Dexters Laboratory / Tropes M to R

Dexter's Laboratory Trope Examples
Main series: A - C | D - F | G - L | M - R | S - Z
Spin-offs: Dial M for Monkey | Justice Friends

---

M

• Magical Clown: In "The Laughing", Dexter got bitten by a clown in an accident where his false teeth fell out — which apparently carried clown contagion — and became a were-clown. Dee Dee had to turn into a mime to figure out a cure.
• Male Gaze:
  • Dexter's mom is often subject to this. Cameras don't hesitate to get as many shots from the back as they can; "Better Off Wet" in particular features her in a bikini.
  • Another memorable example is in the episode "Nuclear Confusion" where Dexter has to follow the clues for Dee Dee's treasure hunt. The next clue at the home of Dexter's "touchy-feely neighbor lady", who sports some very noticeable Hartman Hips. The neighbor offers him cookies, but drops one and bends to pick it up, showing the next clue is painted on the seat of her pants.
• Man on Fire: In the episode "Dexter's Assistant", when Dexter gets his hair set on fire. "My hair is on fire! My hair is on fire!"
• Manly Facial Hair: Action Hank. Noted in one episode where Dexter creates a synthetic beard to make himself look more "rugged", and is confused for Action Hank (despite looking nothing like him) because of the beard. They later team up to fight beard-themed villains. "It's not the beard on the outside that counts, but the beard on the INSIDE."
• Manipulative Bastard: Dexter's dad is this when he wants to be in "The Muffin King" and "Snowdown".
• Mermaiding Swimsuit: In episode "Ocean Commotion", Dee-Dee is wearing a swimsuit with a mermaid tail, and she is pretending to be one while at the beach. She then gets captured by pirates, and Dexter has to go and rescue her.
• Metal Muncher: According to "A Boy and His Bug", Dexter owns a genetically-enhanced termite that eats metal instead of wood, especially the metal scraps left over from when Dee Dee destroys his lab.
• Midair Bobbing: The episode where Dexter visits Mars.
• Mini-Mecha: Dexter's backpack can become one.
• Mistaken for Aliens: "Smells Like Victory" had a mutual example happen between Dexter and the military, with Dexter being mistaken for an alien because he's covered in green ooze and wears a headset resembling antennae and Dexter mistaking the military for aliens because they were full body suits and he misinterprets a staticky transmission from the general as identifying the group as the "evil filthy aliens Grrr".
• Mistaken for Fake Hair: An episode of Dexter's Laboratory had Dexter try to prove Santa didn't exist and was actually his dad in disguise. He caught Santa in the act, accused him of being his dad, and even shaved his beard and hair, convinced that it would be his dad underneath. It wasn't.
• Mistaken for Santa: Inverted in "Dexter vs. Santa's Claws", where the man Dexter sees is Santa, but Dexter thinks he must be his dad in disguise.
• Mockumentary: "Blackfoot and Slim", which ends with Dexter being tranquilized, tagged and released back into his natural environment.
• Motor Mouth: Everyone in Mock 5 because it's a Speed Racer parody, and it replicates its feel as best as it can.
• Mundane Made Awesome: "Dim" is about Dexter going to the store to buy a replacement light bulb, staged as dramatically as possible.
• Mundane Object Amazement: "Could this strange phenomenon be the substance Mom calls dust?"
• 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: "LABretto", in addition to being an Origins Episode for Dexter, is performed in the style of an opera.
• Must Have Caffeine: "Topped Off": Dexter takes Mom and Dad's coffee to try and figure out how it changes them from the monsters they wake up as to their regular selves. Mom and Dad are not happy.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Dee Dee at the end of "The Way of the Dee Dee" when she tries to get Dexter to loosen up and make him enjoy himself...only for him to go on a destructive rampage in his own laboratory with psychotic glee. She runs from the lab's remains crying, after apologizing to Dexter.
  • "The Koos Is Loose": Dexter wishes away Dee Dee's imaginary friend, Koosalagoopagoop from the lab in anger, then realizes in horror how mean that was of him, even giving Koos a hug and tearing up as Koosie sadly bids his farewells.
• My Hover Craft Is Full Of Eels: Dee Dee tries to speak Spanish to an angry Mexican crowd while she and Dexter are searching for "La Chupacabra". Her nonsense only serves to infuriate the crowd.
  • Though to be fair, talking about meat to a group of people who suspect you of poaching, is not a very good idea.
• My Little Phony: Pony Puff Princess is a reoccurring thing, unsurprisingly Dee Dee and her friends are fans and Dee Dee wanted to be a horse in one episode.

