“Don't worry, chief. Inspector Gadget is always on duty.”
Inspector Gadget is a clumsy, dim-witted human cyborg detective with various bionic gadgets built into his body. Gadget stumbles around working the cases while his niece and dog do most of the investigating. Gadget's arch-nemesis is Dr. Claw, the leader of an evil organisation, known as "M.A.D."
Where to Watch
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Episodes
1. Monster Lake
Gadget looks for a missing scientist who vanished at a lake rumored to harbor a monster.
2. Down on the Farm
M.A.D. tries to do Gadget in by locking him in a missile hidden in a farm's grain silo.
3. Gadget at the Circus
Gadget brings Penny to the circus as he investigates a top-secret mission. The Inspector believes that Dr. Claw has replaced some of the circus performers with M.A.D. Agents! Gadget goes undercover as a clown to uncover the truth.
4. The Amazon
Dr. Claw kidnaps Professor Von Slickstein, the brilliant scientist who invented all of Gadget's gadgets, and takes him to the Amazon to build an army of Gadget-like robots.
5. Health Spa
Dr. Claw tricks Gadget into attending a "vacation" at a M.A.D.-trapped health spa. Can Penny and Brain save him?
6. The Boat
Gadget is assigned to board a cruise ship and safeguard the passenger's priceless jewelry from Dr. Claw's clutches.
7. Haunted Castle
While searching for a crime-fighters' convention in Transylvania Gadget arrives at a castle that Dr. Claw has booby-trapped to kill him.
8. Race to the Finish
Gadget enters the Gadget Mobile in a race and finds that Dr. Claw has also entered with a plot to eliminate him and his competition by sabotaging the other race cars.
9. The Ruby
Gadget is sent to India to investigate a missing ruby, which has been stolen by M.A.D. to be used as an amplifying power source for a laser beam that will destroy an advanced satellite in space.
10. A Star is Lost
Gadget has to guard the life of famed rock singer Rick Rocker, whom M.A.D. has sinister plans for. But Gadget winds up replacing Rocker as the current reigning King of Rock!
11. All That Glitters
Gadget is assigned to find El Dorado, the fabled Lost City of Gold, before Dr. Claw's agents find it and tear it apart to melt down the gold.
12. Movie Set
Gadget falls for actress Lana Lamour unaware that she's a M.A.D. agent and that her movie is M.A.D.'s cover for filming top secret facilities.
13. Amusement Park
Gadget has to find the bomb Dr. Claw has hidden in Metro City's amusement park.
14. Art Heist
Gadget has to stop M.A.D. from looting the New York Museum of Art.
15. Volcano Island
A prophet working for M.A.D. predicts doom for an island resort and plans to use his "pineapple bombs" to trigger the island's volcano to ensure his prediction comes true.
16. The Invasion
M.A.D. agents disguised as Martians terrorize Metro City.
17. The Infiltration
Presto Chango, the world's greatest disguise artist and a M.A.D. agent, plans to infiltrate an Interpol conference in London disguised as Inspector Gadget.
18. The Curse of the Pharaoh
M.A.D. agents disguised as mummies and ancient Egyptian gods try to loot the tomb of a newly discovered pharaoh.
19. M.A.D. Trap
M.A.D. agent Rat begins committing crimes in an easy to predict pattern to lure Inspector Gadget into a steel foundry that has been turned in a deathtrap.
20. Basic Training
Gadget must protect a trainload of important computer parts from M.A.D. hijackers.
21. Sleeping Gas
Gadget is assigned to halt a diabolical M.A.D. scheme: put entire cities to sleep with a powerful sleeping gas.
22. Gadget's Replacement
A new supercomputer has made the Metro City police so efficient that Chief Quimby fires Gadget but M.A.D. has a plan to control the computer and feed the police false information.
23. Greenfinger
Gadget is assigned to protect Professor Greenfinger who has developed a super plant growth formula, but Greenfinger has already been replaced by a M.A.D. agent.
24. Gadget Goes West
Inspector Gadget arrives at a western tourist town that plays heavily on its cowboy image to stop modern day outlaw Black Bart.
25. Launch Time
M.A.D. tries to sabotage a NASA mission.
26. Photo Safari
Inspector Gadget must stop Dr. Claw from using animals to scare villagers away.
27. The Coo-Coo-Clock Caper
While Gadget is searching Switzerland for stolen gold, Penny runs afoul of the murderous M.A.D. Agent, The Clockmaker.
28. The Bermuda Triangle
Ships are vanishing in the Bermuda Triangle, but the seemingly supernatural aspects of the disappearances are subterfuge by Dr. Claw, who is using an enormous machine to swallow oil tankers and ransack them.
29. The Japanese Connection
Penny won a computer contest and is in Japan helping her local counterpart, Atsuko, to foil an alliance between Dr. Claw and his Japanese counterpart, Iji Waruda-san.
