The main protagonist and titular character of the franchise. Gadget is a cyborg (part man, part machine) with thousands of high-tech gadgets installed in his body. Gadget is powerful, lovable, caring, and protective, and loyal to his career as a lawman, but he is also dim-witted, clueless, incompetent, and gullible. In many ways Gadget was reminiscent of Maxwell Smart (also portrayed by Don Adams) from the Get Smart TV show, using similar catch phrases and manners of speech,^[​4] however, his attire and absent minded personality are much closer to Peter Sellers portrayal of Inspector Clouseau from the classic The Pink Panther series of movies. In fact in the original Inspector Gadget pilot he has a mustache just like Inspector Clouseau's, which was removed in subsequent episodes possibly to satisfy a copyright claim by MGM.^[​5]

Gadget has a knack of inadvertently saving the day, usually without realizing he is doing so. Gadget loves his family more than anything and would do anything to keep them from harm, especially Penny. He was voiced by Don Adams in the original series and Inspector Gadget's Field Trip until Adams' retirement from voicing Gadget in 1999, Gary Owens and later Jesse White in the original series' pilot episode, Keith Scott in the KFC commercials in Australia and Maurice LaMarche in the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, Gadget and the Gadgetinis, the direct-to-video animated films, and various DIC Kids Network bumpers. For the 2015 series, the voice of Gadget is provided by Ivan Sherry. It is revealed in the first live action film that Gadget's real name is Jonathan "John" Brown. He is portrayed by Matthew Broderick in the first film and French Stewart in the sequel.