WMG / Inspector Gadget

aka: Inspector Gadget 1999

Inspector Gadget

Gadget is perpetually high due to machine fluids running through his body

This is a theory I read on the forums, but it makes so much sense: Gadget isn't dumb, he's perpetually high off his rocker due to all the machine fluids, oil, etc. running through his body. Just look at his actions: He's smart enough to utilize an upside-down umbrella as a basket for holding garbage but mistakes a mechanical dragon for a dumpster. That's not stupidity, that's drug-induced hallucination.

The catch is that adrenaline can override the drugs and make him "normal" again, which is why he sometimes starts kicking ass (especially when Penny is in trouble): he's actually his real self during those times. He also seems competent and sane when he's at home just chilling, in other words at times when he's not using his machines as much.

'Current' Gadget (robot) contains the uploaded mind of 'Original' Gadget (Human)

Unfortunately either due to some problem with the upload process or the trauma of waking up as a machine caused Current gadget to have a mental breakdown. Only though installing numerous mental blocks and false memories (damaging his intelligence in the process)could he function again. He is now kept due to his strange effectiveness and to take care of Penny, who probably lost her parents to MAD. Original Gadget is either dead or a vegetable. Those who know keep quiet to honour original Gadget's memory.

Gadget was once a really intelligent cop (not a Cowboy Cop); whatever gave him more artificial body parts than RoboCop also affected his IQ.

Given that the propeller that he uses to fly comes out of the top of his head, it seems unnervingly likely that something had to come out in order to make room for it.

Gadget is Maxwell Smart after a horrible accident.

Same voice, same personality, same general level of effectiveness.

• Doesn't seem likely. Max may have been a bumbler, but he actually knew what he was doing; especially when he became serious. More often than not, he knew KAOS agents when he saw them and solved many of his assignments with limited assistance from 99. Whereas Gadget's success was largely due to Penny. The only way the theory works, is if Max suffered an I.Q. drop either due to the alleged accident, or in the process of becoming Gadget.

Gadget's seeming Obfuscating Stupidity is a Restraining Bolt.

It would make the most sense; if you have a cyborg who can do just about anything, and put him in INTERPOL, you'd want to do something to keep the other cops/agents useful, right? In order to keep Gadget from becoming too effective (a la RoboCop), Prof. Von Slickstein intentionally made him a bit of a ditz.

Gadget himself is just a diversion; the real agents are Penny and Brain.

Penny carries the Computer Book and radio watch, cutting edge technology far beyond Gadget's...er...gadgets. (Remember, this was in the 1980s, before laptops and cellphones existed on a mass scale). Brain is an artificially enhanced animal for urban recon, and he is clearly trained in espionage and a myriad of other skills.

The formula is this: MAD starts its Evil Plan; Inspector Gadget loudly charges in and gets MAD to reveal their hand; meanwhile, Brain and Penny get to work. This is intentional.

Clearly, Police Chief Quimby is in on this. Penny can contact him at any time to bring in The Cavalry, and he never asks why the same little girl is on the line every single time.

• In the second series, Inspector Gadget and the Gadgetinis, it's revealed that, eventually, Brain retired because of trauma induced by taking shots for (and from) Gadget, and now lives in a riverfront house. That's not what people do with pets. That's retirement with honors for a shell-shocked officer. Brain is also fully capable of speaking with humans because of a special collar Penny gave him — technology far beyond Gadget's.

Gadget is the diversion and is a lot smarter than he looks; he is Obfuscating Stupidity so Penny can accomplish the mission.

Penny and Brain are the real agents, but they aren't aware that they're the real agents. When Penny is in real danger, Gadget actively saves her without fail. This shows both that Penny and Brain are incredibly important and that Gadget can be quite clever.

Penny and Brain are being trained to become agents, but they don't know it.

Gadget is also trying to protect his niece from Dr. Claw and MAD. He could stop being "always on duty" if he wanted to, but he keeps it up so he can remain Penny's backup.

Penny is the daughter of Agent 86 and Agent 99

Her full name is Penny Smart, her uncle's is Gadget Smart. It fits them, no? Brain's name goes with the overall theme...

Very early in life Penny was noted to be perfect secret agent material, having inherited all of 86's fearlessness and determination (and very little of his doofusness) and all of 99's common sense and coolness under fire.

Gadget is never addressed by his last name, unofficially because his bosses wouldn't be able to call him Inspector Smart without laughing, officially because Penny's parentage is being kept secret to keep M.A.D. from putting two and two together and directing all their energies toward corpsing CONTROL's future #1 agent before she's old enough to properly defend herself.

• Interesting idea, but it doesn't seem likely. Max and 99 both had dark hair and brown eyes, whereas Penny is blonde with blue eyes.
  • Gadget has dark hair and brown eyes, as do both his parents (Penny's grandparents, natch.) Blonde hair and blue eyes are both recessive traits, so parents can pass them on to their children without exhibiting them themselves.
  • 99 had blue eyes. Also, would this make Penny their nameless daughter from season 5? If so, what happened to her twin brother (and 86 and 99, for that matter)?

Dr. Claw is Soundwave from Transformers.

Related to the theory that Cobra Commander is Starscream in a Pretender shell. Soundwave decided to start up his own side business as well. Madcat is Ravage.

Chief Quimby is Immortal

Chief Quimby has had one too many No One Could Survive That! moments to be a normal police officer. He may even be a cyborg himself, since any minor injuries he suffers at Gadget's hands are always gone by the end of the episode.

• He probably has Charles Atlas Superpower.

Inspector Gadget is unconsciously trying to kill Chief Quimby

M.A.D. operatives tried to alter/condition/program Gadget to serve their nefarious purposes, to extract revenge by turning an impediment into an instrument. Unfortunately for M.A.D., they were only able to program the kill Quimby directive.

