Sonic Underground, Episode 1.35: The Big Melt

Sonic Underground, Episode 1.35: The Big Melt

Original Air Date: October 15th, 1999

While enjoying some downtime at the beach, Sonia receives news that Robotnik is planning some bad shit at the North Pole. Sonic and his siblings head to the frozen north, were they see that Robotnik is melting the ice caps. The trio is separated following one such glacier breaking apart. Sonia is taken in by a trio of penguins, who believe her to be their prophesized queen. Sonic and Manic are captured by Sleet and Dingo. The siblings have to regroup to save the day and destroy Robotnik's melting mechanisms. 

Here in 2021, it is apparent that man-made global warming represents the biggest threat to human civilization and its future. While some people – most backed or brainwashed by billionaire industrialists – claim this isn't so, every creditable scientist agrees. Since "Sonic" is an ecologically themed series, it's not surprising that it was tackling that threat as early as 1999. Unfortunately, as you've probably guessed, "Sonic Underground" did not have the most nuanced take on the topic. Here, Robotnik is melting the polar ice cap not because he's a cartoonishly evil capitalist who only cares about short-term profit and couldn't give less of a shit if poor people are left in an ecological doomsday scenario. He wants to flood the planet strictly to kill the hedgehogs. This Robotnik is so nihilistic, he is willing to literally destroy the entire world just to smite his enemies. This would be frightening if it wasn't so absurd. Flooding the entire planet, killing untold millions, just to get at three measly hedgehogs is a tad over-the-top, don't ya think?

Since it's obviously incapable of tackling the political and sociological reasons behind the global warming problem, "The Big Melt" simply presents a narrative challenge. After the dramatic scene of the glacier breaking apart, the siblings are separated. Considering how much of this show is built around the relationship between the triplets, splitting them up is not a bad idea for an episode. Especially sending them adrift in an inhospitable location like the frozen north. This could've been a survival story, of our heroes left disoriented by having to be self-reliant and also having to navigate some very rough terrain. 

Instead, Sonic and Manic are quickly captured by Sleet and Dingo, quickly escaping with ease, while Sonia is embroiled in a bizarre subplot. A trio of penguins – one sounds like Marlon Brando, one sounds like Curly Howard, and one sounds like Garry Chalk doing his Grounder voice – find her and immediately assume she's their prophesized Queen Sauna, who is supposed to bring warmth and prosperity to the Arctic. They even have an elaborate underground lair, decorated with hieroglyphics and a large statue devoted to their promised queen. The statue does indeed look just like Sonia and, for a single scene, she is sucked into being pampered by the locals. She insists she's not the messiah, Haile Selassie style, even though her appearance does coincide with the ice caps getting warmer. (Why the penguins would want the arctic to get warmer, I'm sure I don't know.) The implications of this, if Sonia really is the messiah to some penguins, is never addressed. Neither is why animals like penguins would even know what a hedgehog is. How many hedgehog-related prophecies on Mobius are there?

If this entire subplot seems like a bizarre digression from the rest of the episode, that's because it is. After Sonia leaves the penguins' lair, they are never brought up again. Sonia never mentions how the local people believe her to be a god. In fact, this entire sequence has no effect on the rest of the story at all. I was really assuming that the penguins would help Sonia and her siblings stop Robotnik. That these events would either shatter their belief in her or further confirm it. Instead, the hedgehogs defeat the bad guy all on their own, simply with a well-placed bomb. The penguins and their devotion to Queen Sauna is never mentioned again. It really feels like Len Janssen had two different ideas for an episode and randomly mashed them up. 

In fact, "The Big Melt" has a third premise baked inside. The first scene has the triplets chilling on the beach, suggesting this will be another vacation themed episode. Before the plot swerves, the episode gets the musical number out of the way. "Fun in the Sun" is a pretty lame Beach Boys riff, though the writers at least did an okay job of mimicking Mike Love's particular lyrical style. More interesting is the bizarre images that accompany the song. Sonic and his siblings are imagined as ice cream cones or hot dogs cooking in a pan, while the other siblings attempt to eat them. There's also a scene where the triplets turn into dolphins and Sonic and Sonia give their brother a sensual, beachside back massage.

That's weird but more unsettling is the focus on everyone's feet. Yes, Sonic and Manic are barefoot on the beach. Which wouldn't be weird if their oversized, colorful tootsies and soles weren't so lovingly detailed. At the episode's end, as the heroes enjoy the suddenly sauna-like conditions at the north, there's more shots of their feet. Even though Sonia was depicted earlier with dainty feet, this scene has her growing enormous feet that are pointed, sole first, directly at the camera. (Yes, she's wearing a bikini in these scenes too.) Ya know, just once I'd like to get through an episode of this show without feeling like I'm being exposed to someone's jerk-off fantasy. It was funny when "AoStH" did it but there's just something incredibly unsavory about "Underground's" not-so-subtle fetishism. 

An out-of-balance plot, barely concealed perversion, and dumb-ass prophecies that don't make any sense: Oh look, it's a typical episode of "Sonic Underground." At this point, all I can really do is be thankful that I'm almost done with this retrospective. [5/10]