Sonic X, Episode 1.24: How to Catch a Hedgehog

Sonic X, Episode 1.24: How to Catch a Hedgehog

Japanese Title: Sonic Goes Wild! Strategic Capture Operation

Japanese Air Date: September 14th, 2003

U.S. Air Date: March 13th, 2004

I commented in my last “Sonic X” review that it sure seemed like season one was approaching its conclusion, that the show was ramping up towards the season finale. This seemed like a reasonable statement, since the previous episode was all about the MacGuffin and season one is almost over. I’ve got to stop saying shit like this, as “Sonic X” is clearly not as serialized a show as I was led to believe. In fact, arc-focused episodes tend to be follow by totally stand alone ones. Episode 24 could’ve been dropped into the season at any point and made just as much sense: Which is to say “not a lot,” as this is a very peculiar half-hour indeed.

We begin with Sonic in his natural environment: Fighting Eggman in a giant robot ostrich on a ranch. During the battle, a small microchip is lodged in Sonic’s ear. This immediately begins to effect the hedgehog’s behavior in odd ways, as he constantly picks at his ear. Soon, the chip causes Sonic to uncontrollably run. Tails, Chris, Chuck, and Amy devises increasingly ridiculous plans to stop the perpetually running Sonic, before he harms himself or someone else. Knuckles and Sam Speed soon get involved but it does little to stop the ever-moving hedgehog.

“How to Catch a Hedgehog” begins with such an utterly inexplicable sequence, that I honestly wondered if I had skipped an episode by accident. If I had dropped into the second half of a two-parter by mistake. No, this episode just starts that way. Why are Sonic and Amy on a ranch somewhere in the middle of nowhere? Why was Eggman attacking them with a robot chicken that looks like something out of G1 “Transformers?” Does this have anything to do with the Chaos Emeralds? None of these questions are answered and the episode just keeps rolling after this oddball opening, expecting us to go with it. It sure is a beginning that catches you off-guard.

Truthfully, that confusing opening quickly establishes the episode’s confounding tone. I know the “Sonic X” writers weren’t out of ideas, as the season one story arc isn’t resolved yet and there’s two whole seasons of television left. But “Sonic gets a thing stuck in his ear that makes him run continuously” really seems like an idea a writer would cook up when he had a deadline in three hours. Why does the microchip in Sonic’s ear make him run? Why does the hedgehog never attempt to just stop running? How come none of his friends connect his strange behavior with his ear itching earlier in the episode? Why is the giant robot chicken running around the seemingly uninhabited ranch at the episode’s end, chased by a cow? Why does its leg fall off, after shooting a blast of electricity out of its belly? Why is Tails swallowed up by a giant tumbleweed at one point? Why does Knuckles carry a fish from a lake out to the desert where the others are hanging out? Whhhhhhyyyyyyyy???

The only thing consistent about this episode is how consistently odd it is. When presented with this strange problem, Chuck Thorndyke cooks up a series of strange solution. He designs a pallet that can be shot at Sonic’s back and, once activated, will deploy a balloon that will lift the hedgehog into the air. When that doesn’t work, he tries trapping Sonic in a massive hamster wheel. That scheme is almost successful but Sonic’s constant speed eventually shakes the contraption apart. And sends him tunneling into the Earth until he hits well water, after confounding moment the episode just skated past. Chuck’s dumbest plan, by far, is roping in Sam Speed to appeal to Sonic’s “competitive spirit.” This is designed to send him through a door that will lead to a giant sticky pad, trapping the hedgehog. This plan goes awry because Sam Speed is an idiot but why didn’t Chuck just place the sticky trap in front of Sonic? Why not just dig a hole in the ground and have him fall into that? Why not just drop a cage on him or something? There’s about a hundred solutions you could’ve arrived at before “recruit a race car driver to trick him.”

You’d think that Eggman would want to take advantage of Sonic being in such a compromised state. That he’d send a robot to attack his friends while Sonic is in unable to help. Or that he’d place increasingly dangerous obstacle in the hedgehog’s path. Instead, Eggman sits back and watches everything from a distance. All the villain really does in this episode is eat, grabbing noodles with chopsticks and munching on a rice cake, which leads to some pretty insensitive asides from Bocoe and Decoe about his weight. (This scene was cut from the English dub but probably not because it’s fat-phobic and just because 4Kids hates Japanese cuisine for some reason.) You know, for being a robotics and engineering genius, Eggman is kind of a dumb-ass. At one point, while Sonic is inside the hamster wheel and being fed chili dogs by his friends, the hedgehog is completely defenseless! And Eggman is watching the whole time! That probably would’ve been a good time to deploy one of your hundreds of murderous robots, doc! Again, I have to wonder why he’s considered a serious foe by Sonic and his friends at all.

Despite being so damn weird and dumb, I suspect this episode is well regarded by a certain portion of the “Sonic” fan community. Yes, I’m talking to you SonAmy shippers again. When Sonic rescues Amy from the thunder-chicken in the first scene, she blushes while he holds her. His ear-scratching seems to annoy Amy because Sonic is ignoring her in these moments. She personally hands him his lunch later. The biggest tease comes at the end, after the crisis is averted, when Amy leans in and blows some straw out of Sonic’s ear. That’s a pretty sensual moment for a kid’s cartoon. While there’s absolutely zero evidence that Sonic is into any of this, Amy’s fixation on the hedgehog still takes up a pretty big chunk of this episode. (There’s also a weird moment in the beginning where the thunder-chicken picks up Amy by her skirt, causing it to rip that feels like the kind of thing 4Kids would clip out of the U.S. version but was actually left in.)

While I can't rank it along side truly brain-melting experiences like “Boogey-Mania” or “Moby Deep,” this episode definitely represents “Sonic X” at its most nonsensical and bizarre. This is another time the show repeatedly caught me off-guard with how silly, strange, and off-beat it was willing to get. I guess “throw some weird shit against the wall and see if people like it” is a commanding ethos across the entire “Sonic” franchise. I found this one’s weirdness a little more irritating than amusing but at least it’s not boring. [6/10]