I loved both Dora the Explorer and Diego when I was little. If you've seen one or both of those shows before, you know that they're spinoffs of each other and the shows' title characters are cousins. I now hate the former and feel so ashamed that I used to like it. As for the latter, I hated it during my early days of hating the former, but I'm now mixed/neutral towards it. It fixes some of the problems I have with Dora, and others remain. Allow me to explain why I feel the way I do about Diego.
Premise/plot: It's not a whole lot different than Dora's premise. The only major differences are that it has some but not all different characters (for those of you who don't know, Dora and Boots make guest appearances here from time to time), the title character rides a zipline instead of taking a path to wherever he needs to go, it teaches about animals and nature instead of math, kinesthetic, and problem-solving skills, and it strays away from the "memorizing and finding" formula. It may be safe to say that Diego is almost a rehash of Dora. It has some of the same repetitive nature as its predecessor (e.g., some of the songs repeat their lyrics nonstop, and whenever the Bobo brothers try to take something from Diego, he tells them "Not so fast," and they say "Oops, sorry" and run off, similar to the way Dora and Boots defeat Swiper). I'm guessing that a lot of boys wouldn't watch Dora because the title character was a girl. Maybe Nickelodeon and Nick Jr tried to make Diego a boy-oriented version of Dora and thought more boys would watch it because the title character was a boy, but I don't know whether or not that's true. However, it's possible that Diego is for both genders because there are lead female characters in it too, like Diego's sister Alicia, Mama Jaguar, and Click the camera. I must say that a step-up in learning is made here. It entails some interesting facts about animals, like how to identify their cries, and it introduced me to some animals I didn't know existed before watching this, like chinchillas. However, there are some inaccurate facts here and there, like rhinos can only be found in Borneo. Like Dora, it teaches Spanish, but that's one of the only things I like about its predecessor, and that's another aspect of Diego that I like. When kids "graduate" from the "memorizing and finding" stage and are ready to grow out of Dora, they might as well move onto Diego if they don't already watch it.
Music and songs: The songs are an improvement from the Dora songs. They're much catchier, almost more along the lines of noticeable dance music, most notably Click the Camera's Theme Song and the Rescue Pack Theme. I'm probably the only person in the whole entire world who has noticed this, but the latter has a similar but slightly different sounding beat to the Teddy Ruxpin song "Do the Grunge," which makes me like it even more! The music and songs sound like jungle music, which is fitting because most of the episodes are set in jungles.
Characters: The main characters aren't a whole lot different from the Dora characters. It may be safe to say that they're almost rehashes of them. Diego is Dora, Baby Jaguar is Boots, Click the camera is Map, Rescue Pack is Backpack, and the Bobo brothers are Swiper. The Bobo brothers never say sorry like they mean it, which is likely a sign that they're not sorry for taking Diego's belongings, and one might think that they'd learn their lesson about stealing things that don't belong to them after being called out for doing it hundreds of times, but they never do, similar to Swiper. At least the Bobo brothers aren't scared of hearing Diego say, "Not so fast!", as far as I remember, but I unfortunately can't say the same about Swiper. For some reason, Diego's voice is much higher here than it is on Dora. As Dora-like as the characters are, there are some qualities I like about them that the Dora characters lack, which prevent me from hating them. Diego always saves animals in need and helps the environment, and I give him credit for that! He's also not as oblivious as Dora, much to my liking. He and Alicia are both very experienced and knowledgeable about technology, and the latter also helps out at the animal sanctuary. Baby Jaguar is a cute character, and his growls are cute and funny! Instead of storing whatever Diego needs inside his body, Rescue Pack can turn into whatever he needs: a kayak, a telescope, a rope, a hang glider, anything at all. I must say that Rescue Pack's power is incredible and unique! He's better than Backpack! Ironically, I don't remember as much about this show and its characters as I do about Dora and its characters. I think I've watched more of Dora than this.
If you don't like Dora, maybe you would like Diego better.
