August 1, 1997
By Steve Fritz of www.mania.com
Life! Life! Give my creation LIIIIIFE !
The creater in Dexter's Laboratory
f Genndy Tartakovsky was a little bit exuberant
when he answered the phone, you really couldn't
blame him. He found out in less than five minutes
prevoiusly that Dexter's Laboratory was just handed
its first Emmy nomination. Sure, he lost the first
two times he was nominated, but that little detail
wasn't holding Tartakovsky back.
"You never know...Maybe...I'm looking forward to winning one of these days."Tartakovsky sputters, before regaining his composure."The best this is, the show is getting more popular every day. I think it's just hard for the Academy, to give it out to a newcomer, I'm not one now."
No Tartakovsky definitely isn't a newcomer by anyone's stantards anymore, in the three years of Dexter's Laboratory was unveiled as a short, and one of the Cartoon Network's first world premiere toons, the trail and travails of the red-headed nine year old who would rather stay at home and invent the ultimate Doomsday Device, has grown into one of the most popular animated series on television.
"It feels great" Tartakvosky admits. "we started out really small with only on cartoon, and we've been growing slowly. Now we're starting to peak a little bit, but I love the idea that more and more people are watching it. You know, I just did my first comic book signing at the (San Diego) Comic con. It was so good to have all these people walk up to me and tell me how they love the fact I made them laugh every day. It makes me feel real good."
In fact, Tartakovsky would be the first to tell you that the comic books were one of his first major influences. He was born 27 years ago in Moscow, and defected with his parents at the age of seven.
"as soon as I came to America I discovered comic books and started collecting them like crazy," he recalls. I even remember the first comic book I ever bought, which was a copy of the Super Friends. I still collect comics today.
This love for comics really becomes apparent when you see Tartakovsky's Justice Friends episodes. which are sandwiched between the two Dexter episodes every week. One would almost think the goofiness of Hanna-Barbera's Super Friends would have a lot to do with his Justice Friends. Guess again.
"The Justice Friends is more Marvel than DC," he says. "I was a real fan of Captian America and the Avengers. That type of thing. I always liked it when superheros went out of their crimefighting characters and tryed to act like human beings; having relationships and thing like that. I loved the melodrama of that. I'm a big fan of soap opera, so I used to love it when the leader hero ended up in a fight with the rebal hero. Of course the rebal hero was the one who always ended up the new leader and it was his turn to take on another rebal hero. It was always my favorite situation and if you see that it's Justice Friends".
Then there's Tartakovsky's other main superhero concept, Dial M For Monkey. Sure, one can see DC's Dial H For Hero in the title, but again Monkey is an absolutely different kind of superhero. Heck, he doesn't even talk in English. He just constantly chatters non-stop monkey gibberish as he takes on the bad guys. That's when Tartakovsky's got to take it over the top and introduce Monkey's arch enemy, Quackor The Foul.
You see, by daylight Quacker's just a baby duck, so whenhe turns into super-vilian, all he can do is squawk and chirp like a baby duck while Monkey does his monkey gibberish. The end result is a cartoon that's almost completely without a single human word in it. Did I also mention it's one of the best things Tartakovsky's ever done?
"All the other villans Monkey will go up against all talk, but otherwise it's going to stay pretty much like that for all the shows," Tartakovsky states. "I don't know if Quacker will ever show up again, but you never know."
"We came up that whole episode because of Frank Welker, (one of the top voice actors in the animation business--ED). We came up with the idea that if we can come up with the right duck, he could do all the voices. So we thought it was really funny and he loved it. It was the only time I ever saw him lose his voice.
Of course this still leaves Dexter and his arch-enemies, his addle-brained sister Dee Dee. Truth be told, Tartakovsky admits he's more like the juggernaut in tutu than his scheming main character.
"I had an older brother who was more like Dexter," Tartakovsky says. "I was more the Dee Dee in that relationship, so I really do relate to Dee Dee. I was constantly foiling my brother's plans."
Still, when pushed against the wall, he will admit that he has a lot of love for both Dexter and his brother. That still isn't stopping him from taking the new series of Lab cartoons into brave new worlds, such as the one place that strikes fear in Dexter's heart, the school playground.
"we're going to explore more the character side of Dexter, Dee Dee and their family, We're actually going to do some episodes just on their Mom & Dad. They're are going to become me Characters instead of props. They'll still be totally clueless about what Dexter and Dee Dee do, but now you'll see they have their own distinctive personalities and will actually interact with the kids. You're also going to learn a lot more about how Dexter interacts with the world or really tries not to. He's going to be out of the laboratory a lot. In fact, he'll probably spend more time out of the lab than in the lab.
When all is said and done, the Cartoon Network will produce 39 new episodes of Dexter's Laboratory this season. This will bring the total package up to 52. If on the third season they add 13 more, then they will have the perfect package for a syndication deal.
Tartakovsky Doesn't know if the series will make the syndication just yet. On the other hand, by the time those 39 episodes are completed, he's already been told that Dexter's Laboratory will go from one week to five days a week. As you can imagine, this is pretty rewarding in itself. It's also keeping him from creating any new shows for the moment.
"i'm going to be pretty buisy until April doing Dexter's," he says, "I have a couple of ideas that I'm throwing around in my head. Maybe I'll do them after the seasons over."
In the meantime, Tartakovsky's also just sitting back and enjoying the Dexter's Laboratory comic DC is now publishing. "It was another one of my dreams come true," he says. "Right now everything seems so unreal that I'm afraid I'm going to wake up some day."
From the way things are going, one would have to say Genndy Tartakovsky doesn't have to worry about waking up for a long time.