Sonic Boom, Episode 2.36: The Haunted Lair

Sonic Boom, Episode 2.36: The Haunted Lair

Original Air Date: July 15th, 2017

When I was a kid, we just called them "haunted houses," even the ones that weren't actually set inside of houses. (My local example was technically a haunted trail.) Around Halloween, you'd pay a couple of bucks, get led into a creepy location, and a bunch of performers in monster masks would jump out and yell at you amid fittingly macabre set-dressing. Fun for the whole family, really, and a suitably spooky excursion for late October. In the decades since then, attractions such as these – now typically called "haunts," I guess to distinguish them from genuinely spirit infested locations – are a multi-million dollar industry. There are haunts out there with professional actors and elaborate, state-of-the-art special effects. Some run all year round, looking to satisfy horror nuts in search of simulated terror no matter what month it is. Some even seek to take the "simulated" part out, pushing towards more and more extreme angles. Yet humble, kid-friendly, small town haunts still exists too. These attractions have become such a common place feature that even cartoons with otherwise no scary elements feel the need to comment on them. And that brings us to "The Haunted Lair," the thirty-fifth episode of "Sonic Boom's" second season, which aired during the scariest month of all... July! What's more frightening than scorching heat waves and dog-traumatizing fireworks? BoOoOoOoO!!!

The episode begins with the gang arriving at T.W. Barker's latest endeavor: The Haunted Forest, a walk-through attraction designed to spook the skeletons right out of ya. Even though Eggman pushed to the front of the line, he soon finds the crudely engineered haunting too much for him. Even into the next day, he's possessed by an overwhelming phobia of ghosts. When a spectre seemingly appears in his lair, he's happy to get rid of it. He sells his HQ and everything inside it to Barker, who then turns it into an even bigger and better haunted attraction. When Sonic's ongoing quest to prove to Eggman that ghosts aren't real ruins the business, Barker then goes on the offensive, attacking Team Sonic with his newly acquired robot army. Now, Sonic being saved is dependent on Eggman getting control of his lair back. 

I have an unquenchable thirst for all things macabre and creepy. You probably know this, as I mention it about every chance I get. "Sonic Boom" has dipped its toes into the horror-adjacent side of things from time to time. Going into "The Haunted Lair," just based on the title, I was really hoping this would be another Halloween-y "Boom" installment. The first half certainly fulfils that promise. Sonic and the gang walk through a demonic looking gate into a mist-shrouded forest. Cardboard tombstones, rubber bats, moaning sound effects, and blinking eyes surround them. When the ghosts do appear, they are white sheets with crude faces drawn on them, suspended by ropes. I find super lo-fi attempts at the horror aesthetics like this incredibly charming, actually. The joke here is that these effects are deeply, obviously unconvincing but they still reduce Eggman to a quivering mess anyway. Despite this, I mostly came away from this scene enjoying seeing Sonic and friends hanging around a dollar store haunted location. I'm a simple man. Piped in some fog, prop up some tombstones, and sprinkled in a bat or two and I'm happy.  

Disappointingly, most of "The Haunted Lair" isn't actually devoted to the spoopy location promised in its title. After Eggman's traumatizing encounter with a sheet ghost, Sonic and Tails fuck with him in a public library by pretending to be harassing poltergeist. When it becomes clear how intense Eggman's spectophobia is, they start to feel bad and back off. Exactly one scene is dedicated to showing a ghost appearing in Eggman's lair, this being enough to scare him off. We never even see the full width of what Barker does to the place once he converts it into an attraction either. Sonic leads Eggman down one hallway, points out a projection of a ghost, and that's it! Instead, the episode quickly turns towards Barker taking over Eggman's position as the biggest thorn in Sonic's side and the doctor's attempts to get back that which is rightfully his. I'm just sayin': An episode called "The Haunted Lair" probably could have spent a little more time showing how haunted this lair is. 

Instead, the second half of the episode is focused on another idea. Though he has shown flashes of competence over the 88 episodes of "Sonic Boom" I've thus far watched, Eggman's credentials as a villain have long since come into question. (That was literally the premise of the last episode, after all.) Eggman will always be undone by his wafer thin ego, his own self doubts, and his general incompetence. While T.W. Barker has suffered his own humiliating defeats over his handful of previous appearances, "The Haunted Lair" suggests that he's at least better at utilizing Eggman's tech than he is. The second act has Barker using actual strategies with Eggman's armies of Badniks, eventually overwhelming and cornering Team Sonic. They even admit that, with someone more competent at the wheel than Eggman, the machines they usually tear through like tissue paper are creditable threats. This presents an interesting idea on its own. Namely, Eggman has the ability to be a genuinely dangerous villain, he simply lacks the necessary ruthlessness. Probably because he secretly wants to be friends with Sonic or whatever. 

It's a big, action-packed finale. Eggman does prove his competence, in a roundabout way, when he outsmarts Barker and gets control of his horde back. Yet, as the episode ended, I felt disappointed. I really expected "The Haunted Lair" to circle back around to the titular haunting. Wouldn't it have been a funny ending if Eggman goes through all of this, only to discover his base is genuinely haunted? Or maybe he simply doesn't realize the ghost is real, after going through all of this. Instead, the episode simply never returns to that moment. It wraps up on the image of Sonic and friends posing on the battlefield. That abrupt conclusion definitely feels like a case of the limited runtime these episodes have catching up with the ideas the writers had. Or maybe the haunted house set-up truly was merely set-up and I should stop expecting everyone to be as enamored of spooky shit as I am. (That will never happen.)

Despite that serious, gaping reservation I have with this episode, it's still funny. This is the sole "Sonic Boom" credit of Sandrine Joly. Her resume is a real grab-bag of licensed cartoons, having also provided scripts to shows based on Maya the Bee, Lassie, Noddy, and Robin Hood. Judging from that work, it's surprising to see some pretty sharp, caustic jokes from her. There's a great gag about what really frightens Sticks. There's an off-hand line about the Haunted Forest attraction being built in a Gogoba burial mound. Probably the funniest line has Barker assuring everyone that his attraction is not the most morally bankrupt, as at least he's not hurting any whales. Did I expect a "Sonic the Hedgehog" cartoon to reference the SeaWorld/Blackfish controversy? I did not. I also didn't expect the show to include a joke about Eggman deleting his browser history, which has got to be among the edgiest one-liners in the show's history. Did Joly actually write these jokes or did the "Boom" home team spice up the French script to make it smarmier? I can't speak French, so I'm not going to watch that version of the episode to know for sure. 

