Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode 1.58: The Robots' Robot

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Episode 1.58: The Robots' Robot

Original Air Date: December 2nd, 1993

As "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" started to wind down, it was clear the writers were running out of ideas. I always imagine a group of guys thinking up premises for sixty-five episodes in the course of one afternoon, with most of the rest of production being devoted to the far more time-consuming practice of animation. But, considering the freelance nature of children's television writing, the truth is the writers probably had little to no interaction with each other. Either way, somebody along the production chain probably should've pointed out that this show did two separate mermaid themed episodes or multiple race-themed episodes. Or, as is the case with the penultimate combo, two episodes whose titles are just related words. After "Tails' Tale," came "The Robots' Robot." 

The episode begins with two adorable lion cubs in footy pajamas racing their bikes towards their home town... Which has been mysteriously imploded. Sonic comes along and quickly, and correctly, deduces that Robotnik was behind this. He was testing out his new invention: The BLAMMO, a highly unstable device with the potential to implode the whole planet. After Scratch and Grounder almost drop it, Robotnik tells them an idiot could've built better robots. This gives the dim-witted duo the idea to create their own robot, which they creatively name Robot. Their cruelty soon runs little Robot off and he unknowingly grabs the BLAMMO as he goes, leading to a chase to see who can retrieve him first. 

One of the main, and best, jokes of "AoStH" is that Scratch and Grounder think of themselves as Robotnik's children, while Robotnik only thinks of them as disposable employees. Intentionally or not, the writers created a compelling parallel for an abusive parent/child relationship, with the robots constantly seeking validation from a dismissive parental figure. Just as Robotnik himself was mistreated by his mother, the cycle of abuse continues in this episode. Scratch and Grounder refer to themselves as Robot's parents and immediately treat him as their kid. Yet not long afterwards, they are delegating chores and tasks to him. Grounder even slips up and calls Robot their slave. The little guy is mistreated so much that, at less than 24 hours old, he's already running away from home. It's a sad inevitability that Scratch and Grounder would mistreat their robotic offspring. Abuse is all they've never known. 

This backstory ends up making Robot one of the less irritating one-off guest characters. He speaks in a series of gibberish-like bleeps and bloops, which really made me want to dislike him. But the little guy is just too cute. He really is written like a little kid, who overdoes new tasks and interprets every statement very literally. (Though Robotnik was probably entirely seriously when he threatened to turn him into a popcorn maker.) It helps that Robot follows the same "cute robot" design formula that gave us Johnny Five and WALL-E. That could be big expressive and little wheels, instead of feet. 

You'll notice that this is another episode with more story than it requires. Little Robot's plot and the story revolving around the BLAMMO probably could've filled one episode each. Robot is given far more purpose and the BLAMMO is little more than a MacGuffin. We only see its powers – which are less like true implosion and more like some "Katamari Damacy" shit – twice, at the beginning and end of the episode. Considering the device's effects can be reversed with seemingly no harm done, as the lion cubs' town is return to normal at the end, I'm not sure why Robotnik thought the gizmo was so dangerous. The episode eventually degrades into an uninspired chase scene through a volcanic tunnel and a frozen-over lake, the implosion gimmick never really coming to the forefront.

Though the chase scene is notable for a moment where Robotnik deploys some "BurroBots." Yet these BurroBots do not resemble the ones from the game and comic at all. They look more like weird bug robots, the drills on their noses being the only connecting element to their namesake. Considering the game BurroBots heavily resemble Grounder, the design might've changed so the young audience wouldn't get confused. Which raises the question of why the writers decided to use the BurroBots at all, instead of any of the numerous other Badniks from the first two games. 

These are far from the only example of how sloppy this one's script was. A lot of attention are devoted to the lion cub siblings introduced in that first scene. Named Jackson and Suzie, Sonic has several interactions with them. They are even the first ones to befriend Robot. I figure the show was going somewhere with this, that the episode would conclude with Robot being adopted into Jackson and Suzie's family. Instead, the episode swerves in a totally different direction in the last minutes. Sonic instead decides that Scrap Valley, the home for disregarded robots introduced in "Sonic Gets Thrashed," is Robot's ideal home. Truthfully, I don't know why Suzie and Jackson are in this episode at all. We never see the inside of their town or meet anyone in their family, sucking all the tension out of the plot to un-implode their home. 

But I guess this episode still isn't all that bad. Considering the script managed to get me to care about little Robot, despite his outwardly annoying attributes, I'm going to chalk this one up as more success than failure. They could have picked far worst episodes to air as the penultimate installment of the series, that's for sure. [6/10]