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Children’s Museum of Manhattan to Premiere New “Adventures with Dora and Diego” Interactive Exhibition on May 20 Inspired by Award-Winning Nickelodeon Preschool Series Go, Diego, Go! and Dora the Explorer

New Multi-Sensory Exhibit Transports Kids to Dora’s House and Diego’s Animal Habitats and Provides Learning Opportunities About Latino Culture, Preschool Science and Animal Facts

NEW YORK – April 11, 2008 – On May 20 the Children’s Museum of Manhattan (CMOM) will open its “Adventures with Dora and Diego” exhibition, the nation’s only museum exhibition inspired by the popular characters from the award-winning Nickelodeon series Go, Diego, Go! and Dora the Explorer. CMOM, Nickelodeon and series’ creators Chris Gifford and Valerie Walsh have collaborated to create a multi-sensory environment that transports kids to the shows’ familiar settings like Dora’s house, Diego’s Animal Rescue Center and a tropical rainforest. The bilingual exhibition uses various interactive elements to help educate young visitors about Latino culture, science and animal facts.

“CMOM is thrilled to be the home of the country’s only museum exhibition inspired by Dora and Diego, two characters who motivate children every day to learn more about the world around them,” said Andrew Ackerman, Director, Children’s Museum of Manhattan. “This new exhibition echoes the character’s spirit of education and exploration with CMOM’s mission to prepare young children with the social and academic skills needed for school and lifelong learning.”

“This exhibition presents a wonderful opportunity for us to expand the lessons Diego and Dora teach, like problem solving skills, math, language and Latino culture, beyond the television screen and into real life,” said Brown Johnson, President, Animation, Nickelodeon and MTVN Kids and Family Group. “Diego and Dora inspire kids around the world to learn through observation and exploration, and the CMOM exhibition will be a new playground where they can learn and play with their favorite preschool friends.”

“Adventures with Dora and Diego” replaces CMOM’s “Dora the Explorer” exhibition which opened in December 2004. Following the launch of the original exhibition, CMOM experienced a substantial increase in attendance and membership. Over the past four years the original exhibition drew a diverse range of children and families. Throughout the halls of CMOM children can be heard saying “I want to go to Dora” in dozens of languages.

The new exhibition will also be a base for CMOM’s extensive outreach efforts, with exhibition-based programming in community centers, hospitals and after-school programs across the city. CMOM will host a regular series of workshops and activities to support the themes in “Adventures with Dora and Diego,” including weekend art programs beginning May 20 where kids will be able to decorate mini piñatas, make fiesta birthday hats and create rainforest animal puppets. On May 18, CMOM will host a special gala fundraiser which will include an exclusive preview of the exhibition to raise funds for the museum’s 48 community outreach programs in and around New York City.

The “Adventures with Dora and Diego” exhibition is comprised of two separate Diego and Dora environments. As visitors approach the exhibition, they are met by visual representations of Dora and Diego and their friends, Boots and Baby Jaguar, gathered around a yellow Rescue Truck. A mural that features Dora and Diego swinging along on vines creates an illusion of being up in the rainforest treetops. Additional features of the exhibition include:

• Animal Habitats: This Diego-themed installation features a cut-out of the animal rescuer and Baby Jaguar. Kids can explore a cave, cloud forest, beach and rainforest that house various animals in need of rescue. The habitats include problem solving tasks like helping a Blue Morpho butterfly find its way out of a cave and helping to clean up a polluted beach so sea turtles can lay their eggs.
• Diego’s Animal Rescue Center: At Diego’s Animal Rescue Center, kids can climb a set of stairs and are greeted by Alicia. Visitors can look through Click, Diego’s part locator, part telescopic camera friend, and see images of animals in the rainforest, peer through a spotting scope, and use the computer station to view photographs of animals and learn facts about Latin American animals.
• Diego’s Animal Care Station: Kids learn how to feed and care for animals in this section of the exhibition which features a “stethoscope” to hear animal heartbeats and a light table where kids can examine the x-rays of various animals. Additionally, there is a “footprint rubbing station” where kids can use paper and crayons to create their own rubbings and use them to identify animal footprints in the exhibition.
• Dora’s Fiesta: This exhibition helps kids learn problem solving skills while taking them on an adventure that requires them to cross the lake to get to a party at Dora’s house. Along the way, kids must build the walls of Rainbow Bridge while also helping Dora’s friends Boots, Tico, Benny, and Isa get to the party.
• Dora’s House: Inside the house, visitors find Dora’s friends dressed for a fiesta. Kids can become a part of the festivities and learn different skills including: how to play musical instruments – drums and xylophone; how to cook Latin American foods, or the words to Spanish songs as they listen to the radio in Dora’s room.

CMOM is a leader in creating and implementing innovative and engaging programs that reach a wide audience of kids and families. The museum presents workshops, exhibitions and performances created by a team of professionals and scholars to provide educational opportunities that help kids from diverse ethnic, economic and cultural backgrounds develop their minds during their most formative years.

About the exhibition
The “Adventures with Dora and Diego” exhibition opens May 20, 2008 at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan located in The Tisch Building at 212 West 83rd Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam.

About Children’s Museum of Manhattan
Founded in 1973, the Children’s Museum of Manhattan is New York City’s leading cultural institution dedicated solely to kids and families. CMOM inspires children and their families to learn about themselves and a culturally diverse world through unique interactive exhibitions. CMOM presents a full range of activities, exhibitions and special performances that stimulate children of all ages. Through multidimensional programs that reach deep into the community, the Museum serves New Yorkers from all backgrounds. For details on all of CMOM’s programs, please visit www.cmom.org or call 212.721.1234.

About Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go!
Dora the Explorer is a play-along, animated adventure series starring Dora, a seven-year-old Latina heroine whose adventures take place in an imaginative, tropical world filled with jungles, beaches and rainforests. In every episode, Dora and Boots invite the audience to participate in an exciting adventure, where each step of their journey consists of a problem or puzzle that Dora and the audience must think their way through in order to solve the next problem. In Go, Diego, Go! Diego, with help from his friends, high-tech gadgets and viewers at home, identifies and locates animals in trouble and takes viewers on various adventures. Since its debut on Nick Jr.’s regular weekday line-up, Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go! quickly became the top preschool series on commercial television. Dora the Explorer is currently the number-one preschool show on all of television and Go, Diego, Go! draws approximately 5 million kids 2-5, almost 20 million total viewers (persons 2+), and 8 million adults 18+ each month.

About Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon now, in its 29th year, is the number-one entertainment brand for kids. It has built a diverse, global business by putting kids first in everything it does. The company includes television programming and production in the United States and around the world, plus consumer products, online, recreation, books, magazines and feature films. Nickelodeon’s U.S. television network is seen in more than 96 million households and has been the number-one-rated basic cable network for more than 13 consecutive years. Nickelodeon and all related titles, characters and logos are trademarks of Viacom International Inc. (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B).