What Happened To...Inspector Gadget: Part Three

Like an amazing amount of TV-based dogs, Brain wasn't your average kind of dog. Like Lassie, Scooby-Doo and even Family Guy's Brian, Brain was a lot more intelligent than you might initially think. I'm not really sure who's dog he was, whether he was Gadget's or Penny's. But, one thing I do know, is that he was the other half of the crime-solving double act that was him and Penny.

Interestingly, Brain was voiced by the same person as Dr. Claw, and that person was probably one of the voice acting industries most well-known and respected voice actors: Frank Welker.

Even if the name doesn't mean anything to you, I promise you that you will know his work and his voice talent, even if you don't realise it. How do I know that? Because he's provided the voices for so many well-loved characters. But, it's incredibly difficult to know which ones to pin down, because there really are too many of them, and it seems unfair to miss any out.


However, a few of his more popular roles include: 

Fred: Scooby-Doo

Fred in various incarnations of Scooby-Doo
Gol in classic Studio Ghibli film Nausicca of the Valley of the Wind
Several Gremlins in both of the Gremlins film.
Megatron, Soundwave and other voices in Transformers animations
Totoro in another classic Studio Ghibli My Neighbor Totoro
Dumbo and various other voices in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (although these role were uncredited)
Slimer, in The Real Ghostbusters
Max (the dog) in Disney's The Little Mermaid
The Devil and Station in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey
Kermit, Skeeter and Beaker in Muppet Babies
Abu in Disney's Aladdin


Welker also provided various voice talents for:

Slimer

DuckTales
Potsworth and Co.
Alvin and the Chipmunks
TaleSpin
Adventures of the Gummi Bears
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
The Jetsons
Dinosaurs
Where's Wally?

This may seem like quite a lengthy list, but trust me when I say that this is barely the tip of the ice berg, with the amount of work that Frank Welker has done throughout his career, and I very much doubt that he'll be retiring any time soon.

Well, that's it for the Inspector Gadget Mini Series. I hope that you enjoyed it, as much as I enjoyed researching the three main voice actors. Even though I grew up watching this show, I didn't have a clue what kind of histories the voice actors had, so it's been interesting.

If there are any other TV shows, or films that have had you wondering "I wonder what happened to them..." then, please do get in touch, and I'll happily do a little research for a future series :)

Thanks for reading.

What Happened To...Inspector Gadget: Part One

Thirty years ago, in 1982, three employees of DIC Entertainment: Andy Heyward (Former Chairman and CEO), Jean Chalopin (French Producer and Writer, who created DIC Audiovisual) and Bruno Bianchi (a French Artist and Animator) devised an animated series that would spawn several spin-off television series, and a live action film featuring Ferris Bueller star Matthew Broderick. 

The series was such a huge success, that in 2009, it was ranked 54th in IGN's Top 100 Animated Series, one higher than those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which is pretty impressive. So, to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of this classic TV shows conception, I thought that it was only right to pay homage to the series, by looking into whatever happened to those sometimes forgotten people: the voice actors. Starting, of course, with Inspector Gadget himself.

As the show's main protagonist, my main memory is always that he was a little bit of an odd-ball. Style-wise, he dressed a lot like the Inspector Clouseau character from The Pink Panther, is constantly in danger (even if most of the time he is completely oblivious to it), and spends an unusual amount of time in suitcases...seriously!

Gadget was voiced, over 86 episodes, by Don Adams. Of Irish and Hungarian origin, Adams was already an established actor, when he took the role. Credits included The Love Boat and The Bill Dana Show, but perhaps most prominently in 1960's spy show Get Smart as lead Maxwell Smart (re-made in 2008, starring Steve Carrell and Anne Hathaway). Adams went on to reprise his role as Smart, in the Get Smart revival in 1995. 

Adams also reprised his role as Inspector Gadget several times, for various spin-offs and sequels, including Inspector Gadget Saves Christmas. In fact, Adam also voiced the character of Gadget Boy, in the spin-off series Gadget Boy and Heather.

Before his death in 2005, Adams' final role had been in children's character Pepper Ann, as Principal Hinkley, a role voiced from 1999 until 2000. He left behind seven children, and sadly died only a year after one of them.

Throughout his life, Adam had been good friends with Playboy Bossman Hugh Hefner, and spent a great deal of time at the Playboy Mansion. 

Continues tomorrow with....Penny

Skins Series 6 Trailer

Sometimes I feel that at 28 years of age, I'm getting a bit old to be watching programmes like Skins, but you know what, I'm gonna watch it as long as it stays good. And yes, the new series is looking good don't you think?

