Sonic Boom, Episode 2.21: Mombot

Sonic Boom, Episode 2.11: Mombot

Original Air Date: April 1st, 2017

After inventing a black hole generator that can make broccoli taste like applesauce, Eggman and his device enter into a science fair for children. When a little girl named Beth wins, Eggman is dispirited. He decides that he needs some unconditional love in his life. Thus, Mombot is built and brought online. At first, Eggman loves the praise and comforting Mombot gives him. However, after he fails to defeat Sonic, the mechanical matriarch starts to chastise him. The machine mommy then tries to get Eggman to befriend Sonic instead, the villain trying to use this as a way to crush Sonic again and earn the love of his guilting, smothering mother bot. 

Previous episodes of "Sonic Boom" have hinted at the neurosis that drive this version of Eggman. How his desire to conquer the world arises from a deep rooted insecurity, a need to earn validation for the genius he's created to defeat a nagging fear that he's not good enough. And as any therapist will tell you, such vulnerabilities almost always begin in childhood and with dysfunctional relationships with parents. As with all the "Boom" cast, we don't know anything about this version of Eggman's backstory. Certainly, his relationship with his parents has only been hinted at in the vaguest of ways. Yet this episode makes it clear that the mad scientist has some mommy hang-ups. He repeatedly states his desire for unconditional love, to cover for a world that rejects him and his own sense of not being good enough. Like any parent should, Mombot provides that... At first, anyway. However, the robot mama quickly shows her affection is quite conditional. She tries to mold him into her vision of an ideal son, trying to convince him to choose a more practical career. She dismisses his ambitions, says she wishes he was a "real" doctor, and generally goads and manipulates him in various clearly toxic ways. This emotionally abusive relationship eventually becomes obviously abusive, as Mombot smacks Eggman in the face during a climatic scene. 

It's all plated for laughs but I honestly can't help but find it kind of fucked up. Even more so because... Eggman programmed Mombot to be the perfect mother. She was literally designed to always be loving and supportive. That her behavior eventually skews in such a negative direction can't help but suggest something: Eggman subconsciously programmed Mombot to emulate the behavior of his actual mother. I mean, come on, a mad scientist is only building a perfect mother if his actual mom was distant, smothering, and guilting. This suggests something rather true: We are all molded by our childhoods, by our relationships with our parents. Even if we work really hard to overcome the shortcomings of those bonds, they can go on to define our whole lives. If Eggman's actual mom treated him similarly, it would explain his desperate need for validation. 

Obviously, all of this is probably accidental. A much simpler joke is at work here: It's funny to see someone who is supposed to be a supervillain being pushed around by his own mother or, at least, a substitute for his mother. The writers of "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" came to the same conclusion, with far more unhinged results. (Though both Momma Robotnik and Mombot share the gag of having a big mustache, just like their sons.) In order to further necessitate this set-up, "Mombot" returns to a characterization for the villain it has occasionally touched upon. Namely, Eggman as an (Egg)manchild. He claps with boyish glee when Mombot cuts his mustache with a bowl or puts a puzzle together with him. It's a Puppy Dog Pals puzzle, returning to Eggman's most persistently childish attribute. Yet even before he builds himself a mother, he's acting a bit like an overgrown kid here. The first scene has him looking for a solution to eating broccoli before he enters a contest for children. Later, he gets a kids meal from Meh Burger. As I've said before, the "Boom" cast behave differently depending on the needs of the script but Eggman is definitely being a bit more childish here than usual.

Naturally, as I've said a hundred times before, any such inconsistencies can be forgiven as long as they are funny. Most of the jokes involving Mombot and Eggman's relationship are pretty good. I like how she knits scarfs for everyone and how she insists Eggman and Sonic become friends. (Eggman requesting a momtage really got me to chuckle.) When the heroes come to visit, her prying, correcting behavior is inflicted on Sonic, Amy, and Sticks in ways that are quite amusing. The script also features a number of weirdly topical jokes, including references to the Large Hadron Collider, Pluto being downgraded from planet status, and climate change. And if you think that is a little weird, the episode also features a reference to "Chinatown." 

