Top 10 Gadget totin’ Movie Heroes

As a kid, I loved watching movies where the heroes used all sorts of gadgets to save the day. These gadget heroes were part of the inspiration which drove me to create this website. Here’s my list of the top 10 gadget movie heroes.

1. Maxwell Smart: Maxwell Smart is on the top of my list because of one gadget that he regularly used to communicate with Control headquarters – the Shoe-Phone. This epitomized the ultimate in spy gadgetry at the time. Besides the fantastic gadgets he would employ, Smart was known for his bumbling antics as Control Agent 86 who was followed around by the lovely Agent 99. How accident-prone Agent 86 was considered to be an elite agent baffles me to this day. Maybe it was because of his kung-fu moves? The show “Get Smart” actually won 7 Emmy Awards and 2 Golden Globe Awards.

2. Batman: Although not having any super-powers, this cape crusader was able to use brains and gadgets to get himself out of sticky situations. Most gizmos were found on his yellow utility belt which is arguably the most characteristic part of Batman’s costume. Some of the neat gadgets readily available to him were: Batarang, Bat-cuffs, smoke pellets, master-key and even a cache of cash. Another gadget hero known for leet martial art skills too.

3. Inspector Gadget: If you’ve ever wondered why Maxwell Smart and Inspector Gadget sound similar, it’s because the same actor – Don Adams is both! Interestingly, Inspector Gadget’s character is also overly clumsy who somehow manages (with the aid of his niece Penny and Brain the dog) to save the day. I would actually classify him as a gadget himself with all the weird and wonderful widgets tucked underneath his sleuth hat and classic-detective trenchcoat. He’s famous for gadgets like: extending arms, in-built propellers and magnifying-glass. He of course is famous for coining terms such as “Go go gadget arms!”.

4. MacGyver: The thing that differentiates MacGyver from the three gadgeteers above is that he was famous for making gadgets out of normal everyday household items. For example, who else could diffuse an advanced nuclear bomb with a paper clip, cause a traffic jam with a credit card or create a bomb out of a fire extinguisher? These incredible and many times laughable feats were augmented by the acting skills of Richard Dean Anderson (aka RDA). I loved his cool, calm and collected approach to life.

5. James Bond: This British spy, aka Agent 007, seems to have it all doesn’t he? Awesome gadgets, expensive sports cars, lovely ladies and regular martinis (shaken not stirred) are for James Bond, standard fare. The box office figures for his films also tell us the idea of a highly romanticized/gadgetized spy-character, works – with total gross revenue from all his films amounting to an estimated whopping figure of over US$11 billion! Famous for his three-word self-introduction “Bond, James Bond”.

6. Doctor Who: Watching Doctor Who was always somewhat of an eerie experience for me as a kid – the weird places and creatures he would meet would freak me out even though they looked like they had cheap masks and costumes. His famous gadgets included the Sonic Screwdriver, the TARDIS time-machine shaped as a British Police Box, K9 his robot dog and of course his fob-watch.

7. Dick Tracy: Although a less-popular form of media entertainment these days, Dick Tracy was huge in the comic world. His strip was created by cartoonist Chester Gould in 1931 and he wrote and drew it until 1977! Dick Tracy was a highly intelligent, hard-hitting police detective who employed gadgets to catch the bad guys – who were most of the time very ugly. The most famous gadget in his collection was the two-way wrist radio.

8. Doc Emmett Brown: If there was anyone who personified the “nutty professor” type it was Emmett Brown. This colourful character can be remembered for his adventures with Marty McFly in the Back To The Future movies. Gadget inventions that he is widely remembered for were the flux capacitor (dreamed it up after being knocked out in the toilet) and the car / time-machine, the De Lorean. “Great Scott!” was the expression he used when excited.

9. Dr.Egon Spengler: “If there’s something strange, in your neighborhood, who you gonna call? GHOSTBUSTERS!” Great. Now I can’t get that song outta my head. You guessed it, Egon Spengler was part of the lovable Ghostbusters who loved chasing all things paranormal. He helped create ghost-ass-kicking gear like the *takes deep breath* Proton Pack, Slime Blower, Psycho-Kenetic Energy Meter, Ecto Googles and Ghost Sniffer. You’ll never be afraid of the dark with this tall, laconic nerd around.

10. Anakin Skywalker: Before turning to the Dark Side, Anakin Skywalker was very much a whiz kid. In the movie Phantom Menace, we see the nine-year old build a droid from scratch (C-3PO) and also a speedy little pod-racer from bits of scrap metal. After having most of his limbs severed in a battle with his former master Obiwan, he himself becomes part gadget with arms and legs replaced with the robotic variety. This is of course when he became Darth Vader. Lesson: you make cooler stuff when you’re on the good side e.g. Microsoft – I kid.

Who did I miss?