The author of the article spent wa-a-a-a-y more time considering the ramifications, origin, motivations and metaphysical ramifications of Swiper than the people who created the character. You'd think that "hidden demonology" would require someone to be hiding it.

FTA: "We've had this discussion with advisors who wanted us to get into the motivation behind Swiper's bad behavior. We decided that it's cleaner without it. Similar to villains in fairy tales, we don't get into the why."

One of my sons is now 10, and still has a large Dora doll that hangs out in his room. Which he will promptly use as a weapon if anyone disses her. And he really likes girls with the same features, dark hair, olive skin, brown eyes. I'm thinking there's going to be a little Latina diversity in my family tree in a few years. Does this mean the baby Jebus is going to cry?

cherryl taggart: One of my sons is now 10, and still has a large Dora doll that hangs out in his room. Which he will promptly use as a weapon if anyone disses her. And he really likes girls with the same features, dark hair, olive skin, brown eyes. I'm thinking there's going to be a little Latina diversity in my family tree in a few years. Does this mean the baby Jebus is going to cry?

You should get him a Dora piñata and convert it into Murderface for him:





/both hot

Burr: He does find the original Looney Tunes hilarious though...makes me proud.

Our kids are on the same wavelength. Looney Toons is just awesome, hands down. But yeah, Phineas and Ferb he's not into yet. I do like that one show (Little Einsteins?) where they have to "pat pat pat pat" their knees to get their rocketship to fly. They play some cool classical music on that one.

I HATE Mike the Knight. Caillou may be whiny but Mike is a little jerk.

All too often, cartoonists and writers of childrens' fiction try to sneak occult references into their work in an attempt to indoctrinate our children into non-Christian lifestyles that are contrary to His teachings. These demonic influences can be so subtle that I often don't even recognize them immediately myself.
Luckily, my neighbor's dog usually tells me which books and cartoons are ok.

FirstNationalBastard: big pig peaches: My daughter's nearly 3 and could care less about Dora. We followed the no TV until 2 rule.

She goes bananas for Daniel Tiger and Caillou which aren't too bad. Dora gives me the willies.

Is the Daniel Tiger show decent, in the Mister Rogers tradition?

Yes. It's an excellent show and done with an astonishing dedication to Fred Rogers and his vision. The show was created by the same woman as Blues Clues and the Fred Rogers Company. Kids love it.

I think more people should be talking about the creepy premise behind Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

Each episode, a problem presents itself in the first 5 minutes, and then they have to do a chant and dance to A) call Toodles to appear and B) activate the mousekedoer. The mousekedoer gives them 3 random objects and one mystery object to be used during the episode, which they can access by calling for Toodles and saying which they want. Then, when they can't climb a wall or something, they call for the giant blocks from Toodles and make stairs.

What this means is that the mousekedoer's omniscient and can see what obstacles they will encounter, so the show opens with them chanting to activate the all-knowing machine. Secondarily, Toodles is a weird side-kick to the god machine and can create anything from bologna sandwiches to an elephant, acting like the entity that manifests the will of the mousekedoer. It's just weird.

when you have to watch the same episode 20 times, you find something else to think about.

ChipNASA: What about this??

[wizard.gamebanana.com image 186x186] 

[i405.photobucket.com image 300x220]  

[images.wehaslinks.com image 320x200]

is it a direct flight to hell for laughing at that or do i get a lay over in purgatory to think about why i'm going to hell for laughing at that?

Famous Thamas: Dora was probably Rule 34'd the day she was created. Do your self a favor and do a google image search with safe search off.

CSB: That was how my wife learned of the existence of Rule 34. She makes Velcro cards for our autistic daughter to use to choose things, like shows, and she's a fan of Dora, so Mrs. Anomaly GIS's Dora the Explorer, ... what has been seen cannot be unseen apparently.

inner ted: ChipNASA: What about this??

[wizard.gamebanana.com image 186x186] 

[i405.photobucket.com image 300x220]  

[images.wehaslinks.com image 320x200]

is it a direct flight to hell for laughing at that or do i get a lay over in purgatory to think about why i'm going to hell for laughing at that?

The call the cops one makes me crack up every time. Amazes me who actually watches these shows and goes - OOOOO - stop it right there.... back it up.... yeah right there.... WTF!?!?!