N

• Naked People Are Funny: One of the newer seasons' episodes involves Dexter's orbital laser satellite, used for burning off stains, shredding his clothes.
  • In early seasons, Dexter's bare ass was a running gag.
• Name-Tron: A few of his gadgets.
• Narrator All Along: The narrator in "The Lab of Tomorrow" is revealed to be Monkey.
• Negative Continuity: Used, but not consistently. Dexter's Lab is destroyed in every other episode, but when Mandark's is destroyed in his first appearance, it actually stays that way until the next time we see the character.
• Never My Fault: There's a few episodes where the characters refuse to accept they are to blame for their actions.
  • In Dexter in Detention, Dexter is given detention by his teacher for yelling out an answer to another kid in frustration during a test and Dexter despite being rightfully punished still believes he was 'innocent' and he was 'framed'
  • In the episode "Let's Save the World You Jerk!" Dexter has to team up with, of all people, Mandark, to save the world from being destroyed by giant meteors, but they both simply can't get along and argue, to the point they both fight, literally allowing the meteors to destroy the Earth and killing off billions of people. And even though it was their fault that everyone died and they are trapped in space forever, they blame each other for the demise of the human race.
  • In Dexter's Assistant Dexter loses 1st prize in the science fair to Dee Dee which would had been avoided if he simply never made her his assistant and he blames it on a toy bear.
• Never Say That Again: Dexter about Mandark.
  Kid: Mandark ain't got nothing on y-
  Dexter: Do not say that name!
  Kid: What, Mandark?
  Dexter: hisses
• Never Trust a Hair Tonic: Dexter makes a hair tonic for Dee Dee after she accidentally cuts off one of her pigtails. Despite repeated warnings to use only one drop, Dee Dee uses the entire bottle. Three guesses what happens next.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Dexter is the cause of a lot of bad stuff that happens. However, bonus points go to Last But Not Beast. Dexter got one when he accidentally awakens the incredibly powerful Badaxtra trying to impress his new friends. Then Mandark gets it later when he actually tries to stop Bedaxtra as well and instead makes him grow.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: The Creepy-Eyed Girl from "Aye Aye Eyes" terrifies Dexter, mainly because of her Thousand-Yard Stare.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed
  • Professor Hawk, anyone?
  • Puppet Pal Mitch is Rob Paulsen doing his flawless Pat Buttram impression.
• No Full Name Given: Dexter and Dee Dee's family name is never revealed, unless we're to take literally the scene in "LABretto" when the doctor says to Dexter's Dad, "Congratulations, Mr. Father."
• No Knees: "Hello, knees!"
• Non-Serial Movie: "Safety Clicks!", a 2003 short designed in the style of the 1997-1998 episodes is non-canon to the series, insofaras the show has a canon anyway; it's not meant to be anywhere in the show's timeline. Similarly, the bumpers after the Commercial Break before episodes are not canon.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Dexter travels back in time to the discovery of fire in one episode. The caveman he meets and brings back is drawn in the semi-realistic style that some Hanna-Barbara cartoons used to use. (Think Jonny Quest or The Herculoids, not The Flintstones) Another episode guest-stars Dynomutt and the Blue Falcon, but their character designs actually fit in pretty well with everyone else.
• Noodle People: Dee Dee. Her eyes are larger than her torso.
  • Thoroughly mocked in one episode where Dexter uses Dee Dee as a stick to play fetch with a dog. Dee Dee was not amused.
    Dog: It's the stick!
• Not a Morning Person: Dexter's parents, again.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Pretty much the defining premise of Dee Dee's character.
• No Smoking: Averted in "Hamhocks and Armlocks" with Midge the waitress/mechanic, who is clearly shown smoking a cigarette.
• Not My Lucky Day: In "A Hard Day's Day", where Dexter's day starts off bad and is filled with all sorts of unlucky mishaps. Following astrological advice from Dee Dee (The Moon is blocking Saturn's rays which give Dexter his good fortune), Dexter tries to move the Moon off of its orbit, only for it to malfunction causing the Moon to crash into his lab.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: In 'Ego Trip', Mandark goes from simply antagonizing Dexter to conquering and stupidifying the entire world.
• Notzilla: An entire short revolves around Dexter being transformed into a Godzilla parody while fleeing from Dee Dee who has transformed into a giant spider-monster.
• The Nudifier: The episode "Streaky Clean" had Dexter create a satellite to instantly clean his clothes whenever they got stained, but a malfunction causes the satellite to obliterate parts of Dexter's clothes whenever they get dirty, which eventually results in Dexter being naked.

