Video Interview: Inspector Gadget's Voice Actor Ivan Sherry Chats with Dr Stevil

Here's something which should be fun if you like Gadget's new voice actor: the first video interview I've seen with Ivan Sherry talking about his role, and about the reboot as a whole. Among the things we hear:

• The series is doing really well across the world (which, of course, is also indicated by Season 2 being in production).
• Sherry was originally brought in to audition for Dr Claw and Quimby, but pushed to try out as Gadget.
• Sherry's view on why Inspector Gadget, as a character, continues to resonate with audiences.

The interview was conducted this weekend at the Canadian pop culture expo Hero Fest Lindsay, which Sherry attended as a guest (you may recall he also talked about Gadget during last spring's Hero Fest Kingston) – and for the record, the rather strange interviewer here is "Dr Stevil" of the Chatting With Stevil YouTube show; a character who's an obvious nod/tribute to Dr Evil from Austin Powers. If you know as little about this guy as I did upon finding this video, here's a quick presentation.

News Flash Roundup: Gadget's New Voice Speaks, DHX Is Considering To Leave Halifax

Some interesting newspaper articles of late...

Ivan Sherry talks about Inspector Gadget. The article "Former Kingstonian new voice of cartoon classic" is essentially a fluff piece (not much of real depth is revealed), but it's still the first interview I've seen with Gadget's new actor.

One of Sherry's quotes brings the production timeline into perspective a bit:

Sherry said all 52, 11-minute episodes have been voiced and produced. 

"We finished recording them last summer," Sherry said. "Then, they animate after we've recorded. A lot of people assume it's the other way around. 

"So you actually have a lot of influence over what the animators are going to draw, because you're bringing the energy, and you're making the decisions for the character based on the script, you're bringing your own take on it."

What the animators are going to "draw"? Sigh. And then there's this quote which is kinda frustrating...

"I haven't found many people who don't know the theme song (to Inspector Gadget) or they all say 'wowzers,' 'go go gadget,' everybody knows Inspector Gadget," Sherry said. "It's unbelievable, I had no idea."

...simply because that wonderful theme song which everybody knows is NOT USED in the new series. Not that Sherry is to be blamed in any way for that.

In other news: DHX Halifax, the division of DHX which produced and animated the new Gadget series, may be shut down or moved if recent changes to the film tax credit for Nova Scotia (the Canadian province of which Halifax is the capital) go through. The reasons are detailed in the linked piece "Cape Breton comedian: reduction of tax credit could see demise of N.S. film industry". As far as I can understand, though, the bottom line is this:

Over the past few years, the Canadian government has given generous, monetary support - in form of a hefty tax credit - to film and television productions which are hundred percent Canadian. This has led to many more animated productions coming to Canada than would otherwise have been the case; simply because producers can save a lot of money by having a series done there, with a wholly Canadian cast and crew, and save tax money. Now, however, this very convenient tax reduction arrangement is about to change for Nova Scotia:

...as of July 1, the film industry tax credit will only cover 25 per cent of eligible costs with the remaining 75 per cent available as a non-refundable tax credit. The credit used to be 100 per cent. A new $6-million Creative Economy Fund has been established to fill the void but it won't be available until 2016 and it will be available to a variety of creative industries, not just the film industry. 

"If they go through with this cut, this government is going to leave Nova Scotia with the poorest and least attractive tax programs in North America, so that means that productions which have come here before are going to go elsewhere," said MacDonald. "And there's lots of places for them to go. 

"Why would you come and make your television show or your film in Nova Scotia when you can drive up the road and make it in New Brunswick and get the proper tax credit? If they make this decision and follow through with it, as soon as they do it, just watch, everything will shut down." 

The rumblings have already begun with DHX Media in Halifax suggesting they may leave the province if the changes to the tax credit go ahead. They are the producers of the "Inspector Gadget" animated series and employ more than 150 people...