So, yeah, I did laugh. I laughed at Orbot and Cubot doing some Eggman themed roleplaying. I laughed at Barker's verboseness on the battlefield. I laughed at Sonic debunking the haunting. I'm just saying, this episode needed to emphasize the "Haunted" aspect a lot more. Don't promise me ghosts if you aren't willing to deliver! And it's not like ghosts aren't canon in the "Sonic" universe! At least give me a proper "Scooby-Doo" mystery or something. I'm just saying, if I had the chance to write a haunted house themed episode of a "Sonic" cartoon, it would go a lot harder than this, alright? [6/10]

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3 TRAILER...

The first "Sonic the Hedgehog" movie ended with a hopeful teaser for a sequel. There is another universe, I imagine, were Paramount didn't listen to the fan outrage that followed the disasterous first trailer. The movie subsequently flopped and Tails' mid-credits cameo became nothing but another overly optimistic sequel hook for a would-be franchise that died after one failed installment. In the immediate aftermath of "Harry Potter," "Lord of the Rings," and the Marvel Cinematic Universe becoming cultural phenomenon, we saw so many examples of this. 

That's not what happened. Instead, Paramount cracked the whips on the poor CGI animators and special effects team, Sonic got redesigned at the last minute, and the first movie became a hit. This created a precedent. "Sonic the Hedgehog" was an actual film series now. Which meant, when "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" ended by revealing Shadow the Hedgehog existed in this cinematic iteration of this world, it was expected to actually pay off in a future film. 

That time is nearly upon us. After many months of fans endlessly badgering the production company for any sort of peek at the new sequel, the first full trailer for "Sonic the Hedgehog 3" has been unleashed upon the world. We now have our first look at what Sonic's third cinematic adventure might entail, what Keanu Reeves as Shadow sounds like, and what weird alterations Jeff Fowler's third hedgehog fest will make to the source material. 

I naturally have some thoughts on this matter. Before any images came out, I was already deeply skeptical of "Sonic the Hedgehog 3." Even if I liked the first two movies well enough, Paramount's entire endeavor plays fast and loose with all the things I actually care about in this series. I know why Fowler and his team chose to introduce Shadow the Hedgehog in the third movie. He's probably the second or third most popular character in the franchise. From a financial point of view, bringing Shadow in early makes all the sense in the world. From a storytelling perspective though? By the time Shadow debuted in the games, "Sonic" had already built up an elaborate and deeply inconsistent lore. Sonic had an established supporting cast, world, rules, and various relics floating around him. The movies have been extremely choosy about what elements from established material they've incorporated. Paramount's live action "Sonic" series remains a bizarre hybrid of stuff fans are actually interested in and stuff studio executives insist all modern kid movies should include. The point I'm making here: A "Sonic" universe that introduces Shadow before Angel Island? Before a rainbow of different colored Chaos Emeralds? Before Amy Rose and the Chaotix and Metal Sonic and Cucky? What kind of "Sonic" universe is that?! 

I guess we're going to find out soon enough. The trailer for "Sonic the Hedgehog 3" is now out, ahead of its December release date. It makes a few things clear: The plot of the third film will involve Shadow going on some sort of villainous rampage, forcing G.U.N. to actively recruit Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles to fight him. When the good guys still find themselves overwhelmed, Sonic goes a step further and makes an alliance with Robotnik. In this continuity, Gerald Robotnik is still alive and also being played by Jim Carrey. We only get a glimpse of Shadow's back story, though it seems heavily suggested that the death of Maria will still be the formative experience in the so-called Ultimate Life Form's backstory. 

Being the Negative Nancy, the Debbie Downer, I naturally am, let me start by pointing out the things I hate about the trailer. I know Sonic has worked directly with G.U.N. and other government organizations in the games, comics, and cartoons. I still dislike the idea of these guys being superheroes the not-so-secret government agency calls on to do stuff for them. Ya know, ever since they made Sonic's adoptive dad in this series a fucking cop, it's been hard to miss the creepy authoritarian undercurrents of the series. Sonic is free like the wind, baby. He's not a cop, a narc, a fed, a bootlicker, or a corporate stooge. I will not be unmoved on this point. 

Applying my political belly-aching to a movie for babies aside, the set-up the trailer hints out also gives me a clear vision of where this story will likely go. Assuming G.U.N. is still responsible for the death of Maria, what will heroic Sonic and friends' reaction to discovering that information will be? They'll probably be upset! They'll probably turn against the organization they've been hired by, teaming up with Shadow instead. As happens any time a good guy and a bad guy team up, Robotnik forming a truce with Sonic will precede a predictable and obvious betrayal. What form this double-cross will take, I can only guess. Some have already speculated that the shot in the trailer of Robotnik grabbing a quill from Sonic might foreshadow him building Metal Sonic. But some fans will always expect Metal Sonic to show up any minute. Regardless, the movie is going to end with Sonic and Shadow putting aside their differences to fight a greater enemy, the superpowered hedgehog learning a little lesson about friendship along the way. 

I'm sure all the backstory surrounding Shadow will be very different. I'll be surprised if the ARK appears in the film. Since Gerald is apparently alive, we already know things will be quite different. I don't actually give a shit about Shadow's lore. That has always been the least interesting part of him as a character. The probable outline I laid out above coming to pass, leading to a predictable and dull motion picture, is something I'm much more concerned about. 

Alright, so that's my main gripe with the trailer. What do I like about it? First and foremost, the action looks sweet. The second movie represented a serious step-up from the first in terms of its set pieces and combat sequences. Paramount clearly gave Fowler and everyone way more money to play with. Clearly, things will get bigger and better in part three. Shadow's superpowers are already leading to more elaborate action sequences. Fowler's background is in animation and, in the best moments of the "Sonic" movies, you feel that. Hopefully that will be even more evident in this installment. 

When it was announced that Keanu Reeves was going to voice Shadow the Hedgehog, I wasn't sure how to feel. My natural inclination is always to be slightly annoyed when a big celebrity is picked to voice a famous cartoon character over a veteran voice actor instead. Idris Elba as Knuckles has done okay and he got better over the course of his whole show. Reeves at least has a little experience voicing cartoons. It was still an odd suggestion to me. Reeves is a fine performer that I enjoy immensely. His physicality and screen presence have a lot more to do with that than his voice. The idea of Keanu voicing Shadow didn't strike me as the slam dunk to me that so many other fans seemed to think it was. 

