The Final Episode #145: Gadget and the Gadgetini's (2002 - 2003)

 

So I need to stop saying things like I won't talk about this thing for a decade. Even as a joke. A few months ago I did a redo for The Final Episode of Inspector Gadget. I mentioned in the bottom paragraph how I would not talk about Inspector Gadget for a decade. Then my brain was like "NO MICHAEL YOU MUST TALK ABOUT GADGET AND THE GADGETINIS" I mean yeah I did talk about it before in my not very good YouTube videos. I figured I would do this because I guess it feels right to do this sequel series and discuss it in more depth than I did in my very bad YouTube video on Inspector Gadget which even less people watched than people who read this blog. I know there is also Gadget Boy but I don't really want to talk about that series but I probably will one day. Anyway let's get into some discussion on Gadget and the Gadgetinis.

So we come back to DiC, something we've discussed a lot on this blog and will continue to do so because I like them. I don't think we will do every cartoon but I know you all need my thoughts on Hammerman and ProStars. Bo Jackson teaming up with Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky to fight crime! SIGN ME THE HELL UP SON! So I've mentioned the DiC story before. They started in 1971 and this was 2001 or 2002 or whatever. I don't know. This was their fourth and last decade in production. They are now owned by Wild Brain a Canadian company that has bought up like every other Canadian company that had anything to do with making cartoons or children's programs. I do not like the name Wild Brain.

This was a pretty sad decade for DiC which you can see in what shows they were making. This is the decade of Super Duper Sumos and Dinotopia. Also  a cartoon based on the comedy movie Evolution (which I remember liking). The animation was somehow cheaper than decades past (Shit I love Super Mario Brothers Super Show but it was cheap as fucking hell) and just kinda not a lot of fun to watch. I mean from what very little of this era of DiC that I have seen. Gadget and the Gadgetinis was something I only watched two episodes of and well you will find out how I feel about the show soon enough. At least after one or two more paragraphs of set up.

So this series brought back all of the original creators of Inspector Gadget. Andy Heyward, Jean Chalopin and Bruno Bianci. Bruno would create the redesigns and man I don't really like them. I can only think of one redesign I've liked and that was of the chipmunks from the 1980s. Both of those redesigns are really great. Most of the time I really do always like the original style of something than most redesigns. I can't say I hate these designs but I don't really like them. Especially Penny because she was NOW COOL AND 2002. I'd show a picture of her but I don't care enough. Go google that shit yourself you lazy fuck. They worked with a French animation company that was apparently owned by HAIM SABAN. THE POWER RANGERS MAN. The only things they made that I know about are What's With Andy, W.I.T.C.H. and this show. I never really watched any of them and really do not care enough to do so.

So this show came out in 2002 and yeah that's after my cut off date but I gotta admit there are a few shows I want to do that ended in the 2000s and even 2010s so I'll count them and this sequel series of Inspector Gadget but really do not expect many post-2000 shows to ever show up here. Anyway I never saw this series when it came out and I have no idea when I learned of this show. I was too busy watching movies from the 1980s and around there and collecting and playing NES games and talking about those things on the internet. I would get back into comics around the year 2003 after finding out about comic stores our city had. I never saw this show on the Family Channel was where the show showed up on Canada. Yeah this has a Canadian voice cast but man I only know of like two of them. One voiced Vegeta in the Dragon Ball Z dub and one I am sure I've seen act in something live action. He's this very friendly looking black man named Alvin. I like that name.

 This show changed a good amount of stuff. Brain left, Chief Quimby left, they do not mention Corporal Capeman AT ALL. So I hope he's like dead in a ditch somewhere. Gadget works for some fancy criminal organization ran by a guy called Colonel Nozzhair. Like Nosehair. He is not very good or memorable as a character. Penny created two robots called Gadgetinis who now help Inspector Gadget not die due to his complete stupidity. This show also changed the humour a bit. Everyone is comedic now, instead of Inspector Gadget being the dumb idiot with super powers in a cartoon full of straight men. They gave Dr. Claw a brother called Dr. Thaw and his mother is even a character. Just got too goofy. I mean I only watched two episodes of the show but it just felt like it was wrong somehow. I dunno. Oh, and this show also got a PS2 game made for european countries. I have never played it but it looks like a pretty bland 3D sidescroller. I'll stick with REAL Inspector Gadget games like the one made for the SNES.

The Final Episode of this show was entitled "The Comet, The Unicorn and the Bad Gadgetinis" and was written by Mister Jean Chalopin himself. He wrote or co-wrote every episode of this show. Pretty neat. You already know his history with DiC and even his other animation company Jetlag but did you know he became a banker and is like probably super ultra rich now. He is 75 years old and is still at it! This episode aired on November 29, 2003. I don't know what I was doing then so we will say I was playing Kirby's Adventure for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Oh and did you know that despite being co-produced by the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA the show never aired there. Oh, and LIEUTENANT Gadget's parents show up in this show. 

 So we start with a news reporter telling us about a comet that is returning after seven hundred and seventy seven years. They must have been a fan of Allan's Video's Seven Dollars and Seventy Seven cents special. The Comet is called the Unicorn and the last time it showed up was the last time anyone saw an actual Unicorn. I must say that wow this cartoon looks cheap as hell. I didn't think DiC could get cheaper but they showed me! The other news reporter says that it might interfer with robotic shit. Oh no! The Gadgetinis!!! We then go to a dirty man who is trying to do a William Shatner impersonation but it is very bad. He is not good at it. He works for Dr. Claw and is telling him it's all going according to plan. Oh no! 