Some of the episode's best jokes actually emerge from the B-plot. That involved Tails taking the winner of the science fair, Beth the Shrew, on a tour around his lab and trying to interest her in science. Instead, she becomes enamored of Knuckles' ability to smash things. Clearly, this is a gag on the short attention spans of children. That Beth remains sweet and respectful, calling everyone "Mister," leads to some amusing contrast. Such as Sticks' reaction when she attempts to dissuade the badger's conspiracy theory logic. One assumes that this subplot is meant to tie into the episode's theme of child rearing. Yet it never really goes anywhere, Beth last being seen wandering off with Sticks after becoming enchanted with her rambling paranoid delusions. (A chilling prediction of how popular conspiracies would become with kids on TikTok.) 

If that subplot seems to wander off without a proper conclusion, the same can be said for the whole episode. After the confrontation as dinner, Eggman decides he has to deactivate his bitchy robo-mom. Instead, he decides he can't do such a thing and then the episode awkwardly ends. Perhaps writer Joelle Sellner realized things had gotten too dark with the slap. There clearly wasn't enough time left in the episode for Eggman and Mombot to talk out their obvious issues. Instead of making an attempt, Sellner cooked up the quickest ending she could think of. But considering the subplot also ends so abruptly, maybe this one was just a rush job. 

By the way, Eggman referenced Mombot in the previous episode. The episode order currently on Tubi is different from the original air order I've been following all along. I guess this suggests the production order was different then the air order. Unless a tossed-off, nonsensical line about Eggman having a Mombot in a previous episode inspired this one. Either way, it's an episode with a lot of potential that it never quite reaches. And as shitty a parent as Mombot is, at least she's not the eldritch abomination Momma Robotnik was. Every generation tries to do better than the one before it, ya know? [6/10]

Sonic Boom, 2.02: Spacemageddonocalypse

Sonic Boom, 2.02: Spacemageddonocalypse

Original Air Date: November 19th, 2016

The scientists paid to keep track of such things tells us that a world-ending asteroid tends to hit Earth about every 500,000 years. That doesn’t seem very frequent and odds of such an event occurring in our lifetimes seem low. An asteroid hasn’t even killed anyone since ancient China! Yet we hear about what NASA calls potentially hazardous objects all the time. It seems at least once a year there’s some alarmist news article about a cataclysmic piece of space debris that has some percentage of a chance of hitting the planet at some point in the future. Despite that, there’s only seventeen known objects on the Sentry Risk Table as of this writing. Which I guess is still more than would be ideal but I think climate change or some jackass starting a nuclear war are much more likely end-of-the-world scenarios. 

Nevertheless, human culture is fascinated by the idea of an Earth-killing meteor smashing into us. It murdered the dinosaurs, so I suppose it seems suitably dramatic for the same thing to kill us. A movie about such an event comes out roughly once a year, usually in the form of direct-to-Syfy-Channel schlock, sometimes as dueling big-budget summer tentpoles, even rarer as overly smug social satires. Since Sonic tangos with world-annihilating threats all the time, it’s not surprising “Sonic Boom” would riff on the idea of a big ol’ space rock fucking everything up. 

Which brings me to “Spacemageddonocalypse,” an episode with a very good title. While in orbit above the world, Eggman discovers a massive rock is on a collision course with the planet. He immediately looks to exploit the situation, selling spaces within his doomsday bunker to anyone in town willing to pay. Sonic and Tails decide to take a more altruistic approach. The fox builds a mirror machine to shoot a heat ray at the rock, in hopes of throwing it off-course. Yet there's too much shit in between here and there, forcing the gang to steal Eggman's rocket and get closer to the asteroid. The fate of the world ends up in the hands of... Knuckles? 

I said in the last review that the budget for season two of "Sonic Boom" didn't seem appreciatively bigger yet. Well, that changes here. "Spacemageddonocalyps" begins in a totally new environment for this show: Outer fuckin' space. In fact, between the Eggman-in-orbit opening and Knuckles' heroic crash into the asteroid, it's clear that the showrunners had a little more money to throw around for this episode. There's also some new musical stings in this episode, like the totally expected "Also Sprach Zarathustra" parody and a pretty neat guitar-driven piece that plays when Knuckles is making his big escape. And is it just me or does everyone look a little shinier in general? I guess there was a budgetary boost despite the move to Boomerang. 

