Sonic Boom, Episode 2.25: Do Not Disturb

Sonic Boom, Episode 2.25: Do Not Disturb

Original Air Date: April 29th, 2017

"Do Not Disturb" starts as Sonic is having a nightmare about blarms. He's awoken by a drooling, vaguely tapir like creature. This is a widabit, an endangered species, and it's chosen Sonic's hut as its nesting ground. Fastidious Beaver and Amy, the head chairs of the local environmental agency, insist Sonic vacate his home until the widabit finds a mate. This means the hedgehog has to crash on Tails' couch for a while, the two best friends quickly getting on each others' nerves. Sonic and Tails' growing animosity grows as attempts to solve the widabit problem backfires more and more.

In every other piece of "Sonic" media, Sonic and Tails share a mentor/sidekick relationship. Tails looks up to Sonic and wants to be like him. Sonic hopes to flourish Tails' talent and genius, teaching the kid to be more confident. This clear power dynamic disguises the fact that Sonic and Tails don't have much in common, personality wise. Tails is usually shown to be somewhat soft-spoken, maybe even shy and awkward. Sonic is always brass and confident, quick-witted and smirking. Tails is technical, an engineer. Sonic is a man of action, usually racing into adventures before really thinking them through. The two compliment each other nicely but, ya know, would they have still been best friends if they went to high school together? Could Sonic and Tails' bond have overcome the popular kid/nerd boundary? 

"Boom" really has us considering this question, as these versions of Sonic and Tails don't quite have the usual hero/sidekick dynamic. In fact, the show has, in the past, indecisively depicted Knuckles as Sonic's best friend. Either way, "Boom" Sonic and Tails sometimes feel more like siblings than buddies but the show still declares them to be best friends whenever it fits the plot. "Do Not Disturb" runs with the idea of Sonic and Tails' differences, when in constant exposure to each other, forcing them apart rather than bringing them together. This is a solid foundation for an episode. Namely, because it's true. Yet me meander off on an excruciating personal anecdote for a minute: I, for a brief period of time, had my best friend living with me. And I love this guy. We do everything together. He's been my best pal since middle school. But living with him? Having him turn the TV on loud first thing in the morning or leave dirty laundry by the hamper? Let me just say, I relate to Tails in this episode. Just because you love someone, that you really enjoy spending time with them, doesn't mean you'll be able to share living quarters with them. 

The elemental truth of this idea, the tension that inevitably rises when besties become roomies, makes it a potent premise to build a sitcom episode on. At first, Sonic and Tails have a great time hanging out together every night. However, Sonic's constant showboating ways, not to mention his tendency towards being a bit of a slob, quickly gets on Tails' nerves. Watching the fox go from loving this guy to being mildly disgusted and annoyed with him at all times produces some good gags, especially as the progression happens basically over the course of a montage. Naturally, these two work it all out by the end, realizing that the bond they have is stronger than some petty disagreement. That's what happened with me and my best friend too: He got his own place and we became best pals again, with a newly gained understanding that what gives us such compelling chemistry might annoy the shit out of us during long-term exposure. 

Once again, "Sonic Boom" gets a lot of comedic juice out of contrasting this superheroic characters with such petty behavior. When you expect to see Sonic running fast and fighting robots, seeing him annoy his roommate by putting his feet up on the table is a good joke. Such is the insignificant kind of arguments that much if the episode is built upon. One of its funniest scenes has Sonic and Tails arguing while attempting to push a stubborn widabit around, nitpicking each others' skills after their wacky plan failed. Later, Eggman's attempt to wreak some villainous actions are being repeatedly blocked by environmental clauses, forcing what is supposed to be an epic battle between good and evil into being a squabbling staring contest. You could make the case that humor like this, the contrast between action/adventure premises and childish disagreements, is the entire joke this show revolves around. 

