Doby & Disy (逗逗迪迪, "Doudou and Didi") is a Chinese preschool animated series that is produced by Winsing Animation (best known for GG Bond) and premiered in 2011.
In it, a brother and sister team named Doby and Disy respectively go around to help their friends. The exact premise changes with each season; for instance, in Season 1, their mother tells Doby and Disy bedtime stories that happen to star them as the main characters, and in Season 2, this framing device is dropped in favor of Doby, Disy, and their friend Panda using detective skills to figure out problems.
In addition to the main series, a movie, Doby & Disy's Dreamy Town, was released at the beginning of 2017. The plot of the movie sees Doby and Disy entering the Dream World to save their friends from restless sleep being caused by an evil witch, who has captured the beings who deliver dreams to Sunshine Forest.
Doby & Disy contains the following tropes:
- Alphabetical Theme Naming: Doby and Disy's name both begin with a D. The motif is in the Chinese original as well, where their names repeat the letter twice (Doudou and Didi respectively).
- Ascended Extra: Panda, who was just a secondary character in the first season, becomes a main character alongside Doby and Disy in Season 2 (and anywhere where they form the Detective Kubi).
- Composite Character: The Magic Pen either shows the viewers where Doby and Disy need to go on their adventure or shows them three objects that they will need on their adventure, making him a composite of the Map and the Backpack from Dora the Explorer.
- Derivative Differentiation: Season 2 got rid of the fake interactivity segments and fleshed out the character personalities to be more original than Dora the Explorer. Every season from that one onwards has its own topic to teach that isn't English, such as Chinese characters, music, and problem solving.
- Dinosaurs Are Dragons: Doby and Disy's dinosaur friend has had his name translated to "Dragon" and "Little Dinosaur" on separate occasions.
- A Dog Named "Dog":
- One of Doby and Disy's animal friends is a panda named... wait for it... Panda.
- Caesar's name in the original Chinese version is Huàimāo (坏猫), which means "Bad Cat".
- Dream Walker: Doby and Disy demonstrate the ability to travel into kids' dreams in Season 5, to help them with their other kind of dreams (the kind that leads to a career choice).
- Dub Name Change: The main characters' names are Doudou and Didi in the original Chinese, while they're Doby and Disy respectively in English.
- Edutainment Show: In the original Chinese, it teaches English (this feature got removed from the English dub).
- Fake Interactivity: Doby and Disy frequently ask for viewers to aid them on their adventures in the first season, having them look for specific objects or paths.
- Framing Device: The Season 1 episodes are framed by a mother reading her son and daughter, Doby and Disy, a bedtime story that happens to star them as the main characters. The episodes end with the mother asking Doby and Disy, the "real-life" ones, what happened in the episode, and then having them go to sleep.
- Go-to-Sleep Ending: Each episode of Season 1 uses a framing device of Doby and Disy's mother reading them a bedtime story, so naturally they end with her wishing them a good night before they go to sleep.
- Kid Detective: The motif of the second season, Detective Kubi. Doby, Disy, and Panda use their detective skills to solve the conflict of each episode.
- The Mockbuster: Season 1 seems to be ripping off Dora the Explorer, featuring many fake interactivity and Strictly Formula elements similar to it - such as them having to visit three locations in order to get where they're going and resolve the episode's conflict - and casting expies; Doby and Disy are direct expies of Dora, Parrot is an expy of Boots, Caesar is like Swiper the Fox, Magic Pen is like the Map and Backpack, and Panda is a copy of Benny, respectively. In addition, its original Chinese version teaches English, much like how Dora teaches Spanish.
- Name and Name: Doby & Disy.
- My Nayme Is: Disy's name is pronounced "Daisy" in one of the English dubs.
- New Season, New Name: The individual seasons are titled Exploring Journey, Detective Kubi, Learning Chinese with Doby & Disy, Sing with Us, and Hello Dream.
- Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Doby wears a blue animal suit while his sister Disy wears a pink one.
- Potty Emergency: In the Season 5 episode "Urban Planner in Australia", Logan and Doby don't consider that placing their carnival rides all willy-nilly might cause disruptions in the townsfolks' lives. This results in Doby having to go to the bathroom, only for him to have to go through a maze to do so. He's not able to get to the bathroom in time and... uh, does his business... somewhere within the maze.
