Dial M for Monkey: Magmanamus

"Dial M for Monkey: Magmanamus", or more commonly known as "Magmanamus", is the second of three shorts of the first episode of the animated television series "Dexter's Laboratory". The short was written by Craig McCracken and directed by series creator Genndy Tartakovsky and Paul Rudish.
In "Magmanamus", a lava monster named "Magmanamus" (voices by Brad Garret) wants to sleep but keeps getting disturbed by the citizens, so he transforms into his full form to tell the citizens to quite down. However, people don't get his message and Monkey comes to the city to put Magmanamus back into his hole.
Story
The short starts with a bustling and loud city filled with cars, people, and anything that would make a lot of noise normally going by its day, but underneath is a whole other story. Underneath the construction, subway, pipes, and even dinosaur fossils lives a lava monster who's rustling in his sleep. He finally gets up and pokes the top of his cave with a broomstick and tries to go to sleep, but then the sound of a skidding car crashing into something anger Magmanamus enough to get him all fired up. A man on the sidewalk is reading a newspaper and refers to how much he hates Mondays doesn't realize the gushing lava beneath until it's too late. The lava erupts and destroys the sidewalk and outcomes Magmanamus in a very large form than before while the citizens stood jaw dropped.
Magmanamus, instead of destroying the whole city, yells at the citizens to quiet down because he's been trying to get some rest for the past 200 years while making rude remarks about them. A sigh of relief comes from Magmanamus as he thinks that the conflict is over until the citizens begin to freak out and run for their lives. Magmanamus tries several times to calm them down but it's no use and has had enough, so he breaks an entire block with a single punch. Back at Dexter's lab, Dexter (voiced by Christine Cavanaugh) wakes up his caged monkey and gives him food so he can begin testing soon. While Dexter is typing on his high-tech computer, he sees that there's volcanic activity in the city, and he gets very happy and believes it to be a new volcano and rushes off to check his "charts". Monkey realizes the suspicious activity so he puts on his Monkey suit and flies off to save the city.
In the city, jets swoop in to destroy the lava monster but fail to do so, and Magmanamus gets even more annoyed when the pilot tries to apologize to him. Monkey flies into the city and finally comes face-to-face with the monster, the monster seems confused at first but when the monkey manages to punch him in the face all the way to some buildings, he gets furious. Magmanamus punches back at Monkey and lands him right into a ringing bell, which unfortunately for Magmanamus makes everything worse, so he starts crying and pleading that all he wanted was a "little silence". Monkey isn't finished yet so he catches Magmanamus off guard and throws him into a few utility poles causing a huge explosion in the city that could be spotted for miles as Monkey taunts the monster.
Magmanamus is visibly at his breaking point with fire all around him, so he pulls off the road and flings into a tsunami formation at Monkey. Monkey gets trapped inside the ruble but is then pulled out by Magmanamus, who then proceeds to fling Monkey into a building side pole which Monkey grabs onto and performs a trick. Magmanamus then blows fire at Monkey and continues to beat him up and punch him into the ground. All of the citizens lay motionless and then chant "Monkey" to annoy Magmanamus, but before he could do any more destruction, Monkey realizes Magmanamus's pleas all along and begins to magically lift the monster in the air and rock him to sleep. Once Magmanamus fell asleep, Monkey slowly put him in one of the wholes he had created during their fight. Monkey bursts a sigh of relief and the crowd cheer him on only to Magmanamus silencing them again.
Reception
IMDb:

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See Also

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