You know how I said it would be mixing it up with other things, well I decided against that until I get bored of redoing stuff. You might see something else before I'm done with the eight posts I just feel need to be redone. If I literally had no commenters I would probably have deleted those original posts I just do not like them. But I'm keeping them if only for historical context. I mean the people who find this earth after we destroyed it will want to know about Inspector Gadget and I'll be the last website that mentions it! Or at least the last website that goes into great detail about it. I want those people to know that I liked Inspector Gadget enough to write about it twice. To make sure they got all the information they could about it. I don't know where I'm going with this post but I also don't care. I just feel like talking about Inspector Gadget.
So, Inspector Gadget. First we have to talk about DiC, yet again. Quick version. They were an animation company that started in 1971. It was ran by a man named Jean Chalopin. Inspector Gadget was one of their first cartoons that people saw. I mean people who didn't live in France saw. Anyway the two prior were Ulysses 31 and Mysterious Cities of Gold. These two shows were made with help from Tokyo Movie Shinsha. They wanted to work together for a third time. TMS was making a anime based on the Lupin III manga. They decided they wanted to make Lupin the 8th (I don't know that in Roman Numerals and I do not want to look it up. I'm lazy, piss off) but they did not realize that the people who created original Arsenie Lupin books weren't too keen on them using the character. I dunno if they could stop Japan from doing it but when they brought them to France and maybe other places they were like "no way bro" and TMS and DiC then had to figure out what to do. They bring in Andy Heyward from Hanna Barbera and they come up with the idea of Inspector Gadget.
Inspector Gadget is the story of a Police Inspector with all kinds of gadgets that tries to stop the evil crime organization of M.A.D. His niece, Penny and her dog Brain pretty much have to keep on eye on him because he's a complete and utter moron. That's where the comedy comes from. The people of France, Japan, Canada (hey!) and America all came together to bring this cartoon to you. It's a very worldly cartoon. It's pretty much a weird and wild amalgamation of Mission Impossible, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Get Smart, The Pink Panther and Dino Mutt from Hanna Barbera. It was a pretty big hit really. It started in 1983 and was a big enough hit for DiC to get all kinds of other cartoons off the ground.
It had two seasons of 86 episodes, a Christmas special in 1992, a kid-ified version of the show in Gadget Boy, a weird let's travel the world with Inspector Gadget show, a let's learn about History from the kid-ified Gadget Boy, several video games, and a sequel series in Gadget and the Gadgetinis. Oh and when Disney owned DiC and Inspector Gadget they made two live action movies. Neither of them are very good but the second one is probably closer to the show than the first. Oh and they made several animated movies. One of them being one of the worst things I've ever seen. It was terrible. I do not want to remember it. YOU WOULD KNOW THIS IF YOU WATCHED MY BEAUTIFUL YOUTUBE VIDEO ON THE SHOW.
So, what did I think of Inspector Gadget. Well you see it was partially animated in Canada and except for Frank Welker and Don Adams the entire rest of the cast were Canadian voice actors, such as Dan Hennessey and Cree Summer. Yes that's right Cree Summer was born in Canada. Her dad is the Sherrif character in My Bloody Valentine. I felt you all needed to know that. So with this in hand, that meant that Inspector Gadget counted as Canadian Content. Broadcasters in Canada have to have a certain amount of Canadian Content, so they would pull out stuff from the 1980s and other decades and just put it on. Just about every Canadian channel that needed some content for kids used Inspector Gadget. It wouldn't surprise me if some Canadian channel is showing this show right now. It didn't bother me because I found this show to be incredibly entertaining and really funny. It's definitely not a bingable show. It's very repetitive but watching an episode a day was a great way to see it. It was totally one of my "watch before school" even though at that point I was like a teenager and probably should be watching something more adult. Who cares, I like Inspector Gadget. He's a goof but he still tries his best.
The other thing that happened is that we in Canada would ONLY get the first season, as Nelvana did NOT work on the second season. I mean it wouldn't get reran. I don't know if it aired in 1986 because I was a little baby of a child. That was done in house at the American branch of DiC. When I heard about his from the website Jump the Shark (which literally had a page for like every tv show ever where tyou could read about where other people thought the show stopped being good.) That's where I learned about the second season and it blew my damn mind. It took another 25 years for me to finally sit down and watch them and finally meet the character Corporal Capeman. I don't know what they were thinking of with this character as Inspector Gadget was already the goofy comedic relief. Corporal Capeman was just annoying and I hated him. Jump the Shark website no longer exists and it's remake site Bone the Fish is up but does not work as a website. Isn't it great how whats left of Internet 1.0 is just rotting away. I love it. Anyway the 12 episodes without Corporal Capeman are pretty good. However The Final Episode of this show has him in it.
