Character Find is a game that is featured at the end of
Dora the Explorer episodes from Seasons 1 and 2, specific episodes of Season 3, and most episodes of Season 4.
In the game, the blue cursor on the screen starts by clicking a button to pull down the bar that holds the credits, and then chooses a certain character from the television series (most often Boots, Swiper, Benny, Isa, or Tico, but sometimes other characters like Map, Señor Tucán, Wizzle, Santa Claus, Baby Red Fish, Azul, the Grumpy Old Troll, and Baby Blue Bird) to hide behind a certain object. The cursor will try to find the character as he/she pops up in various places, but he/she disappears right when the cursor moves over to him/her. The game's backgrounds can range from a deep jungle/forest, a banana tree grove, a lake/pond, underwater, and the mountain railroads. At the end of the credits, the blue cursor finally clicks on the character, who jumps out to congratulate them. Split-screen airings don't have this segment at all.
In most of Season 3 and some episodes of Season 4, the Character Find has been mostly replaced by an Explorer Star mini-game, but returns for episodes that do not feature star catching. Finally, in Season 5-8, the previous credits had been completely abandoned and replaced by a traditional credits and text sequence that shows various clips of past episode in the four corners around it, almost resembling the closing sequence from Go, Diego, Go!.
Map - Takes place deep within the forest. Many plants and leaves of many sizes are seen in this area. At the top of the screen, there is a dark red branch that Map likes to hide on top of.
Boots - In Season 1 and the Season 2 episode The Missing Piece, it is the similar to the background as Map's, but reversed. Boots can hide behind the big palm tree with vines or swing using one, and when found, he jumps up and down. From the Season 2 episode El Día De Las Madres until the Season 4 episode La Maestra de Música, he has another setting. It takes place in a small forest area. There are many plants. The most notable one is the big pink flower in the top right corner, and he dances and says, "Ooh-ooh-ahh-ahh!" over and over when found.
Baby Red Fish - Takes place deep under the ocean. Many dark blue rocks and ledges. A red-pinkish clam is seen here.
Benny - A clearing with a large red tree in the center. There is also a small pond nearby.
Tico - Like Benny's, but it is of smaller portion (Not all of the scenery is shown, including the little pond).
Baby Blue Bird - Similar to Tico's, but most of the foreground is replaced with a yellow path.
Isa - A small lake with many plants in the foreground. In the background, there's a tiny waterfall with many rocks. Behind that is a green, grassy hill which leads down to a little dock for boats.
Swiper - Takes place in a grove of many flowers and fruit trees.
Grumpy Old Troll - On the ground, with a giant bush of leaves on the left and half of a viney tree on the right. A rock and some other plants are in the foreground.
Señor Tucán - Appearance is similar to the Grumpy Old Troll's, but seems to be set higher in the trees. Lots of bright green leaves are seen here as well as some flowers and a branch with a purple leaf bundle.
Wizzle - Takes place by a pond. Around there lies a red tree, many plants, and some rocks.
Azul - Takes place in the mountains. Many tunnels with railroads leading in and out of them are seen. This is only way Azul can move from place to place since he is a train.
Little Star - Takes place in a forest clearing. There are dark trees and bushes surrounding.
Santa Claus - Santa rides his sled in the air over the snowy hills. Some snow covered trees are seen on the left and right. Santa only gets a Character Find once because of the Christmas theme; also, the credit strip is green instead of teal.
Dora - Though her picture is always shown, she doesn't have a Character Find. Her picture is there most likely for logo purposes since Dora's icon is bigger than the others and her name isn't shown underneath, however, her picture most likely wouldn't even be clickable anyway for the blue cursor to click on. But, a clickable picture of Dora herself exists as part of a blank template of the end credits for localization purposes. The picture was only seen on three dubs, with the most common being the Hebrew dub.
Backpack - Her picture is sometimes shown along with the other four possible characters, but unfortunately, just like Dora, Backpack doesn't actually have one. It even seems functional.