I've been a fan of the series since Day One, although I really nearly stopped throughout the entire third and fourth series featuring the second generation, who I really did not connect with, in the slightest. However, I'm glad I stuck it for the fifth series, because I'm loving the latest generation of kids (does that make me sound old purely on the fact that I used the word "kids"??). The acting is brilliant, the storylines more interesting and the characters are easier to like than the second generation.

Literally counting the days to the start of Series Six, and from the trailer, I have a feeling that it is going to be a good one!!

Did you Know? Amy Farrah Fowler

How HOT is Johnny Galecki in this picture??

When I first started watching Big Bang Theory (about half way through the very first season), I honestly could not imagine the type of girlfriend that would be perfect for Sheldon Cooper. He's super intelligent, majorly anti social and pretty much lives in a world of his own, so how could the writers come up with someone that would match his eccentrically-charged personality??

Step forward: Amy Farrah Fowler.

The character of Amy isn't just a perfect match for Sheldon, but she's also a great "BFF" for Penny. Despite being polar opposites, the friendship between Penny and Amy has been quite endearing.

The interesting thing about Mayim Bialik who plays the incredible Amy is the fact that she looks virtually nothing like her character:

This is what she looks like as Amy Farrah Fowler

And this is what she looks like in real life

She looks so different without her stern expressions, glasses and er....lovely outfits *ahem* it really is no wonder that I have never ever put two and two together, about who Mayim Bialik is. She has one of those unique names, that I can't believe that I never clicked on that, because I honestly didn't.

So, have you f igured out who she is, or should I say....was....?

I'll give you a clue.....

Know what show this is.....?

Haha, yup!

Can you believe it? That annoying girl from the early nineties TV show, who danced her way through the opening credits, and was about as irritating as kids of that kinda show are, grew up to our very own Amy Farrah Fowler.

Who knew? Because I really did not.

Andy Gray: Was Sky Right to Sack him?

Okay, so just a little note that I don't intend to get "political" very often with my blog posts, but since football is a form of entertainment for quite a lot of people, I thought I'd give my thoughts on this whole matter of Andy Gray.

So, did Sky do the right thing by sacking Andy Gray? Personally, yes, I honestly think they did. But, because he was a completely sexist and masoginistic pig? No.

At the end of the day, football is predominantly a man's sport. It is played by men, it is watched by men. Most women, myself included, don't have a clue about it...and nope, I have no idea about the offside rule. I tried learning it once, but I got confused, I'm not afraid to admit that! But then, I've never really needed to know it!

Like most things, you are going to still get people (in this case "women") that you don't expect to, getting involved in the activity, which in this case is of course football. A small group of women play it, some women watch and as we have recently seen, woman have started taking a more active role, which on this occassion was as a Referee.

Perhaps quite rightly, men don't like this. We all know that a lot of men like having things that they can share with their other male friends, that women don't get involved with. It's like make up. Men don't get involved with the female make up rituals, so men like to keep women out of their football rituals too, and I imagine that is most definitely including on the pitch, in the form of a Referee.

And, I guarantee that roughly 80% of the men watching Andy Gray 100% agreed with everything that he said, and you can understand why. In fact, that 80% were probably already saying it themselves.

So, if practically every other football obsessed man in England is agreeing with him, does that make Sky wrong in their choice?

No.

It's not really an issue of what was said, because yeah, I bet a lot of people were saying the same as Andy Gray, but the issue is more down to the fact that he was in a professional position, where he was being paid a very nice wage, and did not act in a professional manner. It's fine to say things in private, but not when you are working, and acting in the public image of the company that you're representing.

That I think is the point. Gray is representing the company that he works for, and in this instance, it was in a very negative way. If they hadn't done something (even if they had just disciplined him), it would have given off the impression that Sky agreed with him, and that would have potentially lost them a fair amount of customers.

Even though this whoel thing was about and during a football programme, Sky offer a much wider variety of sports, that are watched by women, and they couldn't afford to lose that amount of trust.

So, ultimately, is it about company image? Yes, to a degree, it most certainly is. Doctors get sacked for sleeping with their patients, whilst teachers lose their jobs for making porn videos.

In show business, however, we all know that negative press like this doesn't have to be the complete downfall of someone's career. Here are just a few people who have completely fallen from their Pedestal, but have bounced back, potentially even higher:

•  Robert Downey Jnr - Drug Use - Now one of Hollywood's most respected Actors
• Hugh Grant - Prostitue charges - One of Britain's best loved actors
• Cheryl Cole - Punched a girl in night club toilets - Popular X-Factor Judge
• Piers Morgan - Infamously sacked as Editor of the Mirror newspaper - Just replaced Larry King on US television channel CNN!

