5. Dexter's Laboratory
Series Run: 1996-1998, 2001-2003 (78 episodes)
Network: Cartoon Network
Theme Song Rating: The wordless theme is short and sweet but doesn't pack much of a punch, 3.5/5. Seriously Dee Dee, get the hell out of my laboratory. Created by animation titan Genndy Tartakovsky (who worked on The Powerpuff Girls and went on to create Samurai Jack), Dexter's Lab was a science-fiction fun house. The highest rated show on Cartoon Network in 1996 and 97 was nominated for four Emmys, showing it off as yet another popular and critical success. The show generally consisted of three segments, the first and the last revolving around Dexter and Dee Dee and the middle being about someone related to their family. Dexter's parents were the genial dim-witted type that would later be seen on The Fairly Oddparents (Butch Hartman also worked on this show), and the temperamental young scientific genius was obviously an early influence on Stewie Griffin (Dexter's was another testing ground Seth MacFarlane as well). The show did have one great villain, Mandark Astronomonov, who was the protagonist's rival genius who often attempted to steal Dexter's plans. An archetypical villain, Mandark had a "dark world" version of Dexter's lab and he was in love with Dexter's sister. But the show was more focused on portraying the relationship between Dee Dee and Dexter than having a more overt villain. Obviously Dee Dee and Dexter have an antagonistic relationship (the first few minutes of almost every episode is about the various ways Dexter tries to keep her out of the lab), but as shown during the intro Dee Dee often has a more practical view of the world that enables her to come up with simple solutions that evade the big-thinking Dexter. If you are a kid watching the show you want to have all of Dexter's cool toys and you want to see him succeed, so Dee Dee becomes a nuisance for you like she is for Dexter. But in re-watching the show, you can see that what the show is really doing is advocating for a more tempered way of thinking. Dexter is immensely creative and enthusiastic, but he lacks simple problem-solving skills, whereas Dee Dee doesn't have Dexter's engineering acumen but she has the capability to simplify complex ideas. So even brainiacs need a nice balance of left-brain/right-brain thinking, and Dexter's Lab is an extremely entertaining show about trying to get to that balance.