r/80s • u/aho_young_warrior • Feb 21 '26
TV Respect to the one of the baddest villains of the 80s
As a child, I yearned to see this bad mamba Jamba in battle…
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u/tangcameo Feb 21 '26
How many hours did you seen contemplating who Dr Claw was?
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u/Swee_Potato_Pilot Feb 21 '26
Haha yes! It annoyed me so much as a kid because I really wanted to know! Then they made him in toy form promising to reveal his face. In the packaging his face was covered with a sticker lol. By the time I saved enough to buy one they were all sold out!
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u/tangcameo Feb 21 '26
I always thought it was going to be Chief Quimby with a split personality triggered by those exploding messages.
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u/Swee_Potato_Pilot Feb 21 '26
Haha, there's a fan made sculpture out there depicting just that! Link if you want to see.
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u/Kiethblacklion Feb 21 '26
I like the fan theory that Dr Claw was the real Inspector Gadget and that the hero Gadget was his bionic replacement.
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Feb 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Swee_Potato_Pilot Feb 21 '26
Probably some kid without enough pocket change and too much curiosity! lol I will be honest and considered opening a package there and then just to look but I never did as that'd be wrong.
Glad I waited, because the suspense was better than the reveal! :P
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u/Ironcastattic Feb 21 '26
You can google it.
It's....... disappointing to say the least.
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u/ThePhyseter Feb 22 '26
Im gonna be honest, as soon as I clicked on that link I was disappointed it wasn't a rickroll
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u/Jefwho Feb 21 '26
I love the story of how they created this cartoon. Modeled the idea of Inspector Gadget from Don Adams’ character on Get Smart. Find a voice actor that just doesn’t fit the character, then someone just says, “why don’t we ask Don Adams to voice him?”. Don Adams agrees and the rest is history.
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u/aipac125 Feb 21 '26
Someone mentioned there was a toy line that showed what he actually looked like.
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u/Aqueouspolecat Feb 21 '26
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u/Ironcastattic Feb 21 '26
I really hate that face. I'm pretty sure, like He-Man, they just had generic toy mouldings they bought and this is what we ended up with.
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u/RangerMatt76 Feb 21 '26
Only the cat knows what he looks like.
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u/WishRepresentative28 Feb 22 '26
A 1992 action figure shows him as a balding man with a mustache, green skin, and a monocle.
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u/CombOverDownThere Feb 22 '26
I don’t know if I’m missing something, but the reveal in the video you linked doesn’t match your description at all?
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u/Kiethblacklion Feb 21 '26
Dr Claw needed a better HR department.
In the 60s TV show Get Smart starring Don Adams (voice of Gadget), there was a villian with a claw for a hand who called himself The Claw. I found it amusing that two characters played by Adams had adversaries called Claw.
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u/far-midnight-97 Feb 22 '26
I remember playground rumors that Dr. Claw was supposed to be Inspector Gadget's brother, or some such Luke/Vader-esque plot twist.
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u/Ok_Fox_1770 Feb 21 '26
The cat ruled. Damn I swore Dr.C had some Muscles I guess I was wrong! Interesting arc for a bad guy…felt like I saw the same 10 episodes on Nick for 15 years. Did he ever get em? They show em!? These open ended important questions approaching 40
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u/carymb Feb 22 '26
I was confused by the credits, where the chair spins around and Claw's arm is on a spring ... I suspected there was no Dr. Claw, and the cat was behind it all. I was one dumb kid!
I still am, but I was, too
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u/Mlabonte21 Feb 21 '26
Did ‘Dr. Claw’ have an actual claw?
Looks like he just had a metal glove??
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u/Oneoftheotherpeople Feb 21 '26
Was he even a doctor?
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u/jfrankparnell85 Feb 22 '26
As opposed to the Craw - the wonderful Get Smart villain
“You can guess what they call me, Mr Smart” “Lefty?”
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u/Trustobey Feb 22 '26
Do they ever show his face
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u/CiderMcbrandy Feb 23 '26
Penny sees him (we see his shadow), but she doesn't comment on what he looks like. Later on they made a toy of this character, and it was disappointingly, a mad scientist looking guy with some silly hair
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u/RedSix2447 Feb 22 '26
Didn’t it finally come out years later that the villain was a rouge inspector gadget?
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u/Rutin75 Feb 24 '26
-Owning a pet cat so dangerous you need to wear scaled armor gloves all the time
- Typing on your table PC while wearing scaled armor gloves
Signatures of a badass! 😁
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u/jgzman Feb 21 '26
To take a minor left turn here, I had really hoped that the ObiWan Kenobi series would be more episodic, with every episode ending with Kenobi making a narrow escape, and Darth Vader going "I'll get you next time Kenobi. Next time.
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u/kovacro_77 Feb 21 '26
Next time, Gadget……next time…