LuciferTheShort on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/lucifertheshort/art/Gadget-Boy-vs-Inspector-Gadget-374828112LuciferTheShort

Deviation Actions

LuciferTheShort's avatar

Gadget Boy vs. Inspector Gadget

Published:
7K Views

Description

Made with deviantART muro

I made this because of something I noticed about the very popular and well-known cartoon Inspector Gadget and its widely loathed spinoff Gadget Boy and Heather.

We all know that Inspector Gadget was a gullible and bumbling cyborg detective with a lot of gadgets in his body who often bumbles around on his missions in battling the international crime organization M.A.D. and its mysterious leader Dr. Claw while his niece Penny and their dog Brain do all the work.

Gadget Boy was basically about a child version of Inspector Gadget (believed by some fans to even be Gadget in his youth) who fought a female villain named Spydra as well as her sarcastic Russian vulture Boris and her incompetent twin henchmen Mulch and Hummus with the assistance of Agent Heather, who was basically Penny as a red-haired adult, and G-9, who was essentially Brain as a shape-shifting robot.

I like both shows, and I understand why many fans hate Gadget Boy. It is rather different from the original show, what with the villain Spydra being a vain fiend who shows up wearing a mask in opposition to Dr. Claw hiding his whole body behind his chair and always speaking in a menacing manner, among other things. Over my years of watching both series, however, I have noticed a few similarites that the two shows have.

Similarities between Inspector Gadget and Gadget Boy-

* Both shows only lasted two seasons (The original Inspector Gadget show started out as a 65-episode series in 1983 that was aired as re-runs in 1984, with a 21-episode second season made in 1986. The original Gadget Boy and Heather first aired in 1995 and was succeeded by an educational second season called Gadget Boy's Adventures in History in 1997).

* Spydra and Dr. Claw both have a catch phrase they say almost every time Gadget Boy or Inspector Gadget ruins their plans. Spydra often says "I'll get you yet, Gadget Boy!", while Dr. Claw tends to part ways saying "I'll get you next time, Gadget! Next time!"

* Gadget Boy and Inspector Gadget have both been to jail several times. They both even had a bit about banging their bars with a tin cup only to ask the guard for a new one.

* While both ditzy bionic detectives almost always spend the episodes bumbling around and getting into trouble, there were some episodes of both series where Gadget or Gadget Boy manages to save the day or help his allies through dumb luck, as well as episodes where he's actually competent to the point that he hardly needs any help at all.

* Don Adams provided the voice for both Gadget Boy and Inspector Gadget. In addition, Maurice LaMarche also did work on both shows (He voiced Chief Quimby in the second season of the original Inspector Gadget and provided the voices of Boris, G-9, Mulch, Hummus, Chief Strombolli, and Myron Dabble in Gadget Boy. That's almost every main character aside from Spydra, Agent Heather, and Gadget Boy himself!)

* Inspector Gadget and Gadget Boy have both quoted Maxwell Smart, the protagonist of the series Get Smart. Especially worth noting because Don Adams played all three characters, Get Smart itself was a major influence of Inspector Gadget, and Boris even mentioned Don Adams in an episode of Gadget Boy's Adventures in History.

* While Spydra and Dr. Claw often escaped in the end, there were some times where they got a little karmic punishment as they made their getaway. (Dr. Claw got trapped beneath the arctic waters in "Gone Went the Wind", got frozen in "The Quimby Exchange", and was hit by potato gas from Spuds Malone's Red Rose gun in "Gadget and the Red Rose", the show's final episode. Spydra fell victim to her own Babbilizer Ray in "Power of Babble" and frequently had her time machine destroyed at the end of episodes in the Adventures in History season).

* Both shows featured at least one evil version of the cyborg detective. The original Inspector Gadget had Dr. Claw kidnap Professor Von Slickstein, the scientist who gave Gadget his gadgets, and force him to build an army of robotic Gadget clones in "The Amazon" and the episode "Doubled Agent" had a M.A.D. operative make a crude robot double of the Inspector and use it to frame him for crimes. Gadget Boy had an evil duplicate of him named Bad Gadget Boy built in the episode "Double Bubble Toil and Dabble". Both cases predate Robo-Gadget from the live-action Disney film starring Matthew Broderick.

* The second seasons of both shows featured time travel. The difference is that Inspector Gadget only featured time travel in a single three-episode story arc, which featured the M.A.D. agent Thelma Botkin trying to eliminate Gadget by killing his prehistoric ancestor Cave Gadget, his Ancient Roman ancestor Gadgetorum, and his great-great-grandparents Char and Chimney Gadget. Gadget Boy had time travel as a major part of the plot for the whole season, as Adventures in History had Gadget Boy and his friends going back in time to prevent Spydra from messing with history.

* The pilot episodes of both series seem a little different when compared to the rest of the series (Winter Olympics of the original show gave Gadget a moustache and had him competently foiling several M.A.D. plots in the same episode. In the Gadget Boy episode "Raiders of the Lost Mummies", one notable difference is that Spydra's voice isn't as fierce).

* Both shows had a Christmas special. Inspector Gadget Saves Christmas was a special made in 1992, six years after the original series ended. Gadget Boy's Christmas special was A Gadget Boy Christmas Around the World, which was an episode of the Adventures in History season.

* Both shows had at least one Halloween-appropriate episode. Inspector Gadget had "Haunted Castle", which featured a trio of M.A.D. agents dressed as a vampire, a werewolf, and a Frankenstein monster, as well as the season two episodes "Ghost Catchers" and "Bad Dreams are Made of This", both featuring the seriously-played M.A.D. scientist Dr. Spectrum. Gadget Boy's Adventures in History had "Gadget-Stein" and involved saving the future of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein novel.

Inspector Gadget and Gadget Boy (c) DiC/Cookie Jar Entertainment/DHX Media
© 2013 - 2024 LuciferTheShort
Comments15
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
user1tji's avatar

In My Opinion: I believe that both Gadget Boy and Inspector Gadget were the same individual, as if he's been a cyborg detective since childhood in a what if scenario, and both the main characters were voiced by the late great Don Adams.