Now, I've actually gotten to hear Reeves as Shadow, has my opinion changed any? The first line he delivers when he saunters up to the good guys, I wasn't too sure about. His delivery sounded flat. Which is, you young'uns might not know, something Keanu was often criticized for early in his career! However, as the trailer progresses, Reeves sounds better to me. If nothing else, it doesn't sound like he's going for laughs. Ben Schwartz' Sonic is always cracking jokes and Elba's Knuckles is an oblivious straight man. Reeves' Shadow, meanwhile, seems to be dead fucking serious. It's good to know the superstar didn't take on this voiceover gig in a kid's movie as an assignment he could half-ass it on. He's putting his whole ass into this iconic character. 

As for the rest of the trailer... The reveal that Gerald is alive caught many off-guard. However, the first half of the trailer has Tom Wachowski repeatedly point out to Sonic that he has a family now. A voiceover from Olive Garden Guy points out that Shadow doesn't have that family. Clearly, this "Fast & Furious"-ian concept will be the main theme in the sequel. Robotnik forming a bond with his long-lost grandfather makes more sense in that context. Will Shadow learn the true value of family over the course of this adventure? My magic 8-Ball says "Likely."

Many individuals in the "Sonic" fandom have already overturned and dug into the various images briefly seen in the trailer. This has lead to the typical amount of idle speculation. Many are already pointing out, with annoyance, that his live action "Sonic" trilogy is turning into a sausage-fest. Some have gone so far as to wonder if Amy Rose or Rouge might actually be in the movie, a big surprise being kept for us from now. The Metal Sonic theory above is something much along the same lines. Not to mention people in mascot-like Chao costumes always appeared briefly in the trailer. 

Personally, I think Amy or any other Sega characters cropping up in the movie is a long-shot. I expect the Chao cameo to be nothing more than an in-joke. People have always been seizing on a shot of Tom Wachowski laying on the floor, screaming. Some are wondering if Donut Lord is going to get killed off. Would I love it if the film finally cut out the unimportant human protagonist it's been saddled with? Yeah. Do I find it likely? Probably not, even if James Marden getting written out in some way does seem likely. 

Lastly, there's the factor of Jim Carrey coming back as Robotnik. After the second film, Carrey announced his retirement. Clearly, that didn't stick. Carrey's hyperactive take on Sonic's archenemy amuses me, even if I don't think it has much to do with the character as he usually exists. The actor's presence certainly added a lot of energy to the last two films, so I'm happy to have him back. The gut he's grown in isolation is another belated attempt to bring the movie version of Robotnik more in line with his rotund video game counterpart. Sure. Whatever. I'm glad the fan girls will have more bait for toxic yaoi fanfics about Robotnik and Agent Stone though. 

The special effects look nice. The action seems decent. Shadow does the "Akira" slide. I'm not made of stone. All that stuff is neat. However, I feel an increasing distance from Paramount's "Sonic" films, this sense that these movies and shows will never become the version of "Sonic the Hedgehog" I want them to be. I'm definitely going to see it. I'll probably give it an overly positive review that I then look back on a few months later and I think overdid it. Maybe the movie will really surprise me. Hope springs eternal. Ultimately, I suppose the short version of my response to the "Sonic 3" trailer is that... It's decent. Looks fun. Didn't blow my socks off. Didn't make me shit my pants in rage. Looks about what I expected, truth be told. Sorry to disappoint or underwhelm anyone expecting me to either explode in praise or rage on this one. 

Sonic Boom, Episode 2.35: Mister Eggman

Sonic Boom, Episode 2.35: Mister Eggman

Original Air Date: July 8th, 2017

The second Sam Friedberger penned episode in a row is also an Eggman-centric story, I guess proving his favorite character is. While buying some evil supplies at the evil supplies store, it is revealed that Eggman never finished his degree in evil science. This means he's not actually a doctor. News of this spreads through the village quickly, resulting in Eggman being utterly humiliated. Determined to regain his pride, he goes back to evil university. There, he comes under the cruel tutelage of Professor Kingsford, the harshest teacher at the college. Eggman struggles with the various tests and projects, suffering greatly from anxiety and questioning whether he's cut out for being a supervillain after all. Meanwhile, his archenemies enjoy some time off. 

The homage-heavy run of "Sonic Boom's" second season continues with "Mister Eggman." The episode seemingly based its entire premise on one iconic line from "Austin Powers," about spending six years in Evil Medical School. The episode uses that as a jumping off point, continuing to put Eggman in highly relatable, everyday scenarios. If the previous installment showed us how Eggman would do in a demeaning, average job, this one puts him through the ego-deflating challenges of going back to school. As he was a mediocre hotel manager, he's a mediocre student too, suffering through humiliating failure one after another as he struggles to please a hyper-strict professor. We've all been there, man. 

All of this plays on an easy enough joke, designed to contrast Eggman's inflated image of himself as a master villain with a sadder, far more pathetic reality. In fact, this episode hammers home the image of Eggman as a sad sack wannabe. He repeatedly screws up in school, dropping his pencil, not doing the reading, flunking out on tests and projects. The entire kerfuffle also costs him his reputation, everyone in town mocking him and losing all respect for his threatening ability. By the half-way point, I was genuinely starting to feel bad for the guy. Sonic and the others have always called Eggman names or slung one-liners at him. Here, especially in a scene where Team Sonic plays keep-away with the last piece he needs for a class project, playful battle banter seems to have elevated to full-on bullying. I wasn't yelling "Leave Eggman alone!" at my TV but I was definitely starting to feel like Sonic was the asshole here. It's all at Eggman's expense, as his repeated villainy makes him an acceptable target. Yet the script putting him so totally into the role of a bullied outcast, a perpetual loser, made me look at the heroes in a much worse light. 