I must be honest and say that this episode has been sitting in the queue as a draft for like days now. I think it was like December 4th when I first wrote the first few paragraphs of this. This will be the third time I watch this episode and the last two times I wasn't in love with it. I know it's weird and corny and cheesy and lame to complain about a cartoon character as much as I complain about Corporal Capeman but he really is completely useless. He's really bad comedic relief when Inspector Gadget was already the comedic relief. Corporal Capeman is up there with the comedic relief in the Michael Bay Transformers movies. Spike Witwhickys goofy parents getting high or an autobot pissing or shitting on John Tutturo. You know what was cool the fact that for a little while we were getting pretty good Transformers movies (like Bumblebee and Rise of the Beast or whatever the hell the second one was called) but now Michael Bay is coming back again. Wonderful. I hope they don't try to shoehorn in G.I. Joe, I'm sorry movie studios but the time of the CINEMATIC UNIVERSE is kinda over. I don't know why I typed all this.
Anyway the Final Episode of this show was called "Gadget and the Red Rose" and was aired for the first time on November 13th, 1985. I was only a few months old at this time. Just a wee baby. It was written by Jack Hanaran (who wrote for Get Smart, Laugh In and like 2894 DiC cartoons) and Eleanor Burian-Mohr who wrote for DuckTales and 2895 DiC Cartoons. Just one more than Jack. Anyway the episode opens with Corporal Capeman or as Gadget calls him Capman. Do you think Don Adams thought the characters name was Capeman and was like fuck off when DiC told him to come back to re-record. I hope so because that's funnier than anything in this episode. He is putting Acid Sour Cream into a Gadzooka. and just randomly firing it everywhere. I know Gadget was a complete doofy dipshit from Day one but I think he'd at least tell Capeman to shoot at a target and not a fucking telephone pole. He is told to finally hit a target but his dumb ass shoots poor old Brain's dog house. Then Gadget is like a few more fixes and no MAD weapon will ever stop it.
We then change scenes to Dr. Claw and MAD Cat. MAD Cat is just hitting the button on the MAD Computer until The Red Rose shows up. The unstoppable weapon. It's owner was Spuds Malone. I don't really like how the second season made MAD goofier. Yeah they could be silly but they still had some menace to them. They make them a lot more comedic and it doesn't work as well. Anyway if you couldn't tell from Sour Cream and Spuds stuff well, the Red Rose is a machine gun that shoots mashed potatoes at you. He calls Les Reknown or whatever this characters name is and he's old and deaf and thinks Dr. Claw is actually calling asking for Dr. Claw. This bit is just really tired. Les goes to get Spuds Malone and Spuds Malone is like No dice! Les tells him to cut the Charles Bronson bit and that Gadget was the only witness to the St. Patrick Day's Massacre, as he was the baby that somehow saw Spuds Malone kill people with Mashed Potatoes. I do like how this scene is done make it it look like an old timey photograph from 1902 or whatever.
Spuds Malone is in. He doesn't want Gadget to send him to jail. So he gets his henchmen Tater and Fingers to help him find Red Rose. They join up and then w e go back to Gadget and Capeman. It's time for Chief Quimby to show up. Chief Quimby's voice actor in Season 1 was much better. Nothing but love to Maurice LaMarche but I just liked Dan Hennessy better in this role. He blows up and then says one of the few comments in this episode that made me laugh. He goes "It needs chives, Gadget" You see the Gadzooka was powered by Acid Sour Cream! He just sounds so defeated when he says it too. It did legit make me laugh. Gadget was given a place to go to find Spuds Malone and he goes right to there. I guess the Police force never bothered to pick him up ever before this. Gadget goes to Spuds house right as Spud and his men boobytrapped the house with tons of potatoes. You know in the first season when they wanted to kill Gadget they used a bomb. Gadget goes into the house but Brain jumps in front of him and gets crushed by the potatoes. Gadget also said Spud which was the codeword to get Corporal Capeman to shoot acid all over Spuds house and I sit here wondering why I ever chose to do this with my precious God given time.
Spuds and Gadget met up again in their cars. I didn't mention it but I am now. Spuds was going to Heck's Kitchen to find his old slum house and it turned out that his slums were turned into Condos! Oh no! Spuds then decides to go to his old reformatory school to find the Red Rose. Brain as a rose bush runs by after Gadget literally has Capeman shoot tons of acid sour cream on a building destroying it. A building people lived in. They chase them to the reformatory school which is now a Rose garden. The bad guys get into the sewer and everyone does a chase. Spuds Malone gets one of his henchmen to open up the water vane in the sewer oh no. You can tell I'm very invested in this. Spuds remembers where the Red Rose is but Penny also found it and changed it around. Her computer book ends up jamming the Red Rose which stops the bad guys and Chief Quimby says Gadget did a good job and Dr. Claw flies off screaming ILL GET YOU NEXT TIME GADGET and I'm just happy I don't have to watch this episode ever again.
FINAL THOUGHTS: This show clearly ran out of steam with the second season but here's the real thing. I'm pretty sure if I had seen these episodes as a kid I would not have liked them and any time they came on I would have probably gone "Oh it's one of the dumb episodes", changed the channel and found something better. I'm glad I finally gave it the post it deserves but I think I'll wait another decade or two before I talk about Inspector Gadget again.
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