Dexter Michael Louis McPherson, better known as Dexter, is the titular main protagonist of the 1996 animated series Dexter's Laboratory.
He spends most of his days creating experiments in his lab, but when Dee Dee destroys them, Dexter must find ways to prevent her from bothering him, even at the risk of hurting her.
He really is not a villain, he is just the main antagonist in some of the episodes.
He was voiced by the late Christine Cavanaugh and Candi Milo.
History[]
Birth and Early Childhood[]
Dexter was born as a true genius. He grew up to a normal family and at very young age created his very own laboratory in which he kept hidden from his parents behind a secret bookcase. The only person who knows that he has a lab is Dee Dee.
The Dodgeball Incident/Meeting Mandark[]
When Dexter started going to school at Huber Elementary School, he was recognized as the smartest kid there and the favorite of all his teachers. All of the teachers loved him and treated him like a friend. The other kids were even jealous of him for being so smart. This was until a new kid came along when Dexter went back to school for the new school year after summer break. The new kid was a young mysterious boy named Mandark who quickly became Dexter's rival. Upon their first meeting, Mandark proved that he was far smarter than Dexter and even won over the affections of Dexter's beloved teachers. To try and prove that he was still superior, Dexter showed Mandark his laboratory thinking it would mean that he's smarter than him, but then Mandark revealed that he had an even bigger and better laboratory. Mandark then forced Dexter to shut down his lab, or else become Mandark's lackey. Dexter thought that it was all over for him until Mandark fell in love with his sister Dee Dee. Realizing he could take advantage of this, Dexter told Mandark how to "invite" Dee Dee to his house by luring her with candy and entertaining her with "dancing", knowing full well that Dee Dee would go on a destructive ballet rampage if she was asked to dance.
After she arrived to Mandark's laboratory, Mandark quickly asked his beloved to dance, and as Dexter had anticipated, Dee Dee went on a dancing rampage and destroyed Mandark's laboratory. Dexter watched all this occur from his spy cams and he happily made a toast to his beloved and reactivated Computer who was happy to be back. After this event, Dexter had officially become the superior boy genius and Mandark became his eternally one-step-behind rival. This would be the beginning of Dexter's peculiar day-to-day life filled with wacky misadventures and many difficult challenges while trying to endure Dee Dee's antics and maintaining the secrecy of his lab.
Return of Mandark[]
A short time after his first encounter with Mandark, Dexter was at school when he announced that he would be taking part in the town science fair and the class praised Dexter's genius as he gloated about his superiority and his goal to win the science fair. An angry Mandark sitting in the back of the class was unable to hold back his frustration and called out everyone on their fanaticism towards Dexter and even told Mr. Luzinsky to hold his tongue, as he believed that Dexter was unworthy of any praise after he had destroyed his lab and used his feelings for his sister against him. Mandark then revealed that he planned to take part in the town science fair as well where he would defeat Dexter, however Dexter remained unfazed by his threats and ignored him even when Dee Dee tried telling him to be more cautious.
The next day during the fair, Dexter was about to win with his robotic arm until Mandark arrived dressed as a sorcerer and carrying a mysterious golden box. Mandark's late entry was accepted into the fair despite Dexter's protests and Mandark then used his dark brand of arcane magic to summon his inter-dimensional monster JoJo which then kidnapped Dee Dee, forcing Mandark and Dexter to put aside their differences and join forces to save her. After doing so, Dee Dee rewarded Dexter with a peck on the cheek and an amorous Mandark with a disturbed look and the two boys appeared to have settled their differences, at least until the two were given the blue ribbon prize. Their unwillingness to share the prize ended up re-igniting their rivalry once more.
Gooey Aliens Invade[]
Rushmore Rumble[]
One day at school while watching a documentary on Mount Rushmore, Dexter discussed the possibility of bringing to life the presidential sculptures (after the subject was brought up by Timothy) with the technology of Tripolar Frankensteinian Electrodes which could then be used to cause havoc and destruction, and this thorough explanation did not go unnoticed by Mandark, who grew a keen interest in Dexter's explanation, writing down everything as he spoke.
