Viewer approval ratings led to a half-hour series, which consisted of two seasons totaling 52 episodes, airing from April 28, 1996, to June 15, 1998.
Four pilots aired on Cartoon Network and TNT from 1995 to 1996. Tartakovsky pitched the series to Fred Seibert's first animated shorts showcase What a Cartoon! at Hanna-Barbera, basing it on student films he produced at the California Institute of the Arts. Other segments focusing on superhero-based characters Monkey, Dexter's pet lab-monkey/superhero, and the Justice Friends, a trio of superheroes who share an apartment, prominently feature in the first two seasons. Dexter has a bitter rivalry with Mandark, a fellow boy-genius who is his neighbor and classmate. He is at constant odds with his older sister Dee Dee, who always gains access to Dexter's lab and inadvertently foils his experiments.
It follows Dexter, a boy-genius and inventor with a hidden laboratory in his room, which he keeps secret from his parents.