• Fortunately, Gadget failed in that.
• Alternately, this is related to the theory at the top of the page. Human!Gadget's consciousness is attempting to get revenge on the guy who allowed him to become a machine.

Chief Quimby is Dr. Claw.

He uses a voice modulator whenever he dons the gauntlet. (You didn't think that was anyone's natural voice, did you?) He uses his network of M.A.D. tunnels to get wherever Gadget is and then gives him an exploding note in an attempt to assassinate him.

• This troper and his brother once thought the same thing.
• That has merit, because Quimby is always right there at the end, too - even if Gadget was around the world from Metro City.
  • However, there's an episode where we see Dr. Claw holding Quimby hostage with both of them talking to each other.
    • Robot double. He's talking to himself.

Dr. Claw is Chief Quimby.

It may be that Quimby got sick of his incompetent subordinate and created M.A.D. for the sole purpose of killing Gadget, inspired by Inspector Clouseau's boss. It may be that Quimby has multiple personalities.

• Alternately, see MAD is a front operation, below.
  • Not really a WMG. At the end of the closing credits, Quimby/Klaw walks right up to Gadget and tell him, to his face, that he’ll get him "next time."
  • When Penny and Brain walks up he's giving them a shifty look.
    • However, there's an episode where we see Dr. Claw holing Quimby hostage with both of them talking to each other.
    • Robot double. He's talking to himself. (He's not sane.)

Gadget's bizarre behavior, personality quirks and obliviousness are symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from the accident that took his limbs and the shock of waking up not fully human.

His lack of control over his Gadget parts is because, subconsciously, he does not accept that they are part of him.

He displays a fear of needles in one And Knowing Is Half the Battle segment despite having metal skin. He simply does not believe that he is a cyborg, and throws himself into his work as an attempt to compensate —"Inspector Gadget is always on duty!" His unacknowledged hatred for his inhuman condition leads him to sabotage himself every time.

• This was the way it worked in the first live action movie with Matthew Broderick.
• Except when Penny is in danger.
• Notice in the "Coo-Coo Clock Caper" episode where a device is making all of his gadgets act up, he says "I think there's something wrong with my gadgets." Not "there's something wrong with me" or just "there's something wrong." He refers to the gadgets as a separate entity, despite them being a key component of who he is and what he does. Even though they're integrated into him and his identity as an inspector he still talks about them as though they were completely separate and have no impact on his self-identity.

MAD is a front operation designed to keep Gadget busy.

M.A.D. is a diversion. Quimby is working both ends of a con, playing both the crook and the cop. He sends Gadget (and probably other elite detectives) into deathtraps to try to eliminate them, each deathtrap corresponding to some harebrained "M.A.D. scheme." At the end of the mission, Quimby shows up with his "officers" and "arrests" the M.A.D. agents — but he's just taking the agents back to HQ to plan the next caper.

This is why it always seems to be the same couple of guys working for M.A.D. — it IS the same couple of guys. Quimby can re-use them because Gadget is a Cloudcuckoolander.)

MAD is winning on percentages.

We don't see the crimes M.A.D. commits that Inspector Gadget isn't involved with, but Dr. Claw seems to be spectacularly well-funded and supplied with infinite goon resources.

How? Simple. M.A.D. has a 95% success rate on its criminal capers, only losing when they try something too audacious and Gadget is able to shut them down. It is an international organization, after all; it probably conducts multiple operations at the same time. Even if Gadget destroys every M.A.D. plan he comes in contact with (thus explaining Dr. Claw's ire towards him), that's only a small fraction of their overall activities.

• Gadget can't be the only operative working against M.A.D. Maybe MAD generally breaks even.
  • Off Screen Villain Dark Matter.

Gadget is not a cyborg, but a robot

Ignore The Movie and maybe Gadget Boy and Heather — it's not that hard.

This would clear up so many strange things: his name, his lack of background, and his constant misunderstandings of how the world works.

Either he was a once-in-a-lifetime achievement of technology, or Penny (who obviously built him) had her funding cut after the sources were unimpressed with Gadget's AI. (You can't blame them.) Nevertheless, they work with what they've got. With Penny's supervision, Brain's assistance, and Gadget's own sheer dumb luck, he works fairly well.

The Gadgetinis are an improvement on the technology, with less equipment but much better AI.

With everything that goes on, Penny may be a literal Gadgeteer Genius who has to scrounge together whatever she can get. The eccentric but effective force of Gadget is the result. She designated him as her 'Uncle' after losing her parents (probably to MAD).

• Alternately, the doctor that made Gadget a 'Cyborg' made him. The reason Penny thinks he's her uncle is he knew from government records from tests her parents were told to take her to an early age that she is increadibly gifted. When her parents died he took the opportunity to put his new creation into an intelligent family by telling a grieving, emotionally weak child this was her fake, long lost uncle. This, in addition to Gadget's stupidity, is make him think he still has his humanity and want to protect people. It also explains his bouts of hyper competency. He is programmed to be that good, but early experiments of the good doctor's all rebeled and saw themselves superior. Maybe even Claw is one.

• Expanding on the theme, Penny is a child genius who built Claw, who went rogue (and may or may not have killed her parents). She wanted to hunt him down and stop him, but she's a child. She also didn't want to be put into the foster system. So she built an Uncle to be her guardian (and got him a job as a detective hunting Claw) as well as a dogbot to act as her personal protection. Gadget is limited to keep him from going rogue. This helps explain why no matter how many times Penny is captured by MAD she never gets hurt... Claw can't actually harm her. Claw has probably destroyed Gadget several times, but Penny keeps rebuilding him, so Claw has given up on assassination. It should be pointed out that, as inept as Gadget is, Claw is pretty much equally inept. Nothing, however, can explain why Quimby puts up with Gadget.

