Cree Summer
During it's two season run, the character of Penny was never given any form of a back history. And the only really information relating to her, is the fact that she was Inspector Gadget's niece. Despite not being the title character, Penny was very much the intelligence behind solving crimes, even if the thanks would quite naively be handed over to Gadget himself.For me, as a kid, I always loved the fact that Penny was the smarter one, because she was a girl, even if at times, I'd now probably have found her quite irritating.
Susie Carmichael
The role of the blonde, pig-tailed character was actually taken by two actresses. The first 64 episodes being voiced by Cree Summer, and the final 21 episodes being taken over by Holly Berger.Summer, is the daughter of Don Francks who also voiced several characters in Inspector Gadget. including Dr. Claw (when Frank Welker was unable to play the role). Gadget was Summer's first role, but it was the beginning of a very long career for the voice actress.
Not knowing that she had been the voice of Penny, I had grown up knowing her as the sassy Susie Carmichael, in popular nineties TV show Rugrats. A role that she would play for twelve years, from 1992 to 2004, including various movies and spin-off's such as All Grown Up. I instantly recognised her voice, whilst playing 2004 classic game Final Fantasy X-2, as the enigmatic Callie, and the mysterious Lenne.
Lenne
Since doing a bit of research into Cree Summers' career history, I've actually discovered that I know her voice from quite a variety of cartoons that I grew up with, including Care Bears (alongside her father), Pepper Ann (which also featured Don Adams), Batman of the Future, Star Wars: Clone Wars, As Told by Ginger and Batman: Arkham Asylum.Summer's replacement Holly Berger didn't have quite as big a career following her stint as Penny. Before taking the role, she had featured as the voice of Jennifer in 1985 TV movie Star Fairies. Other than that, and two further stints as Penny, in Inspector Gadget video games, Berger doesn't appear to have done much else in the entertainment industry.
Continues tomorrow with...Brain