Dexter's Laboratory

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Dexter

Dexter's Laboratory (Dexter's Lab for short) is an American animated series which was created by Genndy Tartakovsky and first produced by Hanna-Barbera for Cartoon Network. Craig McCracken also worked on some episodes. The original pilot appeared as an episode of the series What-A-Cartoon!, featuring various cartoon shorts, and a series soon followed, the first of Cartoon Network's original shows. The premise of the cartoon involves a short child genius named Dexter (originally voiced by Christine Cavanaugh, later Candi Milo), who has a secret laboratory connected to his bedroom. He is almost constantly in conflict with his ditzy, obnoxious older sister, Dee Dee.

Dexter's arch-nemesis is Mandark (voiced by Eddie Deezen), another child genius with an unusual evil laugh ("A-ha-ha! A-ha-ha-ha-ha!"). Often Mandark, through fraud or rarely by coincidence, gets credit for Dexter's achievements. Mandark is also in love with Dee Dee.

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Dexter and Dee Dee

Also appearing regularly in the series are Dexter's mom and dad. There is little sense of continuity between episodes.

In addition to the series there is an hour-long special entitled Ego Trip, in which Dexter travels through time and meets several of his future selves. Ego Trip was originally supposed to conclude the series, but two additional seasons followed. The times of Ego Trip are 2000 (the year of Dexter's episodes), 2037, 2055 and 2070.

Contents

1 Characters

2 Trivia

3 External links

4 Dexter's Laboratory in other languages

Characters

Dexter - the central protagonist, creator and owner of the laboratory; red-haired. He speaks with an Eastern European or German accent which is not explained, as none of the other members of his family do. He considers his sister Dee Dee to be stupid and inferior, not to mention clumsy. He calls his parents by "Mother" and "Father" on occasion.
Dee Dee - Dexter's blond-haired older sister. Loves ballet, dolls, ponies, unicorns and messing around in Dexter's laboratory. She is two to three times taller than Dexter and has peculiar body proportions; a minuscule torso with a large head and gangly limbs. Dexter once compared her to a stick and subsequently threw her to entertain a dog. Dee Dee's hair is always in bunches, which go upwards in a gravity defying manner. In the episode Double Trouble, Dee Dee's games with an X-ray machine reveal the secret—each bunch contains a bone. It is not revealed whether these are a genetic abnormality or a hair accessory. Loves her brother despite his treatment of her. Her only friends in the series are Mee Mee and Lee Lee. Dee Dee's physical appearance is most likely based off of Usagi Tsukino from Sailor Moon.
Mom - Dexter and Dee Dee's red-haired mom; a mysophobe who has trouble being around the rest of the family without her rubber gloves. Although a stereotypical housewife, a few episodes imply most of Dexter's personality comes from her, including their perfectionist streaks.
Dad - Dexter and Dee Dee's blond-haired dad. Is the stereotypical husband and head of the household, falling directly below his wife in authority. Loves bowling, golf, fishing, and has an unnatural affinity for his wife's muffins (as one episode suggests).
Mandark - Dexter's mind-reading arch-nemesis. Possibly equal in intelligence to Dexter, he too possesses his own laboratory. He has a crush on Dee Dee, and often uses appelatives in attempts to win her affections. He has a characteristic evil laugh "Haa-haha, Haa-haha-haha!". He was originally referred to as 'Astronomonov' (possibly his last name) though his "true" name was revealed 'Susan' (due to his parents being hippies) after becoming a reoccurring character. In one episode called Dee Dee's Rival, it is revealed that he has a sister named La-la Astronomonov, but prefers to be called "La-la Lava" or "Olga." Despite it to be her only appearance in the show, it also reveals that she can exert control over her older brother if need be. Mandark's physical appearance is most likely based off of Mamoru Chiba from Sailor Moon.
Mr. Levinsky - Dexter's school teacher whom Dexter is eager to impress.
Douglas Mordechai - Possibly Dexter's only friend apart from his computer. He attends school with Dexter and is similarly geeky.
Quadraplex T-3000 computer - Dexter's computer that oversees the running of the lab and has a personality of its own. Dexter refers to his computer as "my love" or "my dear", given that the computer's voice and personality is female.
Robots - A number of unnamed robots assist Dexter in the laboratory.
Lee Lee and Mee Mee - Dee Dee's friends. Nearly identical to Dee Dee, except that Mee Mee is African-American (as well as her mother and father), and Lee Lee is Asian (much like her mother and father as well, who were never seen).
Pony Puff Princess - Dee Dee's idol. (A horse or a unicorn, parody of My Little Pony)
Koosalagoopagoop - A multi-colored dinosaur-like creature that originates from Dee Dee's imagination. Among imaginary friends, only Dee Dee and Bubbles from the Powerpuff Girls actually likes him. Possibly a parody of Barney the Dinosaur.
Monkey - Dexter's caged monkey which secretly has superpowers, unbeknownst to Dexter. Monkey has a self-contained series Dial M For Monkey where he has a human partner, the Avengers-inspired Agent Honeydew (What-A-Cartoon! short Dial M For Monkey).
Quackor - Mandark's caged duck who also has superpowers, unbeknownst to Mandark.
Windbear and Oceanbird - Mandark's hippy parents, who don't understand Mandark's love for evil and science, not to mention his affections for Dee Dee. In Angie Yazdani's upcoming episode, How Can I Make You Understand?, Mandark's parents are threatened by Mandark that he will destroy them if they call him "Susan"; they are forced to obey his every command.
Action Hank - An action hero, similar to G.I. Joe. The name may be a pun on Action Man, a doll/character very similar to G.I. Joe. The character himself resembles Mr. T. Along with Major Glory and Albert Einstien, he is idolised by Dexter.
Major Glory - A superhero with a distinctly American philosophy. Curiously, in the world in which Dexter lives, superheroes like Major Glory and Action Hank exist both in fiction and reality at the same time. Major Glory has a self-contained series, "Justice Friends," with two superhero roommates: Vallhalen, the Viking god of rock (a blend of the Mighty Thor with the rock guitarist Eddie Van Halen) and Krunk (reminiscent of The Incredible Hulk).

Trivia

Betty Rubble is one of the friends of Dexter's mother. Her husband, Barney, is Dexter's dad's friend.

External links

Cartoon Network's Dexter's Laboratory site (http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/dexter/index.html)
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Dexter's Laboratory (http://www.bcdb.com/cartoons/Hanna-Barbera_Studios/D-F/Dexter_s_Laboratory/index.html) at the Big Cartoon DataBase
The Dex Files (http://www.geocities.com/electricmonk.geo/dexannot.html) - large list of facts and trivia for almost every episode of Dexter's Laboratory.