Dexter’s Laboratory was a Cartoon Network show that stood as one of my absolute favorites growing up. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment it premiered, but I’d guess I was watching it right from day one, or close to it. It remained a staple of the network for a solid stretch of time, and if I had to narrow down three defining shows from Cartoon Network’s golden age, this would absolutely make the cut.

The main character is a kid named Dexter, who, unsurprisingly given the title, has his own secret laboratory. What’s genuinely surprising is how he manages to keep it hidden from his parents, though not from his sister. It’s a sprawling lab packed with elaborate gadgets, almost like something Tony Stark would be building for the Avengers. It does raise the question of how exactly Dexter funds and powers this massive operation with no actual income. How do his parents never notice the electricity bill? Unless, of course, he built his own generator, which honestly wouldn’t be out of character for him.

His biggest obstacle is his own sister, Dee Dee. It’s not that she’s malicious toward him, she’s just scatterbrained and oblivious, essentially Dexter’s polar opposite. She constantly wanders into his lab, dancing around and destroying expensive equipment in the process. For a certified boy genius, Dexter somehow never manages to figure out how to keep his own sister out, despite successfully hiding the entire lab from his parents. Go figure.

Speaking of his parents, his dad comes across as goofy and a bit dim, but still competent enough to hold down a job and function as the family’s steady patriarch. He had some genuinely great comedic moments scattered throughout.

Dexter’s mom didn’t get quite as many standout jokes, but she was still a solid character in her own right. Looking back now, she was actually pretty attractive, and his dad was clearly a lucky guy in that department especially in her caboose, if you catch my drift.

Also worth mentioning is Dexter’s true archnemesis, Mandark, who was taller, smarter, and generally a pretty insufferable jerk. He wasn’t a constant presence across every episode, but he emerged early on as Dexter’s defining foil, much like the Joker is to Batman. Except in this dynamic, Dexter rarely came out ahead.

I’m sure the show has aged somewhat since I last revisited it, but I still remember so many genuinely hilarious episodes. Who could forget the bit where Dexter’s entire French vocabulary consisted of “Omelette du fromage”? It became a legitimate pop culture meme later, somehow enough to make every girl in the show swoon over him, convinced he was speaking the “language of love.”

The series also included unrelated side segments, like The Justice Friends. The name sounded like a nod to DC’s Justice League, but the characters were clearly riffing on Marvel instead, a trio modeled after Captain America, the Hulk, and a blonde rock-star take on Thor. It’s pretty amusing in hindsight, considering Warner Bros. owns both Cartoon Network and DC Comics, yet they still ran the risk of a Marvel lawsuit to pull off these parodies. Thankfully, parody law had their back.

I don’t remember the exact timeline, but eventually Dexter’s Laboratory did wind down. Reruns kept circulating for a while, but the show eventually hit a bizarre final season where the art style shifted dramatically and the characters just felt fundamentally off. I tuned out around that point, and honestly, it’s probably best to pretend that final stretch never happened. Still, the original run remains firmly cemented as one of the greatest cartoons of all time in my book.