Inspector Gadget

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Inspector Gadget
Image:Gadget4.jpg

Format animated series
Run time 22-23 Minutes
Creator Jean Chalopin
Starring Don Adams
Frank Welker
Maurice LaMarche
Cree Summer
Country United States
Network Syndicated
Original run September 10, 1983 – February, 1986
No. of episodes 86 List of episodes

Inspector Gadget is an animated series about a clumsy, absent-minded, and oblivious detective, Inspector Gadget, who is a cyborg with various "gadgets" built into his anatomy. Gadget's main nemesis is the mysterious Dr. Claw, leader of an evil organization known as MAD. This was the merchandising company DiC Entertainment's first syndicated show, and ran from 1983 to 1986 in syndication. This article pertains to the original cartoon series and its characters and plots; for information on it later spinoffs, see Inspector Gadget spinoff incarnations.

The name has passed into common parlance to refer to people similarly obsessed with gadgetry.

Contents

Cast of characters

Image:Braindog.png
  • Inspector Gadget (Voiced by Don Adams) - Bumbling and somewhat Quixotic cyborg detective, who is also the title character.
  • Penny (Voiced by Cree Summer, then Holly Berger) - Gadget's niece. Inspector Gadget is her guardian and caretaker, though often she seems more suited to be his caretaker due to Gadget's clumsiness and general cluelessness. In addition, unknown to any of the recurring characters outside of Brain, she is the investigator who is MAD's true foe responsible for foiling its schemes.
  • Brain (Voiced by Frank Welker) - Penny's dog. He often walks upright, and communicates with Penny through a device built into his collar. Brain can communicate with humans using his voice, but has some difficulty with pronunciation. Aside from speaking in a low gruff voice, he tends to interject most words with the letter "R" similar to the way other cartoon dogs, such as Scooby-Doo and Astro from The Jetsons do. How much the humans in the show understand him is debatable, since he mostly uses pantomime to communicate.
  • Dr. Claw (Voiced by Frank Welker) - The main villain in the series and leader of the evil organization known as MAD. His face is never seen by viewers, but an action figure of Dr. Claw with his face in full view out of the container was produced in the 1990s.
  • Chief Quimby (Voiced by Maurice LaMarche) - Gadget's boss. He appears at the beginning of each episode with his own theme music to deliver Gadget his mission, and appears again at the end of each episode to congratulate Gadget on a job well done.
  • Corporal Capeman (Voiced by Townsend Coleman) - A nerdy sidekick who dressed in stereotypical superhero garb and, accompanied Gadget in a few episodes during the second season. He was as clueless as Gadget. The two had a student/mentor relationship, though Gadget was rarely teaching anything nor was Capeman learning. Capeman was obsessed with learning to fly and often mistakenly believed he had miraculously acquired the power of flight while in the midst of dire circumstances. His last appearance was in the series' last episode: "Gadget and the Red Rose" (#86). He was widely disliked by the series' fan base.

In the first season, nearly every episode saw the introduction of some supervillain who had come to be employed by Dr. Claw to commit a crime suited to their special skills. They were typically arrested at the end of the episode, and did not appear again in the series.

Plot

Image:Penny gadget.jpg

Inspector Gadget was apparently employed by the Metro City police department, and all episodes either took place or began somewhere in Metro City. However, his missions would often take him to a different exotic locale generally without giving any explanation as to how a crime on the other side of the earth was of interest to the Metro City police.

Every single episode followed a standard plot, with little variation, although there were rare exceptions:

