Gadget Hackwrench is the tritagonist of Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers. She is the mechanic and pilot of the Rescue Rangers.
Background[]
Physical appearance[]
Her eyes are blue, while the color of her hair has frequently been a topic of discussion as it changes from episode to episode. In many episodes, her hair appears to be orange in color. In others, it shows up as being a strawberry blonde. At one point, Tad Stones, the producer of the show, was contacted by a fan and gave this explanation:
She usually wears a pair of lavender mechanic coveralls, a purple belt and a pair of dark purple goggles which she keeps on her forehead, when she doesn't need them. A white shirt can often be seen under her coveralls, but it is even more inconsistent than her hair, sometimes disappearing and reappearing within one scene. Though she can occasionally be seen in different outfits matching the situation, she never wears a dress or make-up unless it is part of a disguise.
Personality[]
Gadget's personality was based upon the inventive female character Jordan in the 1985 movie Real Genius. She's a combination of the "cute girl next door" combined with an obsessed and quirky inventor. There are a few people she doesn't like, but those few are typically villains. Gadget has a natural warmth about her that makes everyone welcome and pleased to see her. She's very loyal to her friends and frequently goes out of the way to help them.
At the same time, Gadget is constantly thinking. As exhibited in the episode "Gadget Goes Hawaiian", an episode from season 2, she has trouble focusing on just one way to do things. However once her focus has come, she can invent at a staggering pace—for instance, her armored gyro-mobile in "The Case of the Cola Cult", also an episode from Season 2.
Gadget has her quirks. She thinks so much from an inventor's standpoint that it tends to make her naive at times. She has upset Chip and Dale's romantic advances more than once, simply by not understanding what it was they were after.
When Gadget is excited about her inventions, she's known to use scientific jargon freely and talk at an extremely rapid pace. This tends to leave anyone listening to her clueless as to what she actually meant, but it never seems to bother her.
Gadget can be easily angered at times as well. As we see in "Kiwi's Big Adventure", "The Case of the Cola Cult” and "Dirty Rotten Diapers", Gadget has a limit beyond which her cute veneer is lost and she becomes, well...aggressive. Woe to the villain or anyone else who manages this feat, because once Gadget is riled up, she's a juggernaut—thankfully, such incidents are rare. Regardless, she remains a strong female character.
Biography[]
Gadget was the daughter of Geegaw Hackwrench, a famous mouse inventor. It is implied at the time that her father had passed away. She first meets Chip 'n Dale courtesy of Monterey Jack, a friend of her fathers, as the group is in search of an airplane. Gadget helps the group solve the crime they are investigating by lending her inventive talents. Afterward, having nowhere else to go and no other obligations, she then became an official member of the Rescue Rangers, making their base in a tree in the City Park and they promised to be her guardians and take care of her.
From that point, Gadget usually assists the team via her numerous inventions. In addition to building and maintaining the Ranger Plane, Gadget is the one responsible for the various technological items used by the team and is regularly inventing new vehicles and tools for the team's use. She has the uncanny ability to take discarded and unrelated items, and invent nearly anything with them. Unfortunately, her creations don't always work the way she intends and have sometimes failed at just the wrong moment to cause the team trouble. Both Chip and Dale are very attracted to Gadget and can be found often vying for her attention.
Other media[]
Video games[]
Rescue Rangers games[]
Gadget Hackwrench appeared in the following video games:
- Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (1990)
- Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers: The Adventure in Nimnul's Castle (1990)
- Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (LCD game) (1991)
- Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 2 (1993)
- Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (Mobile) (2010)
Other games[]
Gadget makes other miscellaneous video game appearances, such as in the card in the video game Mickey's Memory Challenge (1993), later re-appears as Dale's Power in Disney Emoji Blitz (2018), as a playable character as introduced during the Japanese Event Coloring Mission in the Japanese version of Disney Tsum Tsum (2018). She was later made available in January 2019 as the Tsum Tsum event, appears in Disney Tsum Tsum Land (2020) as the 12th Tsum Tsum Bingo event, and appears as a playable character in Disney Sorcerer's Arena (2021).
Comics[]
- Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (Disney Comics)
- Disney Adventures
- The Disney Afternoon
- Darkwing Duck
- Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (Boom! Studios)
Disney Parks[]
Gadget started making appearances at the Disney Parks in 1989 through the Hooray for Disney Stars Parade at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom park. She also appeared in 1990 through the "Mickey's Magical TV World" show at the Magic Kingdom in 1990 and at Disney Afternoon Avenue at Disneyland in 1991. In addition, she even got her own attraction at Mickey's Toontown in 1993 - Gadget's Go Coaster. The coaster is still around, but Gadget herself rarely appears in the parks today.
Other Appearances[]
- In Robot Chicken, in the episode "Disemboweled by an Orphan" (2012), Gadget goes without pants to challenge the double standard of the males going without pants.
Gallery[]
