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“ | Who's that? Gadget's niece! | „ |
| ~ Dr. Claw |
Penny is Inspector Gadget's niece and one of the main protagonists of the franchise. Penny secretly helps out her Uncle Gadget with his missions and does all the work, but she lets him get all the credit in the end.
History[]
Inspector Gadget[]
Penny secretly does all the work during Inspector Gadget's missions, despite him always taking all the credit afterwards. She usually uses her computer book and video watch to help her solve the cases. It is not stated where Penny got them or why she has them in the first place, but given Penny's super intelligence, she probably built it herself.
Penny is ten years old in the original series, with later depictions happening after two-year timeskips.
Inspector Gadget Saves Christmas[]
She joined her uncle to the North Pole to save Christmas from Dr. Claw. While Gadget was oblivious to the fact that Santa Claus was trapped in an ice cave, Penny did all the work and stopped the toys.
Inspector Gadget's Last Case[]
Penny doesn't have much of a role in this movie, although she does try to get Gadget and the Gadgetmobile to reconcile after their falling out. When Claw (disguised as Devon Debonair) sends Gadget on a unreal mission to get him fired, she has Brain secretly follow him. Penny later helps Gadget discover that Devon Debonair and Claw are the same person and takes Chief Quimby to apprehend Claw.
Gadget and the Gadgetinis[]
In this series, Penny is twelve years old and is the creator of Fidget and Digit, the titular Gadgetinis after Brain was retired from active duty. She builds them other gadgets and features to help them when they go on Gadget's missions. She now uses a laptop instead of a computer book.
Inspector Gadget's Biggest Caper Ever[]
Penny is now sixteen years old in this movie, although she doesn't do much, except for help Loony Purkle regain his confidence. A running gag is her wanting to go to an opera concert.
Personality[]
Penny is precocious, intelligent, brave, cute, tomboyish, resourceful, and anonymously solves the cases for her Uncle Gadget, something which he is totally oblivious to. Penny also loves her uncle very much and looks up to him. While it is not stated if she and/or Gadget have any other family members in the TV series, movies, or spin-offs, Gadget seems to be the only family she has got, and "Gadget and Old Lace" and a few episodes of Gadget and the Gadgetinis, including "No Brainer", confirm her to be an orphan. Penny foils Dr. Claw's plans, leaving Gadget to get all of the credit for doing so, even though he didn't do anything at all. This makes sense because Penny would be in serious danger if she got the credit.
Penny often stares around M.A.D.'s hideout or setup location to find out what they are up to; however, she usually ends up getting caught by Claw's henchmen and she either escapes by herself or calls her loyal pet dog Brain to rescue her. But when she and Brain are both captured, Gadget becomes exceptionally useful and competent and goes out to rescue both of them. Gadget loves Penny more than anything and he sees acting like a pretty girl. Penny is also very knowledgeable; for example, in "Clear Case", when she and Brain are in a laboratory of a diamond mine in South Africa, she knows how M.A.D agents are making invisibility suits to scare off miners by making them think they are ghosts. Quoting: "Diamonds refract light. They discovered a way to grind them into a powder and make a diamond cloth. It's like a coat made of mirrors: It deflects light so you can't see it."
Penny is also very patient and progressive, particularly when putting up with her uncle's clumsiness and stupidity.
She acts like a typical teenage girl when she's not on duty. She is very intelligent in addition to her cuteness and beauty and is capable of hacking into almost any computer-based system. Despite being fearless and a genius, Penny does have her weaknesses. It is shown in episodes such as "Claw's Nephew", and "Eye of the Dragon" that she has a strong weakness for boys and gets nervous when they're near her. She might be in love with Dr. Claw's nephew, Billy Thaw.
