"What's the point of not saying things out loud?"
Dexter and Monkey Master is a television series created by David Willis, based on his comic series The Head Aliennote . It follows the adventures of Dexter the Head Alien, a megalomaniac dictator from a distant world, and his beleaguered robotic henchman Monkey Master. It also featured a tie-in comic series from MKG that started in conjunction with season 3.
Contains examples of:
- Animated Adaptation: And consequently...
- Compressed Adaptation: "Wedding Smashers" cuts out several gags and a lot of the real wedding subplot from the comic. Fans are naturally split on whether it works or not.
- Artistic License – History: Napoleon's height in "Time's Short".
- Ascended Extra: The Sensitive Scanner in season 2.
- Ascended Fanon: Head Alien's nickname of "Dexter" started as a fan in-joke, seeped into the comics and became his name outright on the show.
- It originated in the fanfic "Love Hurts", when Head Alien got a girlfriend named Sandra to contradict Monkey Master's claim that he was a "bit of a dork" outside the workplace. Unfortunately, she got really obsessive over him (Stalker with a Crush levels of obsessive) and begun following him wherever he went. Head Alien tried various ways to escape her (the origin of the grappling-hook chase-scene, another in-joke in the fandom), including one where he just put on a trench coat and wig.
Sandra: Hey, there you are, Head Alien!Head Alien: Head Alien? Who's Head Alien? I'm Dexter!Sandra: ...(removes his wig)(Beat)Head Alien: Fine, I'm bald. You happy?- This lead to an inside joke among the fandom when wherever someone would mention Head Alien doing something, someone would inevitably reply "Who's Head Alien? That's Dexter." This eventually bled into jokey advertisements of the comics ("Join Dex—uh, I mean, Head Alien"), until it was established in the comics that Dexter was his real name and Head Alien his title, which he's very tetchy about, to the point of threatening those who won't call him by title with vaporization. (Except his very close friends, like Monkey Master.)
- Author's Saving Throw: The mindwipe year. Led to a Broken Base between those who were relived the Audience-Alienating Era was over, those who liked the previous season, and those who didn't like it but thought the mindwipe was a cheap way out.
- Busby Berkeley Number: Monkey Master somehow corrals a French regiment into one during "Time's Short".
- Cake Toppers: Head Alien disguises himself as one during "Wedding Smashers" as part of his scheme to raid the wedding. It goes badly, badly wrong.
- Crossover:
- With Robo-Vac in issue #49 of the comic.
- With Ultra-Car in a season 4 episode.
- Deadpan Snarker: Monkey Master, constantly.
- Fanon Discontinuity: Season 8.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: Dexter and Ultra-Car in the crossover episode.
- Historical Domain Character: Napoleon Bonaparte in "Time's Short".
- Hypocritical Humor: Dexter pointing out his clone's weakness is "obviously his hypermassive overconfidence!"
- It Runs on Nonsensoleum: The various doomsday devices. Especially the one that runs on shrimp in "Wedding Smashers".
- In "Time's Short" Dexter attempts to build one that's powered by human annoyance. He sets up his Severely Specialized Store to gather fuel. Unfortunately, the end of the episode reveals that he never figured out how to harvest it, so the device could never have worked.
- Improvised Weapon: The bride in "Wedding Smashers", who manages to beat someone up with an ice sculpture.
- After his alarm-clock disguise fails, Dexter chases off the FBI using only a spring in "Time's Short".
- Limited Wardrobe: Dexter's trenchcoat and cape.
- The Napoleon: Dexter, lampshaded in "Time's Short" with him meeting the actual Napoleon for a fight.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Dexter posing as an alarm clock in "Time's Short".
- The wigs in "Wedding Smashers".
- Several episodes have disguised Monkey Master as an actual monkey or ape. Somehow, it tends to succeed.
- Shout-Out: "Insert stale joke about Shirley MacClaine here!"
- The priest in "Wedding Smashers" is a pretty clear take-off of the one from The Princess Bride.
- The Severely Specialized Store in "Time's Short" is a take-off on the Cheese Shop sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus.
- Time Travel: Used in season 2's two-parter "Time's Short" and "Time Travel Trouble".
- Time-Travel Tense Trouble: From above mentioned "Time Travel Trouble".
Dexter: We've already met earlier... later... whatever.
- Thinking Out Loud: Lampshaded: "What's the point of not saying things out loud?"
- Villain Protagonist: Dexter
- Wedding Smashers: "Wedding Smashers", naturally.
- World of Snark: Some Moral Guardians have criticised the show for "cultivating a culture of snarkiness".
- Zany Scheme: All the time. Obviously, the only way to get shrimp for a shrimp-powered doomsday device is to crash a wedding and raid the buffet.
- That time is sort of lampshaded — Monkey Master tries to get Dexter to consider a more rational scheme (such as raiding shrimp farms), but Dexter's already set his sights on crashing the wedding.
- And then turns out to be justified, as there are no other shrimp in the entire state, as shown through montage.
