text: Dexter's Laboratory went on hiatus on June 15, 1998, after two seasons, with season two lasting 39 episodes. The series finale was initially intended to be "Last But Not Beast", which differed from the format of other episodes, in that it was a single 25-minute episode, rather than a collection of shorter segments. By this point, Tartakovsky was exhausted. His focus on the series had cost him two relationships, and he went on to joke that the process of running Dexter's Laboratory was like "giving birth to ten children." After putting the series on hiatus, Tartakovsky became a supervising producer on colleague Craig McCracken's series, The Powerpuff Girls; he directed episodes of that series and worked on The Powerpuff Girls Movie. After the movie, McCracken would later go on to create Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends for Cartoon Network. Both Hartman and MacFarlane left Cartoon Network altogether at this point; the former went on to create The Fairly OddParents and Danny Phantom for Nickelodeon while the latter went on to create Family Guy for Fox respectively.
  In 1999, Tartakovsky returned to direct Dexter's Laboratory: Ego Trip, an hour-long television movie. It was his last Dexter's Laboratory production to be involved with and was intended to be its conclusion. Ego Trip was hand-animated, though character and setting designs were subtly revised. Its plot follows Dexter on a quest through time to discover his future triumphs. It premiered on December 10, 1999, at 7:00 PM with a repeat broadcast on January 1, 2000, at 12:00 AM.