Hilarious.

This is not my theory, but I haven't seen it pointed out yet that Dora is obviously a drug mule for the Mexican cartels. C'mon she's armed with a map and a backpack. Swiper obviously represents the border patrol.

People who believe that magic is real are entertaining. I think I laughed out loud 3 times while reading that article.

How can adults seriously buy into crap like incantations and demonic possessions.

/Of course they are not entertaining when they are trying to make laws based on magic :(.

That merited a "Scary" tag? Subby, if you're male, please hand in your "man card". You may be eligable for its return if you manage to do a stint patrolling roads in Afghanistan, but don't count on it.

MacWizard: The author of the article spent wa-a-a-a-y more time considering the ramifications, origin, motivations and metaphysical ramifications of Swiper than the people who created the character. You'd think that "hidden demonology" would require someone to be hiding it.

FTA: "We've had this discussion with advisors who wanted us to get into the motivation behind Swiper's bad behavior. We decided that it's cleaner without it. Similar to villains in fairy tales, we don't get into the why."

The redemption themes are definitely there. Possibly even Christian ones: TFA doesn't mention the Xmas special, but the entire plot is that Swiper swipes on Christmas Eve, earning himself a place on Santa's Naughty List. Dora and Boots take Swiper on adventures mandated by Santa as a prerequisite for Swiper's removal from said list. They visit Christmases past, present and future using a time-traveling cloak they get from Grumpy Old Troll.

/Spoiler: Swiper sees the pain his swiping causes the others and agrees not to swipe on Christmas
//Interesting: In the future (when they're all "big kids"), nobody has any nice things. The incantation of "Swiper, no swiping" (which Present!Swiper invokes against his own future self) doesn't work anymore, explicitly because once Swiper got on the Naughty List he didn't care anymore.

There used to be a Dennis P. Quinn at Georgetown. This couldn't be him, could it? Bizarre.

Keeve: This is not my theory, but I haven't seen it pointed out yet that Dora is obviously a drug mule for the Mexican cartels. C'mon she's armed with a map and a backpack. Swiper obviously represents the border patrol.

Just like how the woman from "Murder She Wrote" is obviously a serial killer who is an absolute master at framing other people for her crimes.

How else could she happen upon a new corpse every episode??

Farking Canuck: People who believe that magic is real are entertaining. I think I laughed out loud 3 times while reading that article.

How can adults seriously buy into crap like incantations and demonic possessions.

/Of course they are not entertaining when they are trying to make laws based on magic :(.

TFA works fine as a comparative-religion study. Even if one doesn't personally believe in magic the mythical influences are plain to see, and interesting.

/3 is a magic number
//atheist, materialist

jonny_q: When all you can think about is religion-hating, everything looks like a religious rant even if it's not intended that way.

This. I'm a militant teapot spotter, and this article was worth reading. It's not a fundie rant. Indeed, I think it could be used to troll fundies. The only trollicious thing about it is the title. But then the point of a title is to get people to read the article.

Guys, If you're offended by this article, read it again, slower this time.

cherryl taggart: One of my sons is now 10, and still has a large Dora doll that hangs out in his room. Which he will promptly use as a weapon if anyone disses her. And he really likes girls with the same features, dark hair, olive skin, brown eyes. I'm thinking there's going to be a little Latina diversity in my family tree in a few years. Does this mean the baby Jebus is going to cry?

Ain't nothing with a Mexican dish or two

What a Bunch of Bullshiat. Demonology? This is so retarded.

this deceptive nature made the fox a logical form for the devil to take on earth. In fact, for medieval Europeans, the fox was a common symbol for the devil himself.

So, Fox News is both deceptive and demonic.

OK, thanks, Quinn. Now, do you have the balls to explain Tanuki?

DjangoStonereaver: Snarfangel: Dora the Explorer, exposed? Rule 34 takes another victim.

I have to admit that this image:

[media.comicvine.com image 300x418]

Did give me pause the first time I saw it. Then I felt rather dirty.

I've always thought that Tera Patrick would have been perfect for a pron version...
/I'll leave you folks to figure out Boots and all...