Gadget is an undercover agent for a massive global secret agency, and he's training Penny.

Think about this one: Gadget is a cyborg, possessing highly advanced cybernetics, from the 1980s. He must have cost billions.

Think some minor metropolitan police department can afford that kind of cash? In the 1980s? No detective is worth that much, not even the competent geniuses.

Gadget must have held some Big Secret that made it worth keeping him alive at any cost when he had his accident.

He keeps up his Too Dumb to Live persona as a cover: he can travel to all sorts of exotic locations under the guise of "stopping MAD" to perform his real missions. Ever wonder why he can travel to different countries and execute investigations freely when he's a city detective? Sadly for us viewers, the real missions remain classified.

Quimby is his handler.

Penny is a genius, which is exactly what this unspecified global agency needs. Penny and Brain are allowed to "stow away" everywhere and "save" her bumbling uncle, giving her ample training without letting her know that she's being trained. Where do you think her computer book, a computer so advanced that it can hack mechanical things such as (1980s) helicopters and doors, came from?

And Brain? As mentioned above, he is either genetically engineered or trained to be the perfect assistant to a member of this agency.

Penny and Brain are in no actual danger. "MAD" is either a whole cloth fiction of this agency, or a bumbling crime syndicate led by an insane Bond Villain obsessed "mastermind" who's useful as a training tool but poses no real danger. If Penny ever gets in real trouble, then notice how Gadget suddenly becomes hypercompetent, quickly extracting her with barely a word before going back to bumbling wackiness.

• This agency is known by many names across the world, but it's best known by the name of its United States branch:... CONTROL.

Penny is currently working for the Los Angeles division of the agency under an assumed name.

The same world-wide organization designed for human protection would, having seen the success they achieved training Penny to become a super-spy, immediately repeat the experiment with two other young women who they've been tracking. All they need do is give Penny an assumed name, insert her into Beverly Hills and send her group up against colorful lunatic villains.

Gadget is not a cyborg. He is a modern day elemental, channeling the spirit of modern technology.

The story, as it has been retold by Inspector Gadget, is that he was gifted with his cybernetic implants by one Professor Slickstein in order to battle Dr. Claw and the forces of MAD. This is not true. As a human police officer, the man who would become Inspector Gadget went to investigate threats against the professor's life. He discovered, quite accidentally, that the Professor was in fact an agent of MAD, and the danger he was in was fabricated to give him an excuse to go into hiding. When he was found out, Slickstein knocked out the policeman and set his house ablaze. In his death, his spirit fused with the technology in Slickstein's lab, creating for him a body made from random electronic parts, and making him the avatar for the spirit of technology. This is how a cyborg as advanced as he could possibly exist in the 1980s, and why he seems to have a limitless supply of gadgets that couldn't possibly fit in his body. He subconsciously reshapes his parts to create almost any tool needed for a given situation. His technopathy also extends to the Gadgetmobile. He crafted the false memory of Slickstein giving him his gadgets to cope with the trauma.

• Hmm, I quite like that. It dovetails in with another theory I have:
• How do you explain Professor Von Slickstein showing up in the series as a good guy, then?

Besides being a cyborg, Gadget also wears nanotech-infused clothing.

It's been stated that many of Gadget's gadgets are inside his hat—the Copter Propellor, for one. Therefore, it and other objects must NOT come from inside his head. If it's just a normal hat, and if the gadgets don't exist inside him, where do they come from? ANSWER: the hat has a lining of nanotechnology that "shapes" itself into whatever gadget he calls upon. See the animated movie "Lupin the Third: Dead or Alive." The main story concerns some very Gadget-like technology.

• That would explain the Magic Skirt-like properties his trench coat seems to have. Seriously, that thing stays up nearly every time he lands on his head.

Brain is not a real dog.

He is alt. universe Agent Salad. From the Monty Python sketch "Mr. Nutrino"

The entire show is Inspector Gadget's Dying Dream.

Gravely wounded in the line of duty, he volunteered for an experimental cyborg conversion project— which failed. He died on the operating table.

Inspector Gadget used to be Maxwell Smart.

Maxwell Smart somehow got to the point where he almost died, but then they turned him into a cyborg. He basically forgot about his previous job with CONTROL and was sent to live with his neice...

"Doctor Claw" is the secret identity of a famous and widely recognizable real-life person.

Doctor Claw's face is never shown, and his voice is obviously disguised. Why? Because we would recognize him. There is a easily recognizable celebrity, perhaps in the world of entertainment or politics, that is leading this crime and terror organization from the shadows.

• My personal bet in roughly 1986 would have been then-US Vice President George H.W. Bush, but...
  • ...too easy.
  • Wrong. It's obviously Nick Briggs.

Doctor Claw is the original Gadget

He was horribly mangled and deformed by the incident, which is why he never shows his face. The MCPD gave him up as a lost cause and built a robot to replace him. Maimed, unpersoned and forced into a life of crime, you'd want to destroy your duplicate too, wouldn't you? It makes the story a lot more depressing, but don't worry. Claw will get the impostor... next time!

• Funny, IG character designer Brian Lemay thinks exactly the same thing.

Doctor Claw is Black Doom

The mechanical claw, the deep, rumbling voice, the seeming omnipresence, the apparently limitless agents...it all makes sense. MAD is the front organization for Black Arms, a terrorist organization led by an Eldritch Abomination. The goofy MAD thugs aren't human. Claw (nee Black Doom) imparts them with a morphic illusion belying their true, alien nature.

