Brain's Secret Christmas Mission

Okay, this just amuses me too much not to share.

Over at Instagram, the user Claudia González Iglesias has posted this photo of a reindeer Christmas display in a shopping mall, accompanied by the following caption (via Google Translate): "Kids say they are reindeers... but for me it is the dog in Inspector Gadget with antlers! Is he on a secret mission??"

I do believe Claudia is right here, folks. To the ordinary child, these may look like reindeers, but we seasoned Inspector Gadget fans know better. Brain, I'm sorry, but your cover has been blown...

Two More Bruno Bianchi Drawings

A few months ago, I did a post featuring some latter-day Bruno Bianchi drawings collected off the web. Today, I have two more to add...



The first one - a very nice rendition of Gadget's face - was drawn for none other than Nordine Zemrak, the co-writer of the in-depth DiC history book "Les series de notre enfance". The caption reads, "For Nordine. Best wishes. B. Bianchi". I'm guessing this was done during the period when Nordine and his partner Maroin Eluasti were working on their book. Sourced from Nordine's ink361 page.



The second drawing is also a bit special, primarily because it's the first time I've seen Penny pop up in one of these Bianchi pieces. This was up on Ebay a few weeks ago with the description, "Rare dédicace sur feuille de Bruno Bianchi le créateur de la série mythique inspecteur gadget. Format A4 sur papier dessin type canson. Signé" ("Rare dedication on paper by Bruno Bianchi, the creator of the legendary Inspector Gadget. A4 format, Canson drawing paper. Signed"). As we can see, it has the same year and signature type (B. BiANCHi) as drawing number one in my previous post, suggesting that they were done for the same occasion.

This drawing is very loose, but I love the style on both Penny and Gadget. As with several of the previously seen drawings, Bianchi's linework here has a certain flavor of the classic French-Belgian comic book style, which is fun for me to see. Gadget's character design quite clearly came from that tradition to begin with, and Penny, while rendered simpler than her animated design, is also instantly recognizable.

Season 2 of the New Inspector Gadget Series Is Recording Now

The quickest of quick updates to report this: The upcoming Season 2 of the new TV series - in production since July - has now started recording. The current voice actor of Inspector Gadget himself, Ivan Sherry, gave the reveal on Twitter on October 8:

It's official! We're heading into the studio this month for Season Two! @netflix #animation #cartoons #voiceactor pic.twitter.com/fXeRlWDENN

— Ivan Sherry (@The1IvanSherry) 8. oktober 2015

Talon's voice actor Lyon Smith has also shared a few tidbits, including this snapshot from a recording session on October 28:

Go go gadget season 2! Here we go! #inspectorgadget #talon #voiceactor pic.twitter.com/3rd6vnRG8h

— Lyon Smith (@lyon_smith) 28. oktober 2015

...and this quick tweet from November 17:

Record day for #inspectorgadget . Playing #talon is such a pleasure.

— Lyon Smith (@lyon_smith) 17. november 2015

Just to be perfectly clear: This second season of the reboot has nothing to do with what Netflix in the United States is calling "Season 2", which is in reality the last ten episodes of Season 1. Netflix's deal with DHX included only the first 16 half-hours of Season 1 (of 26) when they first launched the series in March... so when the 10 holdover episodes were finally added on August 28, Netflix decided to call them "Season 2". This is a bit unfortunate, not only because of the confusion it leads to among U.S. viewers, but because it will undoubtedly lead to MORE confusion down the road. You can bet that when the real Season 2 hits Netflix US sometimes in the future, it will be called "Season 3". But, ah well, that's marketing for you.