The next day as Dexter is planting a cherry tree, it is suddenly cut in half by a giant stone axe wielded by the now living full bodied statue of George Washington who is being controlled by Mandark. Mandark then has George smash Dexter's home and lab, forcing Dexter to briefly retreat. Dexter is then given a penny by Dee Dee which inspires him to travel to Mount Rushmore and bring to life his own sculpture.
Meanwhile Mandark, assuming himself to be victorious, proceeds to lounge in Dexter's pool with Washington when they are suddenly confronted by Dexter and his now animate statue of Abraham Lincoln. The boys and their statues then engage each other in an epic battle. Eventually the two statues prove to be evenly matched, and it appears the statues somehow gained self-awareness, commenting on their equal might and complimenting each other. The two eventually end the battle and leave behind Dexter and Mandark, much to their frustration, and the two statues decide to go eat some bricks.
Race Down Volcano Mountain[]
Rivals Unite[]
Sister vs Sister[]
Mandark little sister, named Olga Astronomonov, who goes by the name of "Lalavava", got into a rivalry with Dee Dee the same way Dexter did with Mandark after the two girls competed to get the solo role in the dance recital. After the solo was changed into a duet, the two girls sought out the aid of their brothers so they could build a device that would allow them to beat the other. However while Dexter was asked nicely by Dee Dee, Mandark was tormented and threatened by his sister. On the night of the recital, Dee Dee used the Dexo-Transformer while Lalavava used the Mandark-Transformer and each formed a deadly and destructive dance that destroyed the dance theater. Both then agreed that their brothers were stupid and that science stinks, and the two happily became friends and went to the mall.
Dexter Family vs Badaxtra[]
At a later point in his childhood, Dexter accidentally unleashed the unstoppable monster Badaxtra which threatened to destroy humanity. This forced him to reveal his laboratory to his parents as he needed their and Dee Dee's aid to pilot his greatest fighting robot, the Multi-Formic Megabot. At first they were no match for Badaxtra, but after uniting their hearts and joining forces with Monkey they were able to finally vanquish the vile beast once and for all. Luckily Dexter used his memory eraser ray to erase the memory of his lab from his parents minds. Monkey then used the ray on Dexter soon after so he would forget Monkey's real identity, however this also made him forget that he was the one who saved the day which caused Mandark to take all the credit.
Ego Trip[]
For the next many years of his childhood, Dexter continued to have numerous crazy misadventures and weird encounters while constantly still having to deal with Dee Dee's annoying antics and trying to outwit Mandark. This would all change however with the creation of Dexter's greatest and most powerful invention ever, the Neurotomic Protocore, a device so powerful that it could revolutionize the world forever. The creation of this device caused Dexter's long time rival Mandark to go from being a mere opponent into a full blown evil archenemy due to realizing that with this device he could become the all powerful ruler of the world. He then became determined to steal Dexter's greatest creation and completely crush Dexter in order to achieve his goal of total supremacy, turning their once comedic and destructive rivalry into one of pure hatred and deadly force. Despite his many attempts, Mandark was never able to obtain the core during his childhood. It was during this time that Dexter was attacked by a group of robots who were seeking to destroy "the one who saved the future", believing that to be him, Dexter destroyed the robots and used his time machine to travel forward in time and see how he saved the future.
Adulthood[]
Many years later, a now teenaged Dexter and Mandark had been given jobs at the powerful world-conglomerate simply known as the The Corporation where they were made research scientists tasked with creating new ideas to make the future better. Early in their work, Dexter proved to be a creative machine who constantly came up with new and brilliant ideas while Mandark remained stuck with a creative block. Realizing that he was losing to Dexter, Mandark began stealing Dexter's ideas and presented them as his own to The Corporation's executives. This allowed Mandark to rise up the corporate ladder and overthrow the company heads. With this Mandark had taken over the entire company and had become Executive Mandark.
Mandark had now become the richest and most influential person on the planet and during this time the world went through major technological and social changes and people everywhere had their names taken away and were instead given ID numbers. All numbers who worked directly under Executive Mandark were treated like mere work slaves and forced to obey his whim or else face physical punishment. Sadly not even Dexter was able to avoid this fate and was given the rank of Number 12 and was regularly subjected to Mandark's torture until he became a bumbling and cowardly shell of his former self, and with this Mandark had finally had his revenge but still he had not managed to find the long lost Neurotomic Protocore.