Penny can show rare moments of clumsiness or carelessness. In "Movie Set", she accidentally kicks a film reel when she attempts to warn her uncle about Lana Lamour which led to her capture. In "Photo Safari", she almost drank a bucket full of oil from the African village's water well. In "The Emerald Duck", she was crossing the old wooden and rope bridge over the rushing water below, when she stepped on a rotting board and fell into the river, but she managed to swim to shore. In "A Bad Altitude", she found the secret elevator going to the bottom of the ocean and pressed the bottom button. As the bottom button flashes, Penny notices water seeping through the floor around her shoe, and starts to panic as the elevator fills up with water, making her shudder uncomfortably as she went underwater, but she managed to escape after the elevator opened and swam to surface into the M.A.D. underground base. Later, after being caught by Fred, she tried fibbing that she thought the underground base was part of the hotel, which didn't convince Fred. (Notably, she was more convincing with her fib upon being apprehended by a different M.A.D. agent in "Gadget at the Circus", which is why she avoided capture in that episode.) In "Birds of a Feather", after being locked in a birdcage, Penny's attempt to break free causes the chain holding the birdcage to the ceiling of the tower to loosen dangerously, and she would've died if Brain hadn't shown up when he did. In "High Noon", she fell down the saloon's chimney and into the saloon, where the frightened citizens of Cut n' Shoot tie her up and gag her in a comical way, after mistaking her for a member of the Barker Gang. In "Rock 'n' Gadget", she accidentally bumped a water bucket with her foot after overhearing the M.A.D. Sound Man's conversation with Claw. As she stood frozen in fear at being caught, Penny heard the M.A.D. Sound Man tricking her into letting her guard down by saying "Great weather today, isn't it?", making her breathe a sigh of relief, thinking that she's safe, but then, the M.A.D. Sound Man peeks around the corner and startles her, and captures her by tying up her wrists behind her back and gagging her and placing her inside a trunk.
Occasionally, she has also been known to take the mickey out of her uncle's cluelessness. In "Monster Lake", after Gadget tells her that he was just about to catch the Loch Ness Monster, in direct contradiction of his earlier claims that there is no such thing, Penny says, "What?" in surprise, then she mock-sheepishly adds, "Oh, right."
Penny is also amazing at a few surprising talents. For example, as seen in "Gadget at the Circus", she can juggle three apples effortlessly. As seen in "The Incredible Shrinking Gadget", she can very easily score a strike at the bowling alley and is shown curtsying after one such strike. She is also surprisingly acrobatic, as she is shown doing the splits in a few episodes, including "All That Glitters".
Appearance[]
Penny has shoulder-length blonde hair styled in pigtails. Her eyes are greenish-blue as they are seen arched wide open in the opening sequence of the original 1983 cartoon. In Gadget and the Gadgetinis and Inspector Gadget's Last Case, her eyes are violet-blue.
Penny's age throughout the original animated series is 10 years old. Two years later, she is 12 years old in Gadget and the Gadgetinis and Inspector Gadget's Last Case. A year later, she is 16 years old in the 2005 film Inspector Gadget's Biggest Caper Ever.
In the original cartoon, Penny wears a red short-sleeved T-shirt with a thick white stripe in the center, green-rinse blue jeans of an olive shadewith light green knee pockets, and red and pink sneakers. In season 2, she typically also wears one of the following: a blue and white sports jacket, a red jacket with black and pink trim, a pink sports jacket, or a khaki vest. She was seen in a bikini three times, two of them red and the last is blue. The safety tip in "The Boat" depicts her wearing much more conservative swimwear, consisting of the T-shirt paired with olive green beach shorts. She wears a similar swimsuit on the final page of the Golden Book Inspector Gadget in Africa, but with a tank top instead. Her usual sleepwear is a light blue nightgown, though she is occasionally seen wearing two-piece pajamas of the same color.
In The Gadgetinis, Penny wears a pink crop top, a green turtleneck, khaki cargo pants, brown belt with silver buckle, and red sneakers. Her pigtails are also straight up. Like the original series, she wears a red bikini at the beach. Unlike the original series, it's not as skimpy.
In Biggest Caper Ever, she wore a red and white long-sleeved shirt, blue jeans with a belt, and white sneakers. She also no longer has thick cut bangs.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Computer skills
- Resourcefulness
- High intelligence
- Impeccable knowledge
- Agility
- Juggling
Gadgets[]
Like her uncle, Penny has her own set of gadgets. However, as she is not a cyborg, they are not integrated like her uncle's gadgets. Nevertheless, in spite of their comparatively mundane nature, befitting her more down-to-earth personality, they tend to outshine her uncle's gadgets when it comes to solving his cases:
- Computer book: A computer disguised as a book, which is useful for everything from navigation to hacking.
- Watch: Worn on her left wrist. Despite being the more humble of her regular gadgets, it packs the power of at least a dozen gadgets into one tiny device.
- Wiretapping device: Used in "Gadget's Replacement" to listen in on M.A.D.'s plot to hijack the police supercomputer.
- Radar computer: Used in "Monster Lake" to track the Loch Ness Monster. Despite its bulk, it's implied to be a portable device that can easily be assembled and disassembled for long-distance trips and that she's used it before.