The tax reduction likely goes a long way toward explaining why the new Inspector Gadget series is a 100% Canadian production. It probably even explains, to an extent, some of the new voice actor choices. As the Ivan Sherry piece mentions: "...all the [voice] talent is Canadian, and includes Tara Strong, originally from Toronto, who lives in Los Angeles, Calif." Of course, a ton of different reasons play into how and why the new actors were selected, but it does sound like they needed to be Canadian.

I wonder what will happen with DHX Halifax now that the tax situation is (seemingly) changing. If the new Gadget series is popular enough to warrant a second season, will that season be produced elsewhere?

UPDATE: I corrected some details regarding the tax credit situation pointed out by this anonymous commenter.

UPDATE #2: For those wishing to delve into the tax credit situation more, Mark Mayerson has written an interesting piece on it.

New Behind-The-Scenes Article on Inspector Gadget's Reboot

Building up to the new series' American Netflix launch this Friday, Esquire just published a piece going behind the scenes of the show, with interview quotes from (among others) original co-creator Jean Chalopin and supervising producer Phillip Stamp. Right now, the piece is only available through Google Cache for whatever reason. (Though I'm noticing that its stated publication time is March 25 at 9 AM, a point in time which has not actually occurred yet. Could this be a glimpse into THE FUTURE??!)

[UPDATE (March 26): The article is now up on esquire.com again. I''m guessing it was mistakenly published a few hours too early the first time around.]

I don't agree with all the points that article writer Jill Krasny makes. Certainly not with the implication that Andy Heyward not being involved might be reason to worry about the new series -- just look at all the Heyward-produced Gadget reboots from the 90s and 2000s. 'NUFF SAID. I also, at times, get the feeling that the writer overstates Jean Chalopin's involvement just a little. For instance, when she writes, "...he turned to 3D animation. He also cut the 24-minute plots down to two shorts that clock in at 11 minutes each...", it sounds like "he" is referring to Chalopin. I doubt that either of those decisions were made first and foremost by Chalopin, who was involved not as a producer or an executive but as a consultant. (Oh, and by the way: the original series is not 35 years old yet.)

Still, the piece does make for quite interesting reading, delving into things like the faster storytelling pace and the reasoning behind a new character like Talon. Here it is in its entirety:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MAR 25, 2015 @ 9:00 AM

How Inspector Gadget Was Remade for a New Generation

Reviving a classic cartoon for the digital era isn't easy.

BY JILL KRASNY

When Netflix announced it was adding Inspector Gadget to its ever-expanding roster of kids' shows last month, fans of a certain age got very nostalgic. Among the cartoons Millennials were raised on, hardly any was more beloved than the bumbling bionic Gadget.

But Netflix isn't bringing the old Gadget back. And neither is the show's production company, DIC Entertainment, which was acquired by Cookie Jar Group in 2008 and ultimately sold to Canada's DHX Media four years later.

The new DHX-produced series, which premieres on March 27, now looks drastically different thanks to a CGI facelift, new characters, and—sigh—a new theme song. Question is, will modernizing a well-known character like Gadget fall flat? And with Andy Heyward, one of the show's three original creators out (Bruno Bianchi passed away in 2011), can co-creator Jean Chalopin retain its old sensibility?

Steven DeNure, president and COO of DHX Media, was thrilled to acquire the rights to Gadget in 2012. But he worried the old Gadget wouldn't appeal to its target audience of young children.

For starters, the pacing was painfully slow. Kids today are used to fast-moving commercials, quick cuts, and a thing called the Internet. (Kids in the '80s, it seems, had more patience.) "If you do a show that's slow-moving today, you lose the attention of your audience," Chalopin says, "so we had to accelerate the pace."

To do so, he turned to 3D animation. He also cut the 24-minute plots down to two shorts that clock in at 11 minutes each.

In doing visual research, Phillip Stamp, vice president of DHX Media and head of the Halifax studio where the new Gadget was made, found an "infinite supply of fan art of Gadget, Penny, and Brain," from anime styles to renderings of their old look, suggesting fans would be open to changes. However, in order to retain the spirit of the original series, many aspects were kept the same. In the remake Gadget still wears his trench coat and cap, while Penny, always in pig tails, still dresses casually, albeit now in a hoodie.