Dora the Explorer- Where is Backpack? (Flash Game)
The closest where one could see a Character Find of Backpack is to play the game on the Nick Jr. website. However, it has been removed and the page no longer exists, but was still shown in other websites.
If Backpack was ever clicked, the location would most likely have the jungle like in the flash game.
The Fiesta Trio - Their picture is only seen in the personalized version of Whose Birthday is It? (in the original version, Baby Red Fish appeared instead). It never appeared in any original episodes, and just like Dora and Backpack, they never got an actual find.
Quotes
Note that all the beginning quotes are said by Dora.
(when found, The Missing Piece onwards:) "Ooh-ooh-ahh-ahh! Ooh-ooh-ahh-ahh! Ooh-ooh-ahh-ahh! Ooh-ooh-ahh-ahh! Ooh-ooh-ahh-ahh! Ooh-ooh-ahh-ahh!" (audio for his chattering is taken from Treasure Island)
(in the beginning:) "There's our friend Azul! Try and catch Azul!" (all original episodes) "Look, it's Azul and you! Let's play hide and seek!" (personalized version of Whose Birthday is It? only)
In The Legend of the Big Red Chicken and Lost and Found, because the music started during the Favorite Parts segment, this segment started at the part of the music where the lyrics are "Grab your Backpack! Let's go! Jump in! ¡Vámonos! You can lead the way!". From Choo-Choo! (or Hic-Boom-Ohhh! in production order) onwards, this music starts at the beginning of the credits.
In early VHS releases (which use a combined credit sequence rather than using the credits for each individual episode), the character who does the character find is usually the character from the second episode who does it the normal credits.
For example, in Swing Into Action! (the first ever Dora VHS tape), instead of featuring Swiper's character find from Sticky Tape, the Wizzle's character find from Berry Hunt plays and the credits for both episodes on it are combined into one.
Some of the character find backgrounds give away the pilot backgrounds.
In the character finds, the Dora The Explorer Theme Song music from Seasons 1-2 plays with the beginning part truncated and the end part excluded. The middle part loops until the character is found.
The Hebrew dub (Just want to point out that this happened, before the credit's text shows up on-screen.)
The French dub
Dora's picture is always seen on-screen at the start, but it's used for logo purposes. However, a clickable picture of just Dora herself and not her logo exists as part of a blank template of the end credits for localization purposes. It's mostly common on the Hebrew dub but it was also seen on the French dub twice (briefly on Lost and Found and on Dora's Dance to the Rescue) and on the Macedonian dub on the first episode.
Where's Backpack
This is a revised version of the video shown above.
Even though Backpack never gets character find, her picture is sometimes seen on-screen during the start of the end credits.
The list of characters where Backpack is included, but not chosen for another is as follows:
Boots (second background only)
Baby Red Fish
Little Star
Azul
Santa Claus
This is what it looked like
An icon for the Fiesta Trio does exist, but it was never seen in any actual episodes. Although they never got a character find in the first place, their icon was exclusively shown at the beginning of the character find segment at the end of the personalized version of Whose Birthday is It?. Also, underneath the icon for the Fiesta Trio, it just says "Trio". In the original version of said episode, the icon where it would be has Baby Red Fish in it instead. Backpack is also replaced with Tico.
All of the Explorer Stars (however, they had their own minigames that replace this in most of Season 3 and some episodes of Season 4)
Although technically Woo-Hoo's game is just like this, except he is introduced the same way other stars are with the star catching music during the credits.
Sometimes, the viewers can get an impression on who's doing the find based on the character choices in the beginning.
Regardless of the episode or who is actually doing the find, Dora's icon is present on the top, with her name on her logo instead of the usual comic sans written below everyone else's icon. She is never the one doing the find. Besides Dora, there are always 5 choices in the beginning, and the cursor chooses right after it pulls the credits seal down by hitting the icon on the top right.
Boots, Benny, Isa, Tico, and Swiper's icons appear the most often, and if that's the case where all five of them appear, then one of them does the find. However, if other characters replace their icons, then one of them gets to do it.