- Laser homing device: Used in "Gadget in Winterland" to follow the Abominable Snowbot remotely.
Trivia[]
- Penny's last name is unknown.
- According to the book Go-Go Gadget: The Creation of Inspector Gadget by Andy Heyward, Penny was originally "capable of prodigious feats of strength". While this feat was never kept in for any incarnation of Penny, who in the pilot episode ultimately destroys Dr. Claw's hideout through external means instead, it's possible that her temporarily adding super strength in the episode "Old Man of the Mountain" was used as a homage.
- Penny was Cree Summer's very first voice acting role. Summer reprises her role for the cut-scenes of Inspector Gadget: Gadget's Greatest Gadgets, the Robot Chicken episodes "Adoption's an Option" and "Triple Hot Dog Sandwich on Wheat", and the Nostalgic Critic review of Inspector Gadget Saves Christmas.
- Cree Summer was unable to reprise the role of Penny for Season 2 of Inspector Gadget and is replaced by Holly Berger.
- In the first version of the Polish dubbing, her name is Lilly, and she is dubbed by Halina Chrobak. In the second version, she has the original name (Penny) and is dubbed by Krystyna Kozanecka (1983 series).
- Her Arabic name is Dania in the 1983 series.
- The only time where she does not appear is in Inspector Gadget's Field Trip.
- In the pilot episode of M.A.S.K. Mobile armored strike Kommand called Deathstone there is a little blond girl with pig tails that looks like Penny as an easter egg from the animation team of DIC, who also animated that series. Coincidentally, the girl is also wearing a red bikini.
- Even before her 2015 series counterpart was shown to be a competent physical fighter, this version of Penny was occasionally prone to physical violence when confronted by M.A.D. agents.
- She is the only main character to destroy one of Dr. Claw's hideouts, having used the Abominable Snowbot to smash and blow up the one in Winterland.
Every time she gets kidnapped/captured[]
- The Curse of the Pharaoh: Grabbed by Squirt and tied to a pillar in the Pharaoh's tomb.
- The Invasion: Abducted by M.A.D. agents disguised as Martians on Dr. Claw's orders.
- The Boat: Bumps into Fred, who then apprehends her and cages her on Dr. Claw's orders.
- Gadget's Replacement: Grabbed from behind by M.A.D. agents while trying to transmit evidence of the crime computer's misuse to Brain.
- Haunted Castle: Grabbed from behind in Castle Dracula's basement by Fred after falling through a loose door.
- Health Spa: Grabbed from behind in the Bide-A-Wee Health Spa's garden by Dick.
- Race to the Finish: Shut into the M.A.D. garage and exposed to knockout gas.
- Photo Safari: Shut in a cage trap alongside Brain by Jungle Bob.
- Movie Set: Tripped by the M.A.D. Director and gangpressed into being Lana Lamour's stunt double.
- Sleeping Gas: Falls into a trapping pit set up by M.A.D.
- The Coo Coo Clock Caper: Grabbed from behind by a M.A.D. agent and almost executed by the M.A.D. Clockmaker.
- Basic Training: Exposed to knockout gas in the control car.
- Art Heist: Grabbed by Fred when he and Dick spot her.
- Gadget Goes West: Accosted by Rattlesnake Bart while undercover.
- Volcano Island: Grabbed by Lenny and almost sacrificed.
- The Infiltration: Nicked by a security guard after a false accusation made by Presto.
- All That Glitters: Apprehended by the M.A.D. Archaeologist, who almost executes her by throwing her off a cliff before she warns him about the tourists below.
- Greenfinger: Grabbed by plants set up by the phony Greenfinger and tied up by another M.A.D. agent.
- The Japanese Connection: Grabbed from behind by a M.A.D. agent in a karategi after scanning the Pip-1 computer chip with her computer book.
- A Star is Lost: Knocked out by the sound of the M.A.D. record, then tied up with magnetic tape along with Gadget and Rick during an escape attempt and almost pressed to death.
- Birds of a Feather: Walks in on Icarus Finch, who promptly locks her in a birdcage.
- Clear Case: Outed by Professor Easewell while hiding behind an invisibility panel and almost executed Goldfinger-style.
- Luck of the Irish: Falls into a pit while being chased by the O'Shea Brothers.
