Top Secret Mission
"MAD plans to force the professor to produce an army of intelligent robots to take over the world. Claw has taken him to the Amazon basin. Your mission is to find and rescue the professor."
Synopsis
"You and Brain will have to entertain each other this weekend," Inspector Gadget tells Penny. "Chief Quimby wants me ready for action twenty-four hours a day." He's soon put to the test when Dr. Claw kidnaps Professor Von Slickstein--the brilliant scientist who gave Gadget all his gadgets. With the gentle old man tied up and gagged in the back of the MAD Mobile, Claw heads to the airport with Gadget in hot pursuit. The evil genius evades Gadget and a police roadblock and succeeds in escaping to South America with the professor. Gadget follows on a cargo plane and is dropped into the jungle as is the parachuted Gadgetmobile--with stowaways Penny and Brain inside. On the ground Gadget first encounters a huge albino gorilla, and then Amazon Annie--a shapely female MAD agent with a "tribe" of six other agents ready to do him in. Meanwhile, in an ancient Aztec pyramid, Claw has set up shop and is forcing the kindly scientist to create an army of robots. The result: androids that resemble Gadget but move with the feeble, hunched-over mannerisms of their maker, the professor. Incensed, Claw demands that Von Slickstein reprogram them to do his bidding. Penny quietly gets the Professor's ear and has him demand that Gadget be used to instill them with his brainwaves. Dr. Claw reluctantly stops Annie's "ritual sacrifice" of Gadget and has the inspector brought to the makeshift lab. Clamped into the brain-transferring apparatus, all seems lost for Gadget--until a well-thrown banana encourages the huge white ape to take Gadget's place. The robots suddenly come to life, violently destroying the lab like a mob of crazed gorillas!
Quotable Quote
"No one cuts off Inspector Gadget and gets away with it!" --Inspector Gadget, giving in to road rage.
Notes
An extremely interesting episode. Perhaps most unusual is that Gadget actually recognizes the MAD Mobile as Dr. Claw's car--at least at the beginning of the episode--and does his darndest to apprehend the criminal mastermind behind the wheel. Yet later, in the Amazon, Gadget actually rides in the transformable vehicle (driven by Claw via remote control) and thinks it's a taxi...!
Be On The Look-Out For...
...name-calling. It's very rare that Dr. Claw actually call any of his regular MAD agents by name, and this is one of those instances. He refers to the big, dopey guy assigned to help the professor as "Hangnail" twice in this episode.
...Amazon Annie. Another rarity: a female MAD agent. While not technically a "guest villain", nor really a "regular" either, Annie, unfortunately, appears in very few episodes.
...Professor Von Slickstein. In this episode we learn that it was him who outfitted Inspector Gadget's body with everything that makes him, well, Inspector Gadget (A later episode that takes place in France credits someone else.), He apparently lives in the same neighborhood as the inspector, and Gadget himself proudly refers to him as "...the father of modern bionics and a very dear friend". This is his only appearance in the first season. Von Slickstein would be back in the second season--but with a much different voice.
MAD Agent Count
Eight: Amazon Annie and seven regulars.
Unanswered, Nit-Picky Questions
Why did Dr. Claw even head towards the airport when his MAD Jet allows him to take off anywhere he wants to? And what of Claw's identity? Is it a secret to most characters on Inspector Gadget, or just to the viewers? Some episodes hint that few people on the side of law & order have gazed upon his face and know what he looks like, yet in this episode it's pretty evident that Von Slickstein must have seen him.
Ridiculous Safety Tip
Hints on airplane passenger safety.
"The Amazon"