quasify

Today’s highlight was the assembly of two Dora the Explorer branded three-wheeled plastic bike things for the baby nieces. I just did a few quick Google image searches to find a picture of the devices I was working on and am astounded at the depth and breadth of the Dora the Explorer child transport phenomenon (none of these results include the particular bikes I have, by the way).

The Dora the Explorer brand is owned by Viacom (owner of Dreamworks, MTV & Stephen Colbert). In 2006, Tom Freston (the then Viacom CEO and current Emerson trustee) said in a conference call that Dora sales would exceed SpongeBob (then ~$1.5 billion for the fourth year in a row). If you find yourself wanting a little piece of that pie, don’t think you can slap Dora stickers on your skateboard collection and join the parade - they’re licensed only for home use.