Is Johnny Test a parody of Dexter's Lab?

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mslove

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I've noticed the main characters on Johnny Test seem to be Bizarro versions of a Dexter's Lab's characters. Was this intentional or am I imagining things?
 
There are similarities, but they are only in their superficial set up. The plot lines, the character relationship (Johnny and his sisters have a much more loving relationship than Dexter and Deedee, plus Johnny cleverer than Deedee :p )... its like a receipe using some similar ingredients but using them completely differently.
 
I've never really noticed any design similarities between the two shows...except for maybe the dads.

In fact, there's not really a lot of similarities, outside of the whole "secret scientific experiments hidden from the parents" theme. Of course, I haven't watched Johnny Test in two years, so I might be missing something.
 
Well, Johnny has blond hair and is somewhat intrusive like Dee-Dee, and his sisters Mary and Susan are both super scientists with their own impossibly high-tech lab and both have red hair and thick framed glasses like Dexter, but as previously stated, Johnny seems to have a better relationship with his sisters than Dexter and Dee-Dee do, and of course Dexter's Lab doesn't have a talking dog. Also, the Test's parents are noticeably different from Dexter and Dee-Dee's. Johnny Test may have initially been inspired by Dexter's Lab, but I wouldn't call it a flat out ripoff of Dexter.
 
I'm not saying it's a rip-off. It looks like they're doing an intentional parody or homage to Dexter's Lab. The parents like the siblings have a reverse thing going on with Dexter's Lab. The Dad is the stay at home parent obsessed with cleanliness like Dexter's Mom. I even think the character designs for the parents mirror Dexter's Lab. Both of the moms have short hair, wide hips and the same pointy feet.
 
I guess there are similarities but a parody is a spoof of another's work and since Dexter was already a comedy, I don't think so. In a way Johnny is like Dee Dee who is annoying and has blonde hair and Susan and Mary are like Dexter who is smart and has red hair but that's just a coincidence.
 
From what I've seen of Johnny Test, the parents fully know what Johnny and his sisters do all the time, so it doesn't even share that similarity.

As Master Toon said, all the actual similarities are pretty much just coincidences.
 
I doubt the similarities between the 2 shows are a complete coincidence, given that Johnny Test's executive producer, Chris Savino, also worked on the last season of Dexter's Laboratory. So perhaps it's just a homage.

The only slight pet peeve I have about Johnny Test is: on Dexter, the orange-haired boy is the super-genius with the high-tech lab, and he's the star of his show. His annoying blond sister is merely the co-star. But on Johnny Test, the genders are reversed: the annoying non-genius blond kid is the brother while the sisters are the super-geniuses, yet it's still the boy's show, with the girls as the co-stars. Susan and Mary are the geniuses, so why couldn't they have been the stars of the show? The only possible reason I can see for this is simply demographic politics: the producers probably figured that boys wouldn't want to watch a show with female protagonists.
 
Well, their prime interest (when the creator usually writes an episode) is making Gil their boyfriend. That wouldn't really follow for a whole show based on them. :sweat: And Scott Fellows probably wanted Johnny to be the star from the start.
 
OK, I'll give you that, but in truth that could easily be changed with some creative writing. If the twins are one-dimensional, it's because the writers make them one-dimensional. The blame doesn't lie with the characters themselves.
 
Well, I've noticed that one sister appears to be a tad girlier than the other, while the other is a bit more tomboyish in dress and manner. I would probably expand upon that.

In fact, back in 2005, I wrote up a pilot for animated series I considered pitching to [adult swim] which was loosely inspired by Johnny Test (it also contained some aspects of Metalocalypse and The Impossibles) about a pair of twin sisters-one girly and sweet, the other Goth and tomboyish-who were simultaneously superheroes and rock stars. They lived in suburbia with their parents, who had the same role-reversal thing happening as the Test parents, and occasionally received assignments from The Suits-government agents in black suits who would pop out from garbage cans, closets, toasters or whatever-to give them missions to save the world, and many of the episodes would feature the twins singing a cheesy bubblegum pop number. (I'll probably never actually do anything with it, otherwise I wouldn't type it on a public message board. :sweat:)

But I think we're drifting a bit off-topic now.
 
Johnny's sisters are a total ripoff of Dexter's Lab. I thought so when I first saw the show's opening sequence, and was, frankly, kinda ticked about it, since Dexter is one of my fave toons. And the storyline - pesky sibling is always bugging a brainiac sibling(s) while they're trying to work on their latest invention - is disturbingly familiar too. Johnny's not nearly as funny as Dexter, though, IMO. The only funny character on it IMO is the dog.
 
Huh...that's not the plot at all. The general plot line is that Johnny let the girls use him as a test experiment in exchange for the chance to use their crazy inventions for his own benefit. Johnny gets into crazy hijinks either on his own or due to super villains and then, with his clever streak and his sister's help, get himself out. He sometimes save the world too.
 
Superficial is definitely the word for this show. It feels like something built from the parts of other shows (weird science, talking animal, oblivious parents) and overlaid with a painful level of straining-to-be-hipness. One of the recurring characters is named Bling-Bling Boy, for cripes' sake!

It's not the worst cartoon with Scott Fellows' name on it (he did co-write "Fairly OddBaby", after all), but, at the same time, it didn't even try to be good.
 
When Johnny Test 1st premiered on Kids' WB, I thought that is was one of the dumbest shows that I had ever seen. Now, having seen some more episodes, my take on JT is that it's a bad show that has the potential to be good, or at least less bad. Yes, there are indeed some "trying-desperately-to-be-cool" moments on Johnny Test (a rich supervillain kid calling himself "Bling-Bling Boy"?? That's just embarrassing *shakes head*), and I would personally love it if the shows' pacing would slow down, just for a moment. Why do the writers feel that they have rush through everything, like they're trying to beat the clock of their production deadline or something, but despite the wasted potential, there have some fairly amusing moments on the show.

Johnny and Dukey (ugh! That name) aren't my favorite characters on the show, but I can tolerate them to a point. At least Johnny isn't vanilla bland or a loserly whiner. Dukey, however, is no Brian from Family Guy. I kind of like Susan & Mary. They're twins and their geniuses, two good things to be. I prefer the shorts when they have other things besides just Gil on their minds. As characters, Mary and Susan have the potential to do more than pine away for the hunk next door. I also like how Johnny and his sisters aren't portrayed as bitter enemies, the way many other siblings are shown on TV to be. The parents are OK, I suppose. The role reversal thing (Mom works while Dad takes care of the house) was an interesting touch. I prefer the later seasons, when we started to see more of the mom, Lila, not to mention her tantalizingly short business skirt. :D
 
I'll give you that, at six o'clock on a Saturday morning, I tend to get lost very easily. :sad:

I don't personally think that JT is a sip-off of any particular show, but it does carry a lot of themes/situations that are common in the cartoon world. The show has enormous potential to be great, it just needs a better mix of writing/timing. The characters are OK (Bling Bling aside) and the design is fine with me. I dunno, maybe being on the Cartoon Network may be beneficial for it.
 
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