Before I go on man Brian Cummings you did a great job as Vegeta but man you uh do not work as well as Dr. Claw. You can tell he's trying but it just does not feel right. The Doctor Henchman Guy tells Dr. Claw that the Unicorn's fur makes it invisible because it reflects light or some shit. I dunno. The Comet will mess with that and they will be able to see the unicorns that are apparently all around the place but we never bump into them. I guess they know where the Unicorns secret hiding place is but they can't find them. This episode is already stupid as hell.  We then go to the new Chief Colonel Nozzhair. He sucks. They do some really really really forced slapstick. It's not well done. He gets his assignment and leaves.

 

This is Penny's redesign and it's not one I like. They just seemed to try to make her cooler. I wish I could have gotten Gadget in there too because they removed the trenchcoat and he just wears a black thing. They look like some kind of pyjamas. Anyway Penny realizes the Comet is really bad for the robots just in case you forgot somehow. She goes to check on Inspector Gadget who is flying around with his helicopter thing and also has a umbrella out to test two gadgets at once. However the Gadgetinis have become BAD, of course they only became BAD after Gadget hit them. Maybe they finally had enough of his horse shit and decided it was time to kill him and are using the Comet as a excuse. Who knows? Anyway the Gadgetinis want to get paid and have vacation time and also medical. Full medical coverage. Penny says no and leaves for school. This gets them ANGRY and they decide to kill Gadget.

Dr. Claw somehow hacked into Gadget's house phone and the Gadgetini's talk to him and join up with M.A.D. All of this feels so try hard and corny that even if this show came out in like I dunno 1995 I probably wouldn't have watched it. I'm pretty sure I would have considered this the "dumb Gadget cartoon" and went of to watch something else. Oh and I guess Gadget didn't get an assignment this time. The Gadgetini's are just bringing him to Antarctica. They blow up a hole in a ice cave and shove him in there. They get back into their weirdly designed plane and shoot ice and snow down covering up the hole. Gadget is stuck in a cave which he can easily get out of with his gadgets. Like this really shouldn't be a problem even for a character as stupid as he is. Gadget of course thinks this is some kind of spa and some penguins come by and he thinks they work for him. The penguins freak out and run around and then Gadget decides to run around.  This is trying way too hard.

So we return to the Doctor Henchman Guy and his weird attempt at doing William Shatner and he has found Unicorn Island. He's going down to look for the Unicorn that will apparently help then take over the world. He fails and crashes the plane he was in. Now he will have to go on foot to get the Unicorn. Or maybe Dr. Claw could get the Gadgetini's to do it. Oh, he actually does do that. It's nice to know someone does something intelligent in this show. So the Unicorn destroys the random blue Gadgetini and the orange one literally catches it easily.  We go back to Gadget and he goes swimming with Penguins. the water is too cold and the joke of character gets turned into an ice cube is used for approximately the 9 millionth time. This time it does not make me laugh however. 

Penny then talks about how the Unicorn can do what it can do and man this really feels like it's talking down to kids. Yeah kids can be silly and stupid and maybe not even pay full attention to something but you don't have to keep repeating something within a 20 minute time frame. This is not a hard plot to follow at any age. She does at least give some new information which is that the Unicorn's milk makes anyone who bathes in it super strong.  Gadget in the ice cube calls Penny on his GADGET CELL PHONE and she tells him about what he's got to do. He gets a rocket out of nowhere and puts it on.  He's going to Unicorn Island!

 He flies into space and sees the Comet and now the Comet messes with him and he turns around and becomes a fireball ready to hit the earth. Penny freaks out and uses her computer to get gadget incased in a spaces ship??? This really feels like someone was writing it on the toilet fifteen minutes before it was needed to be shipped off to the animators. She tries this ass-pull shit on the Gadgetinis and well they literally just changed their passwords. This is very lazy.  We go to the Gadgetinis and they are bitching about something or other. I frankly stopped caring so don't expect my A+ material any more. I just want to get this over with. Lol, Penny just guesses the password and uploads the shit that turns them good again. That just feels like such an ass-pull and most of the time in the original series Gadget would win by knocking out the bad guy accidentally. IT STILL FELT MORE OF A WIN THAN THIS.. I should also mention that Penny is at HOME and not anywhere near this so she's not in any danger either!

The Gadgetinis and Gadget just show up to the DOCTOR HENCHMAN GUY and Dr. Claw tries to get them to do something and they are like LOL ITS 5:02 NOW WE ARE OFF THE JOB and Gadget just grabs the unicorn milk from the doctor henchman guy and you can tell I stopped caring because I'm not even putting that name in all caps for some weird comedic reason. He of course fucks up and gets the milk on him. Blah blah blah. the henchman guy gets some milk and gets knocked off the planet and on to the Comet. He is powerful enough to stand on the Comet but I guess the Unicorn's is stronger?  I dunno. When you have to ask questions like that you either have autism or the joke doesn't work. Or maybe both. I don't know. 

Some more horse shit happens with COL. NOZZHAIR but I don't care enough. Sorry. I'm done for now.

FINAL THOUGHTS: I said this show was okay when I watched it for my shitty Youtube Video but I think I said that because compared to the live action movies, the CGI animated Gadget movie (which is one of the worst things I've ever seen and no I will not rewatch it so I can review it, fuck you), Gadget Boy and that weird Field Trip show this is okay. Compared to like anything else it's not. The original show worked because it played within it's own rules and this show seems to have no rules set in stone. Just do whatever you can and get the story over with. I dunno. Another problem is that this show makes Gadget really 100 times dumber than he was before hand. Writing a stupid character is hard because there is a point where people will go "No, not even they would do something that stupid" and this show does that all over the place. I did not enjoy my time with this show and will not watch any more of it. I will probably talk about Gadget Boy but not for a very long time.