Sonic Boom: Conclusion

I started my retrospective of the "Sonic Boom" animated series in July of 2022. Over two years later, I'm finally finished with it. It's a long show, the most numerous of all the blue hedgehog animated programs, so it is expected that it would've taken me a while to get through it all. However, I certainly didn't intend for things to drag on the way they did. Sorry about that, guys. The last two years have been hectic and, whenever I found myself with a little free time to write about "Sonic" bullshit, there was seemingly always a new show or comic or bowling-centric live action spin-off to discuss. To anyone who has stuck around for this entire thing, thank you so much for tolerating my constant schedule slippage. I truly appreciate the people who enjoy my nonsense and have been doing so for years now. 

But what of "Sonic Boom?" I went into this retrospective well aware of the spin-off franchises reputation. The "Boom" sub-series' journey from ugly stepchild of the "Sonic" brand to beloved underdog is well documented. The memes around the series slowly transitioned from being centered around the glitchy performances of the gameplay to the clever, meta-laced jokes of the cartoon. In my introduction, I theorized that the self-aware quality of the "Sonic Boom" cartoon played a hand in the entire franchise finding its footy again in the last decade. Having now watched all of the show, I believe this to be far more true. If getting in on the joke, laughing at itself before anyone else could, was a necessary step in the "Sonic" series' rehabilitation from the low-points of the 2000s, then "Sonic Boom" constantly poking fun at itself and ribbing the fandom was essential to that. "Sonic Boom" is the first time a "Sonic" cartoon felt like it was in dialogue with the fans. That entire attitude drives the series now, from the movie totally redesigning its title character after fan outcry to the much demanded return to retro-platforming aesthetic. Sega and all involved realized that, if "Sonic" were to survive, they had to actually pay attention to what fans wanted and what they were saying. "Boom" being able to crack jokes about blarms or SonAmy was a big step forward in that direction. 

The cartoon wasn't immediately like that, of course. How could it have responded to fan discourse from the beginning, before the staff became aware of said discourse? "Sonic Boom" definitely took a while to find its footing. Those early episodes are working from a much more general idea of who these characters are and what the world around them is like. I never disliked "Sonic Boom" but I was certainly slow to embrace it. The interpretation of Knuckles as an enormously unintelligent dunderhead was, by far, the characterization that I was most reluctant to get on-board with. Sonic as a snarky slacker or Eggman as a neurotic loser, ya know, there are precedents for that. I've never cared for Knuckles being reduced to simply a super-strong idiot. In general, I really didn't like "Boom's" setting at first. Sonic hanging out in a middle-class tropical village full of generic cartoon animals did not sit well with me at all. Is this how newcomers to the franchise in 2024 feel when they try and get into "SatAM?" "Who is this sexy squirrel bitch?" "Why is Sonic sleeping in a hut?" My version of that was "Why does Sonic own a TV?" "What's the supply chain situation at Meh Burger?" The setting demanded certain things of me, as a long time fan, that I took a minute to grow accustomed to. 

The writers behind "Sonic Boom" understood something central to the series' success. "Boom" was a sitcom and the scripts leaned into that. As one of the foundational formats of the television medium, the sitcom has a different essential function from most types of TV program. It is not a narrative driven genre, so much. The plots are frequently formulaic. Instead, we return to our favorite sitcoms every week in order to spend time with the characters. Success stories like "Cheers" or "Friends" flourished because audiences became attached to the cast. "Sonic Boom" understood this too. It quickly ran with the cozy pleasures of hanging out with its weird band of misfits every week. That allowed the writers to build episodes around simple premises like "Sonic returns a library book" or "Eggman gets into a game for children." It worked on me too. Slowly, I found myself welcoming Sticks' paranoid delusions, Tails' wacky inventions, and Knuckles' buffoonery as comfortable reminders of why I enjoy spending time with this crew in the first place.

This contrast between "Boom's" self-awareness around its status as part of the global "Sonic the Hedgehog" conglomerate and its embracing of the rules and conventions of sitcoms allowed the show to do some unique things. "Sonic Boom" could be both an action/adventure show full of crazy sci-fi plots and a reliably funny comedy about friends hanging out. This balance was not always perfect. Sometimes "Boom" strained under the expectations of being both a goofy comedy and a typically action-packed "Sonic" show. However, more often than not, it worked. I felt the pressures of the writers working within the eleven minute runtimes or a limited animation budget much more than I ever did the conflict between "Boom's" flippant style and the usual hedgehog shenanigans. In other words: The writers usually knew what they were doing.

