For Trivia tropes from Ego Trip, go here.
Trivia tropes for Dexter's Laboratory
Trivia With Their Own Pages
General examples:
- Acting for Two:
- Frank Welker voiced Monkey, Quackor and Krunk, in addition to some one-off characters.
- Eddie Deezen voiced Mandark and his sister Lalavava.
- Kath Soucie voices Dexter's mother, Mandark's mother, Agent Honeydew and the Quadraplex T-3000 Computer, in addition to some supporting and background characters.
- Jeff Bennett voices both Dexter's dad and Mandark's dad, who have a fight in one episode. Bennett also voiced the narrator in the Justice Friends segments.
- Adored by the Network: While this is not surprising (considering it was one of Cartoon Network's first successful original animated series), from 1998-2001, it, along with The Powerpuff Girls (and, to a lesser extent, Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, and Ed, Edd, and Eddy) were the flagship shows of the network that were original programming (as opposed to the acquired and syndicated shorts and shows Cartoon Network had since the channel's start in 1992).
- Banned Episode: A handful of episodes were pulled from syndication for going a bit too far with the raunchy content.
- "Dos Boot" sometimes was skipped over due to complaints of the Creepy Crossdresser ending involving a Bland-Name Product of Photoshop and accusations of the episode having a Clueless Aesop. Bootleg versions are still available via YouTube and Eastern European video sites and it is legally available on streaming services.
- "Dial M for Monkey: Barbequor" was immediately pulled from syndication for the scenes of Krunk getting drunk and the Camp Gay villain, Silver Spooner. Presently, the only place in which the episode can be seen is on the Amazon PrimeVideo streaming service. However, the real reason why this episode was banned wasn't due to the Spooner being a gay stereotype but due to the estate of Marvel Comics creator Jack Kirby, seeing the character as a misuse of one of his creations, the Silver Surfer and threatened to sue Cartoon Network for copyright infringement.
- "Rude Removal" was this for a number of years (to the point that it was thought to be an urban legend) before a one-off airing on [adult swim] in the 2010s.
- Cast Incest: In the French dub, Dexter and his mom were voiced by a married couple (Marc Saez and Véronique Picciotto).
- Channel Hop: The show aired on Cartoon Network during its original run, but in 2023 [adult swim] started airing reruns as part of its "Checkered Past" block. While technically the same channel, both are considered different for ratings purposes (as they have wildly different target age demographics).
- Cowboy BeBop at His Computer:
- The TV guide description for "Trapped with a Vengeance" is as such: "The janitor punishes Dexter by making him clean the entire school". The actual plot of the episode is a parody of Die Hard where the janitor attempts to trap Dexter in the school to punish him for leaving a mess every time he works late at night past school hours.
- The TV guide description for "Decode of Honor" states that Dexter and Dee Dee get their decoder rings mixed up. The actual plot has their decoder message sheets get mixed up, not the rings.
- Creator's Apathy: Though he hasn't spoken ill of the show, Genndy Tartakovsky has said that he's "done" with the characters and not at all interested in working on a revival, preferring to focus more on his slower, more atmospheric projects. He also explained that half of what made the show work was Christine Cavanaugh as Dexter and he doesn't want to replace her after her death.
- Creator Backlash: Tartakovsky was not impressed with The Justice Friends, feeling that it was short on character development and humor. This is quite ironic, as many fans considered their segments one of the best things to come out of the show.
- Cross-Dressing Voices:
- Dexter was voiced by two voice actresses in the English version (Christine Cavanaugh during the original episodes and Candi Milo for almost all later episodes and whenever Dexter appears on a Cartoon Network video game or in a crossover cameo, as seen on the Time Squad series finale "Orphan Substitute" where one of the kids Larry and Tuddrussel abduct to help them with fixing history is Dexter himself)
- Eddie Deezen voiced Lalavava, with his voice sped up to sound higher and more girlish.
- The Danza:
- Paul Williams himself guest stars in the episode "Just an Old Fashioned Lab Song" as Dexter's piano instructor... Prof. Williams, who is drawn roughly the same height as Dexter.
- The foreign exchange student in "Last But Not Beast" is named Toshi and voiced by Brian Toshi.
- The robots from one of the revival's episodes are F.R.E.D. and M.A.R. 10, voiced by comedy duo Fred Willard and Martin Mull.
- Deleted Role: The credits for the Dial M for Monkey segment "Peltra" credits Tom Kenny as voicing Tailor, who doesn't appear in the episode, but did appear in a comic adaptation of the episode that was featured in the fourth issue of Cartoon Network Presents.
- Fake Brit: Kath Soucie gave Agent Honeydew a refined British accent.
- Follow the Leader: Seems to have inspired shows such as Johnny Test and The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius.
- Keep Circulating the Tapes:
- Ego Trip hasn't seen any official release since its VHS release back in 2000. It is on the quite rare Region 4 "Collected Experiments" release, but good luck getting it.
- "Rude Removal" became this after it was finally shown to the public. [adult swim] got its hands on the episode and actually aired it, and afterward posted the short on its YouTube channel in 2013. Shortly thereafter, the episode was made private and no official release of it currently exists.
- Neither of the two soundtrack albums, Musical Time Machine and The Hip Hop Experiment, have received digital releases.
- Kids' Meal Toy:
- Wendy's released a set of five toys in 1997, including a Spark Maker.
- Dairy Queen released a set of six toys in 2001. These consisted of five of Dexter's inventions and Monkey.
- Burger King released a set of eight toys in 2003. These depicted Dexter and Dee Dee inside things like a gravity chamber or a microscope.
