Boy genius "Dexter" at workBy Helen Lee, posted June 17,1998 Dexter is a boy genius, which means limitless possibilities. His inventions can take him anywhere his imagination does. Provided, of course, that his pesky big sister doesn't get in the way-which she does with alarming regularity. In fact, she'll probably do it this Wednesday on the season-ending finale of "Dexter's Laboratory," airing at 8 p.m. ET on the Cartoon Network. "Dexter's Laboratory" features a bespectacled, incredibly intelligent kid with his own secret lab at home, though he often finds himself humbled on the playground. . "He's a little kid, very smart," says creator Genndy Tartakovsky, "but he has all these weaknesses." Originally, Dexter was created at first to a foil to ditzy DeeDee. DeeDee, sporting a pink tutu and blonde pigtails, is Dexter's complete opposite-hyperactive, mischievous and giddy. "I've always been closer to DeeDee myself," Tartakovsky confesses. "She she has a free spirit, no rules-she can do whatever she wants. She's a little stupid that way, but she's actually really smart." DeeDee always comes into Dexter's lab to ruin something-one episode, she managed to turn Dexter's DNA experiment into a pretty flower. Then there's Dexter's arch-enemy Mandark. He and Dexter compete in everything, including science fairs, but Mandark's pretty sneaky. "The vision of the show is to make a cartoon where the humor is based on characters, so they can just react to something and that makes it funny," says Tartakovsky. "They've become very strong characters-very accessible, very human. Even though Dexter's a genius, he's human. People see themselves in the show." Every week, the boy genius must deal with the problems of any other kid-interdimensional gateways, space probes, robot warriors, eating vegetables and getting to bed on time. Dexter's solution to all his worldly problems--including dodgeball--is technology. When he reveals his robo-armor on the playground, those bullies certainly scramble. As a result, every show ends in an unexpected way. And each segment is designed to have the quality of a feature film. "(One vision of the show) is to make it visually like a mini-feature." Tartakozsky explains. "A lot of cartoons are very small in stature, but if we do a chase-as far as cinematic quality goes-we use a lot of film language. Not only do the characters express emotion, but the cutting and pasting do it too," Considering that each episode includes three seven-minute cartoons (usually two or three "Dexter's," combined with "M is for Monkey" and "Justice Friends"), that's a lot of cutting and pasting-and a good number of stories. One of those tales was created by seven-year-old Tyler Samuel Lee of Long Island, NY. "One day I got a phone call from his mother, who said, 'My son does an impression, would you like to hear it?'" He did, and Lee sent in a tape-which was used as narration over a segment, as-is. "It was wonderful and he got all their characters perfect. He could relate it back in his own story-a lot of adults can't even do that. Everything was good and true-I really enjoyed it," Tartakozsky says. After 140 episodes of "Dexter's Laboratory," though, Tartakozsky is ready to take a break. In Wednesday's episode, Dexter visits Japan where all the kids have robots, just like he does-so he's not special anymore. Then re-runs "Dexter's" begin airing Mondays through Fridays at 8 p.m. ET. There's a strategy behind the repeats, says Tartakozsky: "We're planning to have a big audience that the show's never had before, because they have more opportunity to get stuck to the show." Top of page |