Dexter's Laboratory

In the old days, Cartoon Network was merely a place where stoned teenagers could watch Daffy Duck reruns at three in the morning. This all changed with the 'What a Cartoon! show' movement, which pitched short, original cartoons that stoned teenagers could enjoy in a non-ironic way. Some of these shorts went on to become heavy hitters in the world of animation, and perhaps the most legendary of them all was Dexter's Laboratory.

Legend

Looking back, the success of DL shouldn't have been a surprise considering the talent involved. Created by Genndy Tartakovsky (Director of the Emmy award winning Star Wars: Clone Wars) Dexter's Lab also featured input from the likes of Butch Hartman (Creator of Fairly Odd Parents) and Seth McFarlan (Creator of... ah, fuck it. You know who he is.)

The show centred around the exploits of Dexter- a grade schooler with super-human intelligence, who wandered around in a labcoat and rubber gloves and spoke with a ubiquitous European/mad scientist accent despite his middle-America upbringing. His adventures would frequently involve trying to hide his ridiculously enormous laboratory from his oblivious family, and in particular his dizzy, ballerina obsessed sister Dee-Dee, who would often unwittingly destroy or otherwise interfere with Dexter's inventions.

Though socially awkward, Dexter made up for his lack of cool by using his inventions to realize the fantasies of every school nerd. This included winning a dodgeball tournament with a mech suit, catching up with his homework by slowing down time, and getting through meal times by genetically altering himself to like vegetables.

If all that wasn't enough, he also had a pet monkey that would fight crime in its own spin-off series 'Dial M for Monkey.' Did you hear me people? Crime fighting pet monkey. If there is a formula for perfect cartoon entertainment, then Dexter's Lab formulated it. Formulated it in a lab. A Dexter's Lab.

This is as good as it gets

Believe it or not, Dexter didn't start his life as a boy genius, but as a dancer. Yep, apparently he was the short, blocky, comedy counterpart to a good looking ballerina, created by Genndy Tartakovsky while he was still a student at the California Institute of Arts. Dexter wouldn't get his own series until 1996.

Dexter had many adversaries besides his sister, and would often toe the line with aliens, weird dimensional creatures and his very own arch-nemeses, ManDark. In what was perhaps Dexter's greatest battle with ManDark they managed to bring the Mount Rushmore faces of Lincoln and Washington to life in order to fight each other. And who hasn't thought about doing that?

The action sequences in DL were almost as iconic as the comedic ones, as they would frequently reference popular manga and action-movie moments. It was not uncommon for Dexter to paraphrase a few lines from the Evil Dead trilogy, or to prep for combat with a Rambo homage.

Sometimes, but not often, Dexter would have backup from the 'expanded universe' of Dexter's laboratory, such as television star 'Action Hank' or 'The Justice Friends'- a hilarious send up of Marvel-style superheroes. Mostly, though, combat scenes usually involved Dexter donning a mech-suit and leaping through the air in a very japanese way.

Not pictured: copyright infringement

At the height of Dexter's popularity, a feature length movie was made called 'Dexter's Laboratory: Ego Trip', in which Dexter travels into the future to try and witness himself saving the world. Needless to say, the movie was kick-ass, and was well received by both fans and critics- a fate that most feature length movies of cartoon series fail to pull off (we're looking at you, nearly every single feature length movie version of a cartoon series that isn't Dexter's Lab.)

The closest Dexter would ever get to another feature length was the series finale 'Last but not Beast' where all the recurring characters of the Dexter's Lab universe teamed up to battle a huge Japanese monster. I am not alone in thinking that all television series should end in this exact same way.

Soon after Ego Trip, things started to go down hill for Dexter. In 2001 a series of Dexter's Lab was commissioned without many of the original creative team attached and received a lukewarm reception. The show was soon cancelled and has yet to be revived. However, you can still catch reruns of the golden age of Dexter's Laboratory on Boomerang, a channel whose sole purpose is to provide quality entertainment to the stoned teenagers of the future.