- Power Outage Plot: In Season 2 episode 37b, the power goes out, and Doby, Disy, and Panda investigate to figure out the cause of the outage. Their investigating eventually leads them to discover that one of the windmills that generates electricity had its blades stolen. Caesar stole them so that he could create a giant fan with them and cool himself down.
- Punny Name: Caesar is a thief, so fittingly, his English name sounds like the word "seizer".
- Related in the Adaptation: Dora and Boots of Dora the Explorer are just friends. Doby and Disy, their immediate counterparts, are twins.
- Retronym: The first season, simply called Doby & Disy in broadcast, was later renamed Doby & Disy: Exploring Journey to fit with the New Season, New Name tradition of the rest of the series.
- Sibling Team: Brother and sister Doby and Disy work together to help others in need.
- Sick Episode: In Season 2 episode 37a, Panda's mother comes down with a cold and has Doby and Disy take care of the library for her.
- Significant Birth Date: Doby and Disy were both born on June 1st, making their zodiac symbol Gemini, the twins. Sure enough, they're twins.
- Sticky Fingers: Caesar is a literal cat burglar who will impulsively steal everything from signs to ice cream, often impeding Doby and Disy's adventures as he does so.
- Subbing for Santa: In a Season 2 episode, Santa falls ill and leaves it up to Doby, Disy, and Panda to deliver presents for him.
- Super Drowning Skills: In the Season 5 episode "Diver in Maldives", Nigel wants to be a diver but can't swim. This becomes integral to his dream, where Doby rescues him from drowning in what turns out to be the shallow end of the water.
- Swiper, No Swiping!: This being a knockoff of the trope-naming series in Season 1, they use a similar line to fend off the Swiper Captain Ersatz, Caesar the cat, from stealing whatever crosses his mind. The equivalent line here is "Bad Caesar, go away!"
- A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Said word-for-word by one of the characters in a Christmas Episode in Season 2, when the group discovers Caesar rigged a cage in front of his house to capture Santa and make off with his presents, with said cage capturing Panda. The group decides to give Caesar his gift and punish him at the same time by trapping him in the same cage, using the gift as bait to lure him.
- Two Shorts: The second season, Detective Kubi, has two stories in each of its 26-minute episodes.
- Visual Pun: Caesar is an anthropomorphic cat who steals things - that is, he's quite literally a cat burglar.
- Wingding Eyes: The characters' eyes become spirals whenever they are dazed, such as with Season 1 episode 4 where Caesar is knocked out by wild mushrooms he eats.
The movie, Dreamy Town, contains the following tropes:
- Actionized Adaptation: The movie has a far more action-based plot than the main series, having Doby and Disy being chased by evil pumpkins and having to fight the evil witch (without any actual violence; this is a preschool show, after all) near the end, among other things.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: During the song about how the witch disrupted the Dream Spirits, you can see giant versions of Little Dinosaur, Jack, Caesar, and the witch attacking the Dream Spirits' village.
- The Movie: Of Doby & Disy, understandably.
- Dream Land: Dream World is a conglomeration of everyone's dreams, including the nightmares being caused by the witch.
- Dreams vs. Nightmares: The plot has Doby and Disy working to save the good dreams of Dream Land from the witch, who is actively causing nightmares for those who have fallen under her spell.
- Fake Interactivity: Exactly once does the film use fake interactivity, by having a pause after Doby asks the viewers how they can bring back Little Dinosaur's memory, the viewers being expected to give the answer that they need to remind him what his dream is.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: Inverted. Caesar not only states he likes to cause trouble more than having friends, he has an entire song that specifically focuses on this.
- "I Want" Song: Inverted. Caesar's song states he doesn't want friends.
- The Song Remains the Same: The English dub leaves all but one of the songs, the one also used for the Season 1 end credits, in Chinese. The other songs, Caesar's song about him not wanting friends and the song about how the Dream Spirits were disrupted by the witch, actually do have English subtitles in the Chinese original along with the rest of the film.
- Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: The witch certainly had her work cut out for her causing enough turmoil to make her legitimately a dark villain, as she not only takes over the dream world but has some of Doby and Disy's friends under her control. This is a movie of a preschool show that only had one season that features a villain, and not a particularly threatening one at that.