Their personalities are mostly what you remember, too. "If [Gadget] is going to get a tissue or sneeze or something like that, he's not going to use one of his hands but the hand that comes out of his hat," Stamp says. Gadget remains as clueless as ever, and Penny remains just as brainy.

At table reads "Gadget would do something and Brain would react, and one of the directors would say, 'Wouldn't Brain be running alongside him trying to make sure he doesn't hurt himself or anyone else?'" Stamp says. "We worked hard to preserve those elements of the original."

Still, this being a revival of a 35-year-old series and all, changes had to be made. Gadget's antagonist Dr. Claw is now more kooky in his old age. And Penny has a whole lot more attitude. "We felt that these were natural evolutions of both the style of storytelling, and also just a natural evolution of what you'd find with the characters," Stamp says. "We also did have to be a little courageous and step out and put our mark on it."

"What we wanted to do was make Penny a little older," says Chalopin, who estimates she was between 10 and 12 before and is now in her mid-teens. She also has a new love interest: Dr. Claw's spiky-haired nephew, Talon. "He's more of a kid of today," Chalopin says. He makes a great counterpart to Penny with his good looks and his charm.

Speaking of Penny, her '80s technology needed an upgrade. "Penny had a smartphone way before it existed," Chalopin says, so that wouldn't impress children today. To get around the problem, he created "holographic protection" for Brain and a computer that appears out of thin air when Penny needs it.

Asked how the process of making the cartoon today differs from the past, Chalopin is quick to say everything's easier, thanks to technological advances in animation. "Jean loved that everyone was under one roof," says DHX president DeNure, who agrees the "immediacy of feedback and ability to adjust and change things as you're working in a 3D world and environment" has been a game-changer.

But financing remains an uphill battle. Much of what's selected today, at least for content streaming services like Netflix, must not only reach a broad group of viewers but transcend countries and age groups as well. As Erik Barmack, Netflix's vice president of global content for kids, says, "The things we look for in general is if the shows transcend countries, have a new story to be told, or a new way of reimagining characters." Gadget, he says, ticks off all three criteria.

As an older Millennial who grew up on Gadget, I'll be the first to admit I was skeptical, not just of the remake but of its appeal. Watching the show is like being on speed, with gags every second and crazy-fast dialogue. More than once I felt my age and had to go back just to catch what I'd missed.

But despite all the changes—of which there are plenty—there was one thing that stayed the same for me. The triangle of Gadget, Penny, and Brain was as strong and adorable as ever. I found myself rooting for all of them, laughing along as Gadget gave them more trouble. It reminded me of the old times I cherished. And I was happy to have my friends back.

"Independently Speaking": Interview with Andy Heyward in Animation Magazine, February 2001

Thought I'd post this Andy Heyward interview I found while browsing through my school library's archive of Animation Magazine. The text part of this interview has actually been online forever here, but I think it's nice to know exactly when/where the interview is from and to put it in proper context. First, the magazine cover...

...and now, for the interview. This was conducted right after DiC CEO (and Gadget co-creator) Andy Heyward had managed to buy back the assets of his animation studio from Disney, and was independent once more. (Not that this in any way would enhance the quality of the cartoons his studio did over the following eight years.)

It's interesting to read Heyward's statements about Gadget & the Gadgetinis on the first page. Quite a few things changed from what he states here to when the finished series finally debuted. At the time, the plan was apparently to air the show on Fox Family in the United States, and Heyward even sounds confident that it will premiere sometimes in 2001. In actuality, Gadgetinis didn't finish in production until 2002, and did not air anywhere until the fall of 2002 - in France on the M6 channel from September 2002, in the UK on Channel 5 from August. The United States, meanwhile, never got to see the series at all.

