Dora and Friends Into the City Big Red Chicken Voice

A trailer dropped Monday for a live-action film version of "Dora the Explorer," "Dora and the Lost City of Gold."

It's always dangerous to generalize, but I think I safely speak for parents everywhere when I say: Kill me now.

Probably you are thinking, what kind of a monster is this guy to react so strongly against what appears to be a nice little kids' movie? And of course you are thinking this from the haughty perch of someone who WAS NOT SUBJECTED TO REPEATED VIEWINGS OF "DORA" FOR YEARS.

I've got kids, see.

If you don't know Dora — lucky you, but onward we go — she is the title character in a Nick Jr. children's show. It premiered in August 2000 and ran for 14 seasons. That's a lot of screaming, but more on that momentarily.

No, a "Dora" movie isn't aimed at me — or my kids, who have aged out of the "Dora" demographic. But my reaction isn't so much about "Dora" specifically as it is about the Pavlovian response some kids' shows trigger in parents who were subjected to them for years.

Shall we all break out into a chorus of the "I Love You" song that Barney the dinosaur sings?

I was a television critic when Nick Jr. introduced the show at the twice yearly critics' tour. In theory, it was a welcome development. Dora is Latina, and the show often incorporated both Hispanic culture and Spanish. TV isn't exactly a hotbed of inclusivity now, but in 2000, a bilingual star of a kids show was especially big, and good, news.

We watched some footage then, and it seemed cute enough. Dora would go on adventures, with the help of a talking monkey friend, Boots. She also had a singing backpack, which had its own little song, and a singing map, which also had its own little song.

These are the lyrics to the backpack song: "Backpack, backpack/Backpack, backpack/I'm the backpack loaded up with things and knickknacks too/Anything that you might need I've got inside for you/Backpack, backpack/Backpack, backpack/Yeah!"

But the real genius is in the lyrics to the map's song:

"If there's a place you got to go/I'm the one you need to know/I'm the map/I'm the map/I'm the map/If there's a place you got to get/I can get you there I bet/I'm the map/I'm the map/I'm the map/I'm the map/I'm the map/I'm the map/I'm the map/I'm the map/I'm the map/I'm the map/I'm the map//I'm the map."

Brutal.

There's also Swiper the Fox, who would steal things and generally disrupt Dora's adventures. But he could be stopped if you said, three times, "Swiper no swiping!" (Repetition is big in kids' shows.) Except sometimes he stole stuff anyway.

The movie opens Aug. 2. The trailer for the film, which stars Isabela Moner as Dora, has Boots, and while Swiper's in the film, he's not in the trailer. However, Benicio Del Toro provides Swiper's voice and Danny Trejo that of Boots. This automatically makes it 10,000 times more interesting than it otherwise would be.

Still, there's a lot of history to overcome. If you have kids, you know this: If they like a show or a song or a movie, they will watch it literally hundreds of times. (And I'm a professional. I know what "literally" means.) This isn't just true of "Dora." It's true of everything they watch.

Imagine hearing the map's song over and over for years.

Here's the other thing. Dora doesn't talk. She screams. Maybe she has a never-ending ear infection or something and can't help it, but she never lowers her voice. So at the end of each adventure she will ask viewers what their favorite part was. And then exclaim:

"THAT WAS MY FAVORITE, TOO!!!"

Not all kids' TV is bad, of course. My kids will still throw on an episode of "Arthur," the PBS aardvark — and I'll watch it. I love "Arthur."

But Dora is just too much. Too many memories, too many episodes, too many of the same episodes, too many times. (I do like the big dumb red chicken, however, whose snoring can be heard for miles.)

On the other hand, it could be worse. It could be "Caillou."

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk.

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Dora and Friends Into the City Big Red Chicken Voice

Source: https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/media/2019/03/26/goodykoontz-a-live-action-dora-the-explorer-is-coming-and-im-annoyed-lost-city-of-gold/3273363002/