Sonic Underground, Episode 1.15: Sonic Tonic

Sonic Underground, Episode 1.15: Sonic Tonic

Original Air Date: September 17th, 1999

So Robotnik is scorching a jungle to the ground to find a rare specimen known as the Velocitree. No, that's not a feathered predatory dinosaur that's also a tree. It's the fastest growing tree on Mobius. Robotnik processes the plant into a potion, a Sonic Tonic, that is supposed to increase speed. He gives it to Sleet and Dingo and it works. They use their newfound super speed to capture Sonic. Soon, a side-effect – massive swelling of the feet – reveals itself, allowing Sonic to escape with the potion. Unaware of the side effect, Manic and Sonia take the potion. It all ends with a showdown at the Hanging Gardens of Mobius, a fancy tourist attraction the Queen built for her kids.

"Sonic Tonic" is an episode that can't seem to decide where to take its premise. It has, essentially, three set-ups. The first of which involves Sonic facing enemies who are fast as him, a totally cromulent premise for an episode. This only last for the first half, as the episode then turns towards the idea of Sonia and Manic being jealous of Sonic's speed. Again, that by itself would be a fine place to start a story. Then there's the location of the Hanging Gardens, now ruined by Robotnik's abuse of the world. This could have been built into a moral about environmentalism but it the show doesn't go anywhere with that. All these competing ideas result in a very unfocused half-hour.

The intended Moral of the Day revolves around Sonia and Manic's jealousy of Sonic. You know this because the episode ends with them apologizing for not listening to Sonic and Sonic apologizing, in turn, for mocking their slowness in the first place. I guess the moral is "respect your siblings." But, again, it feels very half-formed. Manic and Sonia have never shown any desire to be as fast as their brother before. Some episodes have depicted them as having similar speed naturally! Sonic's teasing was kind of a dick move and, for this moral to make sense, he should've been chastised more. Instead, the jerk was right and the younger siblings trying to even the playing field are corrected. What was the point supposed to be again? Maybe a show about a super fast hedgehog isn't the practical place to dispense common sense everyday life lessons. 

But this is far from the only half-assed leaps in logic in this episode. There is other evidence that nobody thought this through. In the second scene, Robotnik refers to the Velocitree as the last of its kind... Before going to look for more specimens of it later in the episode. It's not clear why the Sonic Tonic works the way it does. Why does "fastest-growing tree" translate to "makes you super-fast?" Shouldn't the giant feet be the only, and immediate, effect? Later, the tonic causes the Hanging Garden to replenish itself in minutes. Which is a more logical example of how this should work. It's just another episode that stinks of an "it's 1 A.M. and this script is due tomorrow morning" attitude.

I'll say this much though: The song that results actually isn't too bad. Sonia and Manic sing a song about wanting to be as fast as Sonic right before taking the tonic. "I Wish I Could Go Faster" has less repetitive lyrics than usual and even one or two rhymes that aren't totally asinine. Whoever Sonia and Manic's singing voices are, they are slightly less nasally and annoying than Sonic's singing voice. The music also reminds me of a little bit of nineties power-pop/alt-rock, which is a decent sound for a "Sonic" musical to emulate. Weezer could do a solid cover of this. Granted, the song is only "not bad" by the standards of this show's terrible soundtrack but that still counts for something.

You might have noticed that I've been ignoring the most salacious element of this episode. For the Sonic Tonic to work, one must pour it on their... Feet. When the side effects kick in, we get multiple scenes of feet growing, exploding out of shoes, and throbbing in agony. There's more than one lingering shot of soles and twitching toes. At least when the "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" writers and animators indulged their fetishes, it was wacky and kind of funny. "Sonic Underground" letting its freak flag fly just feels exhausting. Everything about this show is so boring and half-assed. Even its kinks are uninteresting, disappointing, and mildly uncomfortable.

Also, there's a scene where Dingo is turned into a telescope or something and Sonic looks through him and... It works correctly. I'm really unsettled by the implications of that. You're telling me that, when Dingo is turned into an object, even his internal organs are shifted into functional machinery? Dingo's life must be unending pain. And so is my life, as long as I have to keep watching and reviewing this terrible cartoon. I do it for you, dear reader. Anyway, this episode sucks. [4/10]