It was about a year ago that the new, older, and to many slightly creepy ‘tween’ version of Dora the Explorer was revealed by Nickelodeon. You can understand wanting to extend the insanely successful kid-franchise into the tween/teen market, particularly with the kids who had grown up with little Dora and were now growing older themselves. There was something disturbingly ‘mature’ about their first attempts at aging the intrepid little girl, but the new version is a much more comfortable iteration.
It’s on display on Nick Jr. now with the new “Dora’s Explorer Girls,” an appropriately international team of equally interpid friends doing all sorts of good things in all sorts of interesting places. It isn’t likely to have the same popularity as the charmingly low-budget simplicity of the original Dora, but at least she and her buds aren’t selling make-up and jewelry to twelve-year olds (there’s more than enough of that already, thank you.)
The premier of the new program on August 7 also guest-starred (or “stars”—these endlessly repeated episodes never really enter the past tense) Shakira, looking bright and cheery and not the least bit scary, in a cute little duet with Dora herself, “Todos Juntos” or “Everything’s Better When We Work Together.” On the show, you’ll see an animated version of Shakira with Dora and her friends; she blends in pretty well, except she’s disturbingly tall compared to the girls. And you can see the animated new Dora “on stage’ side-by-side with the live-action Shakira in the full music video, where Shakira seems even taller.
It is kind’a charming and the song is on YouTube and everywhere else, and there’s a short and equally sweet “making of” video also available for viewing.
All in all, a warm and positive project. And you can check out Shakira’s Pies Descalzos/Barefoot Foundation here.