- A Bad Altitude: Grabbed from behind by Fred and locked in a room with scuba gear. Later tries to escape only for Fred to catch up with her and chain her to the ocean floor.
- Weather in Tibet: Locked up along with Tabu after he accidentally gives them away by lifting the sheet they're hiding under and failing to notice a guard until it's too late.
- Plantform of the Opera: Runs when M.A.D. agents try to grab her from behind, then locked inside the room she ran into.
- Gone Went the Wind: Pulled into the Sneezooka laboratory through a window by Dr. Focus, who confiscates her parka.
- Unhenged: Grabbed by M.A.D. druids and almost ritually sacrificed at Stonehenge.
- In Seine: Grabbed from behind and locked up on LaPoof's orders.
- School for Pickpockets: Caught spying outside of LeDip's school and cuffed to an overhead bar inside by Angelique.
- Quiz Master: Bound and gagged on a catwalk above the television studio floor and bottled up in another room.
- Wambini Predicts: Grabbed from behind by the Lesser Wambini and stuffed into an overhead storage compartment in the M.A.D. bus.
- Gadget's Gadgets: Apprehended by the M.A.D. Nurse, who confiscates her computer book.
- Busy Signal: Apprehended by Dr. Spectrum and almost teleported to Dr. Claw's lair.
- Gadget's Clean Sweep: Apprehended by Thelma Bodkin and put in the stocks in a dungeon.
Failed attempts[]
- Amusement Park: Attempted by Lenny when she questions him about the stuffed panda, but Penny breaks free and shoves him in the path of another guest as he attempts to hit the ducks.
- Did You Myth Me?: Attempted by Fred, but Penny manages to distract him by throwing down the tablet with the formula on it, causing it to shatter, and escapes as Daedalus tries to piece it together.
- Snakin' All Over: Attempted by Professor Venom, but she manages to escape between his legs. He then sics his snakes on her, but Penny turns the tables on them by force-feeding a stool to one, tricking another into hypnotizing itself, and exposing the last to cold air by stuffing it up a chimney.
- Do Unto Udders: Attempted by Pops, but Chief Quimby arrests him before he can make his move.
- Gadget Meets the Grappler: Attempted by Professor Doomkauf, but Capeman inadvertently stops him to prevent him from falling off the train.
Honorable mentions[]
- Gadget at the Circus: Caught snooping by the M.A.D. Ringmaster, but she's able to talk him out of apprehending her.
- M.A.D. Trap: Caught in the crossfire when Dr. Claw's last attempt to kill Gadget in the sheet metal factory produces an out-of-control fire, but not actually captured.
- The Bermuda Triangle: Spotted and chased by M.A.D. agents and flees underwater, but they do not attempt to capture her since they figure she's as good as dead because the oxygen tank she'd stolen from them was already half empty.
- Eye of the Dragon: Appears to be captured in the docks, but it's actually the shopkeeper's grandson pulling her to safety.
- Tree Guesses: Locked inside the wood rot laboratory; however, since Sven Svensen had no idea she was inside, this doesn't count as an actual capture.
- Dry Spell: While she's not actually captured in this episode, Dr. Claw does try to execute her during the climax as he spitefully blows up the Metro City Reservoir with heat-seeking missiles while the trolls are chasing her across it.
- Fang the Wonder Dog: Knocked off a stairway and into an open trunk when Lenny opens the door on her, but not captured.
- Smeldorado: A role reversal where Penny is the one doing the rescuing after Brain gets apprehended by M.A.D. agents atop the piles of gold bars Dr. Stench is tampering with.
- Focus on Gadget: Locked inside an anti-gravity chamber and exposed to knockout gas along with Gadget and Brain; however, since Gadget and Brain are subsequently able to get out by themselves, with Penny choosing to stay behind to monitor and assist in their investigations, and they (especially Penny and Brain) are overall able to maintain control of the situation even as Drs. Null and Void attempt to take it back, this doesn't count as an actual capture.
Gadgetinis incidents[]
- One Too Many Gadgets: Apprehended by the duplicate Gadget while trying to escape after figuring him out.
- High Noon: Hogtied by citizens of Cut n' Shoot/Gadgetville under the misapprehension that she is one of the bandits.
- Swap Team: Tied up along with Fidget and Digit by Guy Strong in Gadget's body, taken to an abandoned factory, and almost blown up lethally.
- Rock 'n' Gadget: Tricked into revealing herself by the M.A.D. Sound Man, who then binds and gags her and stuffs her into a trunk.