I'll Get You Gadget ...

Cutter's Log - Stardate 1102.51.50
Current Song - read on

I seem to be in a groove as of late, involving one of my favorite cartoon shows as a kid.

What facinated me as a kid about Inspector Gadget were the weird gadgets he would use (and sometimes screw up on). I'll also admit that one of my fictional crushes as a kid was on Penny Gadget. I was between four and seven years old. Also a factor was the suspicion behind that of the enemy Dr. Claw - that deep voice and spooky setting.

The background music, which is something kids like me at the time normally wouldn't pay attention to, remained the lasting memory after Nickeoldeon stopped showing reruns. The music repeated itself like a soundtrack, and changed with the scenes.

Eventually as reruns stopped in the U.S., the memory of Inspector Gadget would be buried in the back of my head. Small reminders would pop up at times, but nothing major to warrant a full rehash. The most notable Inspector Gadget connection I would make through the years was my Dr. Claw impersonation. When I was in school, I found out that I could try to talk like other people. So I tried as many as possible. Your voice changes throughout adolsecence. A lot of voices I did then I can't do now. But one constant, and that which I consider my best, is that of Dr. Claw. The villan is voiced in the series by the master of voices Frank Welker.

As my recent influx of conversation continues to grow, this Dr. Claw impersonation seems to come up more often. I catch myself doing it at times. One day I felt like I wasn't getting the "next" right in "I'll get you Gadget, next time!" So for a voice reference, I searched YouTube.

YouTune can be addicting, especially when it brings back childhood memories. This trip up the Dr. Claw voice search turned out to be a session of watching full episodes, remixes and foreign language versions. That turned into searching for Dr. Claw's face (existant only on an action figure).

I didn't laugh as much this time (because I'm 25), but there were stil some odd scenes that caught my attention. I also researched the series, to be dissapointed that there was no true ending to the series (it was canceled).

My favorite episode was the "Clockmaker" one, where Gadget tries to find stolen gold. The swiss clockmaker was assigned to harden the gold into gears for the clock, and then send them to Dr. Claw. The clockmaker also gave Gadget a watch that set off his gadgets at random times. This was a bit difficult for Gadget to overcome. Penny was captured and put under a giant hammer that was supposed to strike at 5:00. This was probably the hardest Gadget adventure I remember seeing - and it ended up being a critical goof on the clockmaker's part that led to his own demise (and not Penny saving the day).

I also didn't care much for Corporal Capeman.

The more episodes I re-visited, I took notice of the background music. All of these music appreciation classes kind of pay off here. There is one of Dr. Claw's that I liked. Dr. Claw had two themes, and the one I'm refering to is his darkest - the one with the drum-tapping and synthesizer effects. I can't find the tune stand-alone.

That particular tune would go well with the kind of inside "office hours" work I do with the website. I'll end it here.