Dexter's Laboratory: Ego Trip is an animated television special based on the Cartoon Network animated television series Dexter's Laboratory. It was produced by Hanna-Barbera Cartoons 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. While made for television, the film is the directorial debut of series creator Genndy Tartakovsky and was originally intended to conclude the series. Ego Trip was the first Cartoon Network television movie produced, and is the final Dexter's Laboratory installment to be animated using traditional cel animation. This is one of the final times Christine Cavanaugh reprises her role as Dexter; Candi Milo would replace her beginning in the third season. Plot After chasing his rival Mandark out of his lab when he tries to steal his latest invention, the Neurotomic Protocore, an energy source that also draws on and distributes the brainpower of its user, Dexter asks his sister Dee Dee to leave the lab, where she unintentionally enters a time machine stored near the entrance. Suddenly, Dexter is confronted with a group of red robots that have appeared from this time machine. They declare that they are here to "destroy the one who saved the future" and appear to make ready to attack Dexter. Dexter easily destroys them with the use of various tools and gadgets from his lab, as the robots mysteriously don't attack at all. Believing that he is "The One Who Saved the Future" that the robots spoke of, Dexter decides to travel through time to discover how "cool" he becomes. However, in the first time period he visits, Dexter finds a tall, skinny, weak version of himself (known only as "Number Twelve") working in an office designing cubicles – and Mandark is his rich, successful – and sadistically abusive – boss. The kid Dexter berates his older self for allowing Mandark to bully him around and manages to convince him to come along to see how cool they become, but unwittingly leaves the Neurotomic Protocore and its related blueprints out in his cubicle, which Mandark steals as the two Dexters move forward in time. In the second time period, all the technology from the blueprints has been implemented, creating a utopian society of science and knowledge where anything can be materialized through the power of the Core. The two