Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode 1.56: The Little Merhog

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode 1.56: The Little Merhog

Original Air Date: November 26th, 1993

While it's fun to credit lonely sailors who were so horny that manatees started to look good to them with the creation of the mermaid myth, the truth is stories about people who live in the scene are as old as myths themselves. Man's relationship with the ocean, both life giving and incredibly dangerous, has always made it a source of awe and terror and wonder. The mermaid holds perhaps the most prominent place in pop culture of all seafaring myths. Part of this can be credited to Disney. The blockbuster success of 1989's "The Little Mermaid" didn't just birth the Disney Renaissance. It also led to a flood of knockoff mermaid products. Being of its time and place, "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" also rode this wave of newfound mermaid fascination... Twice, actually. Airing at the opposite end of the series as "Submerged Sonic" was "The Little Merhog," another episode that had out fleet-footed hero sleeping with the fishes. 

Sonic and Tails are out fishing when Tails accidentally hooks a half-hedgehog/half-fish. The Merhog is named Merna and her underwater home of Mertopia is in danger. A villain named Captain Memo plans to demolish the city and create some extremely oceanfront property. Sonic quickly gets the scheme to alert Robotnik that another villain is trying to conquer Mobius. This leads Robotnik's own underwater forces fighting with Memo's. However, the two soon put aside their differences to conquer together, forcing Sonic and the residents of Mertopia to fight back.

"The Little Merhog" is the rarest of "AoStH" episodes: One that has actual jokes. Yes, there are several gags here that genuinely made me smile or chuckle. I guess Captain Memo's name is a not-totally-connecting pun on Captain Nemo. But the idea of a submarine pirate obsessed with dictating memorandums is likably absurd. There's a moment where Robotnik is working on his putting game, a contrast between a mundane activity and his supervillain personality. Robotnik builds a submarine with his face, because of course he does, but the show takes that to its absurd conclusion by having the torpedoes shoot out of the nostrils. At one point, the show even mocks itself a little when Sonic's catchphrase is muffled by him diving underwater. Even the throwaway moments, like monstrous leftovers in the fridge reaching for some tossed aside pizza, represent somewhat successful attempts at actual humor. Sure, there's plenty of loud wackiness and facile slapstick but "The Little Merhog" still has to rank among the funniest episodes of this show.

"The Little Merhog" is also notable for including a villain totally unrelated to Robotnik. In fact, half of this episode doesn't even have Robotnik in it. The egg man's inevitable presence leads to an unusually conniving scheme on Sonic's behalf. He decides to play "Yojimbo," hoping the two bad guys destroy each other and save the town in the process. That alone would've been a solid premise for an episode but "The Little Merhog" throws in a further swerve, when the villains fight and then team-up. The episode then reveals itself as a story of plucky underdogs standing up to their oppressors, as the Mertopians find the strength to fight their own battles. These are all tried-and-true premises but I'm shocked "AoStH" deploys them all as well as it does. 

Maybe the reason the jokes here work better than usual is that the episode kind of takes its premise seriously. Yes, the idea of an underwater kingdom of mermaid hedgehogs is ridiculous. And the motivation of a villain razing their city to the seabed to make mini-malls and condos is silly. (Though just an absurdist exaggeration of actual capitalism.) But you do feel something for the Merhogs' plight. When Memo's giant squid shaped submarine and Robotnik's Robotnik-shaped submarine go about destroying Mertopia, it feels surprisingly serious. There's still goofy sound effects laid overtop but there's not much funny about people aquatic humanoids fleeing in terror as their homes are destroyed. When Merna uses her Aquaman-like powers to summon a horde of sea life, to fight the invaders back, it's a genuine hero moment. The show actually earns that. I'm as shocked as you are. 

I want to credit "The Little Merhog's" quality to writer Jeffrey Scott but he wrote several terrible episodes too. One trademark of Scott's I have noticed is that he always writes Sonic as a ladies man. From the minute Sonic sees the comely Merna, he immediately begins flirting with her. There's a scene where the two are playfully splashing in a fountain, under a busty Merhog statue. The episode concludes with the two sharing a heart-creating smooch, the G-rated kids show version of our hero getting laid. (We can assume Merna was never seen again because Sonic ran into the age-old mermaid dilemma.) Despite a distressing close-up of Tails' foot and the queen of Mertopia's matronly bosom, this is not one of the freakishly horny episodes of this show. It's just horny in the normal way nineties kids cartoons were. 

Going into this episode, I figured it would be one of those episodes that uses vague pop culture parody as a clothesline to hang dire bits of would-be comedic cartoon chaos on. Instead, I found myself invested in the plight of the characters, amused by the goofy new villain, and actually enjoying the experience. This is a rare example of this show briefly rising out of the muck of the disposable nineties cartoon goop to deliver a halfway decent episode. If nothing else, it's a lot better than "Submerged Sonic." [7/10]