TailsTube #2 (feat. ???)

TailsTube #2 (feat. ???)

Original Release Date: June 9th, 2022 

Straddling the line between a corporate podcast, a cartoon, and an elaborate commercial, "TailsTube" is a series/program/entity with no set release date. Much like this blog, updates arrive whenever. Sega and Sonic team's marketing arm define "whenever" usually as when there's some new bit of "Sonic" media to promote. The second episode of "TailsTube" came out the same month as "Sonic Origins," the largely poorly received and immediately forgotten port of some classic "Sonic" titles to the Switch, which I imagine was the impetus behind posting this four minute animation when they did. The compilation is never mentioned in the episode but it did draw eyeballs to the "Sonic" YouTube channel as the advertising campaign for "Origins" was revving up. 

In so much as "TailsTube" can be said to have a plot, episode two is definitely a little more narratively driven than the first one. Tails' guest this time is Orbot, who proceeds to answers some questions about Dr. Eggman and his various evil schemes over the years. The lackey's unenthusiastic answers seem to bother Eggman so much that he then hacks Tails' live-stream, taking it over for a few minutes before the fox wrestles back control. Oooh, conflict! This might have been a fun surprise if, in true YouTuber fashion, the thumbnail for this episode didn't slap Eggman's face right into the center. 

The first installment of "TailsTube" actually did clear up some long standing questions about Sonic's world, suggesting this was going to be a series about clarify the franchise's lore and beefing up some worldbuilding. I suppose the second episode technically does that but the queries answered here are more on the beginner's level. Eggman's real name is confirmed to be Dr. Ivo Robotnik, with "Eggman" being a bullying insult Sonic started calling him years back, the doctor quickly coming around to embrace the insult. This is Sonic Lore 101 for anybody who has been following the series since at least the Dreamcast years. "Sonic Adventure 2" long ago established Robotnik as the family name and "Eggman" simply as a nom de plume. Obviously, fans who are younger or not as pedantic as me probably didn't know this, so I suppose that is a nugget of info worth clarifying for what I presume is "TailsTube's" target audience of TikToking Gen Alphas. 

This explanation has never satisfied me very much, truth be told. If "Eggman" was Sonic body-shaming his adversary, how come he's had an egg motif to many of his gizmos from the very beginning? Orbot's explanation says the doctor has "owned" the term, much the same way marginalized communities have attempted to reclaim slurs directed at them by bigots over the years... Once you start to think about it in those terms, you see how shaky an explanation this is. Robotnik calls his entire operation the "Eggman Empire." That would be a bit like the NAACP renaming themselves after Rick Perry's ranch. Obviously, SonicTeam probably wouldn't frame it that way. However, our hero looking at the bad guy, thinking "Lol this dude is so fat as to be perfectly ovoid, much in the manner of an egg," and the villain responding "You can't hurt my feelings by mocking my shape, as I'm proud of it. Now watch as I refer to myself by that humiliating insult for the rest of time" feels extremely weird on every level. I guess it is a bit of a throwback to Sonic's Rude Dude with Nineties 'Tude conception... 

To old guys like me, the true story behind this bizarre bit of backstory is common knowledge. Eggman has always been Eggman, as far as Sega of Japan is concerned, his name, body shape, and frequently visual motifs to his machines all tying together. Such a whimsical, Lennon/McCartney-esque moniker doesn't exactly strike fear into the hearts of English speakers. This is presumably why Sega of America emphasized the robotics gimmick, combining that with some still lingering Cold War-era distrust of Slavic sounding names. This Eggman/Robotnik divide led to intense fan debates for years. Many "Sonic" purists insisted "Eggman" was the most correct name for the character, "Robotnik" being a crude American bowdlerization of Sega's untouchable pure artistic vision. Other fans, meanwhile, decided that "Robotnik" is what they had always called this guy and that it sounded a lot cooler than "Egg-Man." (My stance, by the way.) It sounds ridiculous but this was, indeed, something people argued about at one point. When the Dreamcast era officially brought the Eggman name to the West, the nickname explanation was cooked up presumably as a way to ease long-time fans into the new order. 