Just for the record, Wikipedia is dead wrong about a number of these details. The episodes did not start aring on YTV in Canada in September of 2001, and Gadgetinis was not a Canadian co-production. While we're at it, the series wasn't produced over two seasons, either. It was a one-season, 52-episode order from the start. As Heyward mentions on the second page, "We're producing 52 episodes of Gadget and the Gadgetinis." But I digress.

Something I also find interesting is the bit about how Heyward ended up reuniting with fellow Gadget creators Jean Chalopin and Bruno Bianchi, as well as with music producer Haim Saban, to make the new spinoff series. I suspect that "Earlier this year" means "Earlier in 2000", by the way... the interview was probably conducted some time before the February 2001 issue was printed. [UPDATE: This Kidscreen article from December 1, 2000 confirms that DiC had already entered a co-production deal with Saban by then.]

Q: Earlier this year, you reunited after nearly 20 years with Jean Chalopin and Bruno Bianchi for Gadget and the Gadgetinis for Fox Kids Europe. What was that like?  

A: Jean [Chalopin] is an extremely creative individual. It was a pleasure and a thrill to work with him in every way. It always has been. Jean, as you know, actually began DIC [DIC Audiovisuel of Paris, a subsidiary of Radio Television Luxembourg] and really didn't want to be in the producing area; he wanted to stay in writing. We were producing this for European content and we needed to have a European writer. I called Jean and asked, 'How would you like to be involved in a new version of Inspector Gadget?' He said, 'That's great. Can we get Bruno [Bianchi], who was the director?' [Bianchi was - and still is - running the creative of Saban Europe.]

   So we contacted Bruno and talked to him about the idea. He said, 'I'm under contract to Saban.' I called Haim Saban [chairman, Saban Entertainment] and said, 'We have an idea we want to show you.' ... We went through the concept [and sold him on it]. This was a reunion of not only Bruno, Jean and myself, but Haim, who with his partnership with Shuki Levy, did the music [for the original Inspector Gadget].

This is the only interview where I've seen these happenstances explained, and it pretty much tells us why the series ended up being produced by Haim Saban's French animation studio, Saban International Paris (which would change its name to SIP Animation before the Gadgetinis series was finished). Even if I'm still no fan of Gadgetinis, I kinda like how the creators got back together for this project after so many years working at different companies. If only their new show had been as great as their original...

DHX Media's Phillip Stamp On The Challenge Of Rebooting Gadget

We already have Jean Chalopin's comments on the new TV series, but the below, 22-minute audio interview with supervising producer Phillip Stamp offers the most in-depth perspective that I've heard so far. You may be surpriced to know the date of this interview: July 3, 2013. Yes, it could be considered "old news", but I've decided to still give it a full presentation here for two reasons. One, Phillip Stamp provides a lot of info about his and his crew's approach towards reviving Gadget. Two, I believe very few people have heard this interview, and for good reason. It ran on a Canadian radio program called "Maritime Morning", and the web site featuring the interview episode misspells the series' title as "Insector Gadget". On top of that, the clip is not even playable from the site, due to an erroneuosly linked mp3 file. It almost feels as if someone went out of their way to hide this sound clip from the world! After a bit of experimenting, though, I managed to find the proper mp3 file's url address. So here we have the interview at last, embedded for your enjoyment...





Still here? Great! For those who have finished listening, I thought I'd add one comment to what Phillip is saying. At about 08:15 into the clip, the interviewer asks about the reasons for resurrecting the Inspector Gadget property, out of all the series that are now in DHX's library. Here is Stamp's reply...

...back last year [in 2012], DHX aquired the library of another great Canadian studio called Cookie Jar ... and, when those companies came together, Cookie Jar was actually the company that had owned Inspector Gadget for a long time and so then, that became the property of DHX. And there were a few of us within the company who, when we realized that that was something that we now had - under our creative influence, shall we say - we really thought that that could be something that would be a lot fun to take a swing at, and bring... you know, breathe new life into it.