The very familiar musical moment is not the only shout-out to "2001: A Space Odyssey" – a movie kids definitely see parodied more often than they actually watch – here. Joelle Sellner definitely had some fun paying homage to well-known sci-if movies. The first scene has Cubot and Orbot bouncing around space, it what feels like may be a half-formed reference to "Gravity." There's a cute moment of Tails' solar ray bouncing around space, each deflection resulting in a "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" style musical note. The finale, of Knuckles crashing the rocket and solving problems the Smashy-Smashy way, features a random Wilhelm Scream. I'm not sure if everyone's favorite echidna surfing on a satellite is a specific reference but it reminds me of shit like the "Spaced Invaders" poster. And, of course, the title points towards the entire episode being an "Armageddon" riff of sorts. 

This isn't just a collection of nods towards on well known sci-if tropes. In fact, there's even a bit of kind of sharp social satire. With his legion of laser-shooting robots, Eggman definitely has the means to destroy the asteroid or at least throw it off-course. He doesn't think of that at all. After securing his own survival, via his underground bunker, he immediately decides to use this opportunity to make some money. Of course, the local people-in-power – mainly the mayor and his team – are the first to sign up for this. It's a demoralizingly accurate bit of writing to deduce that, when faced with the end of the world, the rich and powerful would try to exploit the situation for financial and personal gain. I mean, that's exactly what has happened with climate change. I just didn't expect to see that message reflected in a children's cartoon. 

More important than any of that, "Spacemageddonocalypse" is a pretty funny episode. There's lots of good-natured absurdity packed into these eleven minutes. The best of which is probably Sonic pettily using minor laws to successfully repossess Eggman's rocket, a joke that is then likably drawn out. A brief line of dialogue defining the difference between asteroids and meteors made me chuckle. As did a circular conversation where Tails attempts to shorten the name of his asteroid-destroying device. Honestly, Sticks got me to laugh the most in this installment. Her conspiratorial ranting, about mirrors and aliens and the legitimacy of space landings, all amused me. Little bits of dialogue, concerning a poster of himself Eggman put up or Tails' telescope, represent the writers successfully trying to squeeze as many jokes into this episode as possible. 

In fact, "Spacemageddonocalypse" feels surprisingly packed full of incident and full formed despite its short runtime. Sonic even gets a character arc of sorts, annoyed that Knuckles gets to be the big hero and having his own chance to prove himself. That makes this among the strongest episodes of "Boom" I've yet seen. Am I the only one who wants Neil DeGrasse Tyson to watch this and go into a full-on fit pulling all of its scientific inaccuracies apart? [7/10]

 

Sonic Boom, Episode 1.20: Hedgehog Day

Sonic Boom, Episode 1.20: Hedgehog Day

Original Air Date: April 4th, 2015

In 1973, prolific science fiction author and genre historian Richard A. Lupoff would publish the short story, "12:01 P.M." The story follows a man trapped in a time loop, relieving the same hour of the same day over and over again. Everyone around him is unaware of this, repeating identical actions every time, and he races to figure out what is happening before the loop inevitably begins again. In 1993, Bill Murray would star in Harold Ramis' "Groundhog Day," a movie about a Pennsylvanian weatherman who becomes caught in a time loop, repeating the same day over and over again. Everyone around him is unaware of this, repeating identical actions every time, and he races to figure out what is happening before the loop inevitably begins again. Though neither Lupoff nor Ramis invented the time loop story, the similarities were such that Lupoff attempted to sue Columbia Pictures over it. 

Yet the Murray film was far more commercially successful and culturally beloved than Lupoff's short story. That's why this story type is known as the "Groundhog Day Loop." It's such an elastic premise, with such endless possibilities, that you can insert it into nearly any setting or genre. So it's unsurprising that the "Sonic Boom" TV series would do their own spin(dash) on the "Groundhog Day" concept. In fact, the twentieth episode of the show isn't even the first time a piece of "Sonic" media riffed on the idea. Issue 167 of the Archie Comics series did something similar, the story also being entitled "Hedgehog Day." I guess both animals having the word "hog" in their names makes this too good of a pun to pass up.