  • Gadget, Penny, and Brain are engaged in some family activity that is interrupted by Police Chief Quimby appearing in an outlandish disguise.
  • Quimby gives Gadget a mission on an exploding sheet of paper. The sheet of paper always winds up exploding in Quimby's face after Gadget has read it, a spoof of the exploding taped messages in the TV show Mission Impossible. This happens shortly after Gadget says his catchphrase "Don't worry Chief, I am always on duty." The episode "Health Spa" (#5) is the only episode in which the paper does not explode, as Gadget this time does not even get a mission.
  • Dr. Claw is always somehow visually monitoring this event on his computer from his desk or car, and introduces his scheme and usually a new supervillain employee to the viewers. The schemes are always either stealing something or destroying Gadget, eventually trying to stop Penny when she is discovered.
  • Gadget bumbles through his mission oblivious to what is going on around him, almost invariably mistaking hostile enemy agents for helpful allies.
  • Brain is always instructed by Penny to follow Gadget to make sure he does not get hurt. Brain would make use of various costumes (although how he got them is not explained) and often interacts with Gadget who never recognizes him. Gadget usually considers the disguised Brain to be the main suspect. When intervening to save Gadget from MAD agents, Brain often becomes victim (along with the agents themselves) instead of Gadget. Gadget himself rarely comes to any harm and, if he does it's usually self-inflicted.
  • Penny investigates and solves the crime, with the help of her Computer Book. Often Penny gets captured and escapes the criminals during her investigation.
  • Inspector Gadget invariably gets credit for solving the mission, everyone believing that he has in fact stopped Dr. Claw single-handedly. Chief Quimby appears and congratulates him. No one ever suspects that it was in fact Penny and Brain who did all of the work. Typically they show up and Gadget dosn't even know how they got there but, is delighted to see them. Like many cartoons, the episode ends with them all laughing at something.
  • In common with many 1980s American children's TV shows, Inspector Gadget last scene is a safety tip often relating to the episode.

While the show was admittedly formulaic (at the time, it was often compared with the 1960's TV show Get Smart, which also starred Don Adams, but the two have very little in common), charming and appealing main characters, exotic and varied locations, and solid writing kept the series entertaining. Also, children tend to enjoy formulas and repetition, which helped keep the show popular long after its cancellation.

Episodes

See List of Inspector Gadget episodes

Unexplained facts

One element of Inspector Gadget's popularity was the fact that a lot of the show's premises were never fully explained, which in turn led to open speculation. The show offered virtually no back-story, which forced viewers to use their imaginations to explain the unexplained.

Image:Chief quimby.jpg

For example:

  • Dr. Claw's identity; no backstory is ever given to him, and we never see his face.
  • How Dr. Claw is able to visually monitor virtually any event anywhere.
  • How Chief Quimby acquired detailed information about every one of Dr. Claws plans.
  • The source of Dr. Claw's wealth.
  • The history of Dr. Claw's feud with Gadget (they are long-time enemies in the pilot)
  • The location of Penny's parents. Usually, fans assume she is an orphan.
  • Gadget's first name and/or real name. (In the series, he introduces himself by saying, "My name is Inspector Gadget"; other references make it clear that "Inspector" is his legal first name and "Gadget" his legal last name.)
  • The circumstances under which Gadget had his gadgets installed. (We only know that they were installed by Professor von Slickstein, making the first of his few appearances in the fourth episode to air, The Amazon.)
  • The location of Dr. Claw's hideout, and why, if Quimby was able to obtain all of his other information about Claw, he never discovered and raided said hideout (most episodes depict Claw in the same fortress in the same location)

Inspector Gadget's gadgets

Image:Gadget2.jpg

Inspector Gadget's gadgets were the most unique aspect of the show, and although they were central to his character, they rarely ever actually did him any good when it came to solving his case. The Inspector could activate each of his gadgets by calling its name, "Go-go gadget arms!" (for example). More often than not the called gadget would either malfunction or the wrong one would be activated. When this happened he would muse that he desperately needed to get them fixed, although he apparently neglects to do this. Some of the gadgets were activated by reflex rather than being called, but this was rare.

The inspector seemed to have an infinite supply of gadgets located all over his body. However, there were several that appeared regularly.

List of Inspector Gadget's gadgets:

  • Gadget Binoculars: Binoculars lowered down out of his hat and over his eyes.
  • Gadget 'Brella: A hand holding an umbrella that came out of his hat. It could be used as a parachute.
  • Gadget Coat: His trench coat inflated when he pulled one of its buttons and enabled him to float. It was almost always deflated by being punctured.
  • Gadget Copter: A helicopter that came out of his hat that enabled him to fly.
  • Gadget Cuffs: A handcuff came out of his forearm just above his hand.
  • Gadget Ears: Enabled him to hear better when necessary.
  • Gadget Hands: Several mechanical hands could pop out of Gadget's hat. These hands would sometimes hold various objects including a camera, a motorized fan, a spotlight, a can opener, and others useful things.
  • Gadget Lasso: His necktie turned into a lasso.
  • Gadget Legs/Arms/Neck: His neck, arms, and legs could extend to great lengths.
  • Gadget Mallet: A wooden hammer held in a robotic hand that also came out of his hat. It usually wound up bopping someone it should not — sometimes even the Inspector himself.
  • Gadget Phone: A telephone in his hand. The antenna came out of one finger and the speaker and receiver on others. This was one of the few gadgets that were not voice activated. Possibly a loose reference, also, to Maxwell Smart's shoe-phone.
  • Gadget Respirator: A self contained breathing mask and the only hat gadget Gadget has to physically reach for and pull on.
  • Gadget Siren: A police light and siren popped out of the top of his hat.
  • Gadget Skates: Roller skates came out of the bottom of his shoes. Also, sometimes rockets would come out of the sides.
  • Gadget Skis: Skis extended out of the ends of his shoes.
  • Gadget Spring: A spring came out of his hat, enabling him to bounce usually when falling head first and hitting his head against the ground.
  • Finger Gadgets: There were several gadgets inside his fingers, accessed by taking the end off his finger to expose the gadget. These included a flashlight, key, laser, pen, motorized screwdriver, motorized drillbit, corkscrew, and whistle.

Gadgetmobile

Similar to his body, Gadget's car, the "Gadgetmobile", was also fully loaded with a seemingly limitless arsenal of gadgets. It had all of the clichéd features of any fictional crime fighting vehicle (like the Batmobile, or a James Bond car for instance) including a smoke screen, ability to drop a trail of tacks to blow out a pursuing vehicle's tires, and a winch on the front. Besides having all of the typical features, it had many specialized ones as well, such as the ability to extend its wheels (not unlike Gadget's arms and legs) to great lengths, and to completely transform into another vehicle altogether, the Gadgetvan, even while in motion. All of the Gadgets on the Gadgetmobile were voice activated in the same way that the gadgets on his body were activated, by calling its name, "Go go gadget van!" (for example).

Background information

The theme music for the show was composed by Shuki Levy & Haim Saban.

The first season was aired from September 10, 1983 to November 1984, comprising of 65, 22 1/2 minute long episodes. After the first season the show became a worldwide hit.

The first season episodes were repeated during the 1984–1985 season, with 21 new episodes premiering during the second and last season of Inspector Gadget from September 1985 to February 1986 making 86 in all. Several significant changes were made to the established formula in these cheaper episodes. For instance, evil henchmen would have recurring roles, appearing in as many as three episodes in a row without being arrested. The show lost some of its moral fiber that way, that "the bad guys should get punished." The crime would also center more often around simply getting rid of Gadget. Gadget, Penny, and Brain moved into a high-tech house filled with many gadgets, where a few of the episodes actually were located; probably another result of the lower budgets. Penny did not get into trouble as often, something which may have made the show less appealing to children. In the season's fourth episode, the writers introduced a sidekick named Corporal Capeman, who was and is widely unpopular with the show's fan base.

The cartoon was written in France, then animated in Tokyo, Japan, and (a few of the episodes) in Taiwan, before being voiced in Canada and broadcast in the USA in September, 1983. A month or so later, the show premiered in France. Don Adams, the voice of Inspector Gadget in the American version of the cartoon, had also played Maxwell Smart, the lead character in Get Smart, giving both shows a certain resemblance to U.S. viewers. When recording moved to the U.S. for the second season, several of the voices (among them Cree Summer, who played Penny) were replaced.

Trivia

  • Around the same time Inspector Gadget was being made, DiC Entertainment was also making a syndicated cartoon version of the comic strip Heathcliff. It was not at all uncommon to see characters from one show very briefly on the other, however no characters from either made any full blown guest appearances. For example on one episode of Heathcliff, some characters are watching a television program called "Inspector Gadget on Ice" and the inspector is visible on the television figure skating. Also, on one episode of Inspector Gadget, "Bad Dreams Are Made Of This", a detour through an alley in the Gadgetmobile startles Hector, Mungo, and Leroy, the "Catillac Cats" from the Heathcliff cartoon, who are eating out of trashcans there.
  • Inspector Gadget was occasionally mentioned in the live-action segments of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show. One episode even featured a special guest appearance by Don Adams playing the role Gadget.
  • Inspector Gadget appeared in the pilot episode sporting a mustache. It was never seen afterwards.

See also

External links

References

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