Nick on ABS-CBN

You've probably wonder why TV 5 stopped airing Tagalog-dubbed Nickelodeon shows and replaced TV 5 Kids, eh? Me either. Last few hours ago, I surf articles about local channels in Wikipedia until I stumbled in this page. In the upcoming programs section which located at the bottom, I discovered that there are shows that was in TV5 before but there are shows that are new to local TV. Then, I clicked the link which is in Pep.ph article inside here.

Yup, looks like it's ABS-CBN's turn to bag the rights for airing Nickelodeon shows after two local channel predecessors RPN 9 and TV 5. According to that Pep.ph article, ABS-CBN's Team Animazing (the kiddie cartoon block which airs every weekday and weekend mornings) will air Nick's cartoons starting from two most popular kids shows today - Spongebob Sqaurepants and Dora the Explorer. The channel also plans to air others like Avatar: The Legend of Aang, Go! Diego! Go, El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera and the new Penguins of Madagascar.

If you're excited, you can watch Spongebob Squarepants and Dora the Explorer starting from Mondays July 26th, 8:30 AM, at ABS-CBN.

El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera

Starting from clockwise: Grandpapi Rivera/Puma Loco, Manny Rivera/ El Tigre, and Rodolfo Rivera/ White Pantera

Before I will start about this entry, let me apologize for having a long-term waiting to see my new post. It's just because I'll have to fix my college subject classes starting this week.

When I saw this cartoon show on TV5 and Nickelodeon cable channel, I was suddenly amazed and I thought it's Nickelodeon's cartoon rivaled for Cartoon Network's Mucha Lucha. Maybe I'm wrong and Nick Jr's. Dora the Explorer is not only a cartoon with Mexican language. El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera (sometimes nicknamed as "El Tigre") is another Nickelodeon show aired around year 2007 to 2008. Set in fictional place Miracle City in Mexico, El Tigre tells about the adventures of 13-year old boy Manny Rivera. He has superpowers and deals whether if he's going into good or evil side. His father Rodolfo Rivera (a.k.a White Pantera) is a superhero and wanted his son to be like him, but Granpapi Rivera (a.k.a. Puma Loco) likes his grandson as a super villain.

For us, we can say that we are on the good side but sometimes we are in the clutches of doing bad things. For El Tigre, while his villains show up to do crime his conscience is his real challenge. He has to learn to distinguish what's right and what's wrong. Like does Manny use his father's money to buy a tattoo maker instead of a can of guacamole? Or letting his prized animal die and revive it in a horrible way? Those are examples of issues that Manny deals with it.

Manny is just like a tween who never know what responsibilities are and instead to have fun. While he decide which side he will be, he makes trouble along with his best friend Frida Suarez as happy time. Manny also likes to fight for good or worst. He transforms into El Tigre by spinning his buckle belt. He (sometimes along with his family) face many villains including El Oso, Sartana the Dead, Titanium Titan and many super villains in order to protect Miracle City from ruin.

Another exciting reason why El Tigre is that the animation uses Flash plus the hand-drawn animation for effects. The creators and staff of the show added many Mexican culture stuff - from costumes up to famous Mexican people. Whether if your not a Mexican resident, you'll still like to watch it's action and comedy moments. There's even one moral lesson you'll learn in El Tigre , not even Grandpapi Rivera can't resist this value - "Family comes first, whether you're a superhero or not".

If you wanted to find out more about El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, you can check out the creator's DeviantArt account at http://mexopolis.deviantart.com/ and their Blogger account at http://tigreroar.blogspot.com/.

Tweenage Dora the Explorer (aka Dora the Streetwalker)

The original Dora

She speaks both Spanish and English, has a best friend monkey, a bag and a map on her side and also loves adventures. Yup, she's Dora from Dora the Explorer one of the current Nick Jr.'s show. But what if the creators of the show and Nickelodeon decided to make Dora as a teenager? We bet we're gonna be surprised if we found out the image you see below:

Dora in her tweenage makeover

If you have a Nickelodeon network on your cables or free-TV's out there and watched many episodes of Dora the Explorer, you'll get mixed reactions about that picture. According to the Wikipedia article about the show especially to the article from Google here, Mattel and Nickelodeon announced that Dora will have a tweenage makeover and also attends middle school. The new look will reveal sometime around fall this year but the image (like you see above) revealed to the public last March 16th. After revealing the image, many parents made mixed complaints about the plans that both Mattel and Nickelodeon made but soothes down for a moment. The reason why Dora turned into grown-up because Dora suppose to be a "role model" for young girls not being a "fashionista". The issue is still misunderstood by complaining parents and they demanded as a request that Dora should be the same 6-year-old girl like on TV.

It is unknown whether tweenage Dora will be appear in a TV sequel after Dora the Explorer (not the spin-off like Go! Diego! Go! which featured her cousin Diego). In the meantime, merchandises will sell first but unknown it will be ever reach in the Philippines. To me, the new look of Dora seems not a bad idea because of her Latina look but I prefer she should wear pants and T-shirt for more adventurous look. Honestly, aside from T-shirts and pants I would rather feel discourage to Nickelodeon who pushes some of their popular cartoon characters beyond far for just of their business - not the viewer's demand. We don't have to worry because tweenage Dora is still Dora we knew before who teach bilingual languages, encounter many friends and gets many adventures. I'm not sure what Boots looks like when he grows-up too *shrugs*.