Things Only Adults Notice In Dexter's Laboratory

While Dee Dee is known for her spirited, boisterous personality, she is equally known for her destructive antics. Time and time again, Dexter finds his lab at the mercy of Dee Dee's roughhousing, and more often than not, the lab is left in ruins. In the episode "Dee Dee and The Man," Dexter finally has enough of her destructiveness and fires her. Initially, Dexter revels in his newfound solitude. He finds himself much more productive without Dee Dee around, but ultimately without his sister, Dexter is lonely. To fill the void, Dexter has the brilliant idea to have auditions for a replacement older sister.

After a slew of failed applicants, Dexter comes upon Candi, a beautiful woman with exaggerated curves, pouty lips, and luxurious blonde hair whom he is obviously attracted to. Ignoring the fact that it's pretty that creepy Dexter decided to hire a sexy woman to play the role of his older sister, he now has to teach Candi how to fill the position of Dee Dee correctly. One of Dee Dee's loves is dancing, so naturally, Dexter asks Candi to dance. Misunderstanding the context of Dexter's request, Candi responds, "50 bucks extra." Based on Candi's reply, it's likely that Candi is no stranger to these sorts of requests, and she was expecting to give a very different type of performance than Dexter intended.

The episode "Nuclear Confusion" features some pretty high stakes. Dee Dee steals the power source to Dexter's lab which, unknown to her, will result in the destruction of the Earth. Dexter must save the world by returning the power source, but to do this, he has to play into one of Dee Dee's childish games. She won't willfully hand over the power source. Instead, she leaves a series of clues for Dexter to follow that lead to the next clue.

The clues themselves are mostly innocent, such as one of their mom's pies. However, one clue, in particular, is a bit... problematic. After finding the second clue, Dexter is sent to the neighbor's house, where he is greeted by the neighbor lady. At first, Dexter isn't exactly sure where in the house to look, but when the neighbor bends over, the clue reveals itself. Written on the back of her pants in frantically drawn sharpie are the words, "Dad's Trophy." 

This is Dee Dee's hint to check their dad's literal trophy, but the subtext is that the neighbor lady is their dad's trophy. In other words, their dad has the hots for the neighbor lady and likely creeps on her. While that is creepy in and of itself, there is another question that just begs to be answered: How did Dee Dee manage to write the clue on the neighbor without being noticed?

In the made for television film Dexter's Laboratory: Ego Trip, there is a bizarre scene involving Dexter's mom and dad. For a few seconds, both of Dexter's parents are offscreen, except for their legs. Their legs are straight in the air and intwined with one another, implying they are partaking in some adult activities offscreen. That would be suggestive enough, but on top of that is the added moaning and grunting. Dexter's mom even says "Honey, I don't think that's gonna fit." 

It's soon revealed that Mom and Dad were playing an innocent game of Twister all along as opposed to something a little more scandalous. Though Dexter's Laboratory is filled with its fair share of adult humor, between the suggestive positioning and dialogue, this is probably one of the more overt examples in the series. Mom and Dad's game isn't exactly subtle, but as long as they attach the name Twister, it looks like the censors didn't lose any sleep keeping the apparent innuendo.

Dexter's arch-nemesis Mandark causes Dexter plenty of headaches throughout the show. Similar to Dexter, Mandark is also a boy genius with a lab. Due to their competing egos, Mandark and Dexter find themselves always in competition with each other. Though Mandark has plenty in common with Dexter, he has a fairly strange family situation that makes him stand apart from his genius counterpart.

Mandark, otherwise known as "Susan," was born in a hippie commune. His parents, Windbear and Oceanbird, are unconventional free thinkers. In the episode "Mountain Mandark," Mandark's parents believe their son is too engaged with science and want him to explore nature and the outdoors. They take away Mandark's gadgets and force him to participate on a nature hike, much to his chagrin.

Mandark's parents are stereotypical hippies, so it's not entirely surprising that there's a weed joke thrown into the episode. At one point during their hike, Mandark's mother stops by what appears to be a marijuana plant and says "There's a cornucopia of sustenance to be harvested from our great, giving earth." To an average child watching, the plant looks like an ordinary bush, but for older viewers, there's no question that Mandark's mom is referencing a very different type of herb.

Dexter's Laboratory managed to pass a lot of risqué content through the censors, but not every adult joke was given the green light. In fact, the episode "Rude Removal" was banned in its entirety. For years the episode was considered lost until it resurfaced at select animation festivals; it was then streamed for wider audiences on Adult Swim's YouTube channel in 2013, though the video has since been removed.

So what makes "Rude Removal" so obscene? The entire premise of the episode is about foul language. In the episode, Dexter invents the Rude Removal System, a machine that allows him to remove rudeness from Dee Dee. Ultimately, his invention backfires, and instead of removing Dee Dee's negative attributes, Dexter accidentally splits himself and Dee Dee into separate rude and well-mannered halves.

The polite halves are overly kind and speak with over-the-top British accents. The controversy surrounding the episode comes from Dexter and Dee Dee's rude halves which, by contrast, spout profanities throughout the episode. Though the swearing is censored with bleeps, the content was dicey enough to rattle censors and keep "Rude Removal" from ever airing on television.