This puts "Mister Eggman" in a somewhat uneasy position as an episode. On one hand, we're obviously supposed to relate to Eggman. I think everyone, in their academic careers, has encountered that one teacher that seemed to have it out for them. When this pairs with a subject you aren't great at – for me, it was anything math related – it can result in going to class everyday being an anxiety-inducing nightmare. At the same time, we are clearly meant to derive some comedic pleasure from seeing Eggman in this position. It gets to the point that he's hanging out in Dave's basement as part of a study group, making the comparison that Eggman is merely a goofy nerd worthy of our scorn all too apparent. Are we suppose to cheer with Eggman or laugh at him? It's possible to do both but that requires a balance of tone that an eleven minute cartoon doesn't have time to invest in. The result is an episode that ends up feeling a bit more mean-spirited than I think was intended at times. 

Then again , it tracks that a village that is constantly being terrorized by Eggman would revel in any chance to mock him. And I mean "revel!" Within minutes of this episode starting, Staci calling up her sister to spread the hot gossip turns into a village wide musical number, just about everyone in town getting involved in the singing and dancing. Ya know, I gotta admire the "Sonic Boom" team for swinging for the fences with this one. An otherwise non-musical episode including a big musical number is usually a reliably amusing gag. All the more so when the song is – if not an instant toe-tapper – at least well realized enough that I didn't cringe all the way through it. I guess I have to take back what I said the other day about how "Sonic" characters breaking into song is usually a recipe for disaster. I want to say that the difference is that this is some Broadway musical style shenanigans, instead of a typical rock number... Except the episode also features a rock number, during a scene where Team Sonic have a montage of them having radicool adventures together now that they aren't spending all their time fighting Eggman. That's right, there's not one but two musical numbers in this episode and neither one made me want to rip my ears off. By the standards of this franchise, that's a massive success. 

A montage devoted to mocking the very concept of montages certainly isn't outside the norm for the kind of meta wackiness "Boom" specializes in. However, this episode is notable for how conceptual its gags get. This is most noticeable during an elaborate, and rather bizarre, nightmare Eggman has that features such unusual sights as a giant Sonic and Eggman bleating like a goat. That is followed shortly after an extended "Mission: Impossible" parody sequence. The episode has the typical jokes you expect of "Sonic Boom," like hyper-verbal banter about inconsequential things and jokes that lean on the fourth wall. (Like Sonic hoping he has more to do next week, a joke that only really works if you watch this episode and the previous one back-to-back.) Yet these two scenes definitely feel a little denser and wackier than is the norm for even this show.

Unfortunately, as amusingly out there as parts of this episode is, it still leads to a highly predictable ending. Eggman steals the test answers, gets everything wrong on the final exam, but because stealing the answers is what a villain would do, Eggman still passes. I guess the little children watching this cartoon in 2017 probably would've been caught off-guard by the subversion of "person did bad thing but succeeds anyway," when the double subversion of "Eggman fails anyway because Eggman sucks" would've been much funnier and more in line with the thesis of this episode. I did like him attempting a freeze frame at graduation, only to end up awkwardly standing in place for a few minutes. That's the kind of surrealism that elevated this episode for a handful of moments. 

Ultimately, this one is kind of a weird episode that feels a little bit like it tossed together a bunch of random ideas for gags into something resembling a solid whole. Having said that, I still laughed a decent amount. Eggman being forced to put up with mundane bullshit is almost always a good recipe for a "Sonic Boom" episode, even if this one missed the mark on a couple of key attributes. [7/10]

Sonic Boom, Episode 2.34: Inn Sanity

Sonic Boom, Episode 2.34: Inn Sanity

Original Air Date: July 1st, 2017

"Sonic Boom" gets a little "Fawlty Towers" in it in the thirty-fourth episode of season two, "Inn Sanity." After another humiliating defeat by Team Sonic, Eggman is left with a dumpster full of robot parts. He complains to the mayor to actually pick up the trash, only to get stuck with an oversized bill for exceeding the normal limit. As a quick way to earn some money, Eggman ends up converting his evil lair into a luxury resort. Despite his frustration with the guests, that goes well enough for Eggman to pay his bill... Only to get stuck with another fee for operating an inn without a permit. When a secret reviewer arrives at the hotel, Eggman has to actually commit to doing a decent job. 

"Sonic Boom" being a sitcom allowed it to do something that stories about these characters rarely get to do: From time to time, Eggman actually gets to be the protagonist. The comics have, occasionally, followed a story from the villain's perspective but always in-service of his role as the bad guy. "Boom" Eggman is also a villain, of course, but the show's irrelevant tone and subversion of classic action/adventure tropes makes him much more of a relatable sad sack than any previous version of the character. Episodes like "Eggman the Auteur," "Hedgehog Day," "Mombot," and this one really put us in Eggman's shoes for a day. Without losing sight of his status as an egotistical jerk, "Inn Sanity" does make Eggman the classic sitcom protagonist here. He's a guy that is beleaguered by trouble but trying to do his best in a world seemingly designed to vex him. It even makes the evildoer something of an underdog. 

The real reason, I think, Eggman is so relatable in "Inn Sanity" is simply because the episode sticks him in a position a lot of us can relate to. Namely, he is now in the customer service industry. If you're reading this, chances are you've worked in retail, food service, guest services, or some other middling, low-paying job that forces you to interact with people all day. That kind of work is already slightly demeaning, simply because you have to clean up after people or concede to their pettiest demands all day for what is surely a meager paycheck. For whatever reason, seeing you have a name-tag and a smock makes a lot people want to treat you as subhuman. It seems that the expectation of being served by someone turns many otherwise decent people into the most entitled, self-centered little monsters. Eggman gets a taste of that all too common experience here, having to deal with a bunch of people demanding he drop everything and please them all day. Here in the real world, we lowly workers have to grit our teeth and bare it because, if we piss someone off, it might mean our job. But Eggman is a cartoon character, one with no expectations of social niceties to begin with, meaning he can be as rude to his obnoxious customers as he wants to be. The result is a surprisingly cathartic episode. Especially the scene where he yells at the Walrus Mom for letting her kids run amok. I've been there, man. 

This puts "Inn Sanity" right into my favorite genre of "Sonic Boom" episodes, when these oversized characters have to put up with down-to-earth, commonplace problems. That Eggman is in this desperate situation entirely because of having to pay an annoying, unexpected bill makes him even more of a put-upon everyman here. All of that probably would've been enough for ten minutes worth of jokes. The comparison I made to "Fawtly Towers" above wasn't just me pointing out a probable influence though. The second half of this episode has a secret hotel reviewer arriving at the inn. Eggman incorrectly identified multiple people as the inspector, lavishing attention on them at the detriment of all his other guests. This is a classic sitcom set-up but also, specifically, the premise of the fourth episode of "Fawtly Towers." This not just confirms the "Sonic Boom" writer room's taste in classic television but it also adds a little more dramatic tension and narrative structure to an episode that probably would've just been a series of gags otherwise. 

