I wonder if Neil deGrasse Tyson will ever target his fun-sapping Twitter assessments on Dexter’s Laboratory. Cartoon Network’s boy genius, star of the very first of their Cartoon Cartoons, loved to talk a big game about math and science, but there’s almost none of the real stuff to be found in his show. Dexter’s Lab was pure animation, with all its willingness to leave natural laws behind in the name of cartoon shenanigans. The inventions Dexter so lovingly crafted behind the bolted door of his secret bookcase entrance couldn’t exist in a million years.
But scientific impossibility has never done such an unabashedly cartoony program any harm, at least not in the comedy or design departments. Dexter’s Lab remains one of the best of Cartoon Network’s original shows, in no small part thanks to all those reality-defying gadgets and gizmos our pint-sized protagonist cooked up. Dee Dee, Mandark, and Dexter’s own arrogance put an early end to many of them, but that was just part of the fun for the audience. Here are eleven of Dexter’s greatest inventions that cut through the gloom and doom of the lab – even if they went boom:
11. Animal Atomizer (Season 1, Episode 4)
The Animal Atomizer was the first invention that Dexter named his greatest work in the seven-minute short “Changes” that became a pilot for the series, and later a segment of its fourth episode. A simple remote with a button, it combines the positive and negative polarities and sucrose radium to excrete the elements of any variety of zygomorphy (see what I mean about the science on this show?) In plain English, it turns you into a random animal. Of course, Dee Dee gets her hands on the Atomizer, and she and Dexter get into a war of quick changes until, trapped as a tortoise and a snail, they must reach the shiny red button before Mom gets upstairs to check on them!
The build-up to the Atomizer’s completion served as the basis to the opening animation of the series, though the function of the button changed from transmogrifier to light switch for the series logo.
10. Dexter’s First Invention (Season 2, Episode 6)
The Atomizer was the first invention conceived and animated by series creator Genndy Tartakovsky, but in Season 2, Dexter rediscovered a gadget he put together while still in diapers. He was into the simple button designs even then. This wooden box has an alarm and a lightbulb that come on when you push the button, though a young Dexter found more value in it as a pacifier.
Its appearance in “Lab of the Lost” showed one of Dexter’s many flaws in the way he goes about his work: he’s barely finished one invention before moving on to his next greatest work, leaving all his past creations to rot. Being a cartoon character in a floating timeline and no serialization, it wasn’t an insight Dexter carried forward, and his first invention never appeared again – but for one seven-minute segment, he saw the error of his ways and grew sentimental over his early work.
9. Green Thumb-1 (Season 2, Episode 26)
Sometimes, a single invention formed the basis for an entire segment of Dexter’s Lab. At other times, a cascade of creations were unveiled to solve a problem (usually created by yet another invention). The Green Thumb-1 was the culmination of Dexter’s botanical efforts in “You Vegetabelieve It!” after Dee Dee let his experimental growth hormone loose on the backyard. Dexter claimed it emitted a laser, but its attacks on the ravenous mutant plants looked an awful lot like materialized green gardening tools.
Coming in at the climax of a seven-minute cartoon, the Green Thumb-1 isn’t on screen for very long, and it’s ultimately upstaged by Dee Dee and a giant caterpillar. But it’s the capper in one of Dexter’s most memorable runs of inventions, and its pairing with a left-field cowboy get-up is an extra bit of fun.
8. Dexatorium (Season 2, Episode 35)
Inventions upon inventions abound in the Dexatorium. Tired of Dee Dee’s winning streak at every board game the two play on a rainy day, Dexter decides midway through “Game for a Game” to take things to the next level. His souped-up takes on Hungry Hungry Hippos, Twister, and Battleship (appropriately disguised from the copyright lawyers) initially turn the tide in the competition. But while the Dexatorium’s mechanization enables Dexter to bridge the gap with his sister’s creativity and agility (sometimes through outright cheating), it doesn’t have any built-in protection against Dexter’s own hubris.
7. Dream Machine (Season 1, Episode 8)
One of those inventions that carried an entire segment, the Dream Machine even lent its name to the cartoon it featured in. It also gets one of the most dramatic introductions of any of Dexter’s inventions in the series, impressing even Dee Dee. Looking a bit like a giant telescope with a brain-patterned grid instead of a lens, this lunar-powered device monitors the dreams of a sleeping subject and tries to keep them regulated on the pleasant side.
With its far-out design and beneficial function, this is an invention you might wish could actually work. However, the Dream Machine has one design flaw: someone else needs to stay asleep and monitor your dreams to ensure they don’t become nightmares. And that’s a pretty big flaw, when the only person you can recruit to run the machine is Dee Dee.
