|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost three decades since Cartoon Network introduced the world to an eight-year-old boy genius named Dexter who kept a secret lab in his bedroom. Genndy Tartakovsky’s Emmy-winning and hugely influential animated series Dexter’s Laboratory first aired as part of CN’s What a Cartoon! anthology in February of 1995, and then joined the lineup as a stand-alone series in April of 1996. The show, which centers on the adventures of a genius third-grader, his “space-brained” sister Dee Dee and his annoying rival Mandark brought cemented Tartakovsky’s reputation as a young animation talented and helped launch the careers of artists such as Craig McCracken, Seth MacFarlane, Butch Hartman, Paul Rudish and Rob Renzetti.
This month, fans get to relieve all 78 episodes of the classic cartoon, which ran from 1996 to 2003 on Cartoon Network (as well as the special Dexter’s Laboratory: Ego Trip) when Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment releases the complete series on DVD on June 25. To mark the occasion, we had the opportunity to catch up the show’s brilliant creator Genndy Tartakovsky, who followed up his first show with a long string of acclaimed shows and movies, including Samurai Jack, Star Wars: Clone Wars, Primal, Hotel Transylvania and Unicorn: Warriors Eternal.
Animation Magazine: Thanks so much for finding the time to chat with us. So, how does it feel to look back at those early days of your career?
Genndy Tartakovsky: It feels pretty surreal to be doing a Dexter’s Laboratory interview almost 30 years after we started working on it. The truth is that it was so much fun back then. The problems were. Just figuring out how and what we were going to do for the budget and the time we had. Back then, none of us were married and we didn’t have kids, so we were all just focused on making the show and we stayed up working until 10 or 11 at night every day. Everything was kind of new and we were working at a brand new network, and we were the first series out there. So looking back, I guess it was all very romantic, but at the time, I didn’t think of it like that. We just had to get through all the work. It was kind of like a golden time for us.
I recall that your initial idea for the show came from a sketch you did of a ballerina. Can you elaborate on that?
Oh, sure. I was at CalArts at the time, and I was trying to figure out what to do for my second-year film, and I was just doodling this girl who was a kid ballerina dancer, and I really liked her. So I figured let me see if I can come up with an idea. So, I thought she is all about art and dance, and we need something completely opposite of that, and that would be science. She was like a thin long stick, and what would be the opposite of that shape-wise? That would be a a little boxy character, so that’s how Dexter was created. Dee Dee was created first, and then it all fell into place.
Of course, there’s the element of a Russian kid who is new to America trying to fit in in a new environment in Chicago, and your own relationship with your sibling, right?
Yes, I think I think there’s definitely there’s a “fish out of water” theme that repeats itself in my work, and not get too psychoanalytical about it, but I I do think that’s part of it, which is about how do you fit in, and how do you still stay true to who are you. I grew up with an older brother and he had all these toys, and I just wanted to play with his soldier figurines, but he wouldn’t let let me. So, I think there’s a little bit of that as well. All of those sibling dynamics stuff started to seep in without even knowing back then when I was only 25. But the truth is as a crew, we all kind of stumbled into everything back then.
It’s quite amazing to see how many of the people who worked on the show went on to have have great animation careers. Do you think there was something in the water back then?
We all look back at those days fondly, and we tend to romanticize the past. We were probably one of the first generation coming out of CalArts for the most part, and we were making student films not just an animation exercise, but we were telling little stories with concepts, especially In Craig [McCracken]’s case with The Powerpuff Girls. In Dexter’s case, I didn’t think there was going to be a show, but it definitely had the structure of a show, versus it just being a short about a rabbit jumping around in a forest. At that time, because of the success of Ren and Stimpy and other similar shows, you had all these younger people running their own shows. That somehow became possible during that time. When that was offered to us, we all took advantage of it, because before that time, most show creators were probably over 40 years old. So, we were young, and because of Cartoon Network’s shorts program, we were given the chance to have our own show and we were able to focus on that.
Looking back, are there any episodes that stand out for you?
Well, there’s the pilot, of course that started it all and literally launched everything that I’ve done. “Old Man Dexter” was the first episode that I let other people storyboard, and Craig McCracken did that one, and it was so alive and breathing. I really had an epiphany when I saw that, and I thought there was something great there. I also loved the last one I worked on, the 52nd episode. There are so many more. I also loved it when we started to break into 11-minute episodes instead of the original seven-minute ones. We were able to go beyond the light set-ups and gags. We could experiment more and push the storytelling in the longer episodes.
What goes through your mind when you compare today’s tough climate with those heady days of the ’90s?
I think definitely we had a lot of freedom back then. That was the big selling tool back then. You could do it the way you wanted to do it, but if you failed, you failed. You are stubborn kids when a lot of ideas, and they supported us when it worked well. But that is gone today, yeah but I think that is gone. You can’t make your own mistakes and nobody’s holding your hand. Back then, we were really trusted to do what we do and the more we did well the more we were trusted. I think that’s pretty much gone, so it has changed the way you make a show with a young, raw talent. The network was so young then too so they were able to take chances as well. I guess it was all the right timing for all of us to get together and create this new thing.
Now that the new DVD set is coming out, what are you proudest of?
I’m proud of the fact that we now have a collection that survived for almost 30 years. That it’s something that enough people watched and wanted, because there are so many animated shows out there, so it’s great that we have this DVD set. That has always been the magic of Dexter: No matter where I go to talk and draw, someone always asks me to draw Dexter for them or they have a Dexter story they like to share with me. So to create something that has lasted for so long is pretty magical for me, because you always want to create characters that live and breathe for audiences.
Are you a big physical media fan yourself? A lot of animation creators are big DVD and Blu-ray collectors!
I used to be a VHS collector, and then I switched over to laser disc, DVD and Blu-ray, but then I stopped because digital was starting. I don’t collect digital movies for whatever reason. It’s kind of strange how it all stopped, maybe because there was nothing tangible anymore, and it was all a file, and I kind of lost that appetite for the hunt. Back then, I used to go to this video store called Dave’s Video [in Studio City] every Tuesday to check out all the new releases and see if there were any old movies that came out, but it all stopped for me.
Since we have you here, can you give us some update on some of your projects? We were expecting to see your 2D-animated movie Fixed this year.
Well, all I can tell you about it is that we’ve finished Fixed, and now we are just trying to figure out the release situation. The third season of Primal is moving along great, and I’m super excited about that. There are a couple of other things are happening, and we’re hopefully going to get a movie out there, too.
Dexter’s Laboratory: The Complete Series will be released on DVD From Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment on June 25 (SRP $69.99 U.S./Canada). The show is available now to purchase Digitally from Prime Video, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and more.
Watch an old interview with Genndy here:
…and a more recent one from last year here:
