Bumbling Inspector Gadget battles the forces of M.A.D. with the aid of the various gadgets he has on his person: pop-up rollerskates, extensible arms, a helicopter-hat, etc. Despite the arsenal at his disposal (which is just as likely to misfire as work properly), Gadget never seems to be able to catch Dr. Claw, the mastermind behind M.A.D. Quite often, in fact, any success that Gadget might have is often caused by his niece Penny and her dog, who Gadget consistently fails to recognize as working incognito on the case. A bumbling bionic police inspector stumbles about on his cases, while his niece and dog secretly do the real investigative work. Inspector Gadget remains one of my favorite cartoon series. I've probably seen the 64 episodes of the original season dozens of times. It never gets tiresome to see Gadget's *ahem* gadgets fail on him or getting friendly with the M.A.D. Agents who are trying to off him.<br/><br/>I sometimes feel he was made to be dense so he wouldn't know Penny (his super-genius niece) and Brain (Gadget and Penny's disguise-wearing beagle) actually do all the heavy lifting.<br/><br/>The voice work of Don Adams (as Gadget), Cree Summer (as Penny) and Frank Welker (as Dr. Claw) is top-notch. The cartoon isn't dated at all in fact, despite being from the 1980's. I'll still watch an episode here or there on Teletoon Retro. It's great children's T.V., too.<br/><br/>My favorite episode is Quizz Master, the final episode of the original 64 series run. Dr. Claw brainwashes people on a Let's Make A Deal-type gameshow into robbing armored cars. It's laugh-out-loud funny to see Inspector Gadget's attempts to win a toaster. I remember watching this cartoon as a kid thinking that his niece should be the detective not him. My older brother said that was part of the comedy of the show that he takes the credit for all her work. I'm 19 now and look forward to the July 23 opening date for the movie. I just hope that Matthew Broderick is better in this than Godzilla. It won't be the biggest movie of the summer, Phantom Menace already took that honor, but I'm optimistic that it will do well.
Scowayl replied
293 weeks ago