'Dora the Explorer' a Hit With Children

[Brett Ferino]

LOS ANGELES (AP) - In a little more than two years, Nickelodeon's "Dora the Explorer" has vaulted past "Blues Clues" to become the most popular show on cable or commercial broadcast television among preschoolers. And with a national tour under way, it could get bigger still.

"When 'Blues Clues' hit its high-water mark," says Nickelodeon Executive Vice President Cyma Zarghami, "it had been on the air six years, versus three for 'Dora,' and had three years of live touring. ... 'Dora' looks like it's going to be huge."

Perhaps most surprising, though, is that the show, which airs 10 a.m. and again at 11 a.m. EDT on Nickelodeon, is also a hit with children 6 to 11 years old - an audience generally thought of as too old and too self-consciously cool to be caught shouting back at the television, answering questions and uncovering clues to mysteries.

To Kathleen Herles, the 12-year-old bilingual actress who voices Dora, such widespread appeal is not surprising. Dora is simply too sweet, she says, not to be liked by everyone.


"She's nice, she's playful and she helps a lot of people," Kathleen says, adding the character represents what she, a U.S.-born child of Peruvian immigrants, aspires to be.

"I'm as nice as she is," the seventh-grader adds shyly. "But sometimes I panic when something goes wrong."

Dora, of course, never panics, not even when she loses her beloved bear Osito, as she did in one episode, and had to venture to the mysterious "World of Lost Toys" to get him back.

But after all, says Nickelodeon executive Brown Johnson, who worked to put the show on the air, Dora - a 7-year-old bilingual adventurer who inhabits a colorful cartoon universe somewhere in Latin America - is a pint-sized Indiana Jones. She is fearless in the face of adversity. She's also ready to offer solutions to problems in math, geography or any other subject in both English and Spanish, and sometimes a combination of the two.

In the giving-advice department, Johnson acknowledges the show is as traditional as the long-running "Mr. Rogers Neighborhood" was.

"When we started Nick Jr.," she says, "one of the people from his production company came by and gave us some of his secrets. You have to say everything three times and the important person has to explain things to kids. That's why Mr. Rogers always explained things and that's why Dora, as the important person, always explains things. And, as annoying as it is to adults, that's why Dora always explains everything three times."

But the twist is she sometimes does it in parts of two languages, perhaps speaking to someone in Spanish, then switching to English and leaving the viewer to figure out exactly what was said.

That's the way newly arrived immigrants and people traveling in foreign countries pick up another language, says historian Carlos Cortes, one of the show's consultants.

It's also important, says Johnson, in building self-esteem among youngsters whose parents' first language may not be English.

"It's not that it's just Spanish, it's being proud that another language is spoken," she says. "It's like a magic thing that you can use to communicate with others, and it gives a lot of power and pride to kids who might not otherwise have pride in their own language and culture."

Not that census numbers go unnoticed either.

"If you look at the census figures," says Johnson, "you see the Latin American population is the single largest minority population in the country right now."

Thus Dora is poised, like Nickelodeon's more traditional live-action sitcom "The Brothers Garcia," to capture a large Hispanic audience where both languages are spoken.

As a result, the show's producers are nearly fanatical in striving to capture every detail of Dora's life accurately. While she lives in a cartoon world, for example, it has to be one that looks and sounds like Latin America, so much so that the show uses a panel of Latin advisers, including representatives of Mexico, Cuba, Costa Rica and Argentina.

"The idea is to put across messages of understanding, of building cross-cultural, bilingual bridges," says Cortes, a retired university professor and author of "The Children Are Watching," a book about the influence of television on children.

If the show can succeed in doing that, he says, it might also help children grow up with a better understanding of one another.

He also acknowledges it could lead to more shows like Dora, although for others to succeed he believes one steadfast, traditional TV ingredient must remain in place: The characters must be likable.

"When a show takes off and is successful there tends to be an immediate response of imitation," Cortes notes. "On the one hand, I think that's good. On the other hand, as we know from remakes of popular movies and television shows, you don't always catch magic in a bottle."

---