The series involves a boy genius named Dexter, who has a secret laboratory filled with highly advanced equipment, hidden behind a bookshelf in his bedroom. Access to this never-ending laboratory is achieved by saying various passwords or by activating hidden switches on the bookcase. Dexter is almost always in conflict with his obnoxious older sister, Dee Dee, who delights in playing in her brother's lab, often destroying his inventions and creations.
Dexter has an arch-nemesis, a boy named Susan Astronominov, who goes by the considerably more sinister name of Mandark. Oftentimes Mandark, through fraud or (rarely) by coincidence, attempts to take credit for Dexter's achievements. Mandark is also "secretly" in love with Dee Dee. In the later seasons, after the revamp, Mandark becomes significantly more evil, his laboratory dark-looking and spiky (instead of the bright, cartoony lab featuring the Death Star from earlier seasons) and his plans more diabolical and nasty.
The show's humor derives in part from Dexter's essentially one-sided and intense rivalry with his sister and from exaggerated stereotyping of his high intelligence and social awkwardness. A lot of absurdist and surrealist humour is used as well.