Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode 1.15: Too Tall Tails

 

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode 1.15: Too Tall Tails

Original Air Date: October 5th, 1993

Here's another aggressively wacky episode of "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" with a far too convoluted premise. Robotnik kidnaps and tortures – sigh – Professor Von Schlemmer, in order to steal his Gizmo Gas creation. Scratch and Grounder fuck it up and accidentally release the gas over the countryside. After a day of making Coconuts eat shit, Sonic and Tails travel to Wienerville for lunch. No, not the obscure Nickelodeon show but rather a town occupied with anthropomorphic bratwursts. There, Tails accidentally soaks in the gas and grows to giant size. With a newly unquenchable appetite, Tails wrecks the town. Robotnik shows up to turn the sausage-y town folks against the giant fox. (He also bribes them with tacky Dollar Store presents.) Sonic must rescue Von Schlemmer and go on a quest to retrieve the one object that can reverse Tails' condition, before Robotnik destroys him. I got tired typing all that out.

Yes, dear readers, this is another one of those "AoStH" that makes me question my lifelong commitment to the "Sonic" franchise. You could look at this episode and try to ask sensible questions. Why is there a town occupied with walking, talking hot dogs on Mobius? Furthermore, why is their community famous for making especially tasty non-walking, non-talking hot dogs? Are the wieners the residents of Wienerville make and sell made from the same substance as them? Do the hot dog people... excrete these edible dogs in some way? If not, why are these meat-like entities comfortable with selling food to tourists that is in their own image? It would be really weird to find a town famous for sandwiches shaped like the people who live there. You probably wouldn't want to stop there. 

And that's not even getting into why Von Schlemmer invented growing gas. Or why the antidote is a magical garlic flower protected by an inexplicable dragon. Once again, Von Schlemmer's inventions happily dances over the line separating science and magic. And what the fuck did Robotnik plan on doing with this gas anyway? It certainly has offensive applications. Why didn't the episode run with that instead? Robotnik turning gullible small-town bumpkins against Sonic and Tails is a totally solid premise for an episode but it's just one idea included in this collage of inexplicable nonsense. Lastly, why does Tails eat roughly a hundred chili dogs this episode but Sonic touches not a single one, when they are supposed to be his trademark favorite food?

No, no, only madness lies down that path. When faced with absolute lunacy, asking "why" will lead to your own doom. Simply accept the absurdity you are witnessing. Let it wash over you, like a William Burroughs novel or a dosing of LSD in the high school prom punch. Accept that nothing about this makes sense. Besides, we all know the real answer: That the writers were just trying to dump out the wackiest premise possible, as quickly as possible, knowing their audience of ADHD-addled youngsters wouldn't care about any of the disturbing questions these gags raise. Only humorless man-children would watch this stupid bullshit and try to figure out the deeper implications.

"Why is any of this happening?" is the incorrect question to ask. The correct question to ask is "How many people have jerked-off to this?" It's a long running joke that the "Sonic" franchise invented furry depravity and it's almost true. Watching "Too Tall Tails" is like playing a game of Bingo with creepy Internet paraphilias. Tails growing giant brings macrophilia too mind, while his bulging belly invokes inflation fetish. His endless hunger and frequent belches remind you of feederism. There's a joke where Sonic makes Scratch and Grounder pose and flex their suddenly bulging muscles, pleasing folks with muscle kinks. They are specifically described as being sweaty afterwards. Before any of this happens, Robotnik takes off Von Schlemmer's shoes and tickles his unnecessarily detailed feet. (Also unnecessarily detailed: Robotnik's ass through his pants.) Is it possible that I'm just a sick freak whose mind is completely corrupted? Well, yes, absolutely. But it's impossible these days to watch these innocent gags and not be reminded of the kinks they inspired. 

Through the discomfort, confusion, and anger this episode causes, one moment comes together to actually make a degree of sense. After retrieving the magical garlic clove that will undo Tails' condition from a sleeping dragon, Sonic runs through a series of booby traps. These include a giant swinging ball and large spikes poking up through the ground. For one second, my brain snapped out of the stupor this episode had sunk me into to shout "Hey, like in the video game!" I have no doubt this was an intentional shout-back to the games this cartoon was ostensibly created to promote, an increasingly rare event as we've slipped deeper into the "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" quagmire.

I wouldn't be so irritated and baffled by this show's extremely loose and random cartoon logic if it actually managed to make me laugh. Coconuts slams into several walls of varying thickness early on. Scratch and Grounder are tricked by Sonic and crash a shitty car afterwards. (Specifically designated as a DeLorian, another then-relevant pop culture reference that will only confuse the whipper-snappers, who associate DeLorians more with time travel than financial ruin.) Robotnik gets frozen with an ice ray. There's random, blink-and-miss-it shout-outs to Elvis and umbrella hats. But these aren't really jokes. They're just things that happen. And it goes without saying that I find Von Schlemmer incredibly annoying, though thankfully he's not in too many scenes. A moment where he mixes up the word "antidote" and "anecdote" made me audibly groan.

Again, who is the fool here? The person who wrote an episode involving humanoid sausages or the man asking for logic or fine-tuned comedy from them? The answer to that question is self-evident. Once more, "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" has defeated me. Trying to parse the interior logic, narrative pacing, or analytical value from this show has done nothing but make my brain hurt. I can say no more other than "yep, this is a cartoon that definitely exist." [5/10]