Le laboratoire de Dexter

Looking back on all these old cartoon network shows I use to watch when I was a child sure brings back tons of memories. "Dexter's Laboratory" was a funny and unique cartoon. It centered around Dexter a boy genius who built a laboratory under his house without his parents knowledge, honestly I don't know why he kept it a secret from them but any who, he has an older sister named Dee Dee but she's an Idiot. His parents names are Mom and Dad although that was common for cartoons back then. Dexter has a rival neighbor named Mandark. The episodes had great plots, excellent writing, and were produced by Hanna-Barbara. It also featured a short cartoon between each episode, either Dial M of Monkey or The Justice Friends. I found the show to be pretty interesting, and i enjoyed some of the wacky/fun episodes that the series had to offer. Some of the episodes were kind of painful to watch at times , but most of them were always full of humor and wacky adventures, which made this series good. This show is way better than Jimmy Neutron which seemed like a ripoff, that show is too boring.

Dexter's Lab is a great cartoon of a boy and his lab and the many spoofs and pitfalls that come onto him. It's best watch when you are a bit old. The spoofs and plotlines made this show a smash. Spoofs include: Star Wars, G.I. Joe, Charlie's Angels (G.I.R.L. Squad!) and heck even Anime (Voltron). A great show for a generation.

Still being a kid at heart, I'm a large fan of animation. I grew up in the eighties on Scooby Doo, Looney Tunes, and the original Tom and Jerry and can remember a time before so many cartoons were just toy advertisements or committee-designed slush meant for mass appeal or message preaching that wound up completely lacking in passion. Fortunately, I'm not alone. Artists with the same sense of nostalgia as I have seen to it that animation began a slow revival in the 1990's. The Simpsons really led the way for intelligent cartoons that can appeal to adults without forgetting that animation should be a playground for the imagination. Certainly, there's still plenty of slush out there, but the ratio of quality stuff to filler has grown considerably in recent years.

As a case in point there is Dexter's Laboratory. It's the best thing I've seen come out of Cartoon Network's originally produced efforts so far. Dexter is a red headed third grader with a super keen intelligence that allows him to build contraptions and devices quite fantastic by our 21st century standards, but all still firmly grounded in our science fiction culture that began in the 1950's (and this is sure to appeal to any fan of sci-fi who can appreciate humor). While being smart, he is still very much a child, and prone to all of the problems that would plague your average third grader. His normal attire is a white lab coat, large rubber gloves and boots, and he speaks in a quasi-German accent (it's never explained why, which makes it all the more fun). His dress and accent are no doubt an homage to the superintelligent "mad genius" character popularized by so many horror and b-films over the years, and fits his character perfectly. He has a gigantic laboratory filled with incredible technology that, while mostly being background scenery, looks the part perfectly (think Frankenstein's lab). All of this is hidden in and under his house, and he somehow manages to keep his fantastic playground hidden from his parents, who are replicas of the 1950's sitcom blissfully married perfect couple. They love their children, but are thankfully not beyond discplining lapses in good behavior (when they see them anyway). While he keeps his lab hidden from his parents, he can't seem to keep anything safe from his sister. Deedee is the free spirited spoil to Dexter's scientific rationalism with blond hair and gigantic blue eyes. She's not the least bit malicious, just terribly curious. She always seems to inadvertantly foil Dexter's latest grand invention or scheme with her propensity to press every button she sees or randomly dance about, crashing through the scenery. Together they form a sort of ying and yang, their differences in nature successfully driving many stories along. They're still very much brother and sister, however, and sibling rivalries are constant, but hilarious against the backdrop of sci-fi plots the two are thrown into. While the show does have plenty of action, adventures, and fantastic gadgets, it would still be pretty stale without such well fleshed out characters to enjoy. They are all caricaturistic enough to be funny, yet human enough (they all have theirs flaws and foibles) that you will want to see how they act and react to the latest crisis, typically brought on by Dexter's dabbling with science.

While Dexter may deeply resent his sister's propensity for unintentional destruction and her "older sibling" status, he still cares for her and never fails to bail her out of a tight spot. While the characters might occasionally display fondness through their actions (Dexter builds a robotic likeness of his mother, the father arm wrestles truckers to defend family honor), emotions are never handled in a sappy or overly sentimental manner. The ability to display heart so subtly without having to hit audiences over the head with it is difficult and rarely done so well. The show abounds with references to popular culture any child of the 80's will be familiar with. From giant monsters to fighting robots and even to an episode dedicated to spoofing Dungeons and Dragons which is quite funny.

And while there's the occasional brawling and fighting, nothing is ever graphically depicted (the reason I don't let my son watch the Powerpuff Girls). Slapstick abounds, certainly, but I've never seen anything here I wouldn't let my two year old watch. To sum it up, the series really just aims to entertain against a sci-fi backdrop. And in that respect it succeeds greatly. When an episode is done, you probably haven't learned any great lesson, you've just had a good time, much like watching an old Looney Tune or Tom and Jerry short. The episodes are apparently out of production, which is a shame. I sincerely hope that Dexter and Deedee get to make a comeback someday.

Perhaps cartoons are futile in two respects. The first being that the level of detail often overwhelms the target audience--think of how the Simpsons remained popular after almost 15 years. The second is that the remaining public ignores them as "childish" despite this semi-sophistication.

Dexter's Lab, at one time the best thing on CTNW, is one of those shows, perhaps the best one since Rocky and Bullwinkle. Even the crude art styles are radically similar. Sadly, it is falling out of the inventive mode and into formula.

Overall, if you taped the earlier episodes...keep them. Animation sophistication might soon become a reality.

Dexter's Laboratory is one of the funniest cartoons on the Cartoon Network. Everyday Dexter is always working in his laboratory and he every time when he is working, his sister DeeDee (who is a funny character who is sort of an airhead), bugs him and starts wrecking mostly everything and then Dexter always says this very memorable quote,"DeeDee, GET OUT OF MY LABORATORY!" and then DeeDee is so always asking what this button do? Then Dexter is like, "NO DeeDee, don't push that button! You don't even know what it does!" and then something goes wrong. Another thing I think is hilarious on Dexter's Laboratory is The Justice Friends segments those are so funny! With Major Glory spoofing Captain America, Valhallan spoofing The Silver Surfer and The Inbragable Krunk spoofing The Incredible Hulk of course! I like the introduction to the Justice Friends where the announcer says: Three of Earth's most mightiest heroes, all in one roof to face the challenge of everyday life and then they introduce the characters and so on. I also think it is funny about Dexter's Lab is that Dexter rival Mandark has this huge crush on DeeDee! I also liked Dexter's really cool inventions and I was wishing I had some cool stuff like that but I am pretty sure everyone does. Overall funny and memorable.