Set in the fictional crime-ridden Mexican metropolis of Miracle City, El Tigre follows the adventures of Manny Rivera, a 13-year-old boy with superpowers trying to choose between being good or evil. Manny's father is a superhero known as White Pantera, and wants Manny to grow up to be good and fight evil. Manny's Grandpapi is a supervillain known as Puma Loco who thinks Manny should go tothe dark side.
Characters
Manny Rivera/El Tigre
Frida Suárez
Rodolfo Rivera/White Pantera
Grandpapi/Puma Loco
Maria Rivera/Plata Peligrosa
Production
El Tigre was created by a husband-and-wife team named Jorge Gutierrez and Sandra Equihua along with others who were employed to make the show. The couple made the project from experiences they had when they were younger. Manny Rivera is based on Jorge's young self. Many things known in the show were based on actual events or parts in Jorge's life. His father was an architect and his grandfather was a general in the military. That idea was exaggerated to the idea of superheroes and supervillains. The city Miracle City is likely based on Tijuana, where Jorge grew up.
El Tigre's Decision of Destiny
On January 25, 2008, Nickelodeon allowed viewers to vote on an ending deciding El Tigre's fate on a brand-new episode that premiered on the same day. The ending chosen was hero, in which he defeated Django and Sartana. If had evil been chosen, he would have helped Django and Sartana conquer the world, but turned against them to take the empire for himself and Frida, and ruled over the world into old age.
Emily Ashby of Common Sense Media gave the series 3 out of 5 stars; saying that, “Tweens will enjoy the zany characters and exaggerated stories, but parents might take issue with the young characters' penchant for troublemaking, the absence of a strong role model for Manny, and the overall lack of repercussions for his questionable behavior.” Amid Amidi of Cartoon Brew wrote that "El Tigre offers hands down the most dynamic implementation of Flash I’ve ever seen in an animated TV series, seamlessly combining the cinematic possibilities more commonly associated with 3D CGI alongside the organic appeal of drawn animation," while also stating that the series has an "annoying tendency to stage too many scenes on slants and diagonals, voice acting performances that I couldn’t understand."
Awards and nominations
Other appearances
El Tigre has been licensed in the ', and is featured in the Nintendo DS version of '. He also makes a cameo appearance in Nicktoons MLB, but is not a playable character in it. El Tigre has its own game at Nick Arcade, Festival De Las Piñatas, and is also a playable character in Nick Arcade's Nicktoons HoverZone. The characters Manny, Frida, and Grandpapi/Puma Loco make an appearance during a 2D animated scene in The Book of Life which is Jorge Gutierrez' first feature-length film. A wallpaper with El Tigre's design can be seen in a later scene as well as White Pantera in another scene.
