Sonic Boom, Episode 1.09: Guilt Tripping

Sonic Boom, Episode 1.09: Guilt Tripping

Original Air Date: January 17th, 2015

Episode 9 of "Sonic Boom" begins with Sonic and Tails racing along some tree branches on homemade hoverboards. This might seem like a set-up for an adaptation of the "Sonic Riders" games, the hedgehog's most hover board adjacent subseries. However, Sega decided early on that "Boom," owing to its many differences from established "Sonic" lore, would be its own weird little off-shoot that sparingly referenced other branches of the franchise. Outside of the core cast, only two other established "Sonic" characters would appear throughout "Boom's" run. (The Babylon Rogues have, in fact, yet to appear in any "Sonic" cartoons. "Prime" is coming out soon so all you Rogueheads can get your hopes up for that.) Whether the presence of hoverboards here was a deliberate attempt by "Boom's" staff to reference the "Riders" games or if it's just a big ol' coincidence is unknown to me. 

Instead of doing something you'd expect from the video games, "Guilt Tripping" follows the lead of every other "Sonic" cartoon by going off on a weird digression. After falling off his board, Sonic spots a group of bandits robbing primitive villagers called the Gogobas. The heroes immediately dispose of the villains and the Gogobas are thankful.. A little too thankful. Anytime Sonic and Tails attempt to leave, the Gogobas guilt them into staying longer. The good guys are soon trapped into a web of emotional manipulation that's hard to escape, even after they head back home. Luckily, a respite comes from an unexpected place...

The Gogobas previously appeared on the last episode, in a weird reality show Sonic was watching. Which feels like a gag that only would've made sense if you've seen this episode first, so maybe "Boom" aired out of order or something. I'm not surprised an in-universe reality show producer would check out the Gogobas because they are, like all reality show personalities, incredibly annoying. In a franchise with no shortage of obnoxious characters with ugly designs, these buck-toothed, bat-eared things are super irritating. This is on purpose, of course. The Gogobas' tendency to always place themselves as the victims, to put themselves in danger, and to force people to stay with them via extensive emotional blackmailing is annoying to Sonic and Tails. However, the writers maybe did too good of a job making the guilt tripping creatures a nuisance. Every time these assholes opened their mouths and spoke in that dopey, patronizing tone, I found myself wishing each one of them would meet up with the business end of an industrial meat grinder. 

Since each episode of "Boom" only runs eleven minutes, there's no explanation for why these jerks' existence revolves around guilting total strangers into spending time with them. It's just a simple gag that is universally relatable, as we all have an irritating family member or coworker that tries tactics like these. Yet reading too much into children's cartoons is what I do here. So, seriously, what the fuck is the deal with these guys? Are they a cult or something? I kept waiting for a reveal that the Gogobas were trying to get Sonic and Tails to stick around in order to sacrifice them or something. Considering their grass headdresses and primitive huts, there's certain colonel overtones here that are mildly uncomfortable. Maybe that directed my thoughts in this direction. Later, the Gogobas show up at Sonic's house, so maybe this is all an elaborate con job to exploit people's generosity... Though that doesn't explain why they have their own village and food earlier in the episode. With the limited information we are given in this episode, I can only conclude that the Gogobas are fucking weirdos that get off on emotionally manipulating people. Considering the habits of real life guilt trippers, I guess no explanation more complex than that is necessary. 

Either way, it's kind of a weird premise for a children's cartoon. I don't know if really young kids will pick up on whatever debatable humor there is in this set-up. I would hope grade schoolers haven't encountered too many folks like this in their young lives. Yet the execution is too broad to truly appeal to adults. Real life guilt trippers tend to be a little more subtle than this, in my experience. However, I think kids are smart enough to pick up on the moral of the story here. Which is: Never help anybody. I kept expecting a plot twist, that the bandits seen earlier in the episode are knowing collaborators of the Gogobas, as part of their weird ploy to lure people into their village. Since that never happens, we just have to accept that Sonic's heroism, this one time, led him to rescuing very annoying people looking to take advantage of his good nature. Which, ya know, would probably happen but it still feels like an odd story to tell here. 

Like I said, the biggest flaw here is that the Gogobas' behavior is more annoying than amusing. This is probably why "Guilt Tripping" is funniest when it goes the dryer route. Sonic eventually decides that the best way to defeat the Gogobas is to use their own tactics against them. This leads to a pretty funny scene where Sonic and the Gogoba leader attempt to out-guilt one another, while music that sounds close enough to Ennio Morricone's "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" theme to be recognizable plays. (This is not the only reference to a well known piece of film/television score here, as I'm pretty sure a bit of incidental music earlier in the episode is supposed to sound like "The A-Team" theme song.) After returning home, Sonic finds a series of annoyed messages from Eggman that he hasn't shown up to fight him yet. That continues the passive-aggressive ideas in this episode and also sets up the amusing conclusion. 

Naturally, Eggman does show up. (Though Amy, Knuckles, and Sticks never do.) This leads to the episode's required action scene. Which is, even by the standards of this program, extremely lackluster. It features Tails using his hover board to misdirect some Buzz Bombers, the robotic bees flying into each other. If that makes you doubt the intelligence of Eggman's robots, wait, it get worst. Sonic and Tails' big finishing move is to grab each other and spin around into a tornado shape. They don't go twirling around the beach, smashing the Badniks apart. Instead, each of the machines fly right at this cyclone of destruction. It really feels like the writers or the animators weren't even trying on this one. I starting to hope that "Boom" will ditch the action scenes altogether and just focus on the comedy. 

Not that the comedy is top-shelf in this episode either. The best gags made me chuckle but I just found the Gogobas too annoying to be funny. Maybe that's because I have a low tolerance for manipulation tactics like this here in my real life, keeping me from being amused by its presence in a blue hedgehog cartoon. The Sonic News Network Wiki informs me that the Gogobas will appear in future episodes of "Boom" as well, so hopefully their tactics are depicted with a little more edge too them. Otherwise, I dread the reappearance of these nuisances. [6/10]