Sonic Underground, Episode 1.16: Friend or Foe?
Original Air Date: September 20th, 1999
For many "Sonic" fans who are teenagers or just now growing into their twenties, Knuckles has always been part of the franchise. The modern interpretation of the character, a big galoot who is one of Sonic's closest friends and characterized largely by his strength, is all they've ever known. They certainly don't remember when Knuckles was this mysterious character with uncertain alliances. I can't really undersell what a big deal Knuckles was for "Sonic" fans in the nineties. He was a different breed of cool from Sonic, rougher and more ambiguous. I'm certain, among some fans, he was even more beloved than the titular hedgehog.
For fans like me, whose fandom was largely informed by the cartoon shows, I was always chomping at the bit to see Knuckles in animation. This is the sole ace "Sonic Underground" had up its sleeve. With the Japanese OVA unseen by most fans at the time, the sixteenth episode of "Underground" was the beloved echidna's de-facto first appearance in animation. Most of the defenses I've seen of "Underground" are based entirely around it being Knuckles' sole animated appearance for a long time. Now the time has come for me to reflect on this particular incarnation of Sonic's oldest rival.
"Friend or Foe?" is one of the few – maybe the only? – episodes of "Underground" to be directly inspired by the video games, as the plot is loosely based on "Sonic 3." Sonic, Manic, and Sonia ride a weird space capsule vehicle to the legendary and mysterious Floating Island. The Queen is supposedly a regular visitor to this place. Sleet and Dingo track them there, in hopes of retrieving the Chaos Emerald that keeps the island afloat for Robotnik. They soon encounter Knuckles, the island's fabled protector, and trick him into thinking the triplets are the thieves. Conflict soon emerges between Sonic and Knuckles, while the canines sneak off to nag the Emerald.
How does Knuckles fare in his first non-game/non-comic book American appearance? The "Underground" character designers more-or-less stick to his established look. The wonkiness of the animation – more on that later – still has him looking weirdly chubby and Snoopy-ish most of the time. But at least he looks like Knuckles. Since "Friend or Foe?" follows the same outline as "Sonic 3," even down to Knuckles first appearing by exploding out of the earth, his personality is basically intact. He's a rough-and-tumble guy who is so devoted to his duty that he's easily gullible. He also displays a smidge of the guilt and introspection that gave the Archie version of Knuckles so much depth. Veteran V.O. actor Brian Drummond voices him and he sounds a lot closer to the Knuckles I hear in my head when I read the comics than the comically gruff voices the video games usually give him.
Knuckles is mostly intact but, since "Sonic Underground" is an exceptionally bizarre variation on this franchise, it still has to put its own spin on the Floating Island. Knuckles, for whatever reason, has a pet dinosaur named Chomps. He's the only dinosaur to appear on this show and no explanation is given for where he came from or what he's doing here. He acts like a vicious attack dog in earlier scenes before snorting and hooting comically later on. This Floating Island doesn't resemble any previous version of the location, mostly composed of non-descript forest with the occasional weird looking tree. Knuckles has seemingly littered the entire island with traps and that's mostly what he uses in his fight against Manic and Sonia, to the point that it quickly gets ridiculous.
I do like one or two elements from this version of the Floating Island. The chamber the Chaos Emerald is kept in is lined with green crystal formations, a touch that the comic would eventually utilize many years later. There's also a brief scene of Sonic uncovering a hatch in a tunnel that reminds me of the comic's Zoot Chute. But, overall, there's no attempt to integrate the Floating Island into the show's lore. Queen Alena has visited in the past and left a message there for her kids. How she got there or why is never explained. While it's warned that the island will fall from the sky without the Chaos Emerald, it seems to float just fine after Sleet and Dingo make off with it.
I guess "Underground" treats Knuckles okay but it's hard to say for certain, as this episode is largely focused on action. After Sleet and Dingo's deception is established, most of the episode is devoted to Sonic and Knuckles rumbling. And it is, simply put, some of the worst action scenes I've ever seen in a cartoon. Knuckles has exactly one move: Spinning his hands like buzz saws. The show renders this as his arms turning into swirly red circles. He does this countless times in this twenty-one minutes. Sonic, meanwhile, just runs or spins around Knuckles, the two rarely coming to physical blows. This means a long stretch of "Friend or Foe?" is devoted to a blue blur and a pair of red blurs bouncing off each other. The awkwardness of these fight scenes is best emphasized by a moment where Knuckles destroys a bridge Sonic is standing on, out on the island's edge. In a baffling moment, the hedgehog stiffly floats through the air before fireballing through the island's surface.
It's not just the fight scenes that are badly animated. The entire episode is rife with off-model moments and doofy perspective work. Like I said, the size of Knuckles' extremities and body weight seems to shift from moment to moment. This is not the only thing that changes shape throughout the episode. The Chaos Emerald goes from the size of a soccer ball to smaller to bigger and back again multiple times. A particularly hilarious moment has Sonic growing in to massive size to rescue Knuckles. Sonia's keyboard blaster is weirdly jagged in one scene. There's not even much in the way of visual continuity, as Dingo is randomly wearing colorful boxer shorts in one scene without explanation. With the terribly stiff fight scenes and the shoddy character animation, "Friend or Foe?" becomes almost unwatchable at times.
Considering it actually has a new character, setting, and MacGuffin to introduce, there's really no time for a musical number in "Friend Or Foe?" Yet DiC's executive demands that every episode contain a song would not be denied. "Not Always What They Seem" rocks out while the triplets and Knuckles team-up to drive Sleet, Dingo, and the SWATBots off the island. The vocals are nasally and the music is generic pop-rock sludge. The lyrics plainly spell out the point of the episode, of judging people based on their actions and not what you hear about them. It sucks. The most notable thing about this sequence is when Manic defeats a SWATBot by tapping it on the head with a drumstick. Man, Robotnik makes really poor quality robots in this show.
The novelty of seeing Knuckles in animation made "Friend or Foe?" notable in 1999. Nowadays, we have far better options if we want to see a cartoon version of our favorite echidna. While this episode is about standard level quality, as far as writing goes for this show, the atrocious animation brings it down to a new low. [4/10]
