Celebrating mediocrity with Dora.

As I was babysitting the other night, I reflected on the ingenuity of Dora the Explorer. The girls were absolutely enthralled. I, on the other hand, was rather skeptical. I'm just going to lay it out here for you. 


1. The Map. As far as creative theme songs go, I think someone was a little lazy in the idea room. In case you haven't heard the Map song, here's how it goes. It gets a little tricky in the bridge, so watch out for that.


"I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm  the map, I'M THE MAP!!!!"


Poets couldn't have lyricized this any better. But in all sarcasm, I felt like I had heard the second line of the song before. And the third. It was like deja vu...about deja vu. Or Inception of a song. I don't care how you want to look at it. It was just...wrong.
After the Map(in case you didn't get his name from the first verse...or was it the chorus?) goes over the places Dora will go in order to save some poor animal about a gazillion times, Dora decides to reiterate it a few more times for you. I don't know if you've heard Brian Regan do this bit, but after watching it, I realized just how true it was. Mediocrity at its best.


Here's the deal.


I want the Map. Not just a Map. THE Map. Except instead of telling me exactly how to get somewhere in the course of just a few landmarks-though doubling as a GPS system would be rather handy-it would tell me what to do in life. This is all strictly hypothetical, of course. God is your GPS. 


2. Dora the Explorer doesn't rhyme. And since it's all about Spanish...wouldn't it make more sense to make her name Dora the Explora?!! Killing two pickles with one turtle, I always say.


3. Okay here's a positive. Teaching the ninos how to speak some espanol. When Dora would excitedly exclaim, "Donde esta?!" I found myself yelling "Es alli!!!!!!!" (I barely pulled through with an A in Spanish class. The only word I really understood and related with was siesta. And fiesta. And nachos). 


4. Swiper. I wish that every robber and villian could be stopped by simply saying, "Robber no robbing!" And he would just snap and say, "aw man!" And walk away. Sadly, this is the culture that is being ingrained into children's minds. 


5. Dora gets to go freaking everywhere. I want adventures like her.


6. Diego. I don't...really know what to say about this kid. He talks to animals. It's like this show is Maya and Miguel in the pre-adolescent stages. (And if you don't know who these wonderful twins are...you are missing some high quality television).


7. Backpack. Refer to #1.


All biting wit and sarcasm aside...it's a great show. I suppose I'm just too literal a person to take Dora the ExplorA seriously. Now...to find the Map...