O

• Offscreen Teleportation: Dee-Dee, to ridiculous extremes. This gets a lampshade in "Dexter Is Dirty", where she actually teleports from the hallway to Dexter's laboratory with a visible twinkle just because she wore a pink towel like a genie's turban.
• Oh, Crap!: Dexter gets a really good one at the end of the Lost Episode, "Dexter's Rude Removal".
  Dexter: Ooohhhhhhhh, shit.
• Oktoberfest: In the episode "The Bus Boy" there's a fat German boy in lederhosen (an Expy of Uter from The Simpsons). His story involved the bus boy (resembling the German boy) dancing around eating food and commenting how good it was.
• One-Sided Arm-Wrestling: Dad vs. Earl in "Hamhocks and Armlocks"... before the arm gets upgraded from truck parts.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. There are two Timmys that ever appeared in this show. One is Dexter's pet termite who can eat metal, the other is a boy who freaks out when giant George Washington and giant Abraham Lincoln pass by.
• Out-of-Character Moment: The four incarnations of Dexter in Ego Trip building robots to murder Dee Dee.
• Out-of-Genre Experience: "Cracked" feels more like an episode of a slice-of-life show. It's also a Speech-Centric Work, and Dexter's eponymous lab doesn't even appear.
  • "Filet of Soul" is a supernatural horror story about Dexter and Dee Dee being haunted by the ghost of their dead pet goldfish.
• Origins Episode:
  • "LABretto", in addition to being a Musical Episode, serves as an origins episode for Dexter by explaining the circumstances of his birth and revealing that he created his secret laboratory so that he'd have a place to work on his inventions without Dee Dee wrecking them (not that it works, of course).
  • While it contradicts the events of his debut episode, "A Boy Named Sue" mainly consists of Mandark's backstory and how he came to be rivals with Dexter.
• Overly Long Gag: The episodes made without Tartakovsky's involvement were quite fond of these.