And that's good. Even if "Inn Sanity" probably would've been a decently amusing ten minutes if devoted solely to being a series of gags. After hearing about Eggman opening a hotel, Sonic and the others show up, assuming the villain is plotting something underhanded. When it turns out he doesn't, Team Sonic decide to stay as guests. The script certainly plays with the idea that the heroes, Sonic at least, are intentionally fucking with Eggman by being demanding guests. However, the episode mostly goes with the far funnier idea of all of them simply being lunatics. Tails demands more free notebooks, to work on origami. Knuckles wants more towels, to dress himself in homemade luxurious gowns. Sticks keeps stealing everyone's pillows to make a giant pillow fort. Sometimes comedy is people acting weird for no reason and a straight man responding to it. The last episode slotted Eggman into the role of the crazy person but turns out, with his short temper and overall grouchy demeanor, he's a much better choice for the straight man. 

Proving once again that making it in the entertainment industry is based entirely on who you know because Hollywood runs on nepotism, "Inn Sanity" was written by Sam Friedberger. That's the son of Bill Friedberger, "Sonic Boom's" executive producer and co-showrunner. This is actually the fourth episode of "Boom" Sam has worked on, having previously written "No Robots Allowed," "Nut Work," and the aforementioned "Eggman the Auteur." (He also wrote the last issue of the "Sonic Boom" comic.) If we can attribute "Boom's" overall tendency towards self-aware, fourth wall breaking jokes to Bill, then Sam clearly inherited a fondness for that style of comedy from his dad. "Inn Sanity" sees a reappearance of the Doomsday Machine from "Double Doomsday," which Orbot points out Eggman hasn't used "since the beginning of season one." Upon hearing Eggman's scheme, Sonic says "the writers are just phoning it in." When the person Eggman assumes is the secret reviewer appears, he is literally a red heron. 

As always, all writers are writers, at least until we get replaced totally by A.I. And writers love to draw attention to being writers, which is why humor like this can skirt up against annoying and smug if you aren't careful. However, "Inn Sanity" is a funny, wacky enough episode to make up for that. In fact, Friedberger clearly has a good time cooking up increasingly bizarre guests for Eggman to be hassled with, such as an epically clueless Admiral Beaverton or a guy who demands a different room every night. This episode also features two nicely absurd gags about birds, both of which come out of nowhere, and makes good use of Cubot's enthusiastic idiocy. I guess the point I'm making is... Maybe Sam got this job just because he is the boss's son but he's decently funny in his own right. 

Another sign that Sam knows what he's doing is that all the wacky shit Sonic and the heroes do early in the episode end up becoming important in the last act. Ah yes, I do love that satisfying feeling of something minor set-up earlier reappearing by the end. This results in a fun action sequence too, the good guys using props from around the hotel to fight off Eggman's robots. The episode opens with an above-decent action scene too, featuring some dynamic angles as Knuckles and Sticks punch and parry around Badniks. Maybe there was some money in the animation budget left over after "Robots from the Sky" after all. So, yeah, good episode! And that's all I have to say about that. [7/10]

Sonic Boom, Episode 2.33: Amy and Stick's Excellent Staycation

Sonic Boom, Episode 2.33: Amy and Stick's Excellent Staycation 

Original Air Date: June 24th, 2017

Since the "Sonic Boom" episodes are so short, one can't help but assume the installments were designed to be shown back-to-back, in order to fill the half-hour time slot typical to children's cartoons. I suspect this is how the show aired in some international markets and it's currently how the episodes are structured on Tubi. Up until now, that had no effect on the actual episodes themselves. However, with the post-"Robots from the Sky" focus on continuity, the writers clearly started to experiment with this set-up. "Planes, Trains, and Dude-Mobiles" left Any and Sticks alone in Hedgehog Village while the guys were on tour. We got glimpses of what the girls were up to in the previous episodes, suggesting there might be more to that story than what we saw. "Amy and Sticks' Excellent Staycation" now shows us their side of the story. If the episodes are watched back-to-back, this plays like a rather clever little double feature. When watched with a week between them, as the program did here in the U.S., it's not as much fun. Another example of how badly this show got screwed by network execs. 

Also, both episodes take their titles from beloved eighties comedies, though "Amy and Sticks' Excellent Staycation" disappointingly does not involve hair metal, time travel, or George Carlin. Instead, while the boys are in their road trip, Amy hopes to have a relaxing girl's weekend with Sticks. This is delayed slightly by Sticks' paranoia and the two females' wildly different ideas of fun. However, Amy eventually convinces Sticks to participate in a spa trip. The rest and relaxation is interrupted when Belinda – the wife of nerd-turned-bad-guy Charlie – decides to pursue supervillainy on her own. Now, the ladies have to save the day without the support of their macho teammates. 

This episode brings to light something I've probably wondered about before. As different as Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are, they have enough similar traits that you can see why they are friends. Sonic and Knuckles are united by their various dude-bro qualities. While Tails is a lot nerdier, his personalities compliments Sonic in other ways. And all three of them can enjoy some video games or hot wings together. What about Amy Rose and Sticks though? Why are they friends? Amy is neat and orderly. Even if "Boom" has toned down her usual girly-girl elements, she's still a very pink, very traditionally feminine young lady. Sticks, meanwhile, is a rather literal wild child who disregards most indicators of polite society, in service of her conspiracy-inclined, survivalist worldview. She has no use for fashion or accessorizing and seems content to live in an actual hole in the ground. I guess they are united by their mutual love of smashing robots. Aside from that? Would these two actually be buddies outside of an "Odd Couple" situation? They feel more like co-workers than friends to me. 

