Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode 1.57: Road Hog

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode 1.57: Road Hog

Original Air Date: November 16th, 1993

This is one of those "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" episodes with about three different premises, so here we go. While running through a small town, Sonic and Tails are given a speeding ticket. Unable to pay the fine, they are quickly arrested and put on a chain-gang, doing hard labor. There, they encounter Colonel Stench, a stinky skunk chemist who has discovered a type of flower with mind-controlling properties. It turns out Robotnik is already aware of this pollen and plans on using it to seize control of the world. Stench has already perfected an antidote, which our heroes use to escape. After Sonic faces Robotnik, he gets blasted with the pollen and brain-washed into being unaware of his speed. Through further contrivances, he ends up part of a biker gang of pigs. This leaves Tails and Stench alone to stop Robotnik's mind-warping plot. Got all that?

Once again, "AoStH" stumbled its way into a progressive political statement. Here, we see a small town speed trap squeezing travelers for cash via speeding tickets. When that doesn't work, they become legal slave labor, prisoners damned to a life time of hard work with little chance of escape. (More days are added onto Tails and Sonic's sentence for the smallest infractions.) We soon learn this is all a scheme by an evil corporate master to imprison people who can damage his latest plot. Such as Sonic and Colonel Stench. The prison guards are presented as literally faceless, hulking minions, all literally under Robotnik's control. In other words: Prison labor is unjust and simply another tool by those-in-power to repress undesirables. 

This episode ends with a "Sonic Sez" segment encouraging kids to go to police officers for help. Which is funny, because everything else here is directly opposed to that message. This is the first, and only time, police have been shown enforcing a speed limit on Sonic. One can assume that the small town cops are also under Robotnik's control, that the entire ordeal was a set-up to capture the hedgehog. See, kids, cops serve their political masters, not the public trust. Later, while part of the biker gang, Sonic spin-dashes through a cop car, the officers inside being totally ineffectual. During the edutainment segment, Sonic says it is the cops' job to protect you but this is, in fact, not the law. It is very odd that whoever was responsible for the "Sonic Sez" segment were so disconnected from the moral of the actual cartoon. Sonic says ACAB, no matter what. 

Anyway: Throughout nearly every incarnation of the "Sonic" franchise, Robotnik's ultimate goal is to bend the world to his will. Through "SatAM" and the Archie comics, he did this via Roboticization. Since Robotnik doesn't seem to remember the handy ray gun he had during the Chaos Emerald saga, Roboticizers don't really exist in this show. Dousing the world with mind-control pollen is the next best thing. Honestly, this is one of "AoStH" Robotnik's best schemes. If he had just killed Stench when he was captured, he absolutely would have succeeded this time. If this show had any use for continuity, control of the brain-washing pollen would probably be an on-going plot. Its effects seemingly have few limits, meaning whole empires could be built in days with it. Or, counter wise, Sonic could've just thrown some on Robotnik and ended that threat immediately. Alas, this show is not that smart, so this is just another goofy one-off concept. 

Instead of running with the ramifications of its actual plot, "Road Hog" functions mostly as a goofy amnesia episode. This was such a stock story at the time that both the early Archie comics and "SatAM" did variations on the exact same idea. It seems "Sonic forgets who he is" was an idea writers just couldn't resist in the early nineties. Instead of turning against his friends, Sonic just spends a good chunk of this episode unaware of his powers or hanging out with that biker gang. Aside from a decent gag about the hedgehog suddenly preferring cheeseburgers to chili dogs, this plot device really goes nowhere. 

This is one of those episodes that really feel like the writers had multiple ideas and haphazardly threw them together, until they had twenty minutes of material. See also: That the episode is named after the pig biker gang even though they contribute little to the actual story. Evil biker gangs is another stock plot TV writers couldn't resist - even "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" did it - and this show adds little to the idea. (Though it is sort of funny that one of the pigs wears a Kaiser helmet.) That Sonic uses the pollen to turn the pigs good at the end is a really weird choice. It's almost like the show is saying that mind-control is bad, except when Sonic does it.

Still, this episode is better than some if only because it features fewer dumb jokes than usual. Colonel Stench, as you might've guessed, smells bad. Thankfully, the episode doesn't linger on that juvenile gag. Scratch and Grounder get tormented, and even bemoan that they're going to die at the end, and Sonic humiliates Robotnik. Par for the course but these same elements have been more obnoxious in the past. When you've watched fifty-two of these things, you just have to be grateful when one is less grating than it could've been. [6/10]