Being Human, Series 3, Episode 1 *Potential Spoilers*

I have to confess that I haven't really been a fan since Day One with this one, not that I didn't like it, but because I just didn't watch the first series during it's original run. In fact, I caught a random episode two or three episodes intot he second running of the first series, and thought "ooh, I remember seeing the trailers on BBC3 for this, and thinking it sounded interesting", but of course when I'd originally seen the advert, they tend to advertise things as "coming soon", and unless I'm specifically looking out for them, they often pass me by! And this one evidently did. But, I ended up catching up on what I'd missed, and luckily only had a couple of months to wait before the second series began in January last year.

I also have to confess, that after the awesome first series of Being Human, I found 90% of the second series a bit of a let down. The series was only really saved, for me, by a very good last episode, and I strongly feel that if I hadn't been drawn in by what had happened to Annie, I'm not convinced that I would have watched this new third series.

But, of course, you really want to hear about the third season, of which, for anyone who hasn't watched it yet, I won't reveal too many spoilers, although some are just unavoidable. I do, however, want to talk about Lacey Turner.

Lacey Turner was in the media recently talking about how nervous she was about moving into new material, following her previous role in Eastenders, playing Stacey Slater. Did she have anything to worry about? Well, I had faith in her, and I'm really glad to say that she did herself proud. She has firmly stepped away from Stacey, and proven what an amazing young talent she is.

Lacey played Lia, the title character of this opening episode. And knowing that Lacey was playing Lia I was instantly intrigued as to what importance she was going to hold over Mitchell. I won't give that away, but I do have to say that she played it very well, although you could never tell if she was playing games with him, or was just overall loopy! But, all is eventually revealed!

Other notable guest appearances, included Robson Green (Soldier, Soldier) playing werewolf McNair and the fabulous Paul Kaye (Dennis Pennis) as a slightly bonkers Vampire.

As usual, it was George bringing in most of the laughs, as he finds himself accidentally arrested and accused of "dogging" (oh, the absolute irony of that one!). As much as I like the character of Nina, I sometimes can't help wishing that she wasn't such a central character. In my head, the three mains are Mitchell, George and Annie, but Nina appears to have been included, and I'm not sure if I like that very much!

Mitchell's role in this episode was predominantly to bring Annie back from the Afterlife, or whatever you want to call it. Without giving too much away, I personally thought that Mitchell managed to save Annie far too easily, because I'd expected it to play a bit of a larger role in this series, but unfortunately it didn't, which was a little but of a let-down.

Overall, I'm much more hopeful for this series to be better than the second one, and I'm very interested to see what is going to happen with Robson Green's character!

Gervais Reprising Brent Role

Just when you think the media has finally gotten sick of Ricky Gervais, following the debacle at the Golden Globes (although I have to say that despite the poor taste of some of his "jokes", Gervais was actually quite funny! And I say this is a very anti-Gervais person!), it's announced that he is to reprise his role as the boss we all love-to-hate David Brent.

Being a fan of the original series, I see nothing wrong with this news. Well, except for the fact that Gervais has not suddenly decided to revive his own comedy show, no, in fact he'll be appearing in the US version of the show! This I have a really big deal with.

In all honesty, I've never seen the US version, and probably never will, out of choice. Not  because I think it's bad, but because I can't help feeling that the American TV companies show a complete lack of respect for British television.

Here in Britain, if a TV company sees a show that they like, they pick it up and air it as it was initially made, so that we, the public, can appreciate that masterpiece. Perfect examples of this, are practically endless, but include: Friends, Lost, 24, Prisoner Cell Block H, Monkey etc.

On the other side of the pond, however, TV execs see something they like (The Office, Men Behaving Badly, Being Human, Skins, One Foot in the Grave etc), and instead of sharing it with their audiences (okay, sometimes they do still share it!), they remake it, removing all the British humour and replacing it with US humour, that sometimes (Bill Cosby's One Foot in the Grave being the perfect example of this), completely miss the actual point of the comedy entirely!

Of course, with sitcoms like The Office, the Americans can get it very right, and find themselves an incredibly successful corker of a comedy, but why can't they just appreciate the David Brent-version and live with it? Have they run out of their own original ideas? Well, with the brilliant (and original) Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother still gaining huge success on both sides of the pond, it's evident that they haven't. And this is where I just don't get it.

I accept that British humour is often not handled well by some Americans.

I accept that most British series only have roughly 8 episodes, whilst the Americans prefer more around the 24 episodes quota.

I also accept that many of the most popularly "converted" shows have come from the BBC, a channel, which we all know includes no adverts, which means that with adverts placed in the middle, you will find yourself faced with TV shows that do not fit into the typical US timeslot.

Nevertheless, I'd like to point out that Being Erica (that is shown on E4) has only 13 episodes in a series, putting it well under the preferred quota. And, I'd also like to question how US TV channels handle the showing of films, which typically have quite erratic running times?