Latinwolf: kid_icarus: Sad thing is, I would normally swear an article like that was satire, except that I know for a fact certain evangelicals take it to that level of insanity with total, serious conviction.

When I was a kid, me and my brother had to throw away all of our He-Man and Thundercat toys after our parents were made aware that said shows promote witchcraft. As a rule of thumb (for evangelicals), "witchcraft" was any sort of supernatural power that was explicitly stated as coming from our Lord God.

I think you meant "any sort of supernatural power that was explicitly stated as not coming from our Lord God".

Yup...I need to use all the words.

Pretty easy to pick out who didn't read the article. There's no herp-a-derp fundy stuff in there. It's actually halfway interesting, and the author even admits it may not be conscious intent to do anything with "demons." Not seeing any, "OMG DORA IS CAVORTING WITH DEMONS MAKE UR CHILDREN STOP"

I'll admit my eyes glazed over half way through that article, but my first thought "Well ya, it's a spin off of Old Man Coyote... what's the big deal?"

Then I remembered its a Christian History prof....

kid_icarus: TFA so much reminds me of this...

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/anyone else have their childhood ruined by this garbage?

Holy Crap, man. My parents lived by that shiat when I was a kid. I'll see you that one and raise you a...

FitzShivering: Pretty easy to pick out who didn't read the article. There's no herp-a-derp fundy stuff in there. It's actually halfway interesting, and the author even admits it may not be conscious intent to do anything with "demons." Not seeing any, "OMG DORA IS CAVORTING WITH DEMONS MAKE UR CHILDREN STOP"

But the author is the one who made the jump from "innocent cartoon" to "is that fox a DEMON?"

People with minds that aren't full of superstitious crap like "fox-demons" don't do things like that.

Oh, there's a rich historical tradition of foxes being seen as demonic? You mean from times when people were even dumber than they are today? THIS MUST MEAN SOMETHING.

theorellior: Okay, people, calm down. It was a mildly interesting article about the mythological archetypes that the human psyche has carried with it through the ages, and how that translates to young psychological development. Although the author may or may not be a Christian, fundie, crazy person or all three in combination, it really wasn't much of a religious tract, more of a comparative religious tract.

Dora is annoying because the way the actor voices her it's LIKE SHE'S SHOUTING ALL THE TIME.

CAN YOU HELP DORA FIND HER INSIDE VOICE?

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GREAT!

/ two-year-old son loves that show
// Find myself humming "I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the MAP!" more that I'd like

I cringe every time Lil Bee watches Dora. Seriously, Bubble Guppies is the only cartoon I can tolerate (and it's not on nearly enough, very funny).

omelete: // Find myself humming "I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the MAP!" more that I'd like

I'm always yelling "WE GET IT, YOU'RE THE MAP, SHUT THE FARK UP!"

ReverendJasen: Bleeding Christ.
Another article written by somebody who thinks they're smarter than they are, pointing out half-assed, tenuous links to bad thing du jour from a simple children's show.
Yes, yes. Now tell us how Spongebob and the Smurfs are evil tools to promote the gay agenda and make our kids desire sucking cock.

Well, They're godless Communists... and they do have a disproportionate male to female ratio.

MBooda: OK, thanks, Quinn. Now, do you have the balls to explain Tanuki?
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TFA: Indeed, children become empowered by Dora the Explorer. Children are asked to memorize directions and repeat phrases, often at disarming decibels-watching Dora's adventures rarely coincides with quiet time.

I couldn't get to the real crazy because I got distracted by this part. Either she has a different response to yelling kids than I do, or she doesn't know what disarming means.

Ok so the article was drawing similes between mythology buy using a children's program...

I need some stronger drugs before I'm even going to go there, also:

Swiper, stop swiping!

Raug the Dwarf: kid_icarus: TFA so much reminds me of this...

[i76.photobucket.com image 300x300]


/anyone else have their childhood ruined by this garbage?

Holy Crap, man. My parents lived by that shiat when I was a kid. I'll see you that one and raise you a...

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This one is a gem, too:

I think the fact that you can easily map the plot points and themes of a saturday morning cartoon to Christian mythology is probably more revealing regarding the origins of Christian mythology than it is indicative of anything particularly interesting regarding the cartoon.