30. Arabian Nights
Gadget is sent to the wealthy Middle-Eastern kingdom of Yetzanistan to safeguard a sacred sword.
31. Clear Case
South African diamond miners are terrorized by a ghost who is actually a M.A.D. scientist using diamond dust to create invisibility suits.
32. Dutch Treat
Inspector Gadget hunts for diamond smugglers in the land of tulips and chocolate.
33. The Great Divide
M.A.D. has abducted a prominent seismologist, who is coerced by Dr. Claw to construct a machine capable of generating deadly earthquakes upon the world. Gadget's case takes him deep within the Rocky Mountains, where his misadventures are compounded by a M.A.D. ranger agent and a grizzled, gold-crazed prospector.
34. Eye of the Dragon
Gadget is sent to Hong Kong to recover the priceless jewel the Eye of the Dragon and foil an alliance between Dr. Claw and Hong Kong's crime-lord Mr. Chow.
35. Doubled Agent
M.A.D. engineers an android replica of Inspector Gadget that is used to steal from Metro City's banks in order to have the real Gadget framed for armed-robbery. With our hero wrongfully incarcerated, Dr. Claw sets his sights on kidnapping the Shah of Freeland and demanding a hefty ransom for his release.
36. Plantform of the Opera
M.A.D. agents use an opera house as cover to tunnel into a bank vault while protected by a killer man-eating plant.
37. Don't Hold Your Breath
Inspector Gadget is assigned to look into a case of some missing oceanographers who were searching for an undersea city when they disappeared.
38. Gone Went the Wind
A M.A.D. scientist at the North Pole creates a machine to cause windstorms all over the globe.
39. King Wrong
In the far-off country of Pianostan, the people remain happy as long as their King is miserable. But M.A.D. has been ensuring that the King is happy in order to disrupt the peace, so Inspector Gadget is sent out to investigate. To further complicate matters, the King looks exactly like the Inspector!
40. Pirate Island
Inspector Gadget, Penny, and Brain are on vacation in the Caribbean. But before they've had a chance to get any serious R & R on Gadget's dilapidated old rust-bucket of a boat, duty calls and Inspector Gadget is back to work.
41. M.A.D. Academy
Gadget is assigned to find and shut down M.A.D.'s training center for its agents and Dr. Claw decides eliminating Gadget will make a good class project for the latest batch of recruits.
42. No Flies on Us
In Malaysia, the Wild Man of Borneo (a M.A.D. scientist), has both derived a virus from flies and concocted its antidote. A head-cold-suffering Gadget must stop Dr. Claw's plan to turn everyone on the planet into babbling, bubble-blowing imbeciles.
43. Luck of the Irish
Gadget heads to Ireland to locate the Blarney Stone, "The national treasure of Ireland," when it's stolen by M.A.D. agents. While plotting to use a laser cannon to slice up the Stone and smuggle it out of the country, Dr. Claw dispatches the quarrelsome O'Shea Brothers to eliminate Gadget.
44. Prince of the Gypsies
Dr. Claw tries to frame the gypsies of Freedonia for the theft of the Royal Coat of Arms. So Gadget investigates the gypsies while Penny and her new friend, Anya, try to find the real thief.
45. Old Man of the Mountain
Gadget visits the Balkans to stop a war between a tribe of super-strong men and super-strong women while Dr. Claw tries to steal the potion that gives them their uncanny strength.
46. The Emerald Duck
Gadget heads for Mexico, where he must stop "The oldest Mayan artifact known to exist," the Emerald Duck, from falling into the hands of a M.A.D. agent -- a Mexican bandit named Macho Miguel. The Emerald Duck is the key to activating a powerful and ancient weapon.
47. Do Unto Udders
M.A.D. utilizes satellite waves to cause local cows to stop producing milk, forcing consumers to purchase milk from "New Foods Dairy" (a M.A.D. front).
48. Did You Myth Me?
A M.A.D. scientist tries to steal an ancient Greek scroll said to hold the secret of turning lead into gold.
49. A Bad Altitude
Dr. Claw intends to sink most of an island so that his (currently) mountaintop resort will become the only hotel on "M.A.D. Island".
50. Funny Money
M.A.D. has enlisted the aid of the incarcerated Funny Money counterfeiting gang in a plot to generate millions upon millions of bogus dollars for Dr. Claw to use in his dirty work. Two of the gang's three members manage to escape from prison in order to set up shop, while the last and most talented member, a visually-challenged man named Squint, must be up to the arduous task of bumping off Gadget when he comes to the jail to investigate the break-out.
51. Follow That Jet
Dr. Claw begins making US Airforce jets disappear so that he can create his own private M.A.D. airforce.
52. Dry Spell
A M.A.D. agent and his Blue Trolls causes a drought in Metro City by cutting off the city's mountain water resources.
53. Smeldorado
Dr. Claw creates a ray that turns gold into smelly cheese, planning to change it back once the government empties Fort Knox of the foul smelling stuff.
