Dr Claw’s Chair (Inspector Gadget)
by Fenzel

When I heard about a Think Tank on fictional furniture, I was excited to write about the World’s Most Comfortable Chair from The Tick. It’s a chair so comfortable that it has become a powerful weapon – anyone who sits in it is overwhelmed and incapable of doing anything else. I frequently quote the episode of The Tick (this is the cartoon, ‘natch) in which it appears, when this chair hoists the villain by his own petard: “Maybe I don’t have to conquer the world. Maybe I can just sit in this chair.” It’s a stirring sentiment.

My favorite fictional furniture.

But then I thought about it more, I realized it was less interesting to talk about fictional furniture, and more interesting to talk about furniture in fiction. Well, I didn’t exactly realize it – my Overthinking It colleagues made it clear to me that I was a bit off the mark with my appraisal of the topic.

Very well then. Maybe I have to get up from that super-comfy chair. No matter. Just like 7:30 on a Monday morning. Okay.

So, let’s talk about what makes furniture in fiction interesting. I’ve performed in a lot of stage shows, and I have a good sense for when I think a piece of furniture is accomplishing something interesting narratively or aesthetically and when it is not. When it does accomplish something, and it manages to be aesthetically pleasing, and it manages to be dense on content, compelling, and thrive on reinterpretation and second looks, that’s when I think you’ve got something.

Regular readers of Think Tank may know that I tend to prize elegance as one of my chief aesthetic values. Symbols or works of art that manage to say many things at once without appearing to have too many moving parts always impress me.

Behold:

My favorite furniture in fiction

Dr. Claw’s chair is not unique in its role – there are several other fictional chairs that mainly serve the purpose of ominously obscuring the sitter. For the uninitiated (or the only Matthew Broderick initiated), on the cartoon Inspector Gadget, the back of this chair was usually all you saw of the series primary antagonist Dr. Claw, who ran the fictional criminal organization M.A.D. – well, you also usually saw a KISS-army-style gauntleted hand stroking a fat cat with uncanny coloration. But that dense symbolism is fit for another post.

The thing I love about Dr. Claw’s chair is how backhanded (no pun intended) it is – while it mainly serves to hide the identity of the antagonist, it also tells us almost everything we know or need to know about him. It makes a HUGE statement. The old European styling, the unfinished, heavy wood frame, the emblazoned devil mask and company acronym on the back – this is a chair that brags, people, not a chair that hides. Very ironic, very elegant.

The M.A.D. organization is a pretty nonsensical and comical thing – it’s a super-evil spy organization that doesn’t really do much to effectively hide itself. Its henchmen tend to dress fairly conspicuously, albeit in black. Its schemes are outlandish and seem likely to drift into the public eye fairly easy. The whole gang is borderline flamboyant – the only people who really effectivley keep secrets are Penny and Brain, the bumbling robo-inspector’s niece and dog, respectively.

For the show to work, the symbolism surrounding M.A.D. and Dr. Claw needs to instantly communicate the core irony behind M.A.D. – that it is a flamboyant secret organization that draws heavily on traditional ideas of villainy, but has its own sort of zany spin on things. This wouldn’t really work if the first thing you saw of M.A.D. was just a chair in the darkness. No, it has a crazy devil mask emblazoned on it – no, it has a shape that belongs in a French court or an English gothic romance.

Do you think MAD Cat is named after the organization, or is it the other way around? Is the cat really the one in charge? Sound off in the comments?

Also, note how low-tech the chair appears to be, even though M.A.D. is a pretty high-tech organization. This further strengthens the sense that these people are the enemies of Inspector Gadget, who tends to be pretty sleek and modern with his aesthetic preferences, up to and including his narrow-cut, pale grey trenchcoat.

I’d argue that Dr. Claw’s chair is the real antagonist in Inspector Gadget. It accomplishes more than the Good Doctor ever does, it makes a huge statement – and, you know, it really pulls the room together (See, fictional furniture, rather than furniture in fiction, would have been an interesting topic!).

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