Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode 1.52: Baby-Sitter Jitters

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode 1.52: Baby-Sitter Jitters

Original Air Date: November 11th, 1993

"Baby-Sitter Jitters" begins with Robotnik casually preparing to murder an entire village. He's going to explode a dam, flooding the community of Beaverton, in order to create some pricy beach-front property. After a signal is sent to Sonic via crop duster, the hedgehog races in to the save the town. Cleaver Beaver, the town leader, is grateful and plans to throw a huge cook-out for Sonic. However, that means he has to leave to get supplies, causing Tails to volunteer to watch the three little beaver children. The beaver babies turn out to be total hellions, stressing Sonic out. When Scratch and Grounder show up, the situation gets more hectic. 

Within the opening minutes of "Baby-Sitter Jitters," Sonic patches up an exploded dam and then spins a tidal wave of water back into its original location before anyone in Beaverton even gets wet. This is such a ridiculous, "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace"-level act of superheroics that it proves Sonic is essentially unstoppable. Instead of trying to go bigger, the show zeroes in on a much smaller, domestic issue for Sonic to resolve. The God-like hedgehog can handle disasters with ease but can he take care of babies? He's just sixteen years old, after all, and parenthood really isn't on his agenda. In theory, this is a solid premise for an episode. 

But there's a problem. See, there's this subgenre of children's entertainment wherein adults are continuously humiliated and physically battered by tiny children. This is usually a staple of underachieving live-action films like "Baby's Day Out," "Clifford," "Problem Child," or "Baby Geniuses." ("Home Alone" is, I guess, on the more sophisticated end of the spectrum.) But cartoons have done it too. The idea, I suppose, is that children's lives are at the whims of adults, so seeing them take back some of that control is empowering for kids. Or maybe it's just an easy reversal, the hope being that tiny children destroying adults is suitably ironic enough to provide laughs.

The problem with this is... Usually, these shows characterize the kids or babies as not merely mischievous but utterly diabolical. Everything they do is designed to make the adults' lives hell. This is also true of "Baby-Sitter Jitters." The beaver babies are just demons. They scream at Sonic, chew through their crib, drop a cabinet on his head, and shatter the one plate he's able to save. When Scratch and Grounder pick the kids up, they drop the robots out of a fucking airplane. The episode ends with a reign of chaos, of the babies wrecking Robotnik's shit. (Even utilizing a random set of golf clubs at one point.) 

If the beaver triplets where just humiliating the bad guys, that would at least fit the show's usual antics. But, after Sonic saves them, they spray him with milk for no reason. If they just babbled and shit their pants, like normal babies, that would be annoying but understandable. Their destructive habits, and the sadistic joy they take from this destruction, elevates the hideous beaver babies to sociopath levels. The show seems to find this behavior amusing but it's just infuriating. These infants are pure demons and deserve to burn in Hell where demons belong. 

The fact that the episode devotes so much of its time to the Hellish antics of these evil babies is bad enough. Worst yet, the episode barely has any other jokes. Tails mixes up Sonic's fondness for "babes" for babies, the cutting-edge level of wordplay you should expect here. (See also: The constant visual puns about beavers and dams.) Writer Jeffrey Scott throws in a gag where Scratch cross dresses, the second time he's done that joke. No, Jeff, Sonic is the main cross dresser on this show! There's also an extended gag where Robotnik is caught in the shower, telling his rubber ducky brush how much he loves it. Which is more freaky and off-putting than funny. 

In other words, it's a miserable episode. It might be the most obnoxious episode of a show that was annoying by-default. Thank god the horrible beaver babies were one-off characters. I couldn't handle any more of these screaming monstrosities. Though it's sort of impressive that Jeffrey Scott wrote one of the best episodes of this show and what might be the worst. That's range, I guess. [3/10]