Dexter's Laboratory: Difference between revisions

* [[Absentee Actor]]: Dexter doesn't appear in "Paper Route Bout", which instead focused on Dee Dee.

** He also doesn't appear in "Surf, Sun, and Science" which is a [[Day in The Limelight]] for Mandark.

* [[Actor Allusion]]: Koosalagoopagoop is voiced by [[Large Ham|Dom DeLuise]] and is a parody of the increasingly saccharine [[Don Bluth]] movies DeLuise had been in, like [[A Troll in Central Park]].

** Rasslor from the ''Dial M For Monkey'' episode of the same name was voiced by [[Randy Savage]]. His last line in the episode was, naturally, "''OH '''YEAAAH!'''''".

* [[All Girls Like Ponies]]: Dee Dee (plus her [[Five-Token Band|racially diverse friends]] Mimi and Lee Lee)

* [[All Work vs. All Play]]: Played with with Dexter and Dee Dee (respectively All Work and All Play), where there would be episodes where Dexter would be more relaxed like DeeDee, or DeeDee more work-minded like Dexter only to turn back at the end. [[Status Quo Is God]] or an [[Aesop]] of being yourself?

{{quote| ''Did you say... [[Serious Business|snowballs?]]''}}

** And God help you if you make ''Dee Dee'' seriously angry.

** Parodied in an episode where Dexter shrinks the house to observe it inside his lab, leaving Dexter's lab of normal size on the inside, but a disembodied door on the outside.

** Also parodied in an episode where Dexter draws a map of the house. Guess which is the smallest room.

** "DEE DEE! GET OUT OF MY LAB'''O'''RATORY!"

** "AT LAST! MY ''GREATEST CREATION'' IS COM''PLE''TED!"

* [[The Chew Toy]]: Dexter, sometimes. Though he has nothing on the ice-cream man in "Ice Cream". Turns out ever since Dexter bought ice cream from him, and paid him in ''pennies'', a series of unfortunate events had happened to him since, including chipping his tooth trying to put them in the safe but tripping on his laces after counting them, dumped by his girlfriend, having his car towed away, getting kicked out of his apartment and being forced to live under a highway because of this one act.

** And to add insult to injury, once the Ice Cream Man forgives Dexter and allows him to purchase ice cream, Dexter pays the Ice Cream Man with a 100 dollar bill.

* [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass]]: Dexter's dad.

* [[Cryptid Episode]]: There's both a Bigfoot episode and a Chupacabra episode.

* [[A Day At the Bizarro]]: The episode "Dexter and Computress Get Mandark!" was drawn in crayon and features voice work done by a six year old fan named [http://poll.imdb.com/name/nm1213360/ Tyler Samuel Lee], who sent in a tape of his idea. It then gets extremely weird from there, involving exploding Mandark heads.

* [[Deconstructive Parody]]: The episode where Dexter tries out different superpowers.

** That said, this is quite justified, as anyone with brothers or sisters will tell you. Even in the show, Dexter would be overly spiteful towards Dee Dee, or be just plain petty for little to no reason at all. However, there was also a few times where he'd show compassion towards Dee Dee and right any wrongs that happened to her. Yeah, that's sibling rivalry for you.

*** To show you just how valid the above two points are, watch the "Down in the dumps" episode. It did a pretty good job of showing Dex's and Dee Dee's positive and negative personality traits.

* [[For Science!]]: Much of Dexter's motivation.

* [[Foot Focus]]: For Dee Dee. In ''two'' episodes, and it was plot-relevant.

* [[Freaky Friday Flip]]: Played with in "The Old Switcheroo", where Dad forces Dexter and Dee Dee to switch places.

* [[Funny Foreigner]]: In the episode "The Bus Boy" there's a German boy in lederhosen. His story involved him dancing around eating food and commenting how good it was.

* [[Future Badass]] / [[Future Loser]]: Dexter has ''both'' in [[The Movie]].

* [[Generation Xerox]]: Just... ''look'' at the first scene between Mom and Dad in the Muffin episode.

* [[Genki Girl]]: Dee Dee.

** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLJ6DaD4fd0 SUZY SUZY SUZY SUZI SUZI!]

* [[Girls Have Cooties]]: The so-called cooties Dexter encounters are in the form of butterflies which inhabit Dee Dee's bedroom.

* [[Gosh Dang It to Heck]]: In "Book ′Em," Dexter has a nightmare where he's being judged by the Devil for not returning his library book on time:

* [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Mecha]]: Dexter's default response to almost any physical threat is to build a mech and go shoot the danger to bits. Eventually he ends up with a hangar full of mecha, which he walks through, pondering which one to use for playing dodgeball.

* [[In the Future We Still Have Roombas]]: Dozens of helper robots working for Dexter. Two of them even get [[A Day in The Spotlight]].

* [[It Runs in The Family]]: Dexter believes that his grandfather's dinky lab is just child's play, but Dexter doesn't see his grandfather create free energy with it - the one thing Dexter himself couldn't achieve.

** Scenes of Dexter's mother cooking show her using the same scientific precision and unbridled glee as Dexter in the throes of creation.

** Likewise, his father acts much the same as Dee Dee does when disturbing Mom in the kitchen. She even ends up shouting at him in much the same way.

* [[It's Personal]]: After Dexter had Dee Dee destroy Mandark's lab, only ''then'' did Mandark swore revenge on Dexter and became rivals since.

* [[Kaiju]]: Several. More memorable ones involve an extra-dimensional horror with many eyes and tentacles (that's start of a stable time loop) and iconic Dexter "oops". Another episode involved Dexter and Dee Dee becoming giant monsters by drinking a mutation-causing formula and having an all out battle (complete with [[Calling Your Attacks]]). Finally, there's Badaxtra, the monster of the original Finale who nearly destroyed the world.

** It is still available as [[Keep Circulating the Tapes]] via [[YouTube]] and Eastern European video sites.

* [[Mockumentary]]: "Blackfoot and Slim", which ends with {{spoiler|Dexter being tranquilized, tagged and released back into his natural environment.}}

* [[Mundangerous]]: In the episode "Sports a Poppin", Dexter is completely incompetent in sports, and despite his best efforts lets his father down who was trying to teach him to be good at sports. Then at the end of the episode, as his dad goes back inside, a monster let loose by Dee-Dee attacks Dexter. he proceeds to fight it, using skills that obviously should have made him be more capable at the sports than he was.

* [[Musical Episode]]: "Hellooo, dear brother! What have you got there?"

** There's a shout out to the theater doors sequence from [[Mystery Science Theater 3000|MST3K]]. This shot was also used in the ending credits

** [[Power Rangers|"It's morphing time!"]]

** [[Ghostbusters|"Who ya wanna call?"]]

** Dee Dee and Dexter are obviously playing [[Primal Rage]] at one point.

* [[Shrunken Organ]]: Dexter decides to put a genius-level brain in Dee Dee's head. He needs a pair of tweezers to remove her old one.

* [[Signature Laugh]]: Several, notably Mandark (especially in the no-dialogue episode).

** In one episode, it was implied he actually died.

** And don't forget when the earth was destroyed by meteors.

* [[Squee]]: Dee Dee.

* [[Stable Time Loop]]: In ''Ego-Trip'', the robots that invaded from the future were actually created by Dexter at the end of the film with the help of the later versions of himself to destroy Dee Dee in retaliation for her being the one to (unwittingly, as usual) defeat Mandark.

** We see it happen to Dexter in ''Ego Trip''.

* [[Took a Level In Dumbass]]: Dad, as part of the [[Seasonal Rot]]. Dee Dee might have gotten dumber too, but it's harder to tell with her.

* [[Unexplained Accent]]: Dexter.

* [[Villain Protagonist]]: Dexter could get rather villainous sometimes (such as in ''Game For A Game'' and ''Used Ink'')

* [[Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?]]: Dexter can acquire whatever parts he needs to build whatever he wants without even having any suspicious shipments of mail arrive at his house. Sometimes he gets robots to assemble everything for him.

** Except when [[Rule of Funny]] dictates he get a bill from NASA.

*** "Kid-friendly" in that it takes place in a school and feature no shooting. It's still about [[Nightmare Fuel|a psychotic man trapping a small child in his school late at night an torturing him.]]

* [[Wig, Dress, Accent]]: Mandark, when he kidnaps and impersonates Dexter's mother in "Momdark".

* [[Wildlife Commentary Spoof]]

** Rasslor is a Captain Ersatz of [[Marvel Comics|Marvel]]'s Champion.

*** [[Actor Allusion]]: [[Randy Savage|"OOOOOHHH YEEEAAAH!!"]]

* [[Cat Fight]]: Agent Honeydew and Peltra (both were even meowing and sticking out their hands in clawing motion, and Peltra was wearing a literal catsuit)

* [[Cruella to Animals]]: Peltra.

* [[Evil Counterpart]]: Quackor the Fowl.

** [[Samus Is a Girl]]

* [[Delicious Fruit Pies]]: Major Glory's weapon of choice when [[Ad Bumpers|saving Dexter and Dee Dee from the Mathmagician]].

* [[Disney Acid Sequence]]: Krunk's dream, which includes (among other things), a multi-eyed roller-skating zebra in a trenchcoat.

* [[Expy]]: Of [[The Avengers (Comic Book)|The Avengers]]

** Major Glory - [[Captain America]] combined with [[Superman]]

** Krunk - [[Hulk]]

** And other characters are [[Expy|expies]] of other comic book characters.

*** Disgruntled Postman - [[The Joker]]

*** White Tiger - [[Black Panther]]

* [[Laugh Track]]: Used to resemble the sitcoms it parodies.

* [[Multilayer Facade]]: Krunk tries to take off the mask of Major Glory, only to reveal several layers of masks beneath it.

** "Krunk stop Kat's reign of terror! ''Here kitty-kitty-kitty!''"

* [[Only Sane Man]]: Val Hallen, especially in 'Pain in the Mouth'.

** And two seconds later, Krunk walks out [[Crowning Moment of Funny|dressed as Wilma]]. With the Flinstones theme playing in the background.

* [[So Unfunny It's Funny]]: TV Puppet Pals

* [[Superhero]]

* [[Tom Kenny]]: Val Hallen

* [[The Tooth Hurts]]: One episode of the ''Justice Friends'' has them trying to avoid the dentist from fear of this. It's subverted: Krunk, the Hulk Captain Ersatz, only got a tortilla chip in his tooth -- which just needed a simple, painless extraction -- compared to all the idiotic stuff Major Glory tries to do to his tooth. The [[Aesop]]: Go to the dentist, or it'll hurt MORE.

* [[Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?|Why Did It Have To Be Bees]]