Unbeknownst to the two, Number 12's younger self had traveled forward in time to see how "cool" he had become due to believing that he had saved the future. The young Dexter found himself inside his house which was now owned by complete strangers who quickly reported him to the police who planned to imprison him and make him do hard labor. Dexter was luckily able to avoid them but was soon confronted by a robot who identified him as Number 12. Dexter, realizing that Number 12 was his future self, allowed the robot to take him to what he believed was his corporation, but after finally meeting his future self, he was greatly disappointed.
He then reminded his older self that he was once "Dexter, Boy Genius" and convinced Number 12 to help him overthrow Mandark. With a little of his old confidence restored, Number 12 took his beloved gloves from the compartment where he stored his long hidden Neurotomic Protocore and escaped his job with Dexter and traveled forward in time so they could meet their older self in hopes of finding out if they were really heroes and how they saved the future. Unknown to them however was that Number 12 had accidentally left his Neurotomic Protocore exposed, allowing Executive Mandark to get a hold of it and finally make his dark dreams a reality.
Traveling to Dextopia[]
Upon arriving to the far future, Number 12 and Dexter found themselves in a museum dedicated to them. They then discovered Mandark, or at least what was left of him, who was now known as Braindark and had apparently lost his body some time ago under unknown circumstances and had been imprisoned in the museum ever since. Upon being discovered by the museum's curator, he quickly recognized the two as the younger selves of the great leader, Dexter. They were then taken outside the museum and shown the land of Dextopia, Dexter's perfect future kingdom where all people were happy and healthy and had access to convenient technology.
The curator then took them to the palace of their older self and were greeted by a powerful booming voice, however it was quickly revealed that the voice was their frail future self, Old Man Dexter. Upon meeting each other, Dexter and Number 12 tried asking him how he saved the future, however Old Man Dexter could not recall, so the trio traveled back in time once more to find their middle-aged self and finally discover how they saved the future.
The World of Overlord Mandark[]
Once they arrived to their destination, they found their lab run down and practically destroyed and even worse they found the world in ruins and in despair, having now become a vast red wasteland. The trio eventually found a village of idiots and the young Dexter tried to give them some fire, but it was quickly destroyed by a legion of robots referred to as the "Overlord's Machine Men" which quickly began destroying the village. Luckily, a mighty and mysterious hero appeared on his motorcycle and quickly subdued the robots and gave fire to all the villagers to keep warm.
The Dexters then realized that this mighty hero was in fact their middle-aged self, the mighty Action Dexter. The Dexters then asked their future self what had happened and he told them the tale of his youth and of what had happened to the world. Back when he was still Number 12 and he returned from his trip with his past and future selves, he had found that Mandark had stolen his Neurotomic Protocore (which Number 12 had left out before leaving with Dexter in his time machine). Mandark then tried harnessing the core's power but ended up setting its flow to negative, which twisted Mandark's already crooked mind and turned him into a being of pure power-hungry evil who now had the means to enslave the Earth. Unable to cope with the perversion of his creation, Number 12 fled underground and spent many years digging and living a subterranean life. During this time, the negative energies of the core caused the planet's inhabitants on the surface to become dimwitted idiots which allowed Mandark to easily take control of all the world's societies, technology and knowledge and hoard it all for himself, this allowed Mandark to become Overlord Mandark, the supreme ruler of the world.
When Number 12 re-emerged on the surface, and now having become powerful and muscular (and bald) due to all his years of intense digging and physical labor, he found the world "broken and stupid" and he began fighting the Overlord's robots and struggling just to survive.
With this knowledge in hand, the four of them teamed up knowing that they had to put a stop to Overlord Mandark's evil reign once and for all. The four Dexter's began work on their greatest and most versatile mech yet, a robot strong enough to help them storm Mandark's castle and finally take back the core. The next day, the four Dexters now in their new ultimate mech, arrived at Mandark's castle and quickly began to take down his army of robots. Unbeknownst to them, Overlord Mandark had been alerted of the arrival of the unknown mech.
