Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode 1.39: Tails Prevails

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode 1.39: Tails Prevails

Original Air Date: October 29th, 1993

This is my thirty-fourth or fifth review of "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog." Which means I am officially at the half-way point. Yes, it only took me about ten months to get here. I guess that is what happens when you take most of s year off. But it's okay, as I'm now zipping through these reviews at not-quite-Sonic speed. Hopefully, I'll be done with this tedious project and moving onto the next tedious "Sonic" related project in no time at all. Surely, my spirit won't break now, will it?

"Tails Prevails" occurs on the eve of a rarely acknowledged annual occurrence: Sonic's birthday. Feeling like he has to buy his best buddy a special gift, he decides to get a few odd jobs. This doesn't quite work out, so he instead heads to the local junkyard and builds Sonic a flying hover bike. As you do. Tails' sudden display of mechanical know-how draws the attention of two eccentric inventors: Professor Von Schlemmer and Robotnik. The evil doctor impersonates the good (I guess) professor and tricks Tails into building a Sonic-smashing machine. 

I recently learned that Sega's official stance is that money doesn't exist in the "Sonic"-world, which makes no fucking sense and directly contradicts previous "Sonic" games. Sega just likes to make up arbitrarily, dumb-ass rules and then change their minds again when nobody is looking! But money definitely exists in the world of "AoStH" and, in "Tails Prevails," Tails learns that having to earn it sucks. He attempts to leaf-blow leaves out of yards by spinning his propeller tails, but accidentally creates a tornado instead. (A sequence that features Tails saying he has to "blow them harder," before he shouts "Faster!" and "I can't stop!" Did the "PINGAS!" people ever watch this episode?) Later, he attempts to make it as a paper boy but smashes some windows instead. It's true, Tails: having a job, and having to answer to a boss, both sucks and blows. 

These relatively mundane sequences of Tails being a cog in the crushing machine of capitalism – which even features cute Tails-centric scene transition – stand in contrast to how surreal the rest of the episode is. The setting for the majority of "Tails Prevails" is Sky City. That would be a community who live inside giant square cities that float in the sky and are connected by various ladders and shoots. That alone is an unusual sight but the residents of Sky City are even stranger. During the scenes where Tails is working, we see funny animal people living there. Directly after the newspaper delivery scene, a group of bizarre aliens exit the homes. Later, when Sonic's birthday party is interrupted by air-propelled chattering teeth, we see cartoony humans gathering. I guess the "AoStH" version of Mobius truly is a multicultural society, where all sorts of hideous cartoon creatures co-exist together. 

What makes this episode even more unusual is that it features several elements from the "Sonic" video games... Years before they became standard parts of the franchise! Sky City vaguely resembles the Sky Sanctuary stage from "Sonic & Knuckles," in that both are floating structures up in the sky. (It's also a little like the Sky Chase/Flying Fortress part of "Sonic 2," though even more vaguely.) While Tails being a tinkerer and inventor has always been a low-key part of his personality, it didn't become prominent until the "Sonic Adventure" era. Considering both the cartoon and the comic characterized Tails mostly as Sonic's sidekick during this time, I'm willing to bet that this is a complete coincidence. 

Even this is not the strangest thing about "Tails Prevails." No, what's most unusual about episode is that it's... Pretty good? There's three jokes here that genuinely made me laugh out loud. In the first scene, Tails says there's three days before Sonic's birthday, right before the sun promptly sets, causing him to revise his statement to two days. While infiltrating Robotnik's lab at the end, Sonic sneaks in through a pipe... Before exiting a bathroom, covered in green slime. He then looks directly at the audience and refuses to elaborate. It's rare to see this show make Sonic the butt of the joke like that. Lastly, while Sonic and Robotnik are fighting in their various flying machines, Robotnik shoots some laser guns. Sonic then makes finger guns and successfully shoots his own lasers. That's the kind of unexpected, freewheeling absurdity this show really needed more of. 

While random pop culture references are nothing unusual for this series, this episode features three that caught me off-guard. Sonic piloting his hover-bike through the tunnels of Sky City is sort of reminiscent of "Star Wars," which becomes more explicit when Robotnik quotes Darth Vader. (That flying scene is also pretty well animated for this show.) Later, Tails parrots "Star Trek's" Scotty, about how he's "giving' it all she's got, Cap'n!" And while I'm not certain if this is intentional, a moment where the characters are shouting each other's names reminded me of one of my favorite jokes from "Rocky Horror Picture Show." 

Even stranger yet, Von Schlemmer shows up in this episode and it didn't immediately make it worst! In fact, Von Schlemmer is fairly inoffensive in this episode and the scene where Robotnik disguises himself as the professor simply by taking a photo of him is even sort of amusingly random. Also, Scratch and Grounder immediately recognize Sonic in one of his disguises here, another unexpected event. Am I just developing Stockholm Syndrome after watching over thirty of these things or did Bob Forward actually bring his A-game when writing this one? (There's also less Scratch and Grounder in this episode than usual, which probably didn't hurt.)

I'm not sure how to answer that question yet but something is clear: "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog's" constant, aggressive wackiness works a lot better when it's contrasted with some mundane elements. Which is the real reason, I think, why "Tails Prevails" made me laugh. I guess Sonic and his pals should've gotten mundane, boring jobs. [7/10]