Trivia / Dora the Explorer

---

• Acting for Two:
  • Marc Weiner voices Swiper and the Map, and the Fiesta Trio.
  • In the episode "Dora Had A Little Lamb", Aisha Shickler voices Little Lamb and Glowy Star.
  • In Season 4, Dora's baby brother and sister are voiced by Hans Alpizar.
• Adored by the Network: Oh yes. Second in line from SpongeBob SquarePants... at least until PAW Patrol came around. Dora the Explorer lasted incredibly long for a preschool-aimed show and was Nick's second flagship cartoon throughout the 2000s and early 2010s.
• Amateur Cast: A majority of the voice cast doesn't really have a strong resume. A minor exception is Harrison Chad (Boot's original voice actor) who had a few other roles, such as Cardigan the Lamb in Charlotte's Web 2: Wilbur's Great Adventure and Young Tarzan in Tarzan II. After Season 4 of Dora wrapped up in 2007, he retired from voice acting.
• Ascended Fanon: Over time, Dora's catchphrase became "Hola! Soy Dora!", despite her never saying it. It isn't until later seasons that she sometimes began saying that.
• Children Voicing Children: Dora, Boots, Isa, Benny, and Tico were all voiced by actors who were children or pre-teens at the time of recording; the first voice actor for Dora in particular was 7 years old when she first got her role, and was 17 when she left the show.
• Cross-Dressing Voices:
  • Backpack is voiced by a young man in Germany, Poland, Israel, Sweden and Hungary.
  • The Map is voiced by a woman in The Russian and the Italian dub.
  • Also in Russia, Swiper and Benny are crossdressed.
• Dawson Casting: Dora's first voice actor, Kathleen Herles, was ten when the series premiered, but was in her late teens when she was surpassed. Caitlin Sanchez (12 at the start of her tenure) and Fátima Ptacek (11 at the start of her tenure) were also adolescent when voicing her; averted for the latter when she reprised her role for Dora and Friends when Dora has become a pre-teen.
• Defictionalization: In 2012, CollegeHumor produced a parody trailer for a Dora the Explorer movie that starred Ariel Winter as essentially "Dora Croft". It was intended as a joke. Fast forward to 2019 and it's not a joke anymore. Or at least not supposed to be.
• Meaningful Release Date:
  • "Dora and Diego to the Rescue" was released the same day as the premiere of Go, Diego, Go!.
  • "Let's Go to Music School" was released in the US on the same day as the theatrical release of Dora and the Lost City of Gold.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Diego was voiced by Andres and Felipe Dieppa for the first half of Season 3 followed by Gabriel Alvarez for the rest of the season and most of Season 4. Jake T. Austin took over the role starting with "Dora and Diego to the Rescue" and would continue voicing him throughout Season 5. Jake T. Austin would also voice Diego in his own show from Seasons 1-3. He was then replaced by Brandon Zambrano for Season 6 who also voiced Diego for Season 4. In Season 7, he was replaced by Jacob Medrano and would continue to voice him for the rest of the main series. Finally, in Dora and Friends: Into the City!, he was replaced by Nicolas Cantu.
  • The vast majority of the cast was wholly replaced. According to Kathleen Herles, one of the reasons Dora and the child characters were recast in later seasons was to keep the organic sound of younger voices.
  • And now, after Caitlin's whole Screwed by the Network deal, Dora has another new voice actress, Fatima Ptacek, as of "Dora's Royal Rescue". The new voice is extremely noticeable.
  • Boots was voiced by Harrison Chad for the first four seasons; after he aged, he was replaced by Regan Mizrahi in Season 5, who was then replaced by Koda Gursoy in Season 8.
  • In Season 5, Backpack's voice actor Sasha Toro was replaced with child actor Alexandria Suarez, who was replaced with Sofia Lopez for the later HD episodes because Suarez was cast as Dora's friend Naiya for Dora and Friends: Into the City!.
• Out of Order: Nickelodeon in general has had a habit airing the episodes out of order for this show, even delaying some episodes for a very long time ("Super Spies", "To the South Pole", "Save Diego", and "Swiper the Explorer" got hit with this the hardest), and even airing episodes from the next season when the previous season isn't finished airing.
• Schedule Slip: While most seasons take only a couple of years to finish, season 4 took almost seven years to finish airing on TV.
  • The Season 2 episode "Super Spies" aired on December 7, 2007, long after Season 3 had finished airing and Season 4 started airing.
  • It has been the norm for new seasons to premiere before the previous season has finished airing, which could range from a few months to years.
  • Season 8 seems to be getting the same treatment as Season 4 did, with several unaired episodes being aired in the UK and Canada long before their US airdate. The reason is due to production for Dora and Friends: Into the City!.
• Screwed by the Network: On CBS' Saturday morning block.
  • After the failure of Dora and Friends, the show was removed from the Nick Jr. block and pushed in either late night or early morning time slots on the 24/7 channel.
• The Shelf of TV Languishment: The last seven episodes were completed in 2013, but didn't air in the United States until 2019, due to the show's waning popularity and the rise of PAW Patrol's own popularity. This is made more awkward thanks to some of these episodes being intended as the set up to the spin-off show Dora and Friends: Into the City!... with that show having ended its own run in 2017. Hell, it even managed to release after the character's live-action film.
  • Season 2 was intended to premiere in Fall 2001, given by the copyright date in the credits, but due to the September 11 terrorist attacks, Season 2 didn't debut until February 2002.
• Short Run in Peru: One of the most extreme cases of this trope has to be the final six episodes of the series, which aired in many countries outside the US in April 2015, while the US didn't get these episodes until four years later.
• So My Kids Can Watch: Hilary Duff guest starred as the Ice Witch in the episode "Dora's Ice Skating Spectacular" for her then-one-year-old son Luca.
• Spoiled by the Merchandise: Toys issuing Dora's final outfit or transformation from the hourlong specials were distributed, which give away what happens in the ending.
• Unisex Series, Gendered Merchandise: Dora was for all children, but merchandise disagreed, and distributed toys and media for girls. It became so extreme, not only did Dora often get a Girliness Upgrade in the cartoon, but this became the reason why Go, Diego, Go! came to exist.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The show originally started life as a Barney & Friends-esque show called The Knock Arounds about a rabbit named Benjamin who went on adventures with his friends. Once animation became an option for the show and at the suggestion of a Nickelodeon executive who wanted to see a positive Latino role model on kids' TV, she was made into a human girl named Tess at first, and then named Nina.
  • The show was originally called "Nina's Pop-Up Puzzle".
  • Boots originally didn't have boots. He was named "Boots" as a pun on "reboot" (referencing how everyone lived in a computer game). He originally had the Grumpy Old Troll's design before becoming a fuzzy, barefoot yellow monkey◊ and then later becoming the finalized Boots.
  • Tico was originally a skunk, not a squirrel. Benny's original name was "Benito" and he was brown, not blue.
  • Early on Dora was a Significant Green-Eyed Redhead Irish girl.

---