Angered that his law against the creation of technology that was not his own had been defied, his anger became more intense when he realized that the pilots were none other than his enemy Dexter and his timeline counterparts. With this knowledge, Overlord Mandark began to make arrangements to ensure his own victory. The Dexters continued their invasion of the castle and fought off countless robots, and despite suffering heavy damage, they were able to get past all of the castle's defenses and arrive in Mandark's chamber.
The gloating and obese Overlord Mandark welcomed the Dexters to his domain as he was lifted by his crane, but Action Dexter quickly made his intentions to overthrow him known. However Overlord Mandark remained unfazed and revealed his own counter against the Dexters using his own time machine which summoned young Mandark, Executive Mandark and Braindark to help him defeat the Dexters once and for all.
The Dexters and the Mandarks quickly confronted one another while Overlord Mandark and Action Dexter exchanged witty banter, commenting on how this reunion reminded them of old times. The young Dexter however silenced them and demanded to have his core returned. The Mandarks and the Dexters then faced off against their respective time counterparts. The young Dexter and Mandark had a rather childish exchange of fisticuffs, Executive Mandark easily overpowered Number 12 due to his weak insecurities, Overlord Mandark and Action Dexter exchanged heavy blows, and Braindark and Old Man Dexter exchanged petty insults.
The One who saved the Future[]
At first the Mandarks seemed to have the advantage, but the Dexters quickly turned the tide in their favor when Number 12 had finally had enough of Executive Mandark's abuse after he crushed his glasses which unleashed his inner might and confidence which allowed him to completely pulverize Executive Mandark and take his glasses. Now finally having become Dexter once more, Number 12 Dexter told them that if they set the Protocore back to a positive flow then everything would return to normal.
With this turn of events, the Dexters quickly overpowered their Mandarks, with Action Dexter using his wrench to unhook Overlord Mandark from his crane which made him immobile, young Dexter using his wrench to pinch young Mandark's nose, and Old Man Dexter ignoring Braindark's insults and using his wrench to get back on his feet. The Dexters then made their way to the core as the Mandarks yelled for them to stop. Overlord Mandark then summoned his bulldozer to carry him and he and the other Mandarks regained their composure and stopped their respective Dexter from reaching the control panel of the core.
As the Dexters struggled to reach the button they began chanting "Go Dexter Go!" to cheer each other on as young Dexter began to slowly reach the positive flow button. Just then, a time-traveling Dee Dee appeared from Dexter's Time Machine which was attached to the broken mecha, and she quickly made her way past the Dexters and Mandarks. As she passed them, the Mandarks briefly reverted to their old selves and swooned over their long lost beloved Dee Dee. Dee Dee then saw the positive flow button and her innate curiosity made her push it, which resulted in her saving the future much to the grief and anger of the Dexters.
With the positive flow coming from the core, the world became green and vibrant once more and humans were once again intelligent, and the Mandarks were zapped back to their own time while Overlord Mandark exploded and all that remained was his brain, turning him into Braindark. Mandark's castle then crumbled and all seemed well, until the Dexters arose from the wreckage, angered at having realized that Dee Dee was the one who saved the future, having taken the glory from them. The Dexters in their anger quickly invented transforming robots that would go back in time and destroy Dee Dee for ruining their adventure.
With that matter over with and the world free of Mandark's clutches, Action Dexter swore to use the Neurotomic Protocore for good and rule the world with a fair and just hand. After this, all of the Dexters returned to their normal times before fondly bidding farewell. After Action Dexter located Mandark's brain and put it in a jar with a communicator (where he would spend the rest of his days as punishment for his crimes), Action Dexter began the creation of his new civilization, Dextopia where he would share his knowledge, technology and his technically unearned status of "savior of the future" with all. Upon returning to his own time, young Dexter saw his past self from earlier fighting the very same robots who had come to destroy "the one who saved the future" which were in fact the robots he had created to destroy Dee Dee, which caused him great confusion due to the time anomalies.
Regardless, young Dexter preferred to forget about it and go have a sandwich, and he proceeded to ignore Dee Dee.