P

• Paper People: At the end of the episode "Dos Boot", Dexter and Mandark are turned into paper cut-outs due to Dee Dee printing them off photoshopped in girly dresses (it only makes sense if you've seen it), with them still bickering; although due to Negative Continuity, fortunately this doesn't last.
• Parental Bonus:
  • The show takes delight in constantly implying that Dexter's parents are not only very much still in love, but have a very healthy sex life.
  • Lisa the babysitter's phone conversation with her boyfriend in "Babysitter Blues". We don't hear the other end of the conversation, but based on her responses ("She didn't!" "She DID!?" "But they're not in love like we are."), it is evident that her boyfriend is telling her about one of their schoolmates having sex, or possibly being pregnant.
  • In the episode "Nuclear Confusion" Dexter has to follow the clues for Dee Dee's treasure hunt because the object he must find is an experimental power source that will cause a meltdown if not contained in time. The next clue at the home of Dexter's "touchy-feely neighbor lady", who sports some very noticeable Hartman Hips. The neighbor offers him cookies, but drops one and bends to pick it up, showing the next clue is painted on the seat of her pants, and says Dad's Trophy.
  • In "Star Spangled Sidekicks", Dee-Dee boasts "I've got style, pizzazz, and I can kick some... well, you know."
  • In "Got Your Goat", the Spanish newspaper Dee Dee shows to Dexter says, "Just like Satan said," and "You are the drunk ones."
  • In "Snowdown", Dexter tries to escape from the fight, referring to various areas of the field as bases. He takes cover behind a kissing couple and says to himself, "First base." to which the man replies, "You said it, brother!" Considering what metaphors the next three bases represent.
  • Dad says this at the end of "Filet of Soul": "How many times have I told you? Early morning is Daddy's special bathroom privacy time!"
  • In "Voice Over", one of the various voices sounds very seductive. When the computer starts talking about the rising heat in that voice, she says "74 degrees and rising." Dexter promptly goes to the bathroom, we hear a splash, and he walks out soaked.
  • Coolio's rap song "What's His Name? (Dexter)" from the official soundtrack album Dexter's Laboratory: The Hip-Hop Experiment contains the word "anti-narcotics."
  • In "Sports A Poppin'," Dad, trying to teach Dexter how to play sports, has him watch Dee Dee's example of throwing a baseball. She then throws the baseball so hard that it sends Dad flying offscreen with him saying "That's the ol' pepper Dee Dee!" in a higher pitch, implying where exactly the ball hit him.
  • When the family go over photos from their Hawaiian vacation in "If Memory Serves", it is implied that Dad cheated on Mom with a Hawaiian woman.
• Parental Neglect: Most of the time, Mom and Dad are actually genuinely loving towards their kids. Like a lot of parents on TV, however, they have their share of moments.
  • On Dexter's birthday they go to the store to buy gifts, while Dexter follows using an invisibility invention. To his disappointment, they start filling the cart with baseballs and baby toys like plastic rings. When Dexter tries sneaking the action figure he wanted into the cart, Mom angrily picks it up and tosses it away saying he doesn't need junk — then puts another baby toy in the cart. While not true neglect, they appear oblivious to their son's age and interests.
  • One of the pilot shorts, Old Man Dexter, starts with Dexter wanting nothing more than to be a part of the family and feeling rejected by an arbitrary bedtime that is earlier for him than for his sister. We're treated to an oddly long sequence of him slinking away from the family (who are enjoying themselves and laughing) and looking on dejectedly.
• Pastiche: As part of Genndy Tartakovsky's Author Appeal, he would insert one every now and then as a tribute to the original work. Notable examples include:
  • Action Hank, who only appeared in Season 2, is a direct homage of The A-Team and Blaxploitation-era movies, with Action Hank a direct Expy of Mister T. It pastiches it right down to the dialogue, and there was research put into it, and it feels like it's an actual work in the genre, despite being an Affectionate Parody.
  • "Comic Relief" in Season 3 is a homage to The Silver Age of Comic Books and The Bronze Age of Comic Books, right down to Dexter as a HULK MASH!-Up (incidentally, The Infraggable Krunk was also this role). Despite the title, it is nothing to do with the British Comic Relief telethon, something that was lost on British viewers at the time it aired, partially due to Separated by a Common Language. This is upper-case Comic Relief, not the phrase in general.
  • "Copping An Aptitude" in Season 3 is a kid-friendly homage to frat boy antics in American Pie, only in a student setting, and also The '70s in terms of esthetic.
  • "Father Knows Least" in Season 4 has a title that's based on Father Knows Best but the entire plot and Bumbling Dad / Standard '50s Father is a homage to 1960s Sitcom tropes, right down to the ending where Dexter's dad is Breaking the Fourth Wall with:
  Dexter's Dad: Goodnight, folks (waves to audience, looks embarrassed after Dexter's Mom found out he hired a Holly Hussy Housekeeper to clean the house)
  • "Comic Stripper" in Season 4 is a homage to anime with Humongous Mecha, right down to the stilted dialogue and the character designs of Dexter and Mandark's mecha.
  • "Tee Party" in Season 4 pastiches American golf color commentators and the length of time a golf match takes, including coverage of every shot. It's also a pastiche of parodies over America's love of sport, especially golf, making this fall somewhere between a pastiche and Postmodernism.
• Paying in Coins: Apparently the catalyst for a deep seated grudge by the Ice Cream Man in "Ice Cream Scream", Dexter pays for an ice cream (the most expensive one in stock at $16 a piece, by the way) with a ridiculously large jar of pennies (1600 of them), an accident with which manages to systematically ruin the Ice Cream Man's entire life. After the Ice Cream Man explains this to Dexter and the latter apologizes, Dexter buys a regular ice cream (which costs $1.50)... and pays with a $100 bill. The Ice Cream Man's anguished shriek says everything.
