1 “INSPECTOR GADGET” - pilot - FADE IN: EXT. GADGET’S HOUSE – DAY A peaceful sunny day. Birds twitter. EXT. GADGET’S BACK YARD – DAY BRAIN digs in the yard. A SPATULA turns burgers on a backyard grill. PAN UP to show it’s GADGET’s spatula hand. He wears a chef’s hat made of raincoat material. GADGET Ah, Penny! This is the kind of day that makes you glad that the part of you that’s not a bunch of gears, motors and pulleys is alive! ANGLE: Penny sits behind a table in the garden, blindfolded, with half a dozen METAL PARTS on the table in front of her. UNDERCRANK: like a soldier field-stripping a rifle, Penny assembles the pieces before her into a HEDGE TRIMMER. She “cocks” the trimmer like a rifle, removes the blindfold and clicks a STOPWATCH. PENNY (shaking her head) Seven seconds. GADGET Penny, is that really necessary? PENNY Uncle, if you were ever locked in a small pitch-black shed with only a disassembled hedge-trimmer and heavily-armed bad guys returning in six-point-two seconds, you wouldn’t ask that. 2 GADGET But Penny, what are the chances of that ever happening? SMASH CUT TO: INT. DUNGEON – DAY Gadget sits tied up with rope on the floor of a dark room. Penny kneels behind him, struggling with his ropes to no avail. SUPER: 5 MINUTES LATER. BAD GUY (OFF) We should be inside that unused tool shed in 6.2 seconds, fellas - and then it’s bye-bye to Gadget forever! EXT. GADGET’S YARD – DAY SUPER: 10 MINUTES LATER. Gadget, back at the barbecue, removes bits of cut-off ROPE RESTRAINTS from around his shoulders and waist. GADGET Yowsers! You were right, Penny, that sure saved our bacon. Ah, here comes Brain with the mail! ANGLE: Brain drags the entire MAILBOX, post and all, across the lawn. Gadget, spatula arm replaced with his regular arm, bends and comes up with a fistful of envelopes. GADGET The Genealogical Society. Penny, it’s those valuable and irreplaceable daguerreotypes of your great-great-great grandfather! Not looking, he puts this envelope behind him, on the lit barbecue. GADGET 3 What else do we have here? Behind him, the envelope FOOMS into flames on the grill. GADGET The non-refundable reservations and plane tickets for our long- awaited trip to Holland! He puts this packet behind him on the grill. FOOM! GADGET I’m looking forward to learning to speak Hollandaise. (a thick envelope) And all our foreign money for the vacation! Better keep a close eye on this wad, huh? He puts the thick packet behind him. FOOM! GADGET It’s a good time for us to get out of town - crime in Metro City’s almost as low as that time when I accidentally arrested everybody. EXT. METRO CITY STREET – DAY (FLASHBACK) Deserted street with a ghost-town wind. A TUMBLEWEED bowls into frame. We hear a WHISTLE. Gadget runs into frame, pursuing the tumbleweed, blowing the whistle. GADGET Stop! You’re under arrest! Don’t roll away from me! EXT. GADGETS’S BACK YARD – DAY Penny has doubts. PENNY I still feel instead of going on vacation we should have spent this time at home building up an immunity to scorpion poison. 4 She holds up a SCORPION, pulls out her top and drops it down her front. She grimaces and gyrates. GADGET All work and no play, Penny. (another envelope:) Ah, our passports and the original copies of our birth certificates! On the barbecue they go. FOOM! Gadget reaches OFF for the next package, which is bulkier. GADGET Special Delivery from a “Doctor WALC,” postmarked “Downtown Evil.” Go-Go-Gadget X-Ray! A hi-tech DEVICE comes out of Gadget’s hat and looms over the package. X-RAY POV through the device’s lens: a bowling-ball- with-a-wick type of BOMB, with “BOMB” written on it. GADGET Wowsers! This reminds me of the time Dr. Claw UPS’d me that armed assassin... SWISH TO an armed assassin in the corner of Gadget’s yard, wrapped in mailing paper and string and covered in stamps. The guy struggles inside his package. SWISH BACK to Gadget. The X- ray retracts back into his hat. He puts the package on the barbecue. GADGET When will Dr. Claw learn I’m not a complete noodle-headed buffoon? KABOOM! ANGLE: Gadget’s head lands in the flower garden. Gadget looks up at Penny. GADGET Steaks are done. EXT. MAYOR MARKHAM’S HOUSE - DAY 5 A nice residence. EXT. MAYOR’S YARD - DAY MAYOR MARKHAM stands on a diving board in his 1920s bathing suit and Buster Keaton swim cap. WIDER: There are many DENTS in the lawn below the diving board, but there is no pool. MAYOR MARKHAM I’ve been diving head-first into this lawn for six years now, Quimby. Do you know