"Excellent Staycation" seems ready to play with this vast difference at first. Sticks is hyper-focused on bayonets, much to Amy's annoyance. The badger's idea of a good time is tossing clumps of mud around, which neat freak Amy can't handle at all. The spa seems to represent a happy middle ground for these two, a place where Amy can chill and Sticks can wallow in mud. After that though, the episode more-or-less abandons trying to find elements the two have in common. Next we see Amy teaching Sticks to knit, which makes it feel like the badger is some experiment Amy has taken on. Like she wants to civilize the savage or something. Perhaps Alan Denton and Greg Hahn realized, halfway through writing the script, that Amy and Sticks don't actually have that many similar qualities and decided to pivot from there. Or maybe they simply had to shove in an action sequence and whatever other goals playing these two off each other had got lost. 

One of the limits of Amy as a character is that she corresponds to a very stereotypical conception of femininity. She wears pink and ribbons and bows, is friend to the animals, and has a girlish crush. The "Boom" version of her character pairs this with even more girlish hobbies, like tea parties, knitting, and romance novels. Having a mud-encrusted tomboy like Sticks standing right next to her would be a good way to counteract any unfortunate implications. "See, not all women have to be soft, pink homemakers! Let your freak flag fly, girls!" Instead, the last act of this episode has both females weaponizing press-on nails, hair extensions, and shampoo. This is probably only because this scene happens to be set in a spa... Yet the result still feels a bit like the male writers couldn't think of anything for these female characters to do that didn't revolve around make-up, fashion, and beauty tips. 

This extends to the villainous subplot. Belinda overhears that Sonic is out of town while seated next to Amy at the spa. She wants her supervillain husband to strike in that moment but he's too absorbed in his manly hobby of digging up rocks. This results in Belinda occupying another unfortunate feminine stereotype: The shrewish wife who hen pecks her husband and resorts to violence whenever she doesn't immediately get her way, playing into the idea that women are emotionally volatile and inherently irrational. This impression is furthered by her eventual rampage through the town being largely devoted to petty grievances. Which I guess doesn't make her any different from most of the other "Boom" villains but... I don't know. I doubt think the writers did all of this intentionally but it doesn't strikes me as not the best choice. 

None of these issues mean I didn't find this episode amusing. In fact, it's got some good gags. The best of which revolves around, simply, Eggman being a lunatic. Amy decides to distract the doctor by putting a life-sized doll of Sonic up on a post. In another example of the characters' cognitive awareness varying depending totally on whether them being an idiot is funny in that moment, Eggman immediately falls for this. He spends the rest of the episode trying to fool and murder a stuff toy. The doctor having a completely one-sided argument with the Sonic decoy might make him look schizophrenic but it's also amusingly bizarre. The ploys to confuse the plush hedgehog gets weirder, as Orbot and Cubot do little dances, until Eggman's fixation on the fake Sonic gets nearly as weird as Amy having such a prop in the first place. (Which the script immediately lampshades, of course.) Whether it "makes sense," Eggman dedicating so much time and energy to trying to kill a mannequin, only for it to inexplicably bests him, is a good joke. 

These are paired alongside some typical examples of "Boom" humor. Such as fourth wall leaning self-awareness, evident in a line of dialogue from Amy that occurs after a cut immediately being picked up by Sticks, which escalates to both characters showing varying levels of awareness of being on a TV show. Or when Belinda rages at the Lady Goat, a minor background character that she looks nearly identical to. These are sharper jokes than rather limply delivered lines about mud baths or everyone hating Fastidious Beaver's constantly correcting everyone's grammar. Also, there's a “Matrix” joke – in 2017! – which is easily the surest sign that the writers were phoning it in on this one. 

Even if some of the jokes are weak, this episode is still better as a comedy than it is as an action/adventure show. Any hope that "Boom's" overall standard for action sequences might have been raised by the "Robots from the Sky" four parter is dashed here. These action scenes are exactly as weightless, slow, and awkward as I've come to expect from "Boom." Sticks landing atop a MantisBot, staying suspended in the air for several seconds as she karate kicks it head off, or being slowly launched across the room into an immobile wall look lifeless. In a weird touch, the lasers from Belinda's mech suit simply freezes everyone they strike, which seems like a deeply unsatisfying compromise for not being able to afford some explosion. Also, any time the episode focuses on those piles of mud, it seems to feature an utterly still pattern upon it that looks incredibly weird whenever it interacts with other people. I know I've beaten this drum over and over again but this show really should have just been traditionally animated if they didn't have the resource to make something as simple as mud not look so fucking off. 

I think this review came off more negative than I intended. I still reasonably enjoyed this episode, even if the script makes some iffy choices and the animation isn't the best. I guess I wanted a little more from an episode based around exploring Amy and Sticks' odd friendship. They can't all be winners and even a half-baked installment contains some decent gags, so I guess it's not too big of a missed opportunity. [6/10]

Sonic Boom, Episode 2.32: Planes, Trains, and Dude-Mobiles

Sonic Boom, Episode 2.32: Planes, Trains, and Dude-Mobiles

Original Air Date: June 17th, 2017

In another surprising show of continuity from season two of "Sonic Boom," "Planes, Trains, and Dude-Mobiles" is partially built around the existence of Dude-itude, the rock band Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles formed back in season one episode thirty-nine, "Battle of the Boy Bands." Despite having only played one gig a year before, the band has somehow booked a concert. Tails excitedly tells Sonic and Knuckles, who had forgotten they were in a band. The fox has built a specialized van just for the trip to the venue. Sonic is hoping for a relaxing road trip but it soon turns into a nightmare, as his band mates insist on making frequent stops at kitschy tourist traps and the group is repeatedly hassled by a hard-assed patrolman. When a notorious criminal by the name of the Bike Chain Bandit ends up hitching a ride with them, thanks to Knuckles' idiocy, things get worse. 

Aside from putting bacon in things and crippling class inequality, there is perhaps no American tradition greater than the road trip. One can make the argument that this country, as we know it today, didn't really come into existence until the creation of our modern car culture during the post-World War II manufacturing boom. And people wouldn't have bought cars unless they had places to go, which was made possible by the boom in highway construction around the same time. While the glory days of Route 66 have long since passed – as anyone who talks about Route 66 will immediately tell you – road trips continue to remain a backbone of American culture. The advent of the internet has now made it even easier to find out about cultural events or unique treasures hidden across this fair land of ours, making an extended car ride to such places all the easier. Even a crabby-ass home body like me will admit that, sometimes, you just gotta pack a bunch of stuff into your car and drive someplace twelve hours away. Maybe it's the nomad in all of us that feels the siren song of the open road. 

