Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode 1.05. High Stakes Sonic

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode 1.05. High Stakes Sonic

Original Air Date: September 20th, 1993

So, after an eighth month hiatus, I am back to reviewing episodes of “Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.” I'll admit, I don't find writing about the “Sonic” cartoons nearly as satisfying as I do reviewing the old comics. Even “SatAM,” a show I'm rather fond of, was more difficult to get through than I anticipated. If this blog has proven nothing else, it's that the old comic book really was what was keeping my love of Sonic alive all my life. As for “Adventures,” I think my rather apparent lack of love for this show might be why updates kept slowing until they stopped. But, goddamn it, I'm determined to do this. (Do it to it, even.) So, here I am, back at the grindstone, reviewing old cartoons nobody gives a shit about. If you think my life is easy, live in my head for a couple of hours, okay?

Anyway, let's get on with it. “High-Stakes Sonic” features one of Robotnik's most elaborate plots yet. He's paying Smiley, a literal loan shark, to get a town of sheep people addicted to gambling. After loosing so much, they are then enslaved in order to help Robotnik built a sphinx in his image. Never mind that Robotnik could have just built robots to make the sphinx or just kidnapped people for slave labor without bothering with the whole casino angle. Sonic gets wind of this and investigates the casino. While undermining all of the doctor's rigged games, Tails ends up getting captured. Robotnik informs Sonic that, unless he looses a race to Grounder, he'll make sure Tails will never be seen again. Got all that?

“High Stakes Sonic” is another one of those AoStH that vaguely tie into elements from the then-recent video games. As you've probably guessed, Robotnik refers to his casino as the Casino Nights Zone. As in previous examples, the name is about where the connection to the video game stuff ends but it's nice that the show was at least trying to adapt stuff from the games. Instead of teaching kids how much fucking fun slot machines are, as the “Sonic 2” version of Casino Nights did, “High Stakes Sonic” seems to be pushing a moral about how gambling destroys mind and reaps souls. This is, presumably, the moral anyway. All the games are rigged and all the sheep end up ruined. In execution, the episode actually teaches the viewer that sheep are fucking stupid, as they repeatedly go back to the casino after being ripped off over and over again. Even Sonic seems pretty fed up with them after they race off to the casino after he saves their ass.

And speaking of races! “High Stakes Sonic's” weird narrative shift in the second half is a good example of how fucking sloppy this show can be. Most half-hours would stick to one premise, instead of deciding it wants to be both the casino episode and the race episode. (Though both are connected by the theme of wagers.) At the very least, I think it's a fitting punishment for Sonic, on Robotnik's behalf. Making Sonic, someone very proud of their speed, loose a race to piddling Grounder would be a serious blow to his ego. Of course, all of that is undermined by the show's usual jokiness. Robotnik is such an ineffectual villain, Tails successfully ties his mustache to the bars of his cage in an earlier scene.

Once again, I'm probably taking this dumb-ass shit too seriously. Is “High Stakes Sonic” funny? Only briefly. Most of the amusing moments, once again, are owed solely to Long John Baldry's performance as Robotnik. The series of insults he reserves for his incompetent robot henchmen always manage to make me crack a smile. Otherwise, there's a pretty funny line where Sonic outright asks Grounder where they keep the computers that rig the games, getting a cluelessly strait-ahead answer. When the sheep enter the casino and fail at the slot machines, they have their wool ripped off... Which would be a good visual pun on “getting fleeced,” if Sonic didn't immediately say that. This episode is a little heavy on obviousness, as Sonic breaks the fourth wall twice and makes a sphinx literally wink at the audience. Most of the jokes are sophomoric slapstick, like Sonic getting smooshed with a rock, or obvious gags like the loan shark being an actual shark. 

“High Stakes Sonic” has an easily identified moral, about how gambling is only a good way to separate yourself from your money. The “Sonic Says” segment, oddly, does not exactly follow up on this. Instead, the edu-tainment segment has Scratch and Grounder daring each other to play on train tracks, which end with them obviously being crushed by a train. Sonic spins this into a moral about how taking dangerous dares are stupid, kids. Which I guess is a moral that kids would understand more easily than how the house always wins. But I was really looking forward to Sonic explaining gambling addiction to the six-year-olds at home.

It's another episode with a mildly clever idea but a seriously weak execution, rendering it forgettable. If anything, this one is probably more memorable for bad reasons. Like Robotnik wearing a loincloth while dressed as a pharaoh, a regrettable sight. (And one of several disturbingly fleshy visual gags, such as a bus having a tongue for stairs.) I'm not really sure why the showmakers felt it was necessary for us to see that. Also, if you're wondering why I reviewed this one before “Grounder the Genius,” it's because I wrote that review months ago, forgot I had already banked it, and didn't feel like re-writing the introduction. Sorry, I'm lazy. [6/10]