"Sonic Boom" had a diverse pool of writers which means it took a while for the show to form something like a consistent vision. The first season and a half can almost be watched in any order. However, the second half of season two saw the program double-down on continuity in a surprising way. In general, I am against heavily serialization in my TV shows. I want a show to feel like a show, not a fourteen hour long movie cut into parts. At the same time, too episodic an approach can leave a program feeling weightless, like nothing that happens has any permeant effect. "Sonic Boom" found the happy medium in its second season, letting most episodes stand alone while happily reaching back into the archives for a random character or plot point whenever it would be funny to bring them back. If you're a Trekkie or spend too much time on TVTropes, you might be familiar with the term "growing the beard." It's when a series takes a noticeable upswing in quality and finds its footing, so named for when William Riker grew some bitchin' facial features in the second season of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." The "Robots from the Sky" storyline can easily be pin-pointed as "Boom's" beard-growing moment. I already liked the show before that point but that arc represents the beginning of the writers taking bolder swings and the show starting to feel it took place in more of a fleshed-out world. 

How far that beard could have grown, sadly, is a question we'll never have an answer to. One can't help but feel like "Sonic Boom" got a little screwed in the end. The quality of the games sunk most corporate interest in the program early on, something the showrunners, writers, and animators had no control over. It never seemed like Cartoon Network gave the program a fair chance, yanking it around the schedule and eventually burying it on another network. The obvious lack of interest the powers-that-be had in the show can be seen in the murky events that led to its cancelation. After being moved quite a bit in its second season, production concluded seemingly with no clear answer one way or another on if a third season was incoming. At one point, a storyboard artist said a third season was expected but months passed with no further announcements, nothing being confirmed. Eventually, two whole years after the second season ended, it was confirmed that the show's widely assumed termination had occurred. The impression is of a program so ignored by the money people that they simply forgot it existed, the leftover stock of "Sonic Boom" episodes tapering out to an end without the Time-Warner CEOs noticing. 

This was unfair to everyone, of course. Over the four or three "Boom" was in production, the writers, director, animators, editors and so forth has cranked out a pretty good show. The cast was always good but the sense was that Roger Craig Smith, Mike Pollock, Cindy Robinson, Travis Winningham, Colleen O'Shaughnessy, Nika Futterman, and everyone else still had plenty left to explore with these characters. "Boom" ran for two lengthy seasons, ultimately having the most episodes of any of the blue hedgehog cartoons. Its lifespan was about standard for a "Sonic" cartoon. However, it's hard to escape the feeling that the show was only starting to find its groove when it got canned. Especially in the way it was starting to include more elements from the video games. I maintain that something fishy was definitely up with how things played out behind-the-scenes. Makes me want to track everyone down and write a definitive oral history or something....

In a franchise full of cult classics, "Sonic Boom" is definitely one of them. The show garnered a following and remains fairly well-liked within the larger "Sonic" fandom. Seven years after a new episode aired, you still see people asking for Sticks the Badger to be included in something again. Considering Sega's general reluctance in acknowledging past "Sonic" tie-in media once their moment has passed, it's hard to say if this will ever happen. Either way, I found myself growing surprisingly attached to "Sonic Boom" before the end in a way I didn't expect. I'd happily rank this up there with "SatAM" and "Sonic X" as one of the best "Sonic" cartoons. In its own humble way, "Boom" was a consistently entertaining and amusing show that wormed its way into my heart. I'm glad I watched it. I wouldn't mind watching it again someday, truly the proof that a TV show has won me over. 

At least until this past year, "Sonic Boom" was also the latest "Sonic" TV show. After wrapping up my reviews of the Archie "Sonic" comics, I made a promise to review every blue hedgehog related cartoon. That quest is over now, right? It would be, if I was less of an obsessive compulsive nerd. Alas, I am that bitch. Thus, there remains a grab-bag of animated "Sonic" miscellanea for me to dig into next. One chapter in Hedgehogs Can't Swim history closes, another opens. As for "Sonic Boom," it's a funny show! I'm glad it exists! Now excuse me while I try and figure out the safest way to get all this speed tape off me...