why? The long-suffering CHIEF QUIMBY humors his boss. CHIEF QUIMBY In search of bait worms, sir? MAYOR MARKHAM Because I don’t have a pool. And I don’t have a pool because Metro City doesn’t make enough from tourism to pay me a decent Mayor’s salary. What attracts tourists to a town, Quimby? Before Quimby can really consider it: MAYOR MARKHAM Jaw-dropping, eye-filling spectacle! (rapturously) Like the annual return of the buzzards to Hinckley, Ohio! CHIEF QUIMBY Buzzards, sir? MAYOR MARKHAM I can see them now, magnificent flesh-stripping beasts, winging thousands of miles from their summer home at a meat dumpster in the Yukon to make their annual crowd-pleasing appearance. They 6 can pick a prospector clean in under ten minutes. Less, if he’s already dead. Tourists come all the way from Saturn! Why can’t we have buzzards, Quimby? CHIEF QUIMBY Sir, if I may inject a note of rationality – one can’t change a bird’s migration patterns merely to suit one’s tourism needs. MAYOR MARKHAM Did I hear the word “can’t” Quimby? That’s the first syllable of cantaloupe and you know how much I hate cantaloupe. CHIEF QUIMBY Yes sir. MAYOR MARKHAM Call every newspaper in the world. Tell them we’ll have feathered messengers of death flocking to Metro City by the thousands next Friday. Then make it happen. Cannonball! Markham dives off the board into the grass. O.S. SPLAT! as Quimby is hit by lumps of flying dirt. INT. QUIMBY’S OFFICE - DAY Penny and Gadget has been briefed. CHIEF QUIMBY We’ve got to lure a hundred thousand turkey buzzards here by Friday, thanks to our crazy Mayor. GADGET Tut-tut, Chief! I won’t have that administrative genius disparaged. Was Mayor Markham crazy when he proclaimed “Let’s All Hop On One Foot Until We’re Millionaires 7 Week”? EXT. CITY STREET – DAY (FLASHBACK) Normal urban goings-on, except that everybody in sight – pedestrians, babies, mailmen – are all hopping on one foot. INT. CHIEF’S OFFICE – DAY The Chief’s contempt is undiminished. CHIEF QUIMBY Yes. GADGET (thinks) Bad example. Although, without that week several of the town’s surgeons specializing in re- stitching severed hamstrings might have suffered acute financial setbacks. CHIEF QUIMBY We have four days to lure those birds here from Ohio. You both know the town’s Medical Examiner and criminologist, Doctor Valerie Vavavavoom. SULTRY MUSIC as the gorgeous, slinky and stacked DR. VAVAVAVOOM enters in a short lab coat. She has eyes only for Gadget. PENNY (hostile) I know her all right. VALERIE (pron: “ga-jhay”) Gadget. She’s French. She takes Gadget’s hand and kisses it, nibbling on his knuckles. He’s oblivious. GADGET Good to see you again, Dr. Vavavavoom. How are things at the 8 Police Lab? VALERIE Lonely. She resumes nibbling. PENNY Why uncle, is that an insect on your knuckle? Penny sprays a can labeled POISON on Gadget’s hand... and in Valerie’s face. Valerie coughs and chokes. CHIEF QUIMBY Tell us what you’ve learned, doctor. Dr. Vavavavoom shoots Penny a nasty look and uncovers an EASEL with a picture of a BUZZARD. She has a pointer. VALERIE Buteo Buteo, ze American turkey vulture. Powerful wings, razor- sharp claws, and beaks especially curved to more easily pull ze eyeball out of a dead cow. And when zey mate... Her lip quivers. GADGET Let’s just stick with how to get them here, Doctor. What they do in the privacy of their nests is their own birdy business. VALERIE To attract ze buzzard you need dead mules, and lots of zem. A HAND comes out of Gadget’s shoulder and scratches his head. GADGET Problem! The mules in our fine City are a laudably healthy lot... 9 EXT. GYM - DAY A banner outside a gym: “BILLY BLANK’S TAE-BO FOR MULES.” THUMPY MUSIC from inside. GADGET (V/O) They really take care of themselves. VOICE (O.S.) Come on Francis! Lift that thing! MULE (O.S.) Eeeee-yaw! INT. CHIEF’S OFFICE – DAY Gadget confidently concludes: GADGET But don’t worry, I’m on it like a Belgian on a waffle! Valerie hands Gadget some heavy books. VALERIE Gadget, take zis buzzard reading material to ‘elp you bone up. GADGET (reading titles) “Carrion My Wayward Son.” “Meat: The Parents.” “Lawrence With Arugula.” “The Naked And The Dead, Yum Yum.” Gadget heads for the door with the books. Penny takes the Chief aside, concerned. PENNY Chief, my uncle is the world’s finest and smartest crime-fighting machine. Are you sure this assignment isn’t wasting his extraordinary talents? 10 Chief’s POV: Gadget is trying to figure out how to open the door with his hands full.