If Map and Baby Blue Bird replace Isa and Swiper's icons respectively, then the cursor chooses between one of them.
Dora's usual catchphrase at the beginning is, "This is my friend, (character's name). Find (said character)!" However, there are few times she says something else.
For Swiper, she says, "Ooh, Swiper the Fox! Find Swiper!".
For the Grumpy Old Troll, she says, "It's the Grumpy Old Troll! Find the Grumpy Old Troll!".
Dora's line, "It's the Grumpy Old Troll!", is the exact same one from Surprise! where she says it with Boots.
For Boots, she usually says "Hey look, it's Boots! Find Boots!", but in the first episode with his find, she says her usual catchphrase.
For Santa Claus, she says "Hey look, it's Santa! Find Santa!"
For Baby Red Fish, she says "It's Baby Red Fish! He likes playing hide and seek. Find Baby Red Fish!"
For Azul, she says "There's our friend Azul! Try and catch Azul!"
In the personalized version of Whose Birthday is It?, she says "Look, it's Azul and you! Let's play hide and seek!"
(Hypothetically) For Backpack, she would have said, "Here is my Backpack! Find Backpack!".
In A Present for Santa, Santa Claus only gets Character Find once. This is because there are only a few Christmas episodes.
Benny is the first character getting Character Find and Swiper is the last in airing order, or Map in production order.
On the old Nick Jr. website, games replicating Map and Swiper's Character Find existed. A game for Backpack was there, too.
Swiper is the character with the most Character Find segments (eleven), and Santa Claus is the character with the least (only one).
Split-screen airings do not have character find segments or explorer star mini-games at all, it instead has promos for other Nick Jr. or Nickelodeon shows.
However, when the Nick Jr. block aired this show from 2000-2004, there would sometimes be an audio promo voiceover announcing the show that is airing next.
For example, in 2003 until 2004, an audio promo features Kathleen Herles (as Dora) saying "¡Hola! It's me, Dora! Thanks for playing along with me! And next on Nick Jr., you can play along with my friend Joe, because it's Blue's Clues! Good luck finding clues! ¡Buena suerte! That's Spanish for 'good luck'. See you later!".
In most episodes, Dora introduces the character right after the cursor clicks the button to pull down the credits bar. But in some Season 4 episodes, she introduces him/her as soon as the music starts, before the cursor even moves.
In some Season 1 episodes, the music starts right as the Blue Cursor clicks on Dora at the end of the episode.
In Dora's First Trip, the music starts right when the cursor clicks the button to pull down the credits bar.
In every Season 1 find, the Blue Cursor is at the angle from the first few season 1 episodes, but in Santa Claus's, Boots' (second version), Azul's, Little Star's, and Baby Red Fish's finds, the cursor is slightly tilted a few degrees counterclockwise, the same way it is for most of the show.
Sometimes, the names below the characters' icon is abbreviated, the same way Map, Dora, and Boots often abbreviate the places.
In Season 4, Character Find is not always featured at the end of every episode during the end credits, there are some Season 4 episodes featuring an explorer star mini-game, even if there are no explorer stars in that episode (as seen in Daisy, La Quinceañera).
Character Find is never featured in later episodes during the end credits in Season 5-8, because it features different end credits with 4 clouds showing clips from previous episodes such as normally Season 1-4 and later Season 7-8, resembling the Go, Diego, Go! credits, which makes the Blue Cursor never to click on Dora at the end of every episode from now on because of a fade in fade out effect and even if it still did click on her, then that's how the original end credits pop up and there wouldn't be a fade in fade out effect and the Season 1-4 end credits never feature with a fade in fade out effect.
Goofs/Errors
The error in question.
In Treasure Island, Little Star, and Te Amo, Map's white and blue coloring is reversed when his character icon is shown at the beginning of Baby Blue Bird's Character Find segment. This error is fixed in Lost Map and We're a Team!.
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