As if Space Ghost Coast to Coast weren't reason enough to tune into Cartoon Network, here's another: Dexter's Laboratory. This half-hour animated series about a juvenile mad scientist and his unwitting guinea-pig of an older sister is the brainchild of 27-year-old Genndy Tartakovsky, a Hanna-Barbera animator who moved to the US from Moscow in 1977.
Tartakovsky draws from the beatnik-cool look of atomic-age cartoons such as Gerald McBoing Boing and mixes in his own blend of quirky hyperkineticism and surreal perspectives. Whether his cantankerous boy genius is zapping his sister with a shrink ray or hallucinating his brains out after drinking his parents' leftover coffee, Tartakovsky creates Dexter's adventures solely for his own amusement. "I'm not being sincere if I'm doing it for other people."Judging by the show's success - it was voted Number One Toon of the Year by viewers - this cartoonist's honesty is paying off.
ELECTRIC WORD
Genndy's Laboratory