Since the road trip occupied such a prominent place in the American subconscious, it should not be surprising that there is an entire genre of story built around such journeys. It makes sense, as there's no narrative older or more sturdy than the journey from one place to another. In the written word, the idea has produced classics like "On the Road" and "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." On-screen, the inherent filmic qualities of driving through the countryside, and the sense of adventure and discovery that goes along with it, has led to the creation of the road trip movies. Being such a mutable premise, the idea has infected practically all genres. There's a cinematic road trip for every mood: The hippy existentialism of "Easy Rider" and "Two-Lane Blacktop," the broad comedy of "National Lampoon's Vacation" or "The Cannonball Run," award-winning dramas like "Thelma & Louise" or "Paper Moon," grisly thrillers like "Near Dark" and "Natural Born Killers," coming-of-age stories like "Yu Tu Mama Tambian" or "Corvette Summer." If you want to hit the road via fictional proxy, there's no limit of options. 

Television, being a much more limited medium, doesn't do road trip stories as often but homages do appear from time to time. Which brings me back, finally, to "Sonic Boom." "Planes, Trains, and Dude-Mobiles" takes its title from a beloved road trip movie, another John Hughes' comedy about unlikely friendships and wacky happenstance occurring during a long trip. Despite that, Alan Denton and Greg Hahn are not paying specific homage to Hughes' film. In fact, "Dude-Mobiles" seems to be more of a throwback to the general idea of road movies, more so than any specific example. The ball-busting highway cop, shitty roadside attractions, and picking up a murderous hitchhiker are archetypal concepts that can't be traced to any specific source. The sense that the episode is a throwback to the vague notion of eighties road trip movies is supported by the episode ending in a chase scene set to a cheesy, butt-thumping, synth-rock ballad. It honestly feels a little bit like someone who actually hasn't seen that many eighties movies imagining what the genre must be like. Which I guess is fine, considering the eight year olds who watched this in 2017 wouldn't be likely to have seen those movies either. 

I always believe that a callback is pointless without specificity. However, I still had some fun with this episode. Considering my taste tends to run more towards "The Hitcher" than "It Happened One Night," it should surprise no one that the Bike Chain Bandit subplot is my favorite part. When Knuckles is given the wheel, so Sonic and Tails can nap, he drives down a spooky forest. That's when he picks up a scraggy possum with a bag full of bike chains, much to everyone else's horror. Just like in the classic urban legends, a radio announcement breaks out at exactly that moment – interrupting, in a great gag, "our regular broadcast of silence" – to announce a deranged killer matching the hitchhiker's appearance precisely is on the loose. The sequence that follows is obviously played for madcap laughs. Yet that a kid's show would even feature a scene where a lunatic tries to garotte Knuckles with a chain, amid a dark and stormy night, surprises and delights me. 

All things considered, this is an amusing ten minutes. Denton and Hahn's scripts can usually be relied on for a few solid zingers. A sequence devoted to the trio visiting "the world's largest non-rocking chair" escalates in amusingly silly way. Knuckles reaction to a bad lie Sonic told or safely pulling over to the side of the road while a killer pursues them are solid chuckles. As is Tails' reaction to the cop's color euphemism for a jail cell. There's lots of good little lines here – Sonic's reaction to Amy telling him "not to do anything [she] wouldn't do" or a Knuckles' quib about wallet chains – that definitely feel like they were tossed-in last minute but still made me grin. The subplot with the asshole cop and the guys meeting the world's biggest Dreamboat Express fan in jail are plenty limp but I did appreciate the reveal that Sonic uses "gotta go fast" as a medical condition to get out of speeding tickets. 

The episode never reaches the manic blend of wackiness it is clearly striving for. Part of that is that Denton/Hahn seem a little too enamored of the idea of Dude-itude. The guys breaking into a rap-like verse after getting in the van seems played totally straight, despite the sheer embarrassing cringe factor of it all. The climax is set to what I can only assume is meant to be a Dude-itude song, built around the "Push It To the Limit" soundalike riff that has played in several previous episodes. Roger Craig Smith sings the vocals in a clearly ridiculous manner, indicating this is obviously a joke. However, it's hard to make gags out of crappy songs because, at the end of the day, you're still hearing a crappy song. You'd think the people who write "Sonic" cartoons would've learned by this point that the blue hedgehog and musical numbers do not blend. 

I guess these rather unfortunate songs – which are, admittedly, still less unfortunate than any of the "Sonic Underground" songs – were inserted to make up for the fact that, despite Dude-itude being the motivating element behind this entire episode, we never actually see the band play. While not the most memorable, hilarious, or sharpest episode of "Sonic Boom," this one still isn't all bad. Like I said, the Bike Chain Bandit's appearance makes this the closest we'll likely ever get to a "Sonic" version of a slasher movie, making it impossible for me to give thus one anything less than a [7/10]. 

Sonic Boom, Episode 2.31: Lightning Bowler Society

Sonic Boom, Episode 2.31: Lightning Bowler Society

Original Air Date: June 10th, 2017

If I was able to do any project without falling horribly behind schedule, I probably would've wrapped up my "Sonic Boom" reviews months ago. Instead, my serial tendency to miss updates means this retrospective has dragged on and on. But maybe some things are meant to be. If I had finished discussing "Boom" on time, it probably would've been before the "Knuckles" streaming series started. Which means I would've discovered, only after the fact, how that show's much-contested focus on bowling wasn't even a new addition to the "Sonic" franchise! Yes, defying the odds, Wade Whipple's desire to best his absentee father at a bowling tournament isn't the first time the game of ten pins found its way into a piece of official "Sonic" media. The thirty-first episode of "Boom's" second season was all about rolling on the lanes, introducing Fred Flintstone and Homer Simpson's favorite athletic contest into the blue hedgehog universe. Assuming there isn't some shitty mobile "Sonic Bowling" game I've overlooked... 

[Update: There is, in fact, a shitty mobile "Sonic Bowling" game. Two actually: An original in 2002 and a remake in 2009. However, both were Japanese exclusives, so this episode is still the first English-language piece of official "Sonic" media about bowling. Hoo-ray for highly specific superlatives!]