  • There's another example that closes the episode "Repairanoid". Although the electrician's $40,000 bill shocks Dexter's mom at first, she quickly shifts to an agreeable tone and takes out her purse to pay — by withdrawing coins one at a time and counting them. The electrician doesn't protest.
• Pelts of the Barbarian: In "Dexter the Barbarian", Dexter, in his barbarian fantasy, fights with a pack of wolves and wears their fur. In reality, it turned out that he shaved his dog.
• Personal Hate Before Common Goals: This is pretty much the crux of the episode "Let's Save The World, You Jerk". Dexter and Mandark both see a meteor heading for Earth and want to use their smarts to save the planet. Having a common goal, they agree to put aside their differences, cobble together a mech from both their parts and destroy the meteor. Naturally however it doesn't take long for their egos to start flaring up and it soon devolves into them focusing their attention on each another that their mechs end up destroyed (save for the head parts) as well as Earth because their hate for each other is too strong to achieve their main priority. The episode even ends with them still fighting despite everything.
• Perspective Reversal: Dee Dee crushes a bunch of ants, because she thinks they're filthy. Dexter, who finds ants interesting, shrinks them both down to ant size so Dee Dee can get a better idea of their society. After some adventures, they return to normal size, at which point Dee Dee happily thanks Dexter for showing her just how cool ants really are — while Dexter is squashing them.
• Pest Episode: Inverted — in "Mom and Jerry", Deedee's meddling causes Dexter's brain to accidentally get switched with a mouse. In his efforts to find the mouse in his body Dexter ends up in the kitchen, where he clashes with his mother for the rest of the episode.
• Photo Doodle Recognition: One episode has Dee Dee showing Dexter that he is a were-clown by taking a newspaper picture of the clown and drawing Dexter's glasses, hair, lab coat and boots over it.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: So much so that they did a Whole-Plot Reference to the Pink Panther with Dee-Dee as the eponymous and vexing feline.
• Ping Pong Naïveté: Dexter may be a super genius, but he's still a kid who makes irrational assumptions. Nowhere is this more apparent than in "Critical Gas," where genuinely believes that a gas cramp is going to make him explode. Granted, he still ran a test to see what the cramps would do to him. On a balloon.
• Piss-Take Rap: The infamous "Dexter vs. Santa's Claws" had Dexter perform a rap number to Dee-Dee on how their dad dresses up as Santa on Christmas Eve to give the kids their presents, and being not such a great rapper (complete with fairly lousy attempts at rhyming lyrics), the result is hilarious...
  Dad dresses up in a Santa getup,
  And puts the car up on the rooftop
  He makes the car look like a sleigh, here,
  And mom dresses up just like a reindeer
  She greases up Dad so he'll slide down the chimney
  And put all our presents around the tree
  Then Mom pulls him up, and by and by,
  They drive down the roof and into the sky!
  You go to the window 'cause you heard a little sound,
  And see Santa fly by before they all hit the ground!
  Everybody say, hooooooooooo! Yeah!''
• Played for Laughs: Everything.
• Pokémon Speak: All Santa ever says in "Dexter vs. Santa's Claws" is some variant of "ho, ho, ho" (at least until the punchline).
• Potty Emergency: In the episode "Labels", Dexter ends up having to pee after chugging a whole jug of apple juice (it was the only thing in the fridge Dee Dee hadn't claimed using her label maker). Much to his frustration, he also finds the toilet to be labeled by Dee Dee and he ends up desperate to find a solution. While it isn't shown on-screen, it is implied in the ending that Dexter resorted to relieving himself on the carpet.
• Poverty Food: In "Misplaced in Space", Dexter finds himself in an alien prison, where he's served what he accurately refers to as, "a bowl of foul-smelling gruel", but tries to play up his faux gratitude by complimenting the chef. Luckily for him, however, an alien inmate with an insatiable appetite consumes Dexter's bowl for him.
• Powered Armor: Dexter wore one to win at dodgeball in "Dexter Dodgeball".
• Pretending to Be One's Own Relative: In the episode "Old Man Dexter", Dexter uses one of his inventions to age himself up so he can watch a mature movie, but accidentally turns himself into an old man. Everyone in the house ends up mistaking him for Dexter's grandpa. He denies it initially, but eventually he goes along with it.
• Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Both Dexter and Dee Dee are shown to be admirers of hip-hop, such as "Sister's Got A Brand New Bag" (in which Dee Dee is shown to be a regular viewer of a Soul Train expy where she learns the Melbourne shuffle) and one interstitial where Dexter shows Dee Dee that he can do the robot. The show even got a tie-in hip-hop album in its last season.
• Primal Chest-Pound: Dee Dee does this during her victory over defeating Dexter in the "Primal Fighter" video game at the beginning of the episode "Game Over".
• Pull the Plug on the Title:
  • Dee Dee puts the plug in at the last minute, causing the sign to short out from Dexter repeatedly pushing the remote button to get it working (presumably in a hurry before the theme song ends).
  • In one episode, it's Mandark who puts the plug in, creating the title "Mandark's Laboratory". The title is changed back to the usual one in the third cartoon.
• Pygmalion Snapback: Dexter and Dee Dee have conversely done this with each other in "Dexter's Assistant" (where Dee Dee ended up smarter than he was) and in "Way of the Dee Dee" (where Dee Dee's attempt to teach Dexter to appreciate life outside of his lab results in Dexter going mad and destroying his lab before coming to his senses and having to rebuild).