I don't know, maybe I'm just being silly, because at the end of the day, most of these remakes aren't that great anyway. I just don't understand why they feel this urge to make them, in the first place!

Hollyoaks: Paul Marquess, how's he doing?

I've been watching Hollyoaks, since it's very first epsiode. I remember the original Super Villain (Rob Hawthrone), and the original Cindy Cunningham! I remember when Tony Hutchinson was a wannabe Ian Beale, scheming to make money out of defenseless (yeah, right!!) students, and when Mr Cunningham gave Mandy driving lessons (they were scary days)!! I remember when both Holly and Tom were born, and when so many of poor Tom's nearest-and-dearest "past on" (seriously writers, give the poor kid a break!)

But, anyway, the point I'm really making here, is that I've been watching it a long time, and I think it's time that I wrote a little about the latest Boss Man Paul Marquess, who has been at the Hollyoaks Helm for quite some time now.

In a sort space of time, Marquess has got rid of a very large amount of characters, some of course of their own will, but many were more "pushed", but anywho, here are just a few characters that we've lost since Marquess took over:

• Zack
• Michaela
• Kris
• Malachi
• Steph
• Hannah
• Josh
• Amy (although she has since come back. Did anyone else know she was coming back? Because I honestly thought she'd gone for good!!

It was a shame that some really top-class characters received such shoddy leavings, with the only one that was deserved being Michaela (but only if the rumoured "Zack" bust-ups with Marquess are correct!)m I just think their exits could have been handled better.

He then brought together some incredibly random romantic pairings, I mean, first of Rhys and Jacqui?? Where on earth did that one come from? But, they're only a little weirder than Nancy and Darren...although, I do have to say, that it's nice to see Darren being a little more mature. I just hope that Cindy coming back, isn't going to "upset the boat" (as if the "twins" storyline hasn't upset it enough!) I get the impression that the pairings, are really only down to the fact, that the writers couldn't justify keeping the characters of Rhys and Nancy around, unless they quickly came up with a love interest for the pair of them!

The next odd thing, was bringing back some odd choiced characters: Lee Hunter, was the best character to come back, although, how about we get Bombhead back for good? And maybe Lisa? But, I really want to know what happened with Zara?? And, okay, so Amy (as bad an actress as she often is) was a nice surprise, because I think her and Lee would be nice together. But, then came the weirdness of Warren and Many's returns...silly storylines, is all I'm going to say! And now Suzanne is back...please tell me that isn't going to be a permanent thing?!?!

And, then began the onslaught of new characters.I don't have a problem with any of the new characters, because as annoying as 99% of them are, I remember hating Theresa McQueen when she arrived, and she's one of the very few reasons that I'm still watching, since the "Big Change"! No, my problem is really down to the fact that too many new characters were brought in, in such a short period of time, and it feels like a very different show because of it. I also feel that some families are just getting too many big storylines, whilst others have been brought in, given a couple of smaller storylines and then half forgotten about!

So, personally, I think Hollyoaks is changing too much, far too quickly, but I'm really trying hard to sticking with it!

Glee: Britney Spears and Brittany S Pierce!

I haven't always been such a big fan of Glee. In fact, I spent the first quarter of the first season hating it, the rest of the first half feeling very love/hate towards it, and the second half of the season loving it.

Having watched Glee for a while now, I'm pretty used to how completely nuts the series is. The nuttiness, in my opinion, is what makes the series so good. It doesn't take itself too seriously, and that's great.

But, then there was this hyped up episode featuring some slightly famous pop starlet named Britney Spears...I think I might have heard of her somewhere...and I think I might have copies of her first two albums hidden away somewhere (am I really admitting that??)

When the episode aired on the other isde of the pond, it became one of the most watched episodes so far, thanks to Britney's role, and as a result, we poor Brits have been subjected to a week long array of adverts for this, only just pipped in the annoying stakes by the over-advertising of Skins, which as much as I love it, I'm going to watch it, you don't need to ram it down my throat E4 peeps!!

So, was this episode all that the hype made it out to be?

In short? No.

The episode circled, to a point, around the character of Brittany, who I have to say, is a comedy gem almost on par with Nick and Norah's Caroline, although slightly dumber and less drunk! If anything, this episode really allowed Heather Morris (who plays Brittany) to shine, and prove how amazingly talented she is. When Brittany turned around and declared that she was more talented than Rachel, I honestly believed her!

But, despite Brittany's shining, I thought the episode was just silly gone too far. I mean come on, fantasy in the Dentist chair? Yeah, right!

And, as much as I slightly hate to say this, I actually felt like I wanted more from Britney Spears. Crazy maybe, but after all the build up, I really expected there to be more of her! So, yes, for me, this episode was a little bit of a let down!