Can you say…el gato?
Ahead of Dora the Explorer’s 25th anniversary, the series’ creators Chris Gifford and Valerie Walsh Valdes revealed the loveable character was supposed to have a different concept—including being a talking cat.
“There were a couple of iterations before Dora was Dora,” Valdes told Today in an interview published on August 13. “She was Tess. She was almost a motion capture. She had a little mouse that was Boots that lived in her pocket. But there were some things that stayed the same throughout, like the essence of her character. We tried to hold on to that.”
The 59-year-old also noted the Nickelodeon icon was almost drawn as “a bunny, a little red-headed girl” and of course, “a cat.”
In addition, to the character itself, her ethnicity also went through a big shift. In fact, Gifford, 66, shared that Dora was not supposed to be Latina, but the network encouraged them to reconsider her identity.
“And when Nickelodeon came to us with this idea of like, ‘Could you make (the character) Latina?’ Our first reaction was, ‘Oh, boy, what a great idea!’” he recalled. “And the representation is not there on air.”
And with this new direction, Valdes and Gifford—who created the popular kids show in 1998—hired Latino writers, collaborated with cultural content supervisors, and traveled to Latin America to learn more about the diaspora. The duo also worked with writer Eric Weiner to fine tune the show’s script before it debuted on Nickelodeon in 2000.
“And in doing that, I think that’s when the character came to be who she was,” Gifford explained. “Because it was about using a second language to make friends, to solve problems, to build bridges.”
Indeed, the Dora the Explorer franchise had a lasting impact in pop culture. After all, the series aired on Nickelodeon for eight seasons, spawned the world of Go, Diego, Go!, and launched two live action films: 2019’s Dora and the Lost City of Gold and 2025’s Dora and the Search for Sol Dorado.
But before Dora became an animated icon, Valdes and Gifford shared the show’s pilot episode to a group of children to get their reaction.
“They went bonkers,” Valdes recalled. “When the executives saw kids screaming and shouting and playing backpack and stuff, all resistance melted away.”
Keep reading to see more surprising facts about animated characters…
Hello Kitty Isn't a Cat
Many fans were left purrrrrfectly confused after this revelation.
“Hello Kitty is not a cat,” Jill Cook—an executive at Sanrio, the company behind the character—explained to Today in July 2024. “She’s actually a little girl born and raised in the suburbs of London. She has a mom and dad and a twin sister Mimmy who’s also her best friend. She enjoys baking cookies and making new friends.”
While the news may have surprised some, Cook wasn’t the first to share this insight. As a matter of fact, Christine R. Yano—a professor of anthropology who penned the book Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty's Trek Across the Pacific—had also previously confirmed that Hello Kitty isn’t a feline.
“Hello Kitty is not a cat,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 2014. “She’s a cartoon character. She is a little girl. She is a friend. But she is not a cat. She’s never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature. She does have a pet cat of her own, however, and it’s called Charmmy Kitty.”
Other fun facts about Hello Kitty? According to Sanrio, she is five apples tall, weighs three apples, was born on November 1 (making her a Scorpio) and dreams of being a pianist or poet.
Goofy Isn't a Dog
Gawrsh! Did you know this fact?
Bill Farmer, who's provided the voice of Goofy for decades, explained why the Disney character can talk while Mickey Mouse's pet Pluto can't.
Goofy is "not a dog, but he's a canine," the voice actor said on an August 2024 episode of Popcorn Podcast with Leigh Livingstone and Tim Iffland. "So it's kind of like a wolf is not a dog but it's a canine—same thing. Goofus canis, that's what he is. Or, he's a MOG—he's a man-dog."
However, Pluto, he added, is a "regular dog"—a blood hound as it turns out.
Squidward Isn't a Squid
You'll want to get to the (bikini) bottom of this discovery.
SpongeBob SquarePants' creator Stephen Hillenburg once revealed that Squidward Tentacles is actually an octopus—not a squid.
"This is Squidward the Octopus, SpongeBob's grumpy next-door neighboor," he shared in the 2005 Case Of The Sponge 'Bob' video resurfaced by BuzzFeed. "I like the octopus for this character because they have such a large, bulbous head, and Squidward thinks he's an intellectual so, of course, he's going to have a large, bulbous head."
But if you're wondering how Squidward can be an octopus when he has only six legs instead of eight, Hillenburg had an answer for that, too—noting "it was really just easier for animation to draw him" with fewer tentacles.
Blue From Blue's Clues Was Originally an Orange Cat
Break out your handy dandy notebook and jot this one down.
"One of the things that nobody knows is that Blue was originally a cat," the show's co-creator Angela Santomero said in the 2006 special Behind the Clues: 10 Years With Blue resurfaced by Mental Floss. "First his name was Mr. Orange and then we're like, 'Uh, maybe Mr. Blue.'"
But according to the special, Nickelodeon was already working on a series about a cat—leading animators to toss out the original idea and redesign Blue as a dog.
Doug Was Almost Named Brian
Now this really isn’t funnie, er, funny.
But as it turns out, Doug Funnie from the cartoon series Doug was almost named Brian. As for what led to the change?
"I just thought Brian was too fancy of a name," Doug creator Jim Jinkins told HuffPost TV in 2014, "So, I geared it down, and started calling him Doug. If you think about what that sounds like, it sounds incredibly average, and that’s what I was trying to do: express from that point of view.”
Boo From Monsters, Inc. Isn’t Her Full Name
This fact is so good it’s scary.
In Monsters, Inc.: An Augmented Reality Book, the name of Boo—the little girl who accidentally ends up in Monstropolis and befriends monsters Mike and Sulley—is revealed to be Mary Gibbs, according to BuzzFeed. And if the name sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the real-life moniker of the actress who provided the voice of Boo.
Need more proof? In the movie, there’s actually a scene where Boo is sorting through some of her drawings and fans can spot the name “Mary” scribbled at the top of one of the pieces of paper.
Minnie Mouse Has a Longer Moniker
Speaking of names, while Mickey Mouse’s girlfriend is often called Minnie Mouse, according to the BBC, it was revealed in 1942 that her full name is actually Minerva.