Dora and my Daughters

Dora the Explorer was first aired by Nickelodeon TV as an animated series for the preschool kids. The Latina girl, or Hispanic girl as described by some of the websites that I explored, speaks English as well as Spanish. Each episode consists of Dora, and her monkey friend Boots, going on a journey with some purpose. On the way, they come across different things to note, adventures to see and riddles to solve. The best of all is that it is a kind of interactive. Dora asks the audience to say or repeat something or even answer a question. Pictures are provided to pick up the correct answer, and after waiting for sometime, an arrow (like that of a cursor) moves towards the correct answer and clicks on it.

The other characters in Dora are:
Benny the Bull
Isa the Iguana
Tico the Squirrel
Big Red Chicken
Baby Blue Bird
And the cute Villain, Swiper the Fox
The Fieasto Trio consist of the Snail, Grasshopper and the Frog, who play music for the Queen Bee. This trio keep appearing whenever Dora and Boots finish a milestone in their journey.

The Map and the Bagpack are Dora's friends. The Map tells the way and the Bagpack appears with a cute song,"...filled with things and nicnacs, too...", and whenever Dora needs anything, the Bagpack has it, be it a pail or an Icecream cake!!!

There are more characters like the Postman, the Pelican, Senior Toucan, Baby Petunia and so on who appear in some stories but not in all.

All this was wonderful on the Nickelodeon. But what with all the paid channels cut off, my younger daughter could not be introduced to this, and the elder one was in the verge of forgetting "her friend". But, the channel Chutti TV of the Sun Network made Dora so popular in Tamilnadu that it has become a craze like the Barbie doll. The dolls of Dora now appear for sale in the deparmental stores. I even found a soft toy of Dora.

To impress my kids and to make them realize the importance of not disturbing the Dolls festival of Navratri, I thought of using Dora and her friends. I searched many places for the other characters, but could not find even Dora's best friend Boots' doll. I then searched the net for ideas to make them. But finally, I got it inside my head. I bought stickers of Dora and all her friends, including Swiper the Fox. I bought white Mseal, the one that is used for crafts. I mixed the Mseal mixture, fixed the sticker and flattened the Mseal, preserving a reasonable thickness. I also shaped it up to fit the outline of the sticker. I arranged my doll houses with Dora and her friends and here is what I got. Watch out for Map and Bagpack in the balcony of the smaller house.


I even found Diego, Dora's cousin, who is fond of animals and goes on adventures to rescue them from dangers.

After Navratri Golu, what? Nishkala, my younger kid, started to ask for Dora's show whenever she was reminded of her. Whenever she or someone else has a problem, she would ask Dora to solve it. The other day, she was feeling sad about the absense of the usual star (which is actually planet venus) near the moon. She said the star got away from its mother and said that Dora would help it go to her mom.

This prompted me to search for full episodes of Dora on the net. My quest went on for about 4 hours on the net.

I found that the net is like the Room of Requirement of the Harry Potter series. You have to get the right words to find what you want and you will get exactly what you want, sometimes even in a better way. I tried all word combinations with it - "dora the explorer online", "dora the explorer downloads", "dora the explorer watch online", "dora the explorer online full episodes", "full episodes of dora the explorer", "download dora the explorer", "dora the explorer episodes" and so on.

I finally hit upon the website when I typed "watch dora the explorer". The name of the website is the same. It is www.watchdoratheexplorer.com. So simple, yet, it did not appear till I got the right words!!!

And so, here I am presenting to all those who might have even given up this quest. It has some of the episodes that have been uploaded by members. Sign up in this website, and you can even contribute to it by uploading any episodes that you have.

DORA THE EXPLORER


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