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Production

Dexter's Laboratory was inspired by one of Genndy Tartakovsky's drawings of a ballerina. After drawing her tall and thin shape, he decided to pair her with a short and blocky opposite, Dexter. In 1991, he made his first "Dexter" short. On February 20, 1995, Dexter's Laboratory made its first run on the What a Cartoon! Show. In March 1996, the first season began airing. Directors and writers on the series included Genndy Tartakovsky, Rumen Petkov, Craig McCracken, Seth MacFarlane, Butch Hartman, Rob Renzetti, Paul Rudish, Mark O'Hare, John McIntyre and Chris Savino.
Dexter's Laboratory ended its initial run in 1999, with the series finale being the episode "Last But Not Beast", but re-entered production in 2001. The new episodes, which ran for two more seasons, had a different production team than the originals, since Genndy Tartakovsky was busy working on Samurai Jack and Star Wars: Clone Wars. The second series featured new character and background designs, alternative storyline and character backgrounds, and different sound effects (which were mostly all classic Hanna-Barbera sound effects). Also, Dexter's voice actress changed from Christine Cavanaugh to Candi Milo.
In the United States, the show currently airs on Cartoon Network's sister channel, Boomerang at 9:30 P.M. It aired on Cartoon Network on June 8, 2008 on the That's Nacho Chip Marathon on 12:30 P.M, and aired again on June 22, 2008 at 1:15pm during the You Big Baby Marathon.
Premise
The series revolves around a boy genius named Dexter, who has a secret laboratory filled with highly advanced equipment hidden behind a bookshelf in his bedroom. Access to this never-ending laboratory is achieved by speaking various passwords or by activating hidden switches on the bookcase (such as pulling out a specific book). Dexter is normally in conflict with his ditzy older sister, Dee Dee, who has an uncanny talent for gaining access to Dexter's lab despite his best efforts to keep her out. Dee Dee eludes all manner of security and, once inside, delights in playing in the lab, often destroying his inventions and creations. For reasons left unexplained, Dexter manages to keep the lab a secret from his clueless, cheerful parents, and in the beginning of the show, Dee Dee is the only other character to know about his lab. In several episodes, however, he is forced to reveal his lab to his parents, although such episodes always end with his parent's memories being wiped.
Dexter has an arch-nemesis, a boy named Susan "Mandark" Astronominov. Often Mandark, through fraud or (rarely) by coincidence, attempts to take credit for Dexter's achievements. Mandark is also secretly in love with Dee Dee. In the later seasons, after the revamp, Mandark becomes significantly more evil, his laboratory dark-looking and spiky (instead of the bright, cartoony lab featuring the Death Star from earlier seasons) and his plans more diabolical and nasty. It was shown in an episode that when Mandark was referred to as "Susan" Dexter mocked Mandark for looking like a girl and this sparked his hatred toward Dexter.
The show's humor derives in part from Dexter's essentially one-sided and intense rivalry with his sister (in which Dexter, although brilliant, never gets the upper hand) and from exaggerated stereotyping of his high intelligence and social awkwardness. Much absurdist and surrealist humor is used as well.
The show breaks the time-honored TV rule of returning the characters and situation to the status quo at the end of each episode; most episodes end in an unresolved state with no easy solution offered for returning the characters to normal; e.g. Dexter is a mutated mass of protoplasm, a large tentacled monster attacks the house, there are multiple clones of Dexter and Dee Dee running around, the entire lab self-destructs and is completely gone, Dexter destroys the lab and is later turned into a sandwich, etc. However, each episode always begins from the accepted "normal" premise of the program.
An hour-long special, Ego Trip, aired on Cartoon Network in 1999, 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.

Dexter's Laboratory

Dexter's Laboratory (Dexter's Lab for short) is an Annie Award-winning American animated series created by Genndy Tartakovsky about a boy genius named Dexter, who has a secret laboratory hidden behind a bookshelf in his bedroom. His enemy and rival is a boy named Mandark, but he feuds even more often with his older sister Dee Dee, who does not share in his intellectual inheritance.