I have no problem believing that Stamp and some of his colleagues thought reviving the series could be "fun", and I like that they were excited about it from a creative point of view. But Stamp's reply makes it sound like it was DHX's idea from the get-go to make the new TV series, which is not really the case. Maybe Stamp just wanted to simplify his explanation; but the truth is that the reboot series was well into pre-production by the time DHX bought Cookie Jar in October of 2012. In fact, we know that Cookie Jar was already developing the series in January 2012. It might very well be that the full, creative team for the production came together after Cookie Jar had been integrated with DHX... but DHX did not start the production from scratch.

Anyway, Phillip Stamp sounds like a really nice, enthusiastic guy who cares about doing a good show, so I'm not gonna hold this against him. More on his decades-long animation career can be found in this article by The Telegram (which is also where I grabbed the above photograph).

Jean Chalopin Talks Gadget - Old and New

Old news by now, but: A July 1 article from The Globe and Mail reveals some more info on Gadget's upcoming TV series. Among other things, it talks about Teletoon Canada's hopes for reviving the inspector on their channel:

When the bumbling detective last graced the screen, cartoons were exclusively aired on Saturday mornings and remote controls were still considered optional components for most televisions. Now he’ll compete against on-demand services that serve up thousands of cartoons at any time, as well as dozens of other distractions that have viewers turning away from traditional television in favour of online alternatives. 

It’s hoped that by tapping an existing franchise that has endured decades of syndication, the show will win viewers quickly and encourage them to put down their devices and sit down in front of the television. 

“In 1981, the pace of television was very slow,” says Jean Chalopin, the show’s co-creator and a consultant on the new series. “If you did the same thing exactly now, it would be very difficult to get an audience. Kids today are used to seeing different forms of animation and moods.”

Gadget’s return, scheduled for some time within the next year, is being orchestrated by Teletoon Canada, which needs to draw more adult viewers to its subscription-based channel to attract the kind of advertiser it needs to drive profits higher. The media world is so crowded –YouTube alone has more than a billion users a month looking for fresh content – that it’s almost impossible for a conventional television station to create a new cartoon series that will deliver the ratings needed to drive up advertising revenue. 

“The challenge is drawing adults to their television in the hours before 9 p.m.,” says Alan Gregg, the director of original content at Teletoon Canada. “One idea we had was to bring back franchises that already have an adult appeal.”

I like the fact that Teletoon wants the new series to attract adults as well as kids. But in my eyes, the most interesting piece of information appears right in the middle of the above quote: Jean Chalopin, DiC's founder and Gadget's co-creator, is a consultant on the new series! The Globe and Mail piece features only snippets from the interview with Chalopin, but article writer Steve Ladurantaye has posted the complete interview transcript on his personal site! This is pretty much the only interview I've ever seen with Jean Chalopin talking at length about Gadget:

How did the original series start?
We started in Paris and ended up in Toronto. We started in Paris looking for a character to finance an animation series, we wanted it to be a toy so we could get a toy company to finance the show. But we never produced anything more than a plush toy with Gadget, it was never a success as a toy. But the idea we liked, so we took it to others. He became a mixture of other characters, the Six Million Dollar Man and Insp. Clouseau. We felt a toy was no longer essential and we found a way to finance with French television, Canadian television and some financing from the U.S. We produced 65 episodes up front, all in Canada. 

How is this different than failed reboots such as Gadget and the Gadgetinis?
We are keeping the same structure. There were a number of other things produced that more or less tried to do the same thing with additional characters. They didn’t address the continuity in a way that I would have liked to have seen. Nothing really tried to capitalize on the franchise of the character. Now we’ve taken something that is very much the same visually, but with a team of people that have the love of the original character who was born in 1981. 

How was it different to write a show back then? Do kids expect something different now?
In 1981, the pace was very slow. If you did the same thing exactly now, it would be very difficult to get an audience. Kids today are used to seeing different forms of animation and moods. So it’s the same story, with a new pace. Kids are now exposed to more things – in the 1980s you had the Flintstones and maybe some classic Tom and Jerry. Now we need to write gags for adults too – kids and adults work at different levels. If you’re 37, you’ll know the show but you also want the nine-year-old to like, so you need different jokes. We won’t be King of the Hill or Family Guy, it’s not under the belt like that, but there needs to be more gags. 

