Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode 1.16. Tails' New Home

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode 1.16. Tails' New Home
Original Air Date: September 7th, 1993

While the first episode of “Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog” to air focused on Sonic battling Robotnik, the second-to-air episode smartly turns its focus on Sonic and Tails' friendship. “Tails' New Home” begins with the two-tailed fox almost getting hurt while the duo fights Scratch and Grounder. Worried the adventurer life-style might be too perilous for his little buddy, Sonic sets out to find Tails a home. First, they meet with an extremely clumsy stork family, which is no safer for Tails. Second, the two encounter Sgt. Doberman, a crazed former drill sergeant. Lastly, a pair of elderly two-tailed foxes identify themselves as Tails' parents. It seems like an ideal home for Sonic's sidekick but, naturally, this is a trap.

Despite it being one of the most common feature of the entire franchise, there haven't been too many attempts to provide an origin for Sonic and Tails' friendship. If I'm remembering correctly, the instructional manual for “Sonic 2” simply described Tails as an enthusiastic fan of Sonic who started following him, and imitating his trademark moves, one day. The Archie comic series wouldn't get around to explaining this background until the “Sonic Kids 2” special, published in March 1999, six years after the series began. “SatAM” never explained it. Surprisingly, one of the least serious iterations of “Sonic” put this information out front early on. Here, we find out Tails is a foundling who stumbled into Sonic when he tried to live life as a bird. Sonic decided to watch out for the kid, and the two just stuck together ever since.

The flashback that actually depict this first meeting is a little heavy on the wacky slapstick “Adventures” was fond of. However, Sonic and Tails' friendship ends up forming the very sweet emotional backbone of the episode. The details of their first meeting is pretty cute, especially the way Sonic gave Tails his nickname after learning he hates his birth name of Miles. Tails' assumed birth parents tell Sonic the fox is where he belongs, causing the hedgehog to shed a single tear. It's further established that Sonic feels seriously lost without his little buddy in the next scene. But Sonic goes along with it because he thinks it's the right decision. “Adventures” wasn't a show that handled sincere emotion very often, from what I recall, so it's nice to see Sonic and Tails' genuine brotherhood – the "love" word even being used in the final scene – get so much attention.

Contrasting with these cute moments in “Tails' New Home” is a strain of disturbingly grotesque slapstick. The opening chase scene with Scratch and Grounder features a landscape so abstract, and the unnerving sight of Tails screaming and turning inside out is so surreal, I assumed it to be a dream sequence. Nope, this episode is just like that. At one point, Sonic puffs up his body to extremely buff, Schwarzeneggerian proportions before melting into a puddle. Huge knots grow out of Sonic and Tails' heads during their first meeting. After running into a wall, Robotnik yanks an unpleasantly squishy brick out of his eyeball. Equally inexplicable moments involve Sonic's arms spinning around like a clock or Tails' parents – revealed to be ant-headed robots – being smushed together into a can of applesauce for no particular reason. I don't remember the show being this fucking weird but I'm betting I'll be numbed to this shit soon enough.

Otherwise, “Tails' New Home” continues the trend of “Adventures” episode having one or two decent gags and many more not-so-amusing ones. During the painfully unfunny sequence involving the idiotic storks that try to adopt Tails, there's a brief shot of a goldfish making out his last will and testament before his bowl is overturned. That reminds me of something you'd see in a Tex Avery cartoon. While Sgt. Doberman makes Sonic and Tails perform rigorous military exercise, Sonic – uncharacteristically winded – says his wife is supposed to be nice. This moment also results in a meme-worthy moment of Tails' tail turning into an American flag. Long John Baldry got more laughs from me, for the colorful way Robotnik decides to give himself a promotion or the way he digs into the ridiculous names of the various traps laid for Sonic.

But, yes, the annoying gags once again outnumber the decent ones. Scratch's shrieked declarations of greatness or Grounder's nincompoop grumblings irritate. Sonic's various disguises, including a firefighter and an especially transparent postman costume, did not make me smile. The stork family's incredible idiocy, which leads them to almost burning down and flooding their houses within a few minutes, is tiring. There's even a joke about airline food. Also, of course, catchphrases and bad animations are present. Sonic says he's waiting, Robotnik says he hates that hedgehog, and characters awkwardly spin through the air more than once. I really need to get use to this shit, I've got sixty-four more of these to watch.

We wrap up with an especially baffling Sonic Sez. In it, Sonic meets Coconut who is running away from Dr. Robotnik's fortress, because the doctor mistreats him. Sonic encourages the robotic monkey to return home, by pointing out that he's just a kid that can't take care of himself. That even the difficulties of living at home is preferable to living on the streets. While I understand the point of this message – don't try and run away from home, kids – this is a bad example. It's sort of shitty to tell children from abusive home that they shouldn't leave. In fact, this sequence only makes sense once your realize Coconuts is an enemy of Sonic and the hedgehog wants the Badnik to suffer. Which, ya know, was probably not the intended moral here.

Anyway, “Tails' New Home” worked better for me than “Best Hedgehog.” I liked the stuff centering on Sonic and Tails' friendship, even if the rest of the episode has little to recommend about it. Will decent half-hours like this be typical of the show or is this an outlier? I guess I'll find out soon enough but I can already kind of guess at an answer. [7/10]