Doctor Claw is Nibbler

He's keeping himself busy while waiting for Fry to become the chosen one

Doctor Claw is Penny

Penny's parents are dead and her only living relative is Inspector Gadget. Unfortunately, if Gadget cannot maintain a steady job and income, Penny will be taken away and placed in an orphanage. To prevent this, Penny created the persona of Dr. Claw to "menace" the city and get Chief Quimby to maintain Gadget's job. Thus, Penny hires competent, but not * too* competent, henchman to menace Gadget and make him seem more effective than he really is. Thus, Gadget has job security and Penny can stay with her uncle.

Doctor Claw is Penny's father

Once upon a time Dr. Claw was an ordinary yet brilliant man with a wife and young child. He is also greedy and decides to use his genius to become rich, so he begins to set up the foundations of a criminal empire. Now as far as Penny knows both her parents died in an accident of some kind. Probably a car accident. Except it wasn't a car accident; it was a car intentional. The accident was actually a failed attempt on her father's life that only succeeded in killing her mother. Her father, now scarred by the incident, uses this as an opportunity to fake the dead and continue to build his empire using the new persona Dr. Claw. He has no contact with Penny because he knows if it became public knowledge the two were related she would end up like her mom. Also, he doesn't know anything about raising kids. This also means Gadget's sister was Claw's wife. Gadget, being Gadget, drove the poor man insane while the couple were dating and was a pain in the neck at the wedding. Probably the honeymoon too. Gadget of course is oblivious to this, yet still manages to annoy the crap out of his brother-in-law without even knowing it. Penny got her smarts from her dad and Claw is aware of her interference in his plans, yet whenever she is captured he orders his henchmen only to restrain her. He claims it is because even evil has standards and M.A.D. gains no profit from harming children, but in reality he doesn't want to see his daughter hurt. He DOES want Gadget dead though. His bumbling idiocy is an nuisance and his continued existence drives Claw up the wall. Look at his reaction in any episode, Gadget annoys him on a personal level.

• It should be noted that in some episodes of the show, Dr. Claw is voiced by Don Francks, the father of Cree Summer Francks (Penny). Make of that what you will.

In an alternate world, Penny was Dr. K from Power Rangers RPM

This is mainly due to their shared electronics skills. The difference between them is that Penny had her Uncle to step in and stop Alphabet Soup.

Inspector Gadget is a TimeLord.

And he's his own TARDIS.

Dr. Claw used to be Gadget Claw, one of Inspector Gadget's gadgets.

He was given artificial intelligence and went rogue. Quimby is pissed at Gadget and wants him to clean up his own mess.

• No wonder we only ever see Dr. Claw's hand. That's all there is of him.

Gadget is a robot, and so are Penny and Brain!

Gadget's a flawed prototype for a line of Spy Bots, foisted on to a different department for "field testing". Quimby puts up with him because the G-Men tell him to. When they designed Gadget they went whole hog on built in tools and equipment, but this led to hardware and software efficiency issues which resulted in the majority of Gadget's CPU cycles being spent on executing system functions leaving him with little brainpower to actually THINK with. Realizing that cool gear means jack when you have only ten decahertz to think with meant they radically altered their design goals, now aiming to streamline the design to produce a cooperative network of units, each competent at a specific function. The result was Penny, the Radio Watch, the Computer Book, and Brain. Penny is in fact the next generation of their AI research. When creating her they focused exclusively on providing her with brainpower, necessitating a "no frills" body plan. Next in intelligence is Brain, an autonomous drone for in-field work designed to look like a dog. The third most intelligent unit in the system is the Comp Book, which in actuality is an advanced security hacker with no self awareness coding. The radio watch is just a radio watch. The department budget was exhausted by this point, so actual testing was foisted on a lesser Law Enforcement Department. They're all programmed to think they are real for fear of a robot uprising. Any system maintenance or upgrades are wiped from their memory banks. By the time of Gadget and the Gadgetinis the Brain unit is retired due to age. Penny has been upgraded and fitted with revised software, giving her the ability to create drones fitting the needs of the mission more closely than before.

Penny is being trained to be a Red Ranger.

Penny IS being secretly trained, but it's not to be a secret agent, it's to be a power ranger. Specifically a red ranger, since she always wears red and by then she'd have a lot of experience in both fighting evil and leadership(she does tell Brain what to do). Her watch is a multi-purpose morpher with the actual morphing capabilities locked(or requiring a second device to do so). The martial arts training will come when she gets a bit older. Atsuko will likely be the pink ranger. GO GO GADGET RANGERS

Dr. Claw is nothing more than a bomb.

Speaks for itself, really. Just see the opening credits.

• However, there are episodes where both hands of Claw, and even his feet, are shown at the same time.

Gadget is subconsciously repressing his own intelligence.

This is similar to the whole "traumatized by becoming a cyborg" theory above. Basically, Gadget used to be a real smart guy before he became a cyborg (this is where he originally got the reputation of being a great detective), and when he did, he couldn't accept it, maybe even didn't consider himself human anymore. In order to preserve what sanity/happiness/peace of mind/what-have you he had left, he subconsciously "buried" some of his own intelligence, kind of like how someone might "bury" a traumatic memory; without his intelligence, he couldn't understand the ramifications of being a cyborg, and thus minimized further trauma. His intelligence is only unlocked in two situations: Those "papa wolf" moments when he realizes Penny is in danger, and when something would actually challenge him (like when he invents new gadgets for himself. How much electrics/electronics/computer science/cybernetics/robotics would he have to know to even make something that moves properly, let alone a gadget that almost works!?) — in both these situations, he is not able to reflect on his physical status and what it means as he is busy doing something else.

The gadgets are named after Gadget.