While this episode might primarily be about Sonic and Tails challenging their friendship by ending up in an "Odd Couple" scenario, the way writer Peter Saisselin gets to that idea is amusingly wacky. Sonic is forced to move not because of a plumbing issue or whatever but because an obnoxiously gross endangered species decides his little shed is the best place to get some ass. The way the heroes go about trying to resolve this problem, by throwing a fancy dinner for two disagreeable widabits, is some good cartoony silliness. In general, the business with the widabits continue to escalate in goofier ways throughout the episode, each scheme the heroes cook up to solve the problem only making it worse. Always a classic structure for a comedy to follow. 

In general, I have to commend the character designer of "Sonic Boom" for making such a perfectly ugly creature with the widabits. The obvious temptation with such a creature would be to make them cute. I mean, pretty much all the characters on "Boom" are cute, even ostensibly repulsive ones like Dave or Mark. The widabits, meanwhile, are genuinely unpleasant to look at. They have those gapping Totoro mouths, full of perfectly square rows of teeth, and wide, unenlightened eyes. While that could've been cute, it's paired with a flabby body and a pig-like posture. Improbable features like whiskers, a random horn, and splotchy skin are just stuck in random places, to make the whole creature look even more like a mistake on God's behalf. The color scheme is an unpleasantly fleshy maroon. The grotesque cherry on this crapulent sundae is the widabit's tendency to always be drooling or leaking slime in some way. You can't avoid the feeling that these things smell really bad. Considering their role in the story is to be a constant thorn in everyone's side, making them so damnably unpleasant was the right decision. That "Boom's" animation can, even on its best days, be a bit off only adds to the viscerally negative reaction I had to these critters upon seeing them. 

To make matters worse, the episode really hinges on whether the heroes can get these stupid, ugly animals to breed. We don't want to think about these abominations humping but the story constantly forces us to do so. Tails blows the creature's mating call through a bullhorn, which brings all the widabits to Sonic's yard. Yet, even in the disgusting mud-pig world, romance is rarely as easy as that. The convoluted shenanigans the heroes have to go through to get their smelly, drooling stink-hog laid is nicely stretched out. The generally sexually charged atmosphere of this episode is established immediately, as the first scene features Sonic's face getting splattered with the widabit's drool, a viscous, slimy liquid. That same fate is visited upon Tails. Was that an unintended side effect of this show's animation budget making all liquids look thick and unpleasant? Or did the writers really sneak not one but two facial jokes into a kids' show? I guess we can only speculate... 

While Sonic and Tails are obviously the main focus of this episode, the script is pretty well balanced all over. Each cast member is allowed to shine. Sticks' super sniffer comes in handy in the episode's last third. Making Amy a member of the Endangered Species Council was a natural, funny way to get her involved in this story. Sonic getting evicted because of the hideous slime-sow is a lot funnier coming out of Amy's upbeat mouth. Eggman and even Fastidious Beaver made me chuckle a few times. And Knuckles gets some really strong jokes, such as the reveal that he's been hiding under Tails' porch for weeks. This show is really running with the idea that Knuckles is homeless, isn't it? I guess that is what happens when you take a brotherman's floating island away from him...

"Do Not Disturb" proves to be a jam-packed, joke dense ten minutes that still feels like it tells a complete story. I can't help but give Peter Saisselin most of the credit for that. He was already an industry veteran by this point, getting his start as – of all things – an assistant accountant on big budget movies like "Another 48 Hrs.," "The Naked Gun 33 1/3," and "Cutthroat Island." In animation, he had already written for obscure shows like "Creepschool," "Zombie Hotel," and "Dude, That's My Ghost!" before this. (Damn, he couldn't have fit a werewolf or vampire into this one?) This wasn't even his first hedgehog related cartoon, having also written four episodes of whatever this furry Tai Yagami lookin' abomination is. My point is: Industry lifers like that know how to structure a damn screenplay and that is obvious in "Do Not Disturb's" sturdiness. And there's even a Sanic reference! Fun for the whole fandom. [8/10]