Truthfully, the Eggman/Robotnik divide has always been evident even in English-language material. "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" established eggs as the bas guy's favorite food and often inflicted egg-related visual puns on him. The official English Story Bible includes a rotten egg in Robotnik's origin story, which the U.K. based media ran with. If "Robotnik" was an inversion of "Kintobor," as that version of events goes, then the Soviet sounding first name of "Ivo" is an inversion of "Ovi." In other words, the egg connection was always acknowledged. Sega must have decided "Robotnik" actually did sound pretty cool after all, once they started using it for Gerald and Maria in "Sonic Adventure 2." This didn't stop "Eggman" from becoming the default name in almost everything but nobody seems to get steamed about the guy being called Robotnik either. The live action movies have brought that name back in a big way and I haven't seen a single person pissing and moaning about it. Now people seem to use the names interchangeably. I'm used to calling the guy "Eggman" at this point, while also still liking "Robotnik" and not really caring either way. But I maintain that the "insult that he adopted" explanation is still sloppy. Why can't the man simply like eggs so much he decides to call himself that? Is that any goofier than a billionaire vigilante calling himself "Batman?" 

Anyway... What was I talking about? Oh yeah, episode 2 of "TailsTube!" While the Eggman/Robotnik renaming might be a bit of background info some fans aren't aware, most of what else Orbot reveals in his interview to Tails is hardly obscure knowledge. He clarifies that the doctor uses animals as living batteries in his robot minions, named Badniks. (Probably another relic of Cold War tension, as in Sputnik. Or maybe it's just a half-formed pun on "Beatnik," I've never known for sure.) Or that his schemes vary but wanting to build a theme park in his image remains a perpetual obsession of Eggman's. Come on, guys, this shit is mentioned right in the games and cartoons. Did we really need to clarify that? When Tails drops that Eggman has an I.Q. of 300, this script feels like it's quoting directly from an old Strategy Guide or something. Once Eggman takes over the Livestream, he simply clarifies who Shadow is, another bit of obvious information. Though it did tickle my funny bone when he called Sonic's brooding rival the "so-called Ultimate Lifeform." Hey, that's my running gag! 

No writers are credited on this episode, so I don't know if it's the work of usual "TailsTube" scribes Ian Flynn and Tyson Hesse. I'm kind of guessing not, as there's little in the way of the amusing banter that enlivened the first installment. There aren't too many deep cut in-jokes either, though the infamous Sonic the Hedgehog popsicle puts in a brief appearance on Tails' desktop. Orbot's voice actor sounds pretty bored by the whole thing, further cementing this one's status as a perfunctory bit of corporate advertising. You could have worked a little harder on this one, guys! There's certainly nothing here as exciting as the reveal of the Pink Haired Spectre that haunts the fan base to this day...

Instead, I'm forced to cling onto implications, as I often do anyway. Tails calling up and interviewing Eggman's personal assistant strikes me as... Maybe "treasonous" isn't the right word but definitely a weird thing to do with the enemy force you're engaged in war with. Eggman's segment talks about the events of "Sonic Forces," so this is after he's subjugated the globe to his dictatorship already. How many people died when Eggman burned down the city in "Forces?" And now one of the leaders of the opposition is chatting with his sidekick? If this was "Sonic Boom," where the good guys and Eggman have a much more casual relationship, I could totally picture such a laid back relationship existing between Tails and Orbot. It feels a little weird to see in a series that is ostensibly canon to the games. Likewise, Eggman hacking Tails' stream so easily suggests a fairly serious security risk, wouldn't you think so? Am I taking this too seriously? Yes, absolutely. Still, ya know, it raises some questions. 

Not that this is the only stupid question this episode raises. Eggman makes a reference to VPNs during his brief interlude. Okay, so virtual private network services exist on Sonic's world? Is geo-blocking and data profiling a big problem the Restoration and Eggman Empire have to deal with? Who is running these internet companies and why are they so shady that people feel the need to protect their data from them? Maybe Clutch owns the internet providers too. It's entirely possible nobody else has thought about this as hard as me but that's what I'm here for. Anyway, stupid questions such as these are what a featherweight program such as "TailsTube" prompt in me. The quality of this episode continues to make me think that I probably didn't need to review this but, well, too late to turn back now. You've got at least eight more bullshit articles such as these from me to look forward to! What minor grievance will I nitpick next? Stick around to find out, I guess. [5/10]