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Dora, La Música (translated in English as "Dora, the Musician") is the 18th episode of Dora the Explorer from Season 2.

In production order, it is the 19th episode of Season 2.

Characters[]

Summary[]

The townspeople are having a musical parade, but when Señor Shush locks all their instruments in a music box, Dora and Boots take their own parade to the town! Help them find instruments for their friends, try to stop Swiper, and make great music!

Plot[]

Dora was playing music on her flute, a Christmas gift from Boots. As she played, she heard a "shaka-shaka shaka" sound. She looked up and saw Boots playing his maracas, which she had also given him for Christmas. Just then, Señor Tucán flew by, holding a newspaper. He announced important news, handed them the paper, and then flew off. Dora and Boots read the newspaper and learned that the townspeople were having a parranda, a party with music and instruments.

Suddenly, a man named Señor Shush arrived, covering his ears. He disliked music, finding it too loud, and longed for quiet. So, he decided to use his magic handkerchief to lock all the townspeople's instruments in the music box. With a wave of his handkerchief, magic sparkles floated the instruments out of the people's hands and into the music box. Once the instruments were locked away, Señor Shush informed the townspeople that the only way to open the music box was to play music. But without their instruments, they couldn't play any music, and a silence fell over the town. Señor Shush walked away happily, leaving the townspeople very disappointed.

Suddenly, Dora had a great idea: she and Boots could play music on their instruments together to open the music box and free the townspeople's instruments. The problem was, they didn't know how to get to the music box.

Dora and Boots asked Map for help. Map says that they have to go across the piano bridge and through the singing gate to reach the music box in the town. With their path revealed, Dora and Boots were ready. They practiced by playing their musical instruments: Dora took a turn on her flute, and Boots shook his maracas.

After the practice, they see Benny. Dora asked Benny if he would like to join their parranda. Benny accepts the request, but he doesn't have an instrument to play. Dora & Boots look inside Backpack. Backpack had an instrument for Benny. It was a conga drum. After getting the conga drum out from backpack, Benny plays it. Benny joins Dora and Boots in their parranda. Each character took their turn playing their musical instruments starting with Dora, Boots, and then Benny.

After that, they reach the piano bridge, which was missing some pieces. Señor Tucán was there to help. Dora had to tell the viewer what piece will fill in the gap in the bridge. Dora tells the viewer "larga" for "long" and "corta" for "short". The viewer tells Señor Tucán "larga" for the first gap, "corta" for the second gap, and "larga" for the third gap. In no time, the bridge was fixed. As Dora, Boots, and Benny cross the piano bridge, the tune of "A Musician I Am" is played on it. They thanked Señor Tucán for fixing the bridge. Then, the Fiesta Trio's fanfare is played on it as they cross it. After going across the piano bridge, Dora, Boots, and Benny had to find the singing gate. They find it which was on the winding path in the distance.

Suddenly, they hear Isa coming down the path next to them playing the trombone. Isa joins in with Dora, Boots, and Benny in the parranda. Dora takes her turn playing the flute, Boots takes his turn playing the maracas, Benny takes his turn playing the drum, and Isa takes her turn playing the trombone. After that, they heard a voice nearby that went "¡Hola, hola, ho-la!". Dora noticed it was the singing gate. Boots runs ahead and tries pulling the gate. A face appears on the singing gate and tells Boots that he was pulling on her nose and it hurts. Boots went "Oops, sorry!" and apologizes. He then greets the singing gate. They explained to the singing gate that they have to go through to get to the music box.

The singing gate tells them no and then says that to get her to open, they have figure out the nursery rhymes that she is going to sing. Dora, Boots, Benny, and Isa listened to each nursery rhyme carefully. The Singing Gate sings out the tunes to "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" and "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" without the lyrics except the last line of each nursery rhyme. They then sing those nursery rhymes with the full lyrics. The singing gate is impressed and how they sang great and allows Dora, Boots, Benny, and Isa to go through. After that, they can see the music box in the distance. Dora, Boots, Benny, and Isa were about to get going when they heard a "zoom, zoom zoom-zoom, zoom" sound. It was Tico playing his harmonica.