- No Dub for You: The show only aired in Hebrew-subtitled form in Israel; only the "Chicken Scratch" short gets dubbed in Hebrew.
- Official Fan-Submitted Content: The script for "Dexter and Computress Get Mandark!", if you couldn't tell already.
- One-Book Author: Dee Dee is the only voice role for Allison Moore, who was a college friend of series creator, Genndy Tartakovsky. She only voiced the character in the first season, but briefly came back several seasons later when her replacement Kathryn Cressida (who has done some other voice work) was unavailable.
- The Other Darrin:
- Dexter's voice went from the late Christine Cavanaugh in the original run to Candi Milo for almost all of the later run (plus all crossover appearances, games, marketing, etc since) when the former retired from voice acting. Cavanaugh did, however, reprise her role in the first three episodes of the later run, as well as the third segment of the 5th episode, which were likely recorded before her retirement.
- Dee Dee was first voiced by Allison Moore, a college friend of Genndy Tartakovsky who had originated the role in the original pitch video, but she moved to New York after the first 13 episodes to pursue a career in theater, and the role was taken over by Kathryn Cressida for the rest of the original run. When the show was revived in 2001, Moore reprised the role due to the new showrunner Chris Savino wanting to change some voices around, but Cressida returned for the second half of that run, presumably due to Cartoon Network preferring her. Despite this, many viewers never noticed the change due to how similar the voices sounded (indeed Cressida was cast by how close her impression was to Moore).
- Action Hank only gets to speak in three episodes, but his voice actor is never the same. He is played by Michael Armstrong in "Beard to be Feared", John Garry in "Decode of Honor", and Kevin Michael Richardson in "911". Greg Eagles voices him in the PlayStation video game "Mandark's Laboratory".
- In the "Dial M for Monkey" shorts, the chief of the organization Agent Honeydew works for was originally played by Robert Ridgely, but Earl Boen became his voice actor in the second season.
- Monkey's sound effects were done by Frank Welker (using the same monkey sounds he uses for Abu in Aladdin or Ma-Ti's pet monkey on Captain Planet and the Planeteers or any cartoon or live-action project that needs monkey noises), but his speaking voice in "The Lab of Tomorrow" was provided by Corey Burton.
- Justice Friends member Capital G was originally voiced by Tom Kenny in the episode "Rasslor". In the second season finale "Last But Not Beast", he was instead voiced by Greg Eagles.
- Agent Honeydew was voiced by Paula Tiso for her first appearance, but by Kath Soucie (the voice of Dexter's Mom) for every subsequent appearance.
- Playing with Character Type: Eddie Deezen plays a nerd, as usual, but Mandark is more sociopathic and villainous than his usual roles.
- Pop-Culture Urban Legends: The notorious episode "Rude Removal" was the subject of a great deal of confused rumors over the years. Since the episode was never aired and involves Dexter and Dee Dee swearing, some who claimed to have seen it (either at conventions or from some private source) stated that it was extremely vulgar and completely uncensored, in some cases even describing the characters engaging in scatological acts. A common (and totally untrue) story was that it was created as a joke by the studio staff and never even meant to be aired, hence the intensity of the cussing. A number of fans actually wound up disappointed when the episode was finally released in 2013, revealing that every swear word was censored with an audio bleep, and it was quite tame compared to many of the rumors.
- Role Reprise: "Dyno-Might", the episode crossing over with Dynomutt, Dog Wonder, had Gary Owens and Frank Welker reprise their respective roles as Blue Falcon and Dynomutt. For Owens, it would be the final time that he voiced Blue Falcon before his 2015 death.
- Shrug of God: Even the series creator, Genndy Tartakovsky, isn't certain about what Dexter's bizarre accent is supposed to be.
- Throw It In!: The reason for the audience randomly flying away at the end of the Big-Lipped Alligator Moment song in the Chubby Cheese's episode is because the storyboard script had a note saying "audience takes off". When the storyboards were sent to Rough Draft Studios in South Korea, the note was translated literally, resulting in the audience "taking off" into the air. The editors thought it was hilarious and added in a magical sound effect to accompany it.
- Un-Canceled: Season 3, made without the input of creator Genndy Tartakovsky (or writers Butch Hartman and Seth MacFarlane, who had left to make The Fairly OddParents! and Family Guy, respectively) during the infamous 2001 merger with CN's parent company Time Warner and internet service company AOL, and thus a point of much contention of both the uncancellation and the merger.
- What Could Have Been:
- Eddie Deezen's laugh for Mandark began as a flat, smug "Ha," lifted from one of his standup bits. When he was told that they wanted a "mad scientist" laugh, he gave them the now-famous "HA ha ha! HA ha HA ha HA!"
- Originally, the backup segment in the second season of Dexter's Laboratory was to be Rob Renzetti's Mina and The Count, which already had a pilot short produced and aired on the What A Cartoon! Show. It was passed over in favor of simply foregoing the "rotating secondary segment" routine from the first season.
- Word of God: Genndy has stated that the infamous episode "Rude Removal", where Dee Dee and Dexter go into a machine that removes all of their rudeness and concentrates it into another version of themselves, was actually meant to be part of the show's second season, not just a way for the crew to blow off steam during a stressful production. The network, however, disapproved of having an episode that centered around the characters constantly swearing, censored or not.
- Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Genndy Tartakovsky, who was at the peak of his workaholism at the time, reportedly worked so diligently banging out as many stories as possible for the show that he didn't even see the finished product until it was on television.
- Write Who You Know: Dee Dee and Dexter's relationship was based on creator Genndy Tartakovsky and his brother Alex, who was always destroying Genndy's personal projects when they were younger. Ironically, said brother eventually grew up to be a scientist.
