As a child of the 80s, I often watched many cartoons – one of them was Inspector Gadget which was made into a rather poor movie. But that aside, I often wondered who was Dr Claw really.
Even as a kid I always had my suspicions that Dr Claw was really Chief Quimby in disguise.
Why?
Well… Wikipedia has a list of unexplained facts, which lays out the reasons why I believe Dr Claw was Chief Quimby;
- Dr. Claw’s identity; no backstory is ever given to him, and we never see his face.
- How did Chief Quimby acquire such detailed information about every one of Dr. Claw’s plans?
- How Dr. Claw is able to visually monitor virtually any event anywhere?
- If Quimby was able to obtain information about Claw, why did he never discover or raid his hideout?
- Chief Quimby is a combination of The Chief from Get Smart and Chief Inspector Dreyfus of the Pink Panther films; in one of the Pink Panther movies, Drefuss is revealed as a supervillian bent on destroying the world/Inspector Clouseau
Unfortuently, despite this overwhelming body of “evidence”; the true face of Dr Claw was revealed some years ago on a website.
Other examples of urban myths about cartoons from the 80s is the classic Dungeons and Dragons Urban Myth.
The myth goes that Venger (the bad guy) was in fact the astranged son of Dungeon Master, and even stranger; the kids had all died on the magical rollercoaster trip they took at the fairground and that Dungeon Master was really the Devil (which would explain why he always dissappeared when his help was needed or when the kids wanted to know something crucial.).
Unfortuently this is only a myth. Yes Venger is revealed as being Dungeon Masters son, but none of the other parts of the myth were true.
Even as Michael Reeves (one of the main writers of Dungeons and Dragons) posted the final episode, Reqium on his website, fans still claim that the urban myth exists (it doesn’t), and neither does an episode of Inspector Gadget which reveals Dr Claw as being Chief Quimby.
This is one case we don’t need Columbo for…
References;