Despite the title, this story isn't about Sonic. It follows Eggman, who has built a new Egg Tank to attack the heroes with. While fighting on the beach, after interrupting their movie night, Eggman fires a plasma fireball and a laser blast from the tank. When these energy attacks collide with a rogue lightning bolt, it cause an explosion... And then Eggman wakes up back in his bed, experiencing the day over again. The doctor soon realizes he's stuck in a time loop, which starts over every time the explosion goes off. He must convince Tails and the other good guys to help him, to prove what's happening, if he ever hopes to escape this endlessly repeating cycle.

Multiple people have attempted to do the math, to figure out how long exactly Bill Murray was stuck in the time loop in "Groundhog Day." People have come up with estimates ranging from 8 to 15 months to nearly 34 years. Either way, we're sure it's a pretty long time to be repeating the same day. That's also a lot of time to squeeze into one eleven minute cartoon. It seems certain that Eggman isn't trapped in this loop for more than a month or so. The episode definitely cheats a little bit too. It seems the loop will recur even if Eggman doesn't cause the same explosion. The exact point where the snap-back begins seems to be whichever moment will be funniest. I'm willing to accept that the writers had to use some shortcuts to make this premise fit into the standard "Sonic Boom" runtime. Yet it's another example where I wish this show was a half-hour and could go more in-depth with its ideas. 

The whole point of "Groundhog Day" is that Bill Murray is a jerk and he can't escape his purgatory of living the same day over again until he actually becomes a decent human being. This is the same approach copycat stories like "Happy Death Day" have taken. This is ultimately a philosophical story, of a person given endless time to overcome the personality flaws that hold them back. "Sonic Boom" doesn't really have the space to dig into Eggman's character arc that much though. And even if it did, it's not like the super villain could actually change any. "Sonic Boom" is a sitcom and sitcom characters are more-or-less static. The status quo is resumed at the start of each episode. Which must be just fine with Sega, since they usually insist these characters remain loosely defined and unchangeable, so as not to interfere with their roles as corporate mascots. 

None of these criticisms mean I dislike "Hedgehog Day." In fact, it's a pretty funny episode. The best of any "Groundhog Day" story is usually when the protagonist stops giving a shit and just begins to fuck around, the way any of us would if granted endless do-overs on the same day. This occurs about halfway into "Hedgehog Day.” He starts doing things like cutting off one side of his mustache or renting all the film reels from the video store, just to ruin Sonic’s movie night. On one of the endless days, he simply refuses to get out of bed. (“Boom” Eggman’s depression continues to be one of his most relatable aspects.) Most of the repeated days are spent trying to resolve the mystery, or win the battle on the beach though. Again, if “Boom” was a longer show, it would have more time to explore funny set-ups like this. 

Even if "Hedgehog Day" can't really get into the ramifications of its premise, writer Joelle Sellner still makes sure the gags come quickly. This episode made me laugh quite a lot. Cubot proves a good source of reactions in this episode, ranging from disappointment that a Eggman doesn't recognize his "egg tank" pun or glee when he realizes his daily actions no longer matter. The twist ending of the Comedy Chimp movie Tails rents is a good running gag. That leads to an oddball joke so loopy, I'm not sure anyone else but me would find it funny: Tails uses some sort of sound wave weapon built into the camera projector but it doesn't work when a silent movie – signified by a mime on the film can – is reeled into the player. Knuckles' various reactions to being asked to lift a super-dense shield is funny. The visual cliché of mathematical equations rolling by on-screen as a doctor ponders things is amusingly subverted. There’s clever moments about Amy shushing people or Sticks’ direct approach to dentistry. Once again, Mike Pollock's delivery as Eggman is responsible for several laughs. Just the way he mutters about not wanting ants or matter-of-factly predicts future events made me chuckle. 

The animation is still cheap and ungainly at times. Liquids look really fuckin weird in this style, which is most obvious when water runs off Eggman's face or Orbot fills a glass with orange juice. (An otherwise funny moment.) Once again, I just wish this show was traditionally animated. It would look so much better. That complaint aside, this is a good installment of “Sonic Boom.” Definitely not as good as “Groundhog Day” but certainly better than the comic book story of the same name. [7/10]