How many other cyborgs do you see running around in the Inspector Gadget canon? Yeah, I thought so. So basically, after Gadget got into his accident and was being a vegetable/immobilized/something like that in a hospital bed somewhere, Von Slickstein (either prior friends with Gadget, or impressed by something he'd done) came forward with the idea to give him enhanced cybernetic (or bionic, as they say in the show) prosthetics tailored toward his job. Perhaps there had been cyborgs before, but their prosthetics were only replacements, not enhancements. Perhaps he'd tried enhanced stuff before, but it hadn't worked for whatever reason. Either way, Gadget was the first successful (successful meaning he could live a relatively normal life) cyborg of his kind, and whatever system Slickstein used came to be known under Gadget's name, formally or informally.

• Because "Go go Slickstein Copter" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

The reason Brain is so intelligent is because, well, he's Gadget's Brain.

When Gadget's mind is being uploaded into the computer they found that only a portion of his mind could be stored so they stuck the rest in the collar. Gadget has all the personality of the happy-go-lucky uncle and Brain has the skills of a hard shelled cop who plays by his own rules.

Penny is Sarah Connor

Gadget, Penny and Brain are working as a Team

This is going with Gadget Obfuscating Stupidity and Penny and Brain being the real agents. They and Chief Quimby exchange information by talking in a very, very complicated code. For example, in the Sleeping Gas episode when Penny and Brain hide in Gadget's luggage, when Gadget complains of the sack being too heavy, he's actually telling Penny/Brain that they've got an arm or leg sticking into his back. In the circus episode, when Penny suggests that the Ringmaster and the clown are the MAD agents and Gadget disagrees with her, he's actually agreeing with her and instructing her to keep an eye on them. Also in the circus episode, when Brain saves Gadget from the trapeeze act, Gadget is critizing Brain for making himself too obvious... So, yeah.

Brain is smarter than your average dog because he's a rescued science experiment

MAD was performing illeagal genetic experiments on animals, Brain being amoung them. Gadget (or Penny secretly helping Gadget) rescued him, and adopted Brain into the family. Grateful at having been spared from life in a cage, and possibly being dissected alive, Brain has loyally helped Penny and Gadget in whatever way he can. Even if it means being the team Butt-Monkey.

Dr. Claw is actually Big Louie from UHF.

He's mean, we only ever see his arm, he has a creepy voice, he has a Cool Car... I think this is a no-brainer.

Mad Magazine is MAD's squeaky-clean front company/financier.

Just because it's awesome. Maybe Dr. Claw is really Alfred E. Neuman!

Inspector Gadget is DEAD.

The sequence you see in the opening credits is from the final mission. All the stories you hear eventually lead up to a Downer Ending. All this time, we never knew how it all ended, yet it was right in front of us. Quimby getting electrocuted in the safe kills him, too. It figures that Gadget would die when he starts doing competent work.

Penny has horrible grades and a bad reputation at school.

All that time she loses following her uncle all over the world has to impact her studies and attendance. Supporting this theory, Penny is yelled at by her teacher in one episode for not paying attention in class

Inspector Gadgets brain (because his head is full of all those gadgets), is in BRAIN THE DOG.

There's a remote connection, and the farther he is from Brain the lower the frequency and the more flawed his logic.

If the Continuity Reboot ever surfaces...

• It will give Gadget a more definitive origin story.
• Gadget may get more moments to shine.
• Dr. Claw will end up as the Knight of Cerebus... When he's outside of his office.
• We'll finally get to know what happened to Penny's parents.
  • And which is Gadget's sibling (or if "Uncle" is just a term of affection).
• Maybe we'll even see some Character Development!
• Dr. Claw will get a Dragon.
• Like the live-action movie, Gadget's real name is John Brown.
• Brain will get a girlfriend.
• Dr. Claw is Sanford Scolex, a rich businessman. In addition to the leader of MAD, he is CEO of a multinational corporation and is seen by the public as a philanthropist. He is only seen by the public through video screens as a virtual simulation of a handsome man, looking similar to Rupert Everett.
• Gadget will encounter other villains that don't work for MAD.
• The talking Gadgetmobile from the movie will be used.

MAD Cat is the Chesire Cat from Alice in Wonderland.

Dr. Claw went to Wonderland so he could find a literally mad pet (and everyone was mad in Wonderland). After finding MAD Cat, he had Dr. Spectrum and Dr. Dummkopf remove his disappearing powers and reduce his intelligence to that of a normal cat.

The Mayor of Metro City is named Mayor Wiggum.

It already has a police chief named Chief Quimby, and we all know at least one town that has a mayor named Quimby and a police chief named Wiggum.

The two movies describes two alternate universes.

let's see, the first movie was more realistic and darker-and-edgier as we can see in the following:

The murder of Brenda's father by the hands of DR.MAD himself.
The not-so-nice fate of John Brown which would be the logical reason for his robotic upgrade.
The (expected) psychological and physiological difficulties for John to accept and control his new body.
A more superhero-like attitude for this Inspector Gadget, especially in his fight against his duplicate.
The supervillain-like rampage of said duplicate.
The Lex Luthor tendency of Dr. Claw.
The fact that this Inspector Gadget is more of an inexperienced rookie than a real idiot.
The gadgets, while goofy, are quite practical and realistic in their depiction.
Gadget overcame the NSA microchip issue by the end by sheer human willpower.
Gadget fell in love with Brenda (a human).

=> all of that means that the first movie was more of a realistic superhero-like origin story for both of Inspector Gadget AND Dr. Claw.

on the other hand, the second movie is set in a lighter-and-softer universe, where:

Gadget is a real goof.
His gadgets are cartoonish.
Dr. Claw is a classical mad scientist supervillain using soft science for thievery.
Gadget is more of cyborg as he relies more on the NSA microchip.
The scientist responsible of the Gadget project isn't Brenda and her father.
This Gadget fell in love with G2 (a full robot).
Commissioner Quimby is a classical jerk of a boss.

=> which led us to the conclusion that in this universe's Gadget is like his animated incarnation.

The differences between the two movies indicate that each one happened in a different reality, creating two different Gadgets.