How involved will you be with the new show?
Michael Hirsh (CEO of DHX Media) is a long-time friend. He showed me some visuals he was doing in Halifax and I reacted so well. One of the greatest days of my year was flying to Halifax, everyone there is funny and really understands what they are doing. They understand what this is – at the end of the day I laughed so much that my stomach was hurting. 

Was it like that with the original series?
It was like that we when created Gadget, we were having fun. Because we were having fun it became what it is, but little by little it became like a job. 

What do you think it retained some of its popularity? It wasn’t on TV for all that long.
We were getting very good ratings. But Gadget has been a very good No. 2, it was never No. 1. For eight years, it was on Nickelodeon every day. But still, it has never achieved top ratings – always the second best. But Gadget has been on air for so long everywhere around the world because it gets decent ratings. It’s very simple because you have a character that is completely predictable. He is always nice. He’s completely idiotic, but he’s a good human being and his niece loves him. He may mistake his dog for a bad guy, but his niece loves him. The mission was always given by Chief Quimby, Gadget would take the mission and the note would explode in the face of Quimby and then Gadget would go on an adventure and in the wrong way. The mystery of whatever crime had to be resolved was solved by Penny with the assistance of Brain. He will resolve, but he’ll have no clue how he did it. 

Penny is a strong female character – that’s not all that common.
There’s a family relationship that works, he’s likeable character and behind him you have the real hero who is the young girl. In every family kids feel they know they answer but they are not listened to so perhaps there is something to that. When we created we liked the triangle. We may change that a little today, but we have not changed the relationships in this triangle. We need more gags, yes, much more gags because the pace before was very slow and we didn’t have much money when we first produced the show. It was the 1980s, kids of today and adults have a very high demand for fun and pace.

The interview is a bit short, but still very interesting. I love the part about how DiC originally wanted Gadget to be a toy franchise, but then went in the opposite direction and produced the series because they liked the idea and wanted to have fun with it. Of course toys were produced when the show first came out, but the toys were never the driving force (which I'm glad for), and never caught on the way the TV series did.
   To that end, Chalopin's comment abot Gadget being "a very good No. 2" on Nickelodeon serves as a sober reminder of the kind of popularity the show has enjoyed over the years. Inspector Gadget was a hit when it first came out, and continues to get good ratings in reruns, but it never reached the commercial heights of, say, the Scooby-Doo franchise.

I was a bit surpriced by Chalopin's descriptions of earlier (relatively unsuccessful) reboots, where the one example mentioned by the interviewer is Gadget and the Gadgetinis. As Jean says, "There were a number of other things produced that more or less tried to do the same thing with additional characters. They didn’t address the continuity in a way that I would have liked to have seen. Nothing really tried to capitalize on the franchise of the character."
   Personally, I very much agree with this. Later reboots and spinoffs like Gadget Boy and Gadget and the Gadgetinis never lived up to the original series, and many of them were impressively bad. But the strange thing here is that Chalopin himself was very much involved with Gadgetinis. He wrote or co-wrote every episode, and is even credited on-screen as having created the Gadgetinis series. So, is he a) talking about every reboot attempt besides Gadgetinis, or is he b) unhappy with the Gadgetinis series in retrospect? Was he perhaps not allowed to do some of the things he wanted on that project? I believe the Gadgetinis series was in development for some time before Chalopin got into it (it was called G.I. Gadget at one point), so maybe Chalopin's wishes for the series had to be compromised to fit with concepts already created.