Later Years[]
Dexter would continue to live out his life from that point on and experienced life as the downtrodden Number 12 and the heroic Action Dexter before finally becoming the elderly ruler of his kingdom of Dextopia, Old Man Dexter and living out his golden years as the somewhat senile ruler of the world with his sister Old Gal Dee Dee.
Personality[]
Though highly intelligent, Dexter often fails at what he has set out to do when he becomes overexcited and makes careless choices. He manages to keep the lab a secret from his clueless, cheerful parents, who amusingly never notice any evidence of the laboratory, even when it was right before their eyes. Despite coming from a typical all-American family, Dexter speaks with a Russian-sounding accent, a reference to Tartakovsky's own accent that he spoke with during childhood. Dexter's favorite superhero is Major Glory. Despite his arrogance in book smarts and has little tolerance for any criticism of his work, Dexter is undeniably a good person. Case in point: when he thinks he's dying, his to-do list includes doing nice things for his family, finishing his chores, and ending war and hunger.
Appearance[]
Dexter is a diminutive, nine-year-old boy who has curly red hair that was passed down to him from his mother. Likewise, he wears a pair of glasses that appear semi-circular at normal times, but when he widens his eyes, the tops of them round out. He wears a little white lab coat with black buttons on it. He also wears purple gloves, and a pair of black rubber zipper boots.
Miscellaneous Details[]
He is in the fourth grade. The cartoon "Picture Day" definitively confirms this when showing a montage of Dexter's school pictures up to his photo from third grade, indicating that his fourth-grade photo is the next one to come. Despite creator Genndy Tartakovsky's intention of Dexter being somewhere between ages six and eight, this is what helped fans speculate his age as either nine or ten (with nine the more likely), as American children in the fourth grade are typically of that age.
Villainous acts[]
- He's basically one of the reasons why Mandark is the way he is today, because when Mandark wanted to be his friend and told him he was a boy (despite looking like a girl), Dexter instead rejected him and laughed at him.
- He's very rude to his older sister Dee Dee and is hardly ever shown getting along with her.
- He stalks Dee Dee, Lee Lee, and Mee Mee during a slumber party due to thinking they are monkeys.
- He tries to steal Dee Dee's allowance in order to pay his bills to NASA.
- He makes Dee Dee drink a potion with the hopes of shutting her up, so he won't have to hear her story, and when it ends up turning her into a monster, Dexter drinks the same potion and engages into a fight with her, which causes multiple casualties and property damage in a city.
- He repeatedly cheats in a role-playing game and forces his friends to play his way and gets upset when Dee Dee makes the game fun.
- He tries to freeze Dee Dee when she won't stop dancing and sadistically laughs while doing so.
- He illegally makes his own Major Glory action figure without proper permission from the creators so he can join the Major Glory Gang.
- He tries to catch the Sasquatch so he can present him in a science fair. During this, he goes as far as to burn down a tree, which could spread and burn down the entire forest.
- He ends up sending his entire school in space with Dee Dee's project, and instead of being concerned about the lives of the students and staff in the school, he says that Dee Dee's project was an A-plus material.
- He tries to tame Dee Dee when she turns into a pony and he only stops when the Pony Puff Princess threatens to eat him.
- He doesn't show any gratitude when Dee Dee turns him back to normal when he turns into a were-clown.
- He fights with Mandark instead of putting his rivalry with him aside to save Earth from a meteor shower, which ends up getting it destroyed. While it is clear that he didn't intend to have the Earth destroyed, he didn't take responsibility for its destruction, instead fighting with Mandark over whose fault was it.
- He fights with Dee Dee while he tries stop a volcano from erupting a destroying a native island.
- Due to thinking Santa Claus is his father in disguise, Dexter strikes down his sleigh and shaves his beard while also destroying his own Christmas tree, ruining Christmas.
- After finding out that Dee Dee was the one who saved the future from Mandark, Dexter and his future counterparts send robots to the present timeline to kill her, despite her being family.
- He turns the main square of a college into a giant hot tub, which ends up breaking and destroying most of the college in the process.