They ask Tico if they wanted to join their parranda, and he was glad to join in. And so, they all played their musical instruments starting with Dora on flute, Boots on maracas, Benny on drum, Isa on trombone, and Tico on harmonica. After that, they hear Swiper the Fox. Swiper is seen inside a piano and swipes all five instruments. But the viewer(s) finds the musical instruments and each one gets them back. Now, they were ready to open the music box in the town. Once they got there, the townspeople were excited. Dora announces that she and her friends are going to play their music to open the music box. Suddenly, they hear Señor Shush, who believes they can't sing loud enough to open the music box. Dora and her friends are determined to prove him wrong and invite the viewer(s) to sing along.

Each of Dora's friends plays their instrument: Dora on flute, Boots on maracas, Benny on drum, Isa on trombone, and Tico on harmonica. After their song, the lid of the music box opens, and Señor Shush gets off. Magic sparkles take away his magic handkerchief, ensuring he'll never lock up instruments again. All the musical instruments fly out, returning to their owners. For example, a boy gets his castanets, a man gets his guitar, and a girl in a wheelchair gets her bongos. Everyone is overjoyed to have their instruments back, all thanks to Dora, Boots, Benny, Isa, and Tico.

Boots wonders where Señor Shush went. Dora spots him peeking from behind the music box and asks if he'd like to play music with them. Señor Shush seems puzzled for a moment. Boots offers him a pair of cymbals to try. Dora encourages him, and when Señor Shush plays them, he realizes he enjoys making music and admits it's much better than wanting silence! Dora and her friends are thrilled they opened the music box, Señor Shush is happy he found a new interest in music, and the townspeople are delighted to have their instruments back.

Song[]

A Musician I Am

Places in this episode[]

  1. Piano Bridge
  2. Singing Gate
  3. Music Box

Releases[]

This episode can be found in Move to the Music on VHS and Egg Hunt, Dora's Ballet Adventures, and Dora's Halloween Parade on DVD.

Trivia[]

  • The sounds Dora and her friends make when mimicking their instruments that they play during the song are as follows:
    • Deet deet dee-deet deet for the flute
    • Shaka-shaka shaka for the maracas
    • Bam bam bam-bam bam for the conga drum
    • Boomba-boomba boomba for the trombone
    • Zoom zoom zoom-zoom zoom for the harmonica
    • Crasha-crasha crasha for the cymbals
  • This is the 44th episode aired on TV of the show.
  • This episode was seen on VHS before it aired on television.
  • Dora and Boots' flute and maracas were the same ones they got for Christmas in A Present For Santa.
  • If one goes by production order:
    • This would be the last episode in which Dora lists the places after all 3 pictures pop up. However, this briefly returns in the Season 3 episode The Super Silly Fiesta due to a silly mistake where the three squares were on the top of the screen then Dora slides them to the bottom and says all the places after that.
      • Additionally, speaking of the part where Dora will not say the places after all the pictures are revealed, this will not happen again until Season 7, except Dora will tap the screen to reveal all the squares and then she would say the places.
        • Starting with the next produced episode, she lists each individual place after each square pops up. Dora still reviews what she has to do during the first time with picture pop up sequence and says "So next comes (the)/is...? (or something similar)" during the second and third picture pop up sequence. Starting with Egg Hunt, she will ask "Where do we go first?" (first time) and "Where do we go next?" (second and third time).
  • This is another episode where Boots tries pulling a gate or a door, but it is locked.
  • This is the 4th English episode to have a Spanish title.
  • There is a lot of singing and music in this episode.
  • This is the first episode in which Dora and Boots don't sing the Travel Song, they instead sing A Musician I Am with their instruments and playing along with their friends.
  • After Dora and Boots walk over the piano bridge, the Fiesta Trio do not play their fanfare with their own instruments, it is instead played on the piano bridge as they cross it.
  • The title of this episode is called "Dora the Musician" in the Spanish version.
  • This episode features the additional voices:
    • George Takei (Debut)
    • David Courter (Debut)
    • Russ Edmonds (Debut)
    • Charlie Adler (Debut)
    • Nancy Giles (Debut)
    • Edward Hibbert (Debut)
    • Ashley Albert (2nd time back)
    • Kari Wahlgren (3rd time back)
  • This episode features the editor of Eriberto Soto.
  • This episode features the composer of Jessica Lissy.
  • When Boots says "Oh no!" the audio is taken from Rojo the Fire Truck.
  • Swiper is the only one not to have or play an instrument, although he is disguised as a piano. He will disguise himself as a piano again in Let's Go to Music School.
  • This episode is similar to the Jack's Big Music Show episode "The Grumpy Squirrel"; however, this episode aired first.
  • The bridge fixing scenario was reused from The Legend of the Big Red Chicken, except that "grande" and "pequeño" were replaced by "larga" and "corta".
  • When Dora, Boots, Benny, Isa, and Tico all sing A Musician I Am with their instruments, Swiper technically cuts it off just as they are finishing it, he cuts the ending of the song off with his whisking sound just as the song is about to end.
  • This is the first episode for the Singing Gate. It will appear again in The Super Silly Fiesta, except the gate is a male instead of a female. This means that there are apparently two singing gates in Dora's world.
    • Coincidentally, both of these episodes (this and the aforementioned one) were put together on the DVD title Dora's Ballet Adventures, and they both feature the same location.
      • However, in this episode, it was the second location, whereas it was the first location in The Super Silly Fiesta.
  • Map sang half his full song in the episode. he just sings the first verse of the song only and four of the last stanza and then says "I'm the Map!".
  • When Backpack sucks the remaining objects inside of her, she sang "Yum-yum-yum-yum-yum!" to the tune of "Pop Goes the Weasel", then says "¡Delicioso!" normally.
  • Theoretically, it is possible that Señor Shush hired Swiper to swipe Dora's flute, Boots' maracas, Benny's conga drum, Isa's trombone, and Tico's harmonica so Dora and her friends won't be able to play music to open the music box and give everyone their instruments back.
    • This is the third episode where two or more antagonists (which are Swiper and Señor Shush) appear, first being Dora Saves the Prince (which are Swiper and the Witch) and second being The Big Storm (which are Swiper and the Big Storm Cloud).
    • Additionally, much like the Witch from Dora Saves the Prince, Señor Shush reforms himself and is forgiven by Dora, Boots, Benny, Isa, Tico, and the townspeople for his actions.
  • This episode is also known as "El Músico".
  • This is the last post-Season 1 episode to use the Season 1 art style.
  • This is the last episode to use the original format for the Picture Pop-Up Sequence. The following two produced episodes serve as a transition to the new format when Dora says each place as it pops up, with Egg Hunt marking the official debut where following the Map segment, Dora no longer goes over the places after saying their names, instead asking "Where do we go first?" after they pop up.
  • The book Dora's Christmas Parade is based on the episode.
  • When Boots pulled on the Singing Gate's 'nose' he said "Whoops, sorry!". That same phrase would later be incorporated in Go, Diego, Go! when the Bobo Brothers are told to freeze (by saying "Freeze, Bobos!").