The episode begins with the Lightning Bolt Society attempting another ineffectual and easily defeated feat of villainy against Sonic and the gang. Feeling discouraged afterwards, the wannabe supervillains decide to shift their focus entirely. From now on, they will be the Lightning Bowler Society, putting on ugly shirts and rolling balls down the lanes. This turns out to be much more successful for the group than their villainy careers ever were. All four of them quickly become local celebrities. This infuriates Sonic, who apparently also has a bowling team with his friends. After being bested by the new stars in town, Sonic becomes obsessed with topping them at their own game. Soon, in-fighting among the Lighting Bolters sees them breaking up, robbing Sonic of his chance at victory. He then dispatches his friends to convince Dave, Willy Walrus, and the rest to regroup, strictly so he'll be able to defeat them at the alley. 

I've talked before about how the "Sonic Boom" writing team managed to take some of the show's minor background players – who wouldn't amount to anything but running gags otherwise – and turn them into actual supporting cast members. Dave the Intern is the most obvious example of this. However, his involvement with the Lightning Bolt Society truly is nothing but a running gag. The wheezy teen's status as an apathetic fast food worker has long since eclipsed his pathetic desires for supervillain status as his defining characteristics. While Dave is reasonably well developed – by the standards of a reoccurring guest star in a children's sitcom anyway – the rest of the Lightning Bolt Society are one-note jokes. Two of them don't even have real names, being known only as Weasel Bandit and Tree Spy. (Or Tree Guy, as I usually call him.) Willy Walrus is a character that was created simply to pay-off a goofy sight-gag in the tenth episode, his name being the first name you'd think of for a walrus character. That he's reappeared probably has more to do with the "Boom" animators wanting to reuse CGI assets than anything else. 

With this in mind, the idea of "Sonic Boom" devoting nearly an entire episode to the Lightning Bolt Society seems like an act of utter hubris on the writers' behalf. Kids are here to watch Sonic and his pals have adventures, not to see your stupid O.C.s bitch about their lives, maaaaaan. As ill-conceived as this premise seems, "Lightning Bowler Society" actually manages to work pretty well. I praised Peter Saisselen's earlier episode, "Do Not Disturb," for being surprisingly dense and narrarively complete despite the short runtime of "Sonic Boom" episodes. "Lighting Bowler Society" has this same feature. In only ten minutes, Saisselen squeezes in a complete story that contains multiple dramatic turns and twists. Like all good narrative, the protagonists are different people at the end of this journey than they were at the beginning. Dave and the gang decided they didn't want to be supervillains, changed directions, became stars, broke-up, and then remember why they all became friends in the first place, rekindling their bond. They went on a journey and learned something about themselves. That this is done within such a short runtime is all the more impressive. 

The biggest evidence that "Lightning Bowler Society" had actually won me over by the end is that I found myself, against all odds, invested in the story of Tree Guy. The most one-note of the Lighting Bolt Society manages to use his low level of celebrity to win over a hot girlfriend. That would be Staci, the identical twin sister – even down to wearing the same outfit – of Perci. And while Perci seems like a chill person, her sister fancies herself a starfucking Lady MacBeth. She talks Tree Guy – now self-seriously calling himself "Chameleon" – into wildly overvaluing his own worth and going solo. And this is such a stupid subplot. I'm more invested in Old Monkey than I am Tree Guy! 

Yet, somehow, this story turn is compelling. Seeing perpetual underdogs like the Lightning Bolters actually win some success is... Nice? They then have it broken up by ego and petty squabbling, in a classic tale familiar to anyone who has read a book about a big rock group. Narratives like this are compelling for a reason and, even one this dumb, gets you caught up. Who doesn't love a tale about a beloved group of talented individuals, coming together to make something beautiful, only to be torn apart by their own flaws? Did I just compare a bowling team to The Beatles? I guess that makes Staci the Yoko in this story, the subplot about her and Tree Guy making an art film about his penis presumably being cut for time. 

Many times, while writing for this blog, I've found myself thinking "Isn't this cartoon/comic/movie supposed to be about Sonic the Hedgehog?" Saisselen's script keeps the blue hedgehog in the story by essentially shifting him into the antagonist role. Sonic and his bowling team provides the rivals the Lightning Bolters need to bring themselves back together. While Sonic having a newfound interest in bowling feels like a stretch, this set-up does return to one of my favorite moods of "Boom" Sonic. Having him want to beat Dave/Willy/etc because he wants to win a trophy is boring. Having Sonic want to beat these guys because their popularity is a threat to his ego is interesting. Especially since it results in him doing the right thing – helping some friends patch up their separation – for totally selfish reason. Even the most heroic versions of Sonic tend to be a little full of themselves. "Boom" sometimes exaggerating that into Sonic acting in petty, immature ways whenever his status as the village's top hero is threatened is a good gag. Especially since it allows Roger Craig Smith to really ham it up in amusing ways. 

The result is overall a funny episode. The rest of Team Sonic doesn't have much to do in this one. However, a montage of them bowling does, amusingly, reflect their personalities. Knuckles drops the ball before even throwing it, because he's a doofus. Tails slowly and exactly rolls it down the lane on the way to a perfect strike, because he's a detail-orientated techy. Sticks misses a roll and then violently lunches at the standing pins, because she's insane. The episode manages to make a lame-seeming gag about fruitcake funny by pushing the absurdity even further, Sonic and the gang actually deciding to dine on the weaponized dessert. Overall, there's some inspired gaggery here. Such as Willy trying to sell bowling ball earrings on a home-shopping channel, Tree Guy being applauded for his collection of tree suits, or taking his hot date out to Meh Burger. That last one involves a bit about the bowling team getting a tie-ins meal at the fast food place, composed of meat slurry slopped onto a plate. That's not the best joke but I do applaud the animation team for making those Beef Bowls look truly disgusting. 

It's an episode that shouldn't work but ends up being a good time, largely because it's well written and packs its set-up with plenty of surprisingly weird japes. And, who knows, maybe bowling will find its way into more "Sonic" stuff in the future. Someday, they might make more of those "Sonic & Mario at the Olympics Games" titles that I've never actually seen anyone play. The bowling industry lobby – something that apparently exists! – keeps trying to convince the Olympic Committee to make the sport a regular part of the games. Perhaps these two threads of history will converge. Perhaps we'll see Sonic knock over some pins again and for Knuckles to angrily declare that he doesn't roll on Shabbos. Stranger things, like this episode being good, have happened. [7/10]