- He and Mandark try to murder Soyen Chen just because she appears to be smarter than them.
- When he and Mandark destroy each other's lab, they end up creating a huge hole that destroys the entire neighborhood.
- He rarely ever feels remorse for his actions and usually feels proud about what he's done.
- While Hookocho and Simion did worse, they have more resources than Dexter, who is only an incredibly smart boy.
Relationships[]
Dee Dee[]
Dee Dee always mysteriously gains access to his lab no matter what he does to try to keep her out. She eludes all manner of security and, once inside, delights in playing in the lab, often destroying all of his creations and often by pushing the wrong buttons on an invention (it is even hinted in one episode segment, "LABretto", that she does this on purpose). This is often preceded by Dee Dee asking "Oooooh, what does this button do?", without waiting for an answer. Despite her hyperactive personality, Dee Dee sometimes makes more logical decisions than Dexter, or even gives him helpful advice. Despite being constantly annoyed with DeeDee's interference and stupidity, Dexter still loves her and cares about her well being.
Trivia[]
- While Dexter has a perfect memory for everything he's read in a book, and has more common sense than DeeDee, he is still capable of being fooled with lies like other kids his age.
- His lab is similar to The Doctor's TARDIS, in that can be accessible from normal space but leads into a infinite alternative dimension.
- In PowerPuff Girls Doujinshi, Dexter's last name is "McPherson."
- In an episode, Dexter says his favorite color is orange, but in the previous episode "Picture Day," he stated his favorite color was blue.
- His favorite candy is Pixy Stix.
- Though he is a protagonist, he can sometimes have antagonistic roles. Examples include:
- Taking down Santa Clause and ruining Christmas
- Building robots and sending them back in time to destroy Dee Dee
- Almost destroying an island
- Making fun of his best friend's potato battery
- Destroying Dee Dee's room
- Trapping Dee Dee in a board game
- Dexter's Grandfather also has a secret laboratory.
- Dexter's arch-nemesis is Mandark.
- Dexter's astrological sign was first shown to be Capricorn, but since he was born around in the end of March, he is actually Aries.
- Dexter also appears as one of the main protagonists in Bleedman's webcomic, PowerPuff Girls Doujinshi. During this webcomic, he is portrayed less arrogant and more mature than his original TV counterpart, reasonably because he has been grieving over the death of his beloved sister, Dee Dee. He also develops a romantic relationship with Blossom, another main protagonist, as the webcomic progresses.
- Dexter resembles Dr. N. Gin from the Crash Bandicoot series, despite the missile in N. Gin's head.
- In the episode "Dexter's Lab: A Story", Dexter is seen grabbing a box of Scooby Snacks for the dog that appears in the episode. Scooby's face is also shown on the box of Scooby Snacks. The snacks and Scooby's picture on the box are cameos.
- In the episode "Beard to be Feared", as Dexter walks down the sidewalk he can be seen walking past a modern day Fred Flintstone and a past version of George Jetson. Both of them are cameos.
- Dexter makes a cameo in Crossover Nexus as one of the cartoon network Ben uses in a mashup to defeat strike.
- Dexter is one of the nine main characters of the IDW comic Super Secret Crisis War.
- In the Fusion Fall universe, Dexter runs his own company with his Computress android as his right hand helper.
- He also knows the KND, PPG and FHFIF according to the prequel comic.
- He appears in a Robot Chicken sketch about being denied acceptance into Havard due to not having an extracurricular activities on his resemé; despite inventing impressive things. In revenge he shrinks the school and puts it in a bottle. After DeeDee reveals she (a ditz) got acceptance letters from good colleges Dexter should have been qualified for, he sets out to do the same to all of them.
- He is On and Off, since he mostly does heroic deeds.
- He sometimes can show remorse for his actions.
- He cares for his family.
- He has many comedic moments.
- He is the only Dexter's Laboratory character to be Inconsistently Heinous.
- He is the first Inconsistently Heinous not to be considered a villain by Villains Wiki.
External links[]
- Dexter on the Inconsistently Heinous Wiki
- Dexter on the Heroes Wiki
- Dexter on the Dexter's Laboratory Wiki
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