Vintage Merchandise: It's Greek to Everybody

This must be one of the weirder merchandise illustrations I've seen in a while... but somehow it still has a cool vibe to it. Up for sale on Ebay (directly from Greece) is this Greek edition of an Inspector Gadget board game that was released in the 80s. They get a lot of strange touches into this cover drawing: All of Gadget's clothing has the wrong colors (except for the pants), Penny's eyes look REALLY freaky (and dead)... and then you have M.A.D. Cat, who's actually integrated into the Greek Inspector Gadget logo, from which he pops out and grins at our heroes like the Chechire Cat from "Alice in Wonderland". (Is M.A.D. Cat a fan, I wonder?) Gadget even points at him with a playful smile... now what the heck is THAT supposed to mean? Of course, he probably doesn't know that M.A.D. Cat belongs to Dr. Claw, but I almost get the feeling that he's saying: "You rascal, you... sitting on top of my logo like that!"



It's hard to explain why I kinda like this drawing, but then again, a lot of stuff in this world is hard to explain...

Gadget, Nozzaire & the Gadgetinis Storyboards

Came across a couple of Gadgetinis storyboards at the French blog BOO! Illustrations! I've never seen storyboards from Gadget & the Gadgetinis before, so I thought I'd showcase them here for those interested. I assume they were done by the person running the blog, a storyboard artist, illustrator and teacher who simply calls him or herself "Boo".

     Not sure which episode this first board is from (as I've still not seen the entire series)... so if anyone can identify the exact episode, please do so in the comments!

The second storyboard below, though, I managed to recognize. It's from episode 50, "Operation Get Gadget", about 5 1/2 minutes in. Briefly explained, this scene is about Gadget's superior in the spinoff, Colonel Nozzaire, being hit by some high-tech radio waves (shot at him by an off-screen MAD agent) which hypnotises the colonel into wanting one thing only: To destroy Gadget. Pretty bad timing, considering that Nozzaire had just brought Gadget some chocolate to apologize for his generally aggressive attitude. And just as Gadget receives this chocolate, the colonel is hit...

I can't seem to find the episode online anywhere... but below, you can check out the matching screenshots from the finished scene. (By the way, for anyone caring about such small details: Note that the short close-up of Gadget eating yet another chocolate (panel 6-7 in the above storyboard) was dropped from the final scene.)