John Brown and Dr. Claw were the nail that engendered the two alternate universes.

If there are two alternate realities,then the separation pointor the nail has to be very close so as the settings won't be very different, isn't it?

Then the nail must be the Dr. Claw attack on the Gadget project. In the reality of the second movie, John Brown was left for dead by this universe Dr. Claw in the same accident, but in a much worse state than in the first one and Brenda died with her father in the attack, which let another scientist take the lead of the project. Meanwhile because of his critical injuries, most of John's body was dysfunctional, so dysfunctional that even with the help of the Gadget project, he lost a significant part of his intellect, must relies completly on his NSA microchip to even function, suffered a greater trauma making of him a complete ditz, and had his face heavily reconstructed.

The sequel will treat the encounter between the two realities

The third movie will be about the encounter between the two Dr. Claw, more likely the second meeting the first by a teleporter mishap, the first will team up with the second to eliminate the first Gadget and take over the world through super science and manipulation. Meanwhile, the second Gadget and G2 will find the teleporter and use it to chase their Dr. Claw, they'll eventually meet the first Gadget and team up with him to take down the two Dr. Claw in an ultimate shodown of ultimate destiny.
Finally the second Gadget, G2 and Dr. Claw will go back to the second universe in a sad goodbye, while the first Gadget will arrest the first Dr. Claw and give him to the FBI, or INTERPOL due to his now greater criminal status, and we can hope that the first Gadget will marry Brenda at the end to make it a round happy ending.

The toy Dr. Claw's Face isn't the actual Dr. Claw.

I wouldn't put it above Dr. Claw to have body doubles.

(Film) Gadgets main control programs are off line

When he fell out of bed it knock the control program off line, giving him limited control of the gadgets, their running on manual control only. See here

Penny is currently hiding out in The Big Bang Theory.

Metro PD finally found out she was the real hero and sent her to Pasadena to investigate scientists with the potential of being MAD agents. Her job as a dumb blonde waitress is really a cover.

• Not possible. Gadget's niece as we know and love could never be so selfish, shallow, dumb, manipulative...

Inspector Gadget has Attention Deficit Disorder.

In the direct-to-video film Inspector Gadget's Last Case, he shows signs of this. When telling Chief Quimby that you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, he goes on to talk about using powdered eggs. Later, he says that the Gadgetmobile can't cut the mustard anymore, and then blathers on how he doesn't understand that statement and wonders why anyone would want to cut mustard.

Claw is The Once-Ler

The Once-Ler never had a Heel Realization at the end of the book. Instead of wanting to give hope to the future, he turned to a life of super villainy with his fortune. The Japanese counterpart of Claw is another Once-Ler that was head of the Japanese Thneed production.

Inspector Gadget is a grown-up Gadget Boy

Penny is the daughter of Agent Heather and Myron Dabble, and Brain is a remodeled G-9

• I had the same feeling, except Penny being Heather and Dabble's daughter interferes with the notion that she is Gadget's niece, and Brain showed no signs of being robotic.

Gadget Boy is a future clone/smaller robot duplicate of Inspector Gadget.

The little guy doesn't seem to actually be Inspector Gadget himself, just a similar creation. Gadget Boy is part human, like Gadget, but his human parts were created artificially in a laboratory, just like his mechanical parts. He was created in an attempt to recreate the success (or at least that's what it looked like on paper, as he was always foiling Claw's plans) of the original Inspector. That explains how Gadget Boy can be susceptible to human diseases (as opposed to G9 who was 100% mechanical) and be seemingly partially human while still being a 100% artificial being.

• The people who made Gadget Boy never met the actual Inspector Gadget, but they had access to Dr. Slickstein's records and files on him, including copies of his personality, and they used that to make Gadget Boy as much like Inspector Gadget as they could.

MAD stands for Mutually Assured Destruction

Dr Claw's ultimate goal is to instigate a full-scale open conflict between NATO forces and the Soviet states.

• To expand on the above, "MAD" isn't the name of the organization, "M.A.D." is their ultimate goal. The organization may not even have a name...

Gadget has some loose wires and a faulty voice recognition system.

His gadgets sometimes pop out without being called, or the wrong gadget pops out when he means to call out a different one. That's because the voice recognition system that makes the gadgets respond to his voice is faulty, so sometimes it mistakes his call for, say, the copter, for the mallet or some other gadget. The mallet is the default gadget for the voice activation, so that's why it seems to be the one that pops out uncalled or instead of the right gadget the most often. Loose wires, probably caused by all the spills he takes, also contribute to this, sometimes causing things to pop out at inopportune times, or the wrong thing to pop out (notice the loads of trouble he had with his gadgets in The Great Divide). That's why sometimes he has to call out gadgets like his arms, legs, neck, etc. when other times he uses them seemingly without even thinking about it. Loose wiring interferes with what should come to him as naturally as his normal movement, so he relies on the voice activation system. Unfortunately for him, that system is still buggy, and is also affected by the loose wires.

• Gadget's clumsiness is also caused by loose wiring, as is his bumbling and tendency to act foolish/like a complete idiot (he's concentrating on his malfunctioning gadgets, maybe even without realizing it, instead of paying attention) and in ways that would be really annoying if he weren't so ineffective (he's trying to save face and draw attention away from what must be to him a really awful failing on his part.)

Penny has a deep fear of losing her uncle.

