Dexter's Laboratory: Ego Trip

Dexter's Laboratory: Ego Trip is an animated television special based on the American animated television series Dexter's Laboratory. It was produced by Hanna-Barbera (now Cartoon Network Studios) for Cartoon Network and originally aired on December 10, 1999. The special follows Dexter, the series' protagonist, as he travels forward through time and meets futuristic versions of himself and his rival Mandark.

Plot
After routinely chasing Mandark (Eddie Deezen) out of his lab when he tries to steal the "Neurotomic Protocore", Dexter (Christine Cavanaugh) is confronted with a group of robots that have appeared from his time machine. They declare that they are here to destroy the one who saved the future and make ready to attack Dexter. Dexter easily destroys them with the use of various tools and gadgets from his lab, though the robots did not do anything except stand there while Dexter was fighting them. However, news that he is "The One Who Saved the Future" intrigues him, and he decides to travel through time to discover how cool he is.

In the first time period he visits, Dexter finds a tall, skinny, weak version of himself working in office-designing cubicles, with Mandark as his rich, successful boss. The child Dexter unwittingly reveals the existence of blueprints regarding the Neurotomic Protocore from the beginning of the movie, and Mandark steals it after the two Dexters move forward in time.

In the second time period, the two Dexters meet their much older self, a wizened senior citizen Dexter about the same height as the child Dexter (and Mandark's brain in a vat who cannot do anything other than complain about his situation). All the technology from the blueprints has been implemented, creating a utopian society where anything can be materialized with the power of the mind. The old Dexter can't remember how he saved the world, so they travel back in time to find out.

In the third time period, which appears to take place between the first and second time periods, they find a dystopic world where everyone is stupid and fire and technology are forbidden, controlled by Mandark thanks to the Neurotomic Protocore. They meet action hero Dexter (Jeff Bennett), who is tall, muscular and bald (senior citizen Dexter, it turns out, wears a wig), having grown the large beard and huge muscles while digging underground after Mandark stole the plans. They go back to Dexter's laboratory and build a giant robot to invade Mandark's fortress. Reaching there, they are faced by the monstrously corpulent dystopian Mandark, who has summoned versions of himself from other time periods to oppose the Dexters. A battle royale ensues, with each Dexter fighting the Mandark of his own time period.

After a battle between the Dexters and Mandarks, Dee Dee (Kat Cressida) saves the world by wandering in from the open time gate and pressing the button to reverse the waves of the Neurotomic Protocore, thus creating the utopian world. The Dexters, overcome with rage, create a group of robots and tell them to "destroy the one who saved the future", and send them back through the time machine to take care of Dee Dee, unwittingly setting the whole series of events in motion. When Dexter notices this fact, he decides to ignore it and goes to eat lunch.

Release and reception
Dexter's Laboratory: Ego Trip first aired on Cartoon Network on December 10, 1999, and re-aired on New Year's Day 2000. The special was released on VHS in Region 1 on November 7, 2000, and in Region 2 on July 23, 2001. The VHS also includes the episodes "The Justice Friends: Krunk's Date" and "Dial M for Monkey: Rasslor".

Marc Bernardin of Entertainment Weekly called Ego Trip "drawn-out", saying that Dexter's Laboratory does not do as well in an hour-long format as it does in normal television episodes. Christine Cavanaugh, the voice actor for Dexter, received an Annie Award in 2000 for the category "Outstanding Individual Achievement for Voice Acting By a Female Performer in an Animated Television Production" for her role in the movie.