In a few cases, it feels like Chalopin isn't really answering the interviewer's questions, but he still gives us interesting information. For instance, we only get vague details about exactly how involved he is with the new show (he apparently visits the crew in Halifax from time to time), but at the same time we learn that Michael Hirsh is one of the people in charge, and that Chalopin has great confidence in the crew. Later on, the interviewer points out that Penny is a "strong female character". I suspect that he was looking for a comment about female heroes in cartoons, and about how this was somewhat unique at the time. Instead, Chalopin talks about Penny's role in the family triangle, and likens the appeal of her character to how "...in every family kids feel they know the answer but they are not listened to". There is definitely something there. Personally, though, I think Penny being a young girl - rather than a young boy - made a big difference to the show. To me, it makes both her battle with M.A.D and her relationship with Gadget more interesting and endearing. Penny gives the show more heart, more charm. Plus, portraying a little girl as a brilliant computer whiz is refreshing in itself, and makes the contrast between her and Gadget even stronger. (And who cares how unlikely it is? It's cool!)

At any rate, I'm glad to hear Chalopin say that they "...have not changed the relationships in this triangle [between Gadget, Penny and Brain]" in the new series - and I'm curious how Penny's new role as an inspector-in-training will be integrated into that structure. It sounds more and more like this new show will indeed try to work in the same continuity as the 1983 series.

P.S.: Admittedly, the fact that Chalopin is involved with the reboot was known before this article. I have been following the developments of the new season of Chalopin's famous series "The Mysterious Cities of Gold" for a long time now... and back in November of last year, a new biography appeared on Tfou.fr where it was mentioned that Chalopin "...still devotes time and a large part of his life to series such as The Mysterious Cities of Gold, Inspector Gadget and other new creative projects." (Via Google Translate from the French sentence, "Malgré tout il garde toujours du temps et une large place dans sa vie pour des séries telles que les Mystérieuses Cités d'Or, Inspecteur Gadget et autres nouveaux projets créatifs.")
   While the biography didn't specify exactly which Inspector Gadget project Jean was devoting time to, I felt pretty certain even back in November that it had to be the new TV series. Also, a French TV interview with Jean, which originally appeared on Youtube back in December of 2012, suggested the same thing. I don't understand French, but I noticed that, at about 5:25 in the video, the narrator actually mentions "Reboot du Gadget". So Chalopin has been involved with the reboot for some time now. Makes sense, of course, considering that the series has been in pre-production at least since the start of 2012.

(Almost New) Podcast Interview with Gadget's Comic Book Writer

Here's a bit of old news that passed me by: Back in March, Gadget writer Dale Mettam appeared on The Outhouse Pirate Podcast, where he was interviewed about all things Viper Comics... and among many other subjects, his work on the then-upcoming Inspector Gadget book. If you skip to about 00:37:45 on the audio player, you can hear Dale talk for a few minutes about how he approached the job of writing Inspector Gadget in the 21st century while still staying true to the original series. One of the most interesting parts is probably when Mettam is asked about what he thinks is the basic appeal of Inspector Gadget, for both new and old audiences:

Interviewer: What would you say (...) was the charm that (...) even today (...) could keep Inspector Gadget such a fun property? 

Dale Mettam: Well, I kinda suspect that... I mean, realistically, remembering as a kid, it was very much kinda like (...)... you really want to get from Penny's point of view. And, it's kinda like, you know; you have this uncle who is, relatively speaking, a superman; he can do... pretty much anything and everything. And yet, you're still the one who saves the day. I think, you know, a lot of kids kinda feel like that. It's kinda like: "Yeah, yeah, mom and dad... whoever... you know, they're the ones who make all the rules (...) - but I know what I'm doing! That's not a problem!" Now, most kids don't, and, you know, they kinda learn that along the way... [but] it, it's a cool fantasy to kinda, like, live with and, you know, play up! So, you know, it's just fun. 

I very much agree with what Mettam says here... it IS a cool fantasy! There's nothing overly original about the "Kids are smarter than adults" theme, but it can be most effective when done right. Speaking of which... Mr. Mettam, I really hope you give Penny more to do in the next comic book issue. She needs to get in on the action if we are to truly "live with the fantasy". Just a suggestion:)