Dexter's Laboratory: Ego Trip

Dexter's Laboratory: Ego Trip is a made-for-TV movie based on Dexter's Laboratory that originally aired on December 10, 1999. This is the first ever Cartoon Network movie, and was originally intended to be the series finale of Dexter's Laboratory. As such, it was one of the last productions of the series to feature the involvement of creator Genndy Tartakovsky.

The movie notably earned Dexter's original voice actress, Christine Cavanaugh, a 2000 Annie Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement for Voice Acting by a Female Performer in an Animated Television Production, and also marked one of her final performances as Dexter before her retirement from voice acting in 2001.

Plot[]

After routinely chasing the evil Mandark out of his lab when he tries to steal the "Neurotomic Protocore", Dexter asks Dee Dee to leave the lab. She enters the time machine. Suddenly, Dexter is confronted with a group of robots that have appeared from his time machine. They declare that they are here to "destroy the one who saved the future" and make ready to attack Dexter. Dexter easily destroys them with the use of various inventions from his lab, including his Robo-Dexo 2000 mecha, as the robots do nothing except stand there while Dexter fights them. However, news that he is "The One Who Saved the Future" intrigues him, and he decides to travel through time to discover how cool he is.

In the first time period he visits, Dexter finds a tall, skinny, weak version of himself working in an office designing cubicles, with Mandark as his rich, successful and abusive boss. The child Dexter berates his older self for allowing Mandark to bully him around, before unwittingly revealing the existence of blueprints regarding the Neurotomic Protocore from the beginning of the movie, and Mandark steals the core after the two Dexters move forward in time. In the second time period, the two Dexters meet their much older self, a wizened senior citizen Dexter about the same height as the child Dexter (and Mandark's brain in a vat who cannot do anything other than complain about his situation). All the technology from the blueprints has been implemented, creating a utopian society where anything can be materialized with the power of the mind. The old Dexter can't remember how he saved the world, so they travel back in time to find out.

In the third time period, which appears to take place between the first and second time periods, they find a dystopic world where everyone is stupid and fire and technology are forbidden, controlled by Mandark thanks to the Neurotomic Protocore. They meet action hero Dexter, who is tall, muscular and bald (senior citizen Dexter, it turns out, wears a wig), fighting the evil. Hero Dexter explains that he and Mandark had been employed as corporate research scientists many years ago, where Mandark had stolen many of Dexter's ideas, and used them to rise through the ranks eventually taking over the company, reducing Dexter to the weakened cubicle designing employee from the first time period. Eventually, Mandark got a hold of the Neurotomic Protocore (the kid Dexter slaps the young adult Dexter for leaving it out). Mandark tried to employ the core's power, but he set the core's positive flow to negative, its energies sweeping the world, numbing the minds of the population, allowing him to take over the world, hoarding all science and knowledge for himself.

Dexter, no longer able to stand being enslaved and determined to stop Mandark, spent years digging underground to escape Mandark's tower, growing a large beard and huge muscles in the process. By the time he emerged, the world was in its current state. The four Dexters go back to Dexter's laboratory and build a giant robot to invade Mandark's fortress. Reaching there, they confront Mandark, now morbidly obese, with his only form of locomotion being carried around his lair by a hook-and-winch that connects to a hole in the back of his briefs. Mandark summons versions of himself from other time periods to oppose the Dexters. A battle royal ensues, with each Dexter fighting the Mandark of his own time period.

After a battle between the Dexters and Mandarks, Dexter almost reaches the button to save the world; however, Dee Dee unintentionally saves the world by wandering in from the open time gate and pressing the button to reverse the waves of the Neurotomic Protocore, thus creating the utopian world, causing the dystopian Mandark to explode with only his brain intact, and the remaining ones to be teleported back to their own time periods. The Dexters, overcome with jealous rage at having their thunder stolen, create a group of robots and tell them to "destroy the one who saved the future", and send them back through the time machine to take care of Dee Dee, unwittingly setting the whole series of events in motion.

The Dexters return to their original time periods. Dexter returns to right before he originally left at the beginning of the film and sees himself fighting the robots he just built [meant to go after Dee Dee, not Dexter]. Dexter becomes confused when he sees this, but he decides to ignore it and goes to eat lunch. When Dee Dee shows up, Dexter walks away because he's still angry that his sister stole his thunder. Dee Dee, who was unaware of the past event, is left confused.

Cast[]

Christine Cavanaugh - Dexter, D22, Old Man Dexter
Jeff Bennett - Action Dexter, Dexter's Dad, Officer 9412, Robot #1, Mandark Robot
Eddie Deezen - Mandark, Executive Mandark, Overlord Mandark, Braindark
Kathryn Cressida - Dee Dee
Tom Kenny - Village Man, Man, Curator, Robot #2, Computer
Kate Soucie - Dexter's Mom, Head Secretary
Ahmad Harhash as Ramy

Home Media[]

Physical releases[]

The movie spawned a VHS release on November 7, 2000.

Ego Trip was first released to DVD in Australia on October 25, 2017, as part of the "Collected Experiments" set, and finally in the United States on June 25th, 2024, as part of "The Complete Series" set.

Digital releases[]

Ego Trip was available on Amazon Prime Video from December 30th, 2022 to December 30th, 2023.

The movie was released on Max in Asia on November 2024 and later on the service in Latin America/Brazil on March 21st, 2025.

Trivia[]

In a 2022 interview with Polygon, director Genndy Tartakovsky said his comment about the movie's scarcity: "I don't think people know about it, honestly. Like, as far as the people who run HBO Max and Cartoon Network, I don't think it's been on their radar since we released it".
Despite not being broadcasted on the programming block, Checkered Past, the movie is referenced in one of the block's bumpers. However, it already aired on Checkered Past itself in Latin America/Brazil on April 2024.