Sonic Underground, Episode 1.21: Dunes Day

Sonic Underground, Episode 1.21: Dunes Day

Original Air Date: September 27th, 1999

"Dunes Day” – admittedly one of the cleverer titles from this show – has Sonic, Sonia, and Manic heading into the Mobius desert. After their van gives out under the intense heat, they are attacked by SWATBots. That's when a brave band of local nomads, led by the sword-wielding Ifyoucan, appears to rescue them. Sonic is quickly selected by the nomads to join their tribe, surviving their initiation ritual. Yet Manic has his doubts about Ifyoucan's loyalties. Which are seemingly proven true when he discovers that the leader is seemingly half-roboticized...

Here of late, it seems like "Sonic Underground" can't go a single episode without including a questionable racial stereotype of some sort. The episode is obviously inspired by "Going Native" stories like "Lawrence of Arabia" or "Dune," where white guys meet up with a tribe of brave but primitive desert nomads, learn their ways, join their clan, and eventually becomes greater than any of the brown people. The racial politics of this story type has been well examined over the years. On one hand, the primitives are always depicted as brave, noble, and strong. Yet their ways are often savage, with some horrifying initiation ritual being par the course. This reveals the subtext of this story type, where different racial cultures are treated as terrifying outsiders that white folks must weather and master. 

Naturally, a "Sonic" cartoon adds a weird wrinkle to these questionable racial politics. Sonic is a hedgehog, not a white guy. Ifyoucan's tribe are made up of bizarre furry animals, not Arabs. (Ifyoucan himself appears to be a llama or goat or something.) Yet the nomads are clearly Arab-coded, from the thawbs they wear, to the belly-dancer at their camp, to the stereotypical Middle Eastern music that plays when they first come on-screen. Many of the "Going Native" plot points are maintained as well. Sonic is accepted into the tribe only after he survives a ritual, which is a struggle with a Sarlacc-esque man-eating plant beast in the desert. The tribe are fearsome warriors but this is clearly linked to their savage otherness. Which is also apparent in the scene where they almost kill Manic by abandoning him in the hottest part of the desert. Since this is a twenty-minute kids cartoon, and not a sprawling novel or film epic, there's no time for Sonic to become a better nomad than the actual nomads. Yet it still feels weird that this of all storylines is the one the show writers would choose to incorporate into their cartoon about a blue hedgehog who runs fast. 

The show's treatment of Ifyoucan and his countrymen is also hard to parse out. They get a big introduction, Ifyoucan slicing through SWATBots with a laser sword. (In yet another steal from "Star Wars," the nomads carry rifles that look a lot like the Tusken Raiders' weapons.) The finale of this episode is seven solid minutes of Sonic and his new friends tearing robots apart, with a spinning bolo also putting in an appearance. Yet other scenes paint Ifyoucan and his team as comical characters. First off, there's that weird fucking name, which is pronounce just like it's spelled. A later moment has Ifyoucan awkwardly climbing onto Sonic's shoulders and almost falling over when the hedgehog starts running. Other scenes portray his tribesmen as goofy bunglers. I don't get it, are we supposed to think these guys are cool or goofy? 

Then again, maybe I'm simply being too hard on this show. If you had to polish off an entire script in three and a half days, you'd probably stoop to recycling low-key racist plot points too. This might explain why some other plot points are underdeveloped. Manic's distrust towards Ifyoucan is never really focused on. When he discovers he's half-roboticized, it seems like that concern is well founded... But then it's revealed Ifyoucan maintains his free will and isn't a Robotnik spy. A possibly interesting plot point about being uncertain who you can trust is totally wasted, in favor of a flimsy moral about how making new friends is great. (New friends that try and kill your brother because of their archaic belief system, oops.)

This is a theme also reiterated in the episode's song. "True Blue Friend" has Sonic and his siblings expounding on how letting new friends into your life feels nice. The lyrics are mostly made up of repeating the title. The music, as you might expect, includes some vaguely Arabian drums and chanting. There's also a line about quicksand, which feels iffy. At least the song – which is utterly forgettable, having drifted out of my head less than a half hour after first hearing it – occurs at an appropriate place in the story. After being accepted into the tribe, the triplets play a song in celebration. Hey, that's actually a normal time to sing! 

There's also a few other weird things in this episode. During the big SWATBot massacre, Sonia takes one down simply by kicking it in the head. Once again attesting to Robotnik's pathetic abilities as a robot builder. Also, the episode concludes with Sleet and Dingo left wandering in the desert. Sleet turns his buddy into an umbrella to keep himself in the shade... That raises some questions. Dingo, even when transformed into a mundane object, is still a living and breathing person. He can die of sunstroke or dehydration just like anyone else. Does that mean Sleet would be perfectly willing to carry his friend's dead buddy around the desert? 

You'll have to excuse me if random brain droppings or reading way too deeply into the episode's racial politics are more interesting to me than actually discussing this deeply mediocre twenty-one minutes of television. But if you're still reading this blog, you're probably used to me doing this by now. [5/10]