What took place to Self-absorption, the shed Dexter’s Lab television special?

Also 20 years after the ending of Dexter’s Lab, the site sci-fi funny produced by Genndy Tartakovsky (Samurai Jack, Primitive), the collection still keeps an enthusiastic follower base and also a column of the Animation Network brand name. On the brand name’s HBO Max center web page, Dexter’s Lab rests plainly together with Powerpuff Ladies, Ed, Edd ‘n Swirl and also Experience Time.

Nevertheless, one especially fascinating installation of the collection, the 1999 tv unique Self-absorption, is not just notably lacking from the banner, however has actually almost vaporized because it initially premiered on air almost 23 years earlier.

Dexter’s Lab broadcast for 2 periods in between 1996 and also 1998, and also an extra 2 periods from 2001 to 2003, progressively turning into one of the network’s high-rated initial collection and also amassing 3 Annie Honors and also 4 Primetime Emmy elections. The collection complied with Dexter, a bright and also self-serious kid wizard with a lavish research laboratory concealed inside his area, and also his different accidents with his sparkling older sibling Dee Dee, and also his periodic encounter his competing Mandark. Tartakovsky looked after the manufacturing of over 52 episodes prior to leaving the collection to function as a managing manufacturer on his associate Craig McCraken’s collection The Powerpuff Ladies and also at some point his following initial collection, 2002’s Samurai Jack.

Generated complying with the verdict of the half-hour collection ending “Last However Not Monster,” Self-absorption was Genndy Tartakovsky’s last Dexter’s Lab’s manufacturing and also the initial Animation Network tv flick ever before generated. The hour-long movie complies with Dexter that, after hindering his competing Mandark’s story to swipe an exceptionally effective tool referred to as the “Neurotomic Protocore,” is assaulted by a team of red robotics proclaiming their goal to “ruin the one that conserved the future.” After beating them, Dexter relapses with exhilaration at the idea of maturing to come to be such a crucial number à la The Terminator’s John Connor that a person would certainly presume regarding take a trip back in time to remove him. Restless to experience his very own future success, Dexter utilizes his very own time device to take a trip to the minute in which he comes to be a tale.

Though generated for television, Dexter’s Lab: Self-absorption is an excellent accomplishment of typical hand-painted cel computer animation. The opening title series in which Mandark, decorating a cape, flamboyantly relocates throughout his very own Burton-esque research laboratory prior to penetrating Dexter’s very own really feels motivated by the shape computer animations of German filmmaker Lotte Reiniger. Self-absorption’s facility, that of Dexter taking a trip with time to satisfy different variations of his future self and also in doing so accidentally instating a collection of occasions finishing in him needing to conserve the globe, appears nearly prescient taking into account current timeline-hopping price like 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, and also 2021’s Spider-Man: No Other Way House. By itself, Dexter’s Lab: Self-absorption is a funny and also amusing self-supporting journey that conveniently rests next to the greatest episodes of the collection. A truth that makes the obvious lack of the unique not just throughout streaming, however any type of residence video clip layout because it was at first launched on VHS back in 2000, all that even more strange. (Polygon connected to Animation Network and also HBO Max regarding whether there are any type of strategies to bring Dexter’s Lab: Self-absorption to the system, however neither had the ability to comment at the time of magazine.)

Regardless of it being called such in computer animation circles, Genndy Tartakovsky insists that Self-absorption was never ever meant to be completion of the collection, just a stand-alone tv special. “[Cartoon Network] had a wish to do a Dexter’s Lab flick,” Tartakovsky informed Polygon in a meeting in 2014. “I had actually never ever done long-form at that time, therefore I resembled certain; I’ll do it.” Instead of movies like The Terminator or Back to The Future Component II, Dexter’s Lab: Self-absorption was rather motivated by a Calvin & Hobbes strip of Calvin fulfilling his past and also future selves, and also was generated while dealing with the program’s 2nd period.

When It Comes To why the unique hasn’t been re-released because 1999, Tartakovsky supplied one feasible factor. “I don’t assume individuals learn about it, truthfully. Like, regarding individuals that run HBO Max and also Animation Network, I don’t assume it’s gotten on their radar because we launched it. The execs that run the network have actually been changed two times or 3 times over or whatever at this moment, so it’s been shed in the shuffle of time. However I would certainly enjoy for it to be launched, I don’t have any type of concerns with it.”