6. Reverse Belt (Season 2, Episode 33)
The Reverse Belt isn’t the most elaborate of Dexter’s inventions. It isn’t the most multi-faceted. It doesn’t seem to have any useful applications. But it’s also the perfect example of a lack of real science not hurting the show any. The Reverse Belt’s appearance in “Sdrawkcab” makes for one of the series’ best segments. By inventing such a useless gadget and then leaving it on after testing, Dexter sets himself up for one gag after another playing with reverse motion, reverse dialogue, reverse sound effects and music – you name it, it goes backwards and forwards on him at the worst possible time. Animation can do wonders with this sort of material, and “Scrawkcab” gets the most out of its premise. All thanks to a simple belt. Detelpmoc krow tsetaerg S'retxed s'ti!
5. Timmy (Season 2, Episode 26)
Not all of Dexter’s creations were mechanical. His work in biology produced human clones, dinosaurs, and even the Chupacabra. But the most endearing of his living beings has to be the little Timmy Termite. This big-eyed bug is genetically modified to eat metal instead of wood, the better to act as a clean-up service whenever Dee Dee wreaks havoc in the lab. But Timmy isn’t just some handy janitorial service. Dexter is genuinely fond of little Timmy, and the two of them have a master-dog type of relationship. Of course, that means that Timmy can develop separation anxiety. If your dog’s teeth have ever done a number on your furniture when you’re out of the house, imagine what a metal-eating termite can do to a laboratory…
4. Dex-Transformer (Various; First Appearance in Season 1, Episode 2)
The Dex-Transformer is one of the most iconic and oft-used inventions of the series. It was originally borne of desperation; with the substitute gym teacher rejecting his excuse slips and subjecting the class to never-ending subjugation by bullies, Dexter needed some way to survive in “Dexter Dodgeball.” The robot suit did its job against its intended targets, but it couldn’t stop Dexter from being tagged out by someone else (Dee Dee).
From there, the Dex-Transformer was recalled into service four more times during the original run of the series. Dexter employed it against alien invaders and loaned it to Dee Dee for a dance recital. He broke it out in the schoolyard again under a new name (the Exo-Jock 4000) to show off in “Last But Not Beast” before the events of that meant-to-be series finale outclassed his loyal battle suit. Finally, the Dex-Transformer saved Dexter’s life from future robot attackers in the TV movie Ego Trip.
3. Neurotomic Protocore (Ego Trip)
Ego Trip wasn’t primarily concerned with robots from the future. It was the ultimate battle between Dexter and his hated rival Mandark, all over what may have been Dexter’s most powerful creation: the neurotomic protocore. Initially another invention that Mandark seeks to pilfer from the lab, Dexter keeps the core with him into adulthood. Reduced to a spineless cubicle-designing cog in a corporate machine, he secretly develops blueprints to harness the core’s functions as an energy source and a means of granting advanced intellect and materialization abilities. Mandark eventually acquires the core and foolishly turns its positive energies negative, thus draining the intellect of the world’s population to slake his own lust for knowledge. But when Dexter manages to reclaim the world, he can use it to recreate the Earth as utopia!
Tipped off by his robot attackers, Dexter naturally traveled into the future to see just how cool he became while saving the world. It wasn’t nearly as awesome or as straightforward as he first thought. But the neurotomic protocore was there every step of the way as Dexter recruited himself at various ages to reach the decisive moment in his timeline.
2. Robo-Dexo 2000 (Various; First Appearance in Season 1, Episode 6)
The successor to the Dex-Transformer, the Robo-Dexo 2000 enjoyed an even longer career on the series. At eight appearances in the original run and eight in the revival seasons supervised by Chris Savino, it was the most used of Dexter’s many robots. It was also one of Dexter’s most shameless monuments to himself: the Robo-Dexo has his square shape, color scheme, approximations of his glasses and purple gloves, and it even has his short stature when put up against other giant robots and monsters. It can usually hold its own against these threats, at least when Mandark, Dee Dee, or Dexter’s arrogance aren’t in the way.
The revival seasons introduced a limited AI to the Robo-Dexo that gave it some means to resist replacement. Dexter was ready to advance to the 3000 model, but the loyalty of the 2000 (and the newer version’s ultimate failure) gave him a new appreciation for the tried and true.
1. Computer
Years before Plankton made himself the henpecked husband to computer wife Karen in SpongeBob SquarePants, Dexter had invented his own female-voiced intelligence. Properly titled the Quadraplex T-3000 Computer, she is a level-headed AI with proper manners responsible for maintaining the entire laboratory. Dexter regularly refers to her as his one true love (he’s only a young boy obsessed with science, after all), and she in turn shows him unquestioned loyalty in his mission to invent, discover, and endure Dee Dee’s antics.
Computer’s calm logic sometimes meant she was more focused on the upkeep of the lab than Dexter himself. His passions and fits of ego often blinded him to the damage he did his own causes, and Computer would be there with a gentle but unsparing assessment.