Her parents are dead, and he's the only family she has left (do you think she would be living with him if she had any other options? He's not exactly that responsible, and is often gone for days, and has a line of duty in which he could easily be killed. That's enough to make any kid worried, especially one who's already lost her parents!) She may or may not have been living with him when he got his gadgets, but either way she knows how and when, either because of an accident or through volunteer (either way, it would have endangered his life and laid him up in the hospital or wherever in recovery for quite some time.) Seeing people hurt like that is scary, and probably didn't soothe her anxieties any. Notice how, in addition to supervising his missions and (necessarily) having Brain follow and help him, she's always quick to ask him if he's okay after his clumsiness and malfunctioning gadgets cause him to have yet another accident. She's always worrying about his safety (rightfully so!) and about his health (in one episode, she made him go to the doctor because of what seemed to be just a cold.) If anything were to happen to him, she would be beyond devastated, so she takes an active role in trying to keep him alive.

Penny is actually named Sophie, and is either an immortal who was originally discovered as a feral girl some 200 years ago, or is a normal girl who bears a striking resemblance to a feral girl discovered 200 years ago

Sophie is her French name, and I had a dream that implied the above and used her French name. That's as good evidence as any, I say.

Dr. Claw Purposely Loses to Gadget

Dr. Claw obviously has a lot of funds and resources at his disposal, so he could find far more effective means to eliminate Gadget. The reason that he continues to be foiled by Gadget is that he knows once Gadget is destroyed there will be nobody capable of challenging him. Similar to Create Your Own Villain, Claw keeps Gadget around either because he enjoys matching wits with him, is amused by his accidental successes, or doesn't want to win because Victory Is Boring. This is increased by the fact that multiple episodes show that Dr. Claw knows where Gadget lives, and yet he hasn't just sent someone over there to kill him.

• Wrong. There are episodes where he sent people to kill Gadget. It's not easy to bypass his home's defenses and a cyborg can't be easily killed with regular guns.

Starting with the second season, Dr. Claw has instituted a new policy unbeknownst to recurring agents; said recurring agents have three attempts to pull off a given crime and/or eliminate Gadget; if they fail, they themselves are eliminated.

Given the format of the second season, this apparently makes sense; the recurring agents are trained to avoid police capture if their plan goes south, and return again. After their third failure, they still escape, but then they never show up again or are even mentioned. This is because Dr. Claw has them eliminated as a final punishment for their continued incompetence.

Gadget is Penny's maternal uncle.

She always refers to him as Uncle Gadget. The cartoon also strongly implied that Gadget was the Inspector's actual last name, and I don't know too many people who address their uncles or aunts by their last names, so it seems more likely Gadget is Penny's uncle because he is the brother of her mother.

Had there been a third season for Inspector Gadget, the origins of Gadget and Dr. Claw would have been revealed.

In the first season, the only background information revealed was that a scientist named Professor Von Slickstein gave Gadget his gadgets. The second season had a few episodes that shed some more light on Gadget's past as well as Claw's past. The episodes "Tyrannosaurus Gadget", "Gadget's Roma", and "Gadget's Clean Sweep" all showed us some of the Inspector's ancestors: His prehistoric ancestor Cave Gadget, his Ancient Roman ancestor Gadgetorum, and his great-great-grandparents Char and Chimney Gadget.

On Dr. Claw's side of his origins being hinted at, the final three episodes of season two introduced us to an elderly criminal named Les Renowned, who was Claw's mentor as supposedly taught the mysterious leader of M.A.D. everything he knew. As a matter of fact, the very last episode, "Gadget and the Red Rose", featured a flashback that showed Gadget as a baby.

Since the second season shed a little light on Gadget and Claw's backgrounds, it seems likely that season three would have explained how Gadget became a cyborg and how Claw became the fearsome leader of an international crime syndicate. There might even have been an explanation for why Penny's parents are missing, and the Grand Finale probably would have shown us Dr. Claw's face, except it would look more badass than his action figure.

As for Capeman, he would either be Rescued from the Scrappy Heap or be permanently Put on a Bus.

When the DVD Set comes out in September...

It will feature all three versions of the original pilot: The original version with Gary Owens voicing Gadget, the revision with Jesse White voicing the Inspector, and the third version that finally had Don Adams in the role of Gadget. I mean, it's the 30th anniversary of Inspector Gadget. Fans of the bionic detective would deserve a little more than a mere Region-1 DVD release of all 86 episodes and the 1992 Christmas special.

MAD Cat is the real Dr. Claw

All you ever see is a cyborg arm and the cat. Also, note: "Dr. Claw".

Inspector Gadget and Megamind take place in the same universe.

And the same city. Metro City.

In the 2015 cartoon, Gadget will be given an Evil Counterpart.

It's been clear in several incarnations that it is popular to give Inspector Gadget an Evil Twin or Evil Knockoff of some sort.

In the original 1983 animated series, Professor Von Slickstein was forced to make an army of robotic versions of Gadget in "The Amazon" and a crude robot double of Gadget was used in "Doubled Agent". This trend was also used in Gadget Boy & Heather through the form of Bad Gadget Boy, the clone of Gadget from an episode of Gadget and the Gadgetinis, and even Robo-Gadget from the live-action Disney film.

Inevitably, the 2015 revival will also introduce an evil version of Gadget in one episode, but rather than be a one-shot Monster of the Week, he will be a recurring villain who represents what Gadget would have been like if he wasn't a benign simpleton focused on fighting M.A.D.

Gadget's Evil Counterpart could either be a M.A.D. agent who is rebuilt with bionics or a fully robotic duplicate who lacks Gadget's humanity and therefore has no problem doing things that are unethical or immoral.

And Dr. Claw will be Sanford Scolex again.

Unlike what happens in the first movie, Gadget will never find out.

There are multiple Doctor Claws.

Because we never see Doctor Claw's face, and who is to say that the bearer of the title doesn't change with time?

• OMG.... Doctor Claw is a Time Lord!!!!!

The Inspector had his last name legally changed to "Gadget"

Prior to the accident, he had a different name (for example, John Brown) but when he was remade as a cyborg he decided that's not who he was anymore and changed his name.

"Dr. Claw" is just one of many different aliases.