R

• Recursive Reality: The start of "Monstory" has Dexter examining what appears to be a microscopic Earth before Deedee interrupts him. By the episode's end, when both Dexter and Deedee are giant, towering monsters going at it so Deedee can finish a story, the camera pans out to a shot of Earth as a whole... cue the magnifying device Dexter was using in the beginning and some obligatory spooky music.
• Required Secondary Powers: Completely averted in "Don't Be a Hero", where Dexter gives himself various superpowers with unintended side effects (ex. Super-Speed without super brakes, and self-ignition without also being fireproof).
• Reset Button: At the end of each episode, things will always return to normal. Although, this is zig-zagged in that some occasional things remain damaged, like Mandark's laboratory was still damaged in the Sequel Episode "Mandarker", which followed on from "Dexter's Rival", despite the upgrade in art style by a new Korean studio.
• Retraux:
  • The show has simple comedic plots similar to old Fleischer and Disney cartoons, with episodes like Fantastic Boyage, The Continuum of Cartoon Fools, and Last But Not Beast as examples.
  • Some of the second season's episodes are made in a similar fashion to the old Looney Tunes cartoons, complete with some of the same Stock Sound Effects. One episode, "Road Rash," is a complete homage to the Wile E. Coyote cartoons.
  • The third and fourth seasons of the show were done in the style of a Hanna-Barbera cartoon of the 1960s (which is ironic, given that by this time, Cartoon Network Studios was no longer a subsidiary of H-B, which had folded into Warner Bros. Animation).
• Retcon: So many of the backstories and continuity of the characters were changed when the show was renewed, including how Dexter's parents met, and even changing Mandark's history (and how he and Dexter met) entirely.
• Rewind Gag: The episode "sdrawkcaB" has Dexter inventing a belt that makes its wearer go forward and backwards by pulling a lever that controls the time. Dee Dee ends up using it on Dexter, but he gets back at her at the end by having her wear the belt while she fell up and down from a high place.
  Dexter's Dad: Dexter, what have I told you about running on the stairs?! SLOW DOWN, YOU'RE GONNA HURT SOME-(Dexter trips him and he falls down the stairs.)
• Road Runner vs. Coyote: One episode they paid homage to Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote when Dexter tried to catch a rollerskating Dee Dee with his new bike (plus various upgrades).
• Rocky Roll Call:
  • A Running Gag is Dexter, Dee Dee and Mandark yelling each other's names when they're together. The climax of "Mandarker" in particular (wherein Dexter and Mandark team up to rescue Dee Dee from JoJo using their giant robots) has them communicating in nothing but their names.
  • In Ego Trip:
    • Two of Dexter's future selves keep saying "Hello" to each other for a good while when they first meet, much to Dexter's annoyance.
    • At the ending, when the Dexters are going back to their own times, they repeatedly say "Goodbye, Dexter!" to the present Dexter.
• Rotten Robotic Replacement:
  • In "Maternal Combat", Dexter makes a robotic version of his mother to replace his mother when she gets sick. It works well until he and Dee Dee fight over the robot's controls, making her go berserk.
  • One short has Dexter being asked to repair a damaged Dynomutt, Dog Wonder, but once he succeeds, he deems Dynomutt completely useless because he's a clumsy ditz (even explicitly comparing him to Dee-Dee) and builds an "upgraded" replacement for Blue Falcon. Unfortunately, the replacement Dynomutt is an utterly psychotic Knight Templar that goes on a rampage and nearly kills Dexter and Blue Falcon when they try to stop it.
• Ruder and Cruder: The episode "Rude Removal", in which Dexter and Dee-Dee are split into their good and evil sides, with the latter swearing roughly every five seconds. After being shown at the World Animation Celebration in 1998, it was banned until [adult swim] broadcast it in 2013.
• Rule of Funny: Quite a lot of logical inconsistencies happen for the sake of humor. One notable example is in the ending of "Labels", where Dexter and Dee Dee's parents are somehow stupid enough to think that Dexter is Dee Dee because he has a label reading "Dee Dee" stuck to his head, with Dad complaining about damages to various properties labeled "Dexter" or "Dee Dee" as if they were actually called Dexter or Dee Dee.
  Dad: The Dee Dee's knocked over, the Dexter's on the fritz, and did anyone remember to walk the Dexter?!
• Running Gag: Dee Dee breaking into Dexter's lab, Dexter proclaiming his latest works, and Dee Dee pushing a button she shouldn't have.

---