Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode 1.02: Subterranean Sonic

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode 1.02: Subterranean Sonic
Original Air Date: September 16th, 1993

As I've referenced before, the “Sonic” cartoon shows did not have the most direct relationship with the “Sonic” video games. Aside from the titular hedgehog, Robotnik, and Tails, “SatAM” really didn't share anything with the source material. “Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog” had a little more of a direct connection. Just over the course of these first nine episodes I've covered, there have been a handful of references to the game's various environments. “Subterranean Sonic,” the second episode produced, takes place largely in the first game's Marble Zone. While it doesn't resemble the game zone very much, the episode does feature rivers of lava, underground tunnels, and various swinging booby traps of doom Sonic must navigate. Which feels more video game-esque than most of the rest of the episodes I've watched so far.

Anyway, what is “Subterranean Sonic” about? The episode begins with Robotnik insisting Scratch and Grounder track down Sonic and Tails. The duo is discovered in the Marble Zone. Soon, the robots chase them into an underground tunnel in the lava and geyser filled enviroment. While there, Sonic and Tails uncover a grouchy mole miner named Spelunk. Spelunk has been hoarding jewels and golds and doesn't take kindly to any interlopers. After an extended chase, he captures the heroes and throws them into a diamond-barred cage. As soon as Scratch and Grounder get a peek at his horde of gold, they lead their boss to it as well.

Very unusually, “Subterranean Sonic” actually made me laugh quite a few times. Most of the joke in these episodes so far have been just kind of obnoxious and annoying. However, there's a streak of “Looney Tunes”-like absurdity running through this one that amused me. After Spalunk fires a cannonball, it actually follows Sonic and tails around several corners. Before being smashed by this cannonball, Scratch holds up a “HELP” sign to the audience, an obviously Bugs Bunny-inspired gag. Further gags that made me chuckle where Sonic displaying his super-knitting powers and dressing up as an IRS auditor after Robotnik starts to make off with the gold, one of the few disguise jokes that actually makes some coherent sense.

In fact, there's a surprising amount of dialogue in this episode that made me laugh. Robotnik is introduced monologue-ing in a dark room, before yelling at Scratch and Grounder for interrupting his brooding. After getting his head knocked off, Grounder calmly tells Scratch he is rude. Later, after threatening to cook his robot minions into broth, Grounder flat-out asks if you can make broth out of robots. Sonic also gets a few good zingers. Such as when he tells Spalunk that his indecisiveness would make him an idea politician. Later, while dressed in the guise of the auditor, Sonic tells the robots that they “might be forced to work for a living” unless they pay up. All solid chucklers, says I!

It's a good thing “Subterranean Sonic” is a funny episode because, otherwise, I'm not really sold on it. Spalunk is not an especially interesting character. He's introduced as an irredeemable asshole. Upon setting sigt on Sonic and Tails, he immediately starts threatening them. He spends most of the rest of the episode pursuing them, in a seriously unhinged manner. It's only after Sonic saves his life that the mole's grouchy exterior starts to crack up. This one act moves Spalunk so much, that he completely turns around. It's not a compelling character arc, to have a guy act one way for most of the episode only for it to completely change within the span of seconds near the end.

Instead of giving him a standard redemptive arc, “Subterranean Sonic” probably should've ran with Spalunk being a terminal asshole. “Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog” probably needed more villains outside of Robotnik and his henchmen. At one point, Sonic is figthing Robotnik and Spalunk, the two enemy's accidentally coming into conflict with each other. Wouldn't that have been interesting, to see Sonic and one of his enemies reluctantly unite against a common foe? Instead, that only occupies a few minutes until Spalunk does his heel-face turn.

“Subterranean Sonic” is another episode with a built-in moral. Spalunk overcomes his greed and myopic world view, coming out a better man mole on the other side. You would expect the “Sonic Sez” segment to run with that message and tells kids not to be so damn greedy. And it sort of does that. The segment instead encourages kids to share. Via a sequence where Tails has some chili, Spalunk has some hot dogs, and Sonic tells them to put their foodstuff together. This is about the level of moral message “Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog” should be handling. “Sharing is caring” is a lot more in this show's wheelhouse than “Don't let Father Laffety touch in your swimsuit area.”

It's not an especially great twenty minutes of television. A gag involving a random-ass family of turtles – why did this show hate turtles so much? – really goes nowhere. There's a glaring continuity era, when Sonic switches back and forth between his miner outfit and crossing guard outfit, presumably because DiC was reusing animation. Still, this definitely strikes me as one of the more affable episodes of “Adventures,” at least so far. [7/10]