In the French version, he's called "Docteur Gang", so it's possible that he may have many other names as well (including any other names he's called in any other dubbed versions).

Gadget is related to Super Dave Osborne.

The animated version of Super Dave Osborne basically looks like a husky Gadget. It also doesn't help that Super Dave: Daredevil for Hire was made by DiC.

Most of claw's henchmen are clones.

All of the goons in uniform you see are clones of two men (fat guy and skinny guy).

Spydra from Gadget Boy is Dr. Claw's mother.

Both Inspector Gadget and Gadget Boy are the same person. Sometime after the Gadget Boy series, Spydra was captured and sent to prison. Young Claw grew up and started an evil organization for the sole purpose of avenging his mother.

Gadget is a case of Brain Uploading.

He's actually full robot, which is how he can bring out any gadget where organic stuff should be. However they managed to transfer his mind into a robotic look-alike.

Dr Claw has some sort of publicly known identity.

Probably an important politician or businessman. Realistically, it'd be why he never reveals his face, and having a public identity would help him fund M.A.D. It's why he has that really evil voice-it's not his real voice, he just lowers it to a growl in order to hide it and be intimidating at the same time. This is also why he never lets himself be seen.

The real Chief Quimby is dead.

The Quimby we see in the series is really Dr. Claw. Sometime before the show, Claw murdered the real Chief and took his place (plastic surgery). Sure we see them together in one episode, but he could be a mad agent in disguise.

Dr. Claw is an alternate personality of Chief Quimby.

Every time a message blows up in the chief's face, the Dr. Claw personality takes over. He changes back to the Chief when he is defeated.

Gadget problem is an automatic image recognition

Gadget isn't stupid, but his visual recognition system is heavily flawed. Basically, it gave him wrong identification far too often. That's why he is constantly chasing Brain as MAD agent (the recognition system is capabe to detect that a dressed dog is not the person he pretends to be, but the best identification it could give to Gadget is "MAD agent in disguise") and often obvious to traps (the recognition system simply fail to actually recognise them, so Gadget saw traps as just an unnoticeable background). Probably, some unforseen problem of his brain-machine interface.

Don Francks' Dr. Claw is a decoy.

The reason why Dr. Claw in some episodes has a different voice is because he is a decoy hired by the real Claw. The fake one is paid to act as the real deal while Frank Welker's Dr. Claw attend to more important matters.

In the Don Francks-as-Claw episodes, Claw has come down with laryngitis

Sounding like this all the time has to put a significant strain on the vocal cords, with or without electronic augmentation. He sounds unusual because he's trying to take it a little easier. By "Race to the Finish" he's gotten better, and He can go back to this.

If Disney does a new Gadget, disconnected from the first two...

...he'll be an honorary Marvel character, with SHIELD rebuilding him using Stark Industries and Wakanda technology.

Spydra from Gadget Boy & Heather is Dr. Claw's daughter.

Main villain? Check! Constantly chasing after a cyborg voiced by Don Adams? Check! The Faceless? Check!

The entire Inspector Gadget series was meant to teach kids that crime never pays.

• In that even if a criminal does not receive direct punishment for their criminal actions, their criminal activity will still NOT succeed, and that no matter what personality flaws or psychological flaws an individual police officer has, they'll still make great efforts to stop crimes and fight crimes.

Inspector Gadget is really Penny's father.

Penny's mother had a drunk one night stand with an intoxicated Gadget before dating his brother. Neither of them remember that night. Her mother still believes Gadget's brother is the father of Penny.

Dr. Claw is a woman.

Claw is a female with a voice changer.

Super heroes existed in their universe.

Sometime before the series, MAD exterminated all of the world's super heroes except for Corporal Capeman. Dr. Claw stripped Capeman of his intelligence and powers for his sick amusement. To Claw, killing his first arch foe isn't satisfying enough. Claw wants Capeman to spend the rest of his days as a complete moron. The poor guy doesn't remember he was once a muscular, handsome powerhouse with super intelligence. Thanks to Dr. Claw, he is now an overweight bumbling idiot.

• So, basically, the comic book version of Wanted except with no reality warpers what-so-ever?

Sequel!Gadget didn't have glitches, at least not in the way he thought of them

During the third act of the 1999 movie, Gadget ran without his NSA Chip. In other words, he was running on adrenaline, which put an enormous strain on his various processors. Baxter outfitted him with some stopgap control chips until a more permanent solution could be found, but these degraded quickly, and the gadgets that he got were the result of his mind wandering. Also....

Chief Quimby commissioned G-2 just to stab Gadget in the heart

He obviously never liked Gadget at all, and commissioned a new, more effective version, just to get the original out of the police force. Never mind that he seemed to work pretty well, glitches aside.

Sequel!Gadget was actually a repurposed Robo-Gadget.

The Cartoon!Men in Black know of Gadget's existence.

The MIB have been called for assistance by Chief Quimby and Penny on several occasions to help out them in stopping MAD's evil plots, while Gadget acts as a distraction.

Atsuko moved to America after "The Japanese Connection".

She would have helped out Penny and Brain (but not Gadget) in certain missions we didn't get to see.

The second movie takes place nearly 8 years before the original cartoon.

After escaping when his plan in the second movie fails, Dr. Claw spent the next years turning MAD into the world-wide criminal organization fans of the original cartoon know. After that second defeat at gadget's hands, Claw stayed away from Riverton and Metro City to avoid gadget until the authorities realized nobody else could defeat him and sent Gadget to stop him no matter where on Earth he attacked. His plots to rob Metro City and/or kill Gadget are mere distractions.

Gadget is a prototype RoboCop and Penny is his assigned tester

Gadget's malfuctions are intentional

Gadget's clumsiness is actually his programming anticipating and avoiding danger, at least most of the time.