Year:  2009
Genre:  TV series, Cartoon, Kids
Country:  United States
Languages:  English, Spanish
Starring:  Caitlin Sanchez
Creator:  Eric Weiner
Run time:  98 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment
Related reviews:  Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom, Super Babies Dream Adventure, Catch The Stars, Nickelodeon’s Animal Friends, Nickelodeon’s All Star Sports Day, Dora’s Christmas

     At least in the Super Babies episode of Dora the Explorer, Dora acknowledges that the bulk of the episode takes place solely in her imagination.  That’s positive…singing maps aren’t real, after all.  But the Super Babies themselves are irritating characters shoehorned into an already irritating show. 

     These babies, being Super Babies, can fly, and can burn holes in people with their laser eyes and can lift elephants and throw them at skyscrapers.  Or something like that.  I remember that they can fly.  And that they can sing along to Dora’s songs, yet inexplicably can’t speak.  You’d think if they were truly “super”, they would have a more extensive vocabulary than “gaga googoo”.

     And that’s what they say.  It’s ALL they say.  “Gaga googoo”.  I have spent time around babies.  They do NOT say “gaga googoo”.  That’s just silly talk invented by television.  And Dora is playing along, reinforcing the stereotype that this is what babies say.  It’s despicable.  Furthermore, the babies don’t really have much to do except float around in the air and watch Dora yell at the TV screen.

     I would like to see Dora expand her repertoire a little bit.  If she’s going to buy into stereotypes such as this one, why not go all the way and do something interesting?  Like maybe she could get kicked out of Arizona and sent to Mexico, and make use of The Map to return to the States so she can find The Backpack that contains The Papers?  That might be cool…

This entry was posted on Monday, January 24th, 2011 at 7:38 am and is filed under 2009, Cartoon, Kids, TV series. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.