There’s also the theory that The Claw was Penny’s actual police uncle, who was maimed and turned sour in an accident.
Gadget is Penny’s attempt to recreate her uncle and/or a tool to capture the original to help him.
Hence, both Gadget’s need for help and Claw’s apparent inability to kill Penny (because of his remaining sentiment, despite her being both a major thorn in his side, and frequently captured.)
And also why we don’t see his face. Because it’s Gadget’s.
I do believe that her bizarre comments about microwaves are the end of a chain of broken telephone that started with something true. I doubt she knows that microwaves are a band of electromagnetic radiation. She probably was talking about microwave ovens. Otherwise her clarification probably wouldn’t have included a reference to Inspector Gadget.
Create Digital Music weigh in on the topic with added Lev Termin (or Professor Léon Theremin as he was known in the US before he was abducted by the KGB)