Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode 1.48: Black Bot the Pirate

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode 1.48: Black Bot the Pirate

Original Air Date: October 26th, 1993

As you've heard me bitch about already, "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" was not a show that was heavy on continuity. Supporting characters rarely reoccurred and individual episodes never had lasting effects. Which is why you can watch the show in almost any order and it'll still make sense. (Though the syndication package still managed to fuck that up...) However, there is an exception to this rule. I've characterized the "AoStH" writers as unambitious and I think the general quality of the show proves that. But they must've had some ambitions because, about halfway through the show's run, they would create a four-part story arc. "The Quest for the Chaos Emeralds" is wider in scope and slightly more serious than this show usually is. While "Adventures" rarely lingered in my childhood memory, this four-parter definitely stuck out to my young brain. And so it did to many other viewers, as "The Quest" is generally regarded as the high-point of the entire series. 

"Black Bot the Pirate" begins sometime after Robotnik has captured Dr. Caninestein, a brilliant physicist who has cracked the code of time travel. Robotnik forces him to build a time machine, which the villain intends to use to track down the four magical Chaos Emerald. Each possessing an incredible ability. If Robotnik possesses all four, he'll be unstoppable. After the tyrant goes back in time, Caninestein quickly builds a pair of light-speed sneakers for Sonic. He finds them on the beach, where Sonic attempts – and fails – to pick up a shapely Breezie look-a-like. Our hedgehog hero and Tails head back in time to the days of Blackbeard the Pirate, where Robotnik is already starting to close in on the first emerald's location. 

Time travel is one of those standard sci-if premises that is almost always fun to play around with. Whether you use it to explore a distant future or to fuck around with reality-bending paradoxes, time travel opens up the story in big ways. Lots of time, shows just use it to drop characters into various historical settings. And ya know what? That's fine too. Considering how fast and loose "AoStH" is with logic, there's really no reason the show couldn't have had Sonic fighting pirates at any point. Yet dropping the hedgehog onto the high seas, and having him tangle with Blackbeard and hunt buried treasure, is a totally cromulent premise for an episode. Considering most of these "Adventures" boiled down to "what if we introduce a new, annoying character?," this is still a welcomed change of pace. 

As the title indicates, this storyline would also introduce the Chaos Emeralds into "AoStH" lore. The legendary stones have been part of the "Sonic" lore since the very first game, even if they really wouldn't become plot relevant until the third one. Something consistent about the emeralds is that they aren't consistent at all. Even across the video games, the exact number and color of the emeralds varies. "AoStH" kept them all green, changed their shapes, and narrowed it down to four. More importantly, writer Jeffrey Scott gave each emerald its own magical property. The emerald at the center of this story grants invisibility to its user. The others possess the powers of invulnerability, immortality (which seems slightly redundant), and what is described as "power over life itself." 

(If this sounds similar to a certain Marvel Comics plot device, that's probably not a coincidence. The Infinity Stones had been part of the Marvel Universe since the seventies and the story arc revolving around their collection and utilization played out in the early nineties. I have no idea if Jeffrey Scott was a comic nerd but he previously worked on superhero shows like "SuperFriends," "The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show," and "Spider-Man." It's fair to assume he was at least aware of the medium. The Infinity Stones plot would've been recent comic history around the time he got hired to work on "Sonic." So it seems like a likely intentional reference/steal to me.) 

Obviously, introducing a quest to gather magical rocks that grant god-like powers is a little heavier than your usual "AoStH" episode. This episode also has Robotnik wielding a Roboticizer-like ray gun, which he uses to turn Blackbeard and a whale into mechanical minions. (Sort of weird he had that up his sleeve and has never used it to conquer Mobius, right?) Yes, "Black Bot the Pirate" is a little more seriously plotted than most episodes of this show. The Invisibility Emerald being invisible is a clever idea. As is the way Robotnik finds the unseeable hedgehog and Sonic's answer to seemingly being stranded in the past. The animation also takes a step-up here, as the characters' movements are far more fluid and expressive than they usually are. Long John Baldry even manages to make Robotnik, a character we've seen humiliated countless times by now, sound like an intimidating villain here. 

Despite all the obvious ways "Black Bot the Pirate" is different from your typical "AoStH" episode, this is still a goofy comedy show. The first half of the episode is devoted to the characters screwing around on a pirate ship. Blackbeard wields nun-chucks in one scene. The physical comedy is pretty lame, as usual, though a bit where Tails quickly paints Grounder to resemble Sonic made me grin a little. Despite its time-spanning plot and world-in-the-balance stakes, the episode still has time to include Sonic tricking the baddies by wearing a disguise. (As well as most of the cast's stock catchphrases, though I guess there weren't any chili dog stands back in Blackbeard's day.) There's also an unlikely moment of Sonic re-programming the robot whale he and Tails are stuck in, so there's just nothing this hedgehog can't do. 

Still, I guess ambition is worth something. Even if it's exactly what you'd expect from this show, "Blackbot the Pirate" is also so atypical for this series that I kind of have to give it a positive score. We'll see how my much my opinion changes as I work my way through the rest of this story arc. [6/10]