54. Quimby Exchange
Gadget is assigned to protect "Nervous Nick" Defecto, a former M.A.D. agent, from Dr. Claw's wrath. In revenge, Dr. Claw takes Chief Quimby hostage and offers him in exchange for his wayward agent.
55. Weather In Tibet
Penny teams up with a Tibetan boy to destroy a M.A.D. weather control machine while her uncle blunders around as usual.
56. Unhenged
Gadget must put a stop to M.A.D.'s latest plot for global domination, which involves the kidnapping of the world's leading solar scientists and coercing them to design and construct a solar-powered heat cannon at the grounds of mysterious Stonehenge.
57. Snakin' All Over
A M.A.D. agent intends to use his pet snakes to steal a valuable coin collection.
58. In Seine
In Paris a M.A.D. agent uses a robot to rob the rich and famous.
59. Tree Guesses
Dr. Claw has concocted a chemical compound that decomposes wood at an accelerated rate, which he threatens to unleash upon the world's forests in exchange for a hefty ransom.
60. Birds of a Feather
In Turkey a M.A.D. agent uses his birds to steal a very valuable gemstone from an exhibition.
61. So it is Written
Gadget arrives in an Arabian country where he is believed to be the prophesied one who will find a long lost treasure cave. Dr. Claw is eager to let his old enemy lead him to the treasure before eliminating him.
62. Fang the Wonder Dog
Dr. Claw tries to abduct movie star "Fang the Wonder Dog" from the set of his latest film so he can ransom him.
63. School for Pickpockets
Gadget must foil Dr. Claw's plans to steal his new Gadget watch, and close down the school for pickpockets.
64. Quizmaster
A slick game show host mesmerizes contestants when they enter his TV program's sealed "21"-like booth, which is outfitted with hypnotic lights. The contestants are then commanded to rob banks and turn over the stolen loot to Dr. Claw. Gadget investigates, but becomes another victim of the hypnosis.
65. Gadget in Winterland
Gadget goes to the Winterland Resort where the world's athletes are gathered for the opening of the Olympic games. Dr.Claw tries to ruin the Olympics by replacing the torch bearer with a M.A.D. Agent and replacing the torch with dynamite. NOTE: This was a re-worked version of the pilot episode "Winter Olympics". Some of the dialogue was re-dubbed to address the purpose of Gadget's mustache, and the standard season 1 opening and ending credits were used.
Cast & Crew
Don Adams
Inspector Gadget (voice)
Maurice LaMarche
Chief Quimby (voice)
Holly Berger
Penny (voice)
Story & Production Details
Reviews & Thoughts
Coming back after watching this and all the following incarnations of Inspector Gadget (whether it be the Gadget Boy, Gadget & the Gadgetinis, or that weird educational anthropology series), I've come to the stance that Inspector Gadget really isn't for me. I never exactly got behind the general concept of the series with Gadget himself being a bumbling robotic detective while the people around him do all the work behind his back. I never usually found Inspector Gadget to be that funny or charming to justify his usual obliviousness and antics in any of the shows I watched. It got old for me really fast and the series ended up being really tiring for me. Looking back, I wish Inspector Gadget himself was more like Wallace from Aardman's _Wallace & Gromit_ shorts. Both characters are pretty adjacent to each other, mechanical marvels that get into constant trouble only for their pet dog (or piers depending on which incarnation of Gadget your watching) to find a way to get out of it. What makes me like Wallace way more is that while he is pretty airheaded and usually causes the main conflict, he's an extremely well-meaning and charming character on his own who mostly has his heart in the right place. I never get tired of Wallace's antics because he's never tiring to watch. Compare that to Inspector Gadget. Gadget is also a very dimwitted character blessed with being a technological marvel, but he's also an overconfident and prideful character, usually putting down others offering to help or aid him to show how much more of an "expert" he is only for his work to be served on a silver platter for him by those same people unbeknownst to him. Traditionally these kinds of characters get some sort of comeuppance as comedic backfire, but the formula the series runs on has it the complete opposite way where its Gadget that causes constant turmoil to the characters around him, whether it be handing back Chief Quimby's exploding messages, always mistaking M.A.D agents as alleys and getting them unintentionally hurt, or mistaking Brain _for_ a M.A.D agent, and always walking away with a pat on the back for "job well done". That also would be fine as long as Inspector Gadget would be an entertaining and charming character beyond his unintentional mishaps, but he never really is for me. He's like if you sucked the charm out of Wallace and he became as much of a burden for the audience as he is for the characters around him. Wallace is not impervious to his own doings, whether intentional or not, so I don't exactly get behind Gadget's thick as mud plot armor when he's a much less enjoyable character. That pretty much goes for the other versions of the character as well in Gadget Boy, Gadget & the Gadgetinis, and the 2015 reboot to _lesser_ extents, but it's really the original series I wanted to focus this point on the most.
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