than me?!”  And why does O the Owl live with his uncle X the Owl?  What happened to his parents?  Were they gunned down Batman style?  I hope so.  That town needs some vigilante justice.  And by “town” I mean Mr. Mcfeely.  Because that dude is the neighborhood villain.  I haven't seen the whole first season, but I'm sure that the's cliffhanger.