Season 1, Volume 3 of the Reboot Out on Australian DVD Now (and on iTunes from December 14)

Yeah, I know. I want this site to be more active too, but for a number of personal reasons (including personal health), I haven't been able to keep up postings as much as I'd like. Still, Universal's Australian DVD releases of the reboot series - which continue to be the only home video releases in the world as far as I know - is a topic I have covered thus far, and so I wanted to notify readers of the latest developments. After a break of four months, Season 1 Volume 3 was finally released to DVD on November 5. Cover art below:

According to several online retailers - for instance Sanity - the disc contains half-hours #14-20, leaving one volume to collect the final six episodes of Season 1. I should add that in addition to buying Volume 3, fans currently also have a chance to win a copy over at Mum's Lounge (yes, I'm very late with reporting that, but hey, still three days left of the giveaway).

So much for physical media. But what about the digital video release - which, until now, has happened concurrently with the DVDs? Well, for whatever reason, Season 1 Volume 3 has not seen an iTunes release yet... and it still won't for a few weeks. I asked about this on the Facebook page of The Viewing Lounge (a home media showpage run by Universal in conjunction with several other distributors), and was told: "It'll be available on iTunes from December 14." So episodes #14-20 ARE coming to the VOD world, they've just been delayed slightly. The upcoming iTunes release is expected to be in full HD like the Season 1, Volume 1 and Season 1, Volume 2 packages were.

...and that is NOT quite all. Because as I was googling about for details on Volume 3's release, I noticed that the low-res cover art for Volume 4 has already popped up a few places. Customers won't have to wait four new months for this one: According to Digitales, Season 1 Volume 4 will come out already on January 14, 2016. Presumably it will contain the remainder of Season 1, half-hours #21-26. So in not too long, the entire first season (i.e. the entire series at this point, even though Season 2 is in production) will have been released to DVD and VOD in Australia. [UPDATE (December 2): I found a higher-res pic of Volume 4's cover than the one I first posted, so I replaced it below.]

Finally, we happily note that the covers for both Volume 3 and Volume 4 look much better than the one for Volume 2, which you might remember featured a bizarrely misplaced and badly edited smile on Gadget's face. Photos of the physical DVD have turned up on Ebay in recent months, so I can now conclude that the worst version of the smile did indeed end up on the final cover. Ah well. It looks awful, but at least three out of four covers came out decent. (And of course, there are also those who prefer the crooked smile on Gadget - each to his own taste!) I still can't understand why it's so important that ALL the main characters smile on EVERY cover motive, though.

Teletoon Canada Premieres the New Inspector Gadget Series on September 7, 2015

Here comes the premiere which everyone has been waiting for... or more to the point, wondering about. Teletoon, the network which commissioned the new Inspector Gadget series in the first place, will premiere it on Monday, September 7 at 6 pm in the evening. According to a yesterday press release from Corus Entertainment, the show is slated to air every Monday evening at that time... and checking Teletoon's own schedule for September 7, I see that it will air in a one-hour slot on the premiere day. Here's the most relevant part of Corus' press release, including the longest series synopsis for the reboot that I've seen so far:

NEW SERIES 

INSPECTOR GADGET (26 x 22 minutes) – CANADIAN PREMIERE 

Premieres: Mondays at 6 p.m. ET/PT beginning September 7. 

Everyone's favourite bionic policeman returns! In this new CGI series,Inspector Gadget battles the evil Dr. Claw with all new gadgets - and all new gadget-related chaos! But our loveable, bumbling, accidentally-destructive Inspector's not alone in the fight to take down MAD. His ever trusty police-dog, Brain, is still by his side; and he's getting extra crime fighting help from his new partner: Inspector-in-training Penny! It's a MAD-cap romp as our heroic trio chases crime all over the globe (and tries to keep Gadget's collateral damage to a minimum). From the streets of Paris to the rainforests of Brazil, from the lost city of Atlantis to the moon, there's nowhere they won't go to get their man! And with MAD more powerful than ever with the arrival of Dr. Claw's evil-genius (and totally crush-worthy) nephew - Penny and Brain will need to use every ounce of their training to keep the world safe from Dr. Claw… and Gadget!

And as we can see from Teletoon's schedule, "Gadget 2.0" will naturally be the first episode to air:

So there it is. At (extremely) long last, the reboot premieres in its own country. 