Goofs/Errors[]

  • During the A Musician I Am song, Dora, Isa, and Tico respectively play the flute, trombone, and harmonica without their mouths touching them. In real life, even if one's mouths does touch a wind instrument, it is impossible to sing and play it at the same time (although it does not apply here due to cartoon logic).
  • Streaming services and home media releases list this episode as "Dora, la Musico". The "a" is replaced with an "o", making the adjective "Música" masculine instead of feminine, the "L" is not capitalized, and the accent mark on the U is simply left out.
  • In some scenes, Dora has her Season 1 look.
  • When "A Musician I Am" is heard after Isa joins the parade, Dora's nose disappears a few times during her verse.
  • The girl who gets her bongos back is sitting in a wheelchair when she retrieves them, but earlier when seen in the crowd, she is standing.

Character Find[]

Boots the Monkey

Dora the Explorer Season 2 (airing order)
Lost Squeaky | The Missing Piece | The Big Storm | The Magic Stick | Rojo the Fire Truck | El Día De Las Madres | The Golden Explorers | Doctor Dora | Pinto, the Pony Express | The Big Piñata | The Happy Old Troll | A Letter for Swiper | Click! | ¡Rápido, Tico! | A Present For Santa | Super Map! | Lost Map | Dora, La Música | Egg Hunt | To the Monkey Bars | Hide and Go Seek | School Pet | Quack! Quack! | León, the Circus Lion | Whose Birthday is It? | Super Spies
Dora the Explorer Season 2 (production order)
The Big Storm | ¡Rápido, Tico! | The Magic Stick | The Missing Piece | Lost Squeaky | Rojo the Fire Truck | Lost Map | El Día De Las Madres | The Golden Explorers | A Present For Santa | Doctor Dora | Pinto, the Pony Express | León, the Circus Lion | The Big Piñata | The Happy Old Troll | Super Map! | A Letter for Swiper | To the Monkey Bars | Dora, La Música | Hide and Go Seek | Click! | Egg Hunt | Super Spies | School Pet | Whose Birthday is It? | Quack! Quack!