Feeling better, stephdumas? ;)

Teletoon Canada Says September

Still no specific date, but at least we're slowly getting there. The below Teletoon promo pic first appeared in an August 9 Facebook post by Teletoon Retro...

...and here's the accompanying text from that posting (actually less specific):

Get your fill of the one and only original Inspector Gadget at NOON in the Retro Rewind Marathon. Plus, get ready for the ALL NEW version of Inspector Gadget on TELETOON this Fall!

"New series coming this September". September is now but a day away, so I'm guessing an announcement for the exact premiere date can't be far off either. Still, it's interesting just how long Teletoon has waited with this premiere, considering they were the ones to order the series from Cookie Jar/DHX to begin with and all other broadcasters (yes, including Netflix, although a large part of America has been led to think otherwise) simply acquired it for their channels later on.

One thought that struck me is that Teletoon's September launch of the new Gadget may have a double meaning. As has been known for a while now, the Teletoon Retro channel dedicated to older cartoons will close down on September 1. Teletoon Retro has been the Canadian home of the original Inspector Gadget for many years... and I can't help but think that strong ratings for the original played a key part in Teletoon deciding to commission a brand-new Gadget series from Cookie Jar back in 2011/2012 (though a certain 2010 hit mobile game also played into that).

Several long-time Teletoon Retro shows - such as The Bugs & Tweety Show, Scooby-Doo and The Flintstones - will move to Teletoon's main channel from September onwards; but the original Inspector Gadget series doesn't seem to be among them. In other words: Come September, it seems the situation for Teletoon viewers will be, 'out with the old Gadget, in with the new'. The reboot launches just as the original stops airing. This timing ain't no coincidence.

Personally, I hope the original series will also turn up on Teletoon somewhere down the line, in tandem with the new show. From my perspective, it could be a cool bonus for kids who like the reboot to discover what the original version was like. And of course, the original series is just so awesome in and of itself that it should never stop airing.

France 3 Premieres the New Gadget Series Tomorrow, August 29

...as seen in this YouTube promo, posted today on the official channel of France 3's Ludo program block:



This has been known for a little while now. The first YouTube teaser from Ludo appeared on July 27, and a few weeks later, the premiere date was revealed as August 29 (though an online pre-premiere was launched on ludo.fr on August 22). The series is slated to air every Saturday and Sunday at 10:25 in the morning.

As long-time readers might remember, the news of public channel France 3 airing the reboot actually goes all the way back to last summer. Here's what was announced back then, via a French article from July 9, 2014 on Ozap.com:

"Eh la qui va là ? Inspecteur Gadget ! Eh la ça va pas ? Ouh ouh". [French theme song lyrics.] The unforgettable theme song of "Inspector Gadget" will soon return to echo on France 3. The public broadcaster has pre-purchased from the Canadian production company DHX Media the rights to a new version of the cartoon series about the adventures of the famous inspector who delighted children in the 80s. (...) 

This new series of 52 episodes of 11 minutes will be delivered in June 2015 by the Canadian production but it will take a few months to France 3 for the translation, dubbing and production of a less dated theme song. The channel should therefore not broadcast "Inspector Gadget" 2.0 before fall 2015.

Obviously, a lot of the above turned out to be wrong. The series ended up premiering in French broadcast already on January 3, 2015; on Boomerang France... so clearly, the translation and dubbing into French must have started as soon as Season 1 finished production at DHX Halifax (around November 2014 if I'm not mistaken).

What did turn out to be correct, though - which I was doubting for a while - is the series' broadcast on France 3 this fall. My reader NBU was right the whole time. It does makes sense: after the initial run on the paid kids' channel Boomerang, the reboot now gets broader exposure on a public, open-for-all channel. And though I've said it before, it warrants repeating right now: it's probably no coincidence that France 3 is the renamed, modern-day version of FR3, the channel which launched the original Gadget in France way back in October of 1983...

Vintage magazine ad promoting the premiere run of Season 1 on FR3. Scan courtesy of GC.