Sonic Underground, Episode 1.38: The ART of Destruction

Sonic Underground, Episode 1.38: The ART of Destruction

Original Air Date: October 20th, 1999

After previously gifting us with "Country Crisis," writer Laren Bright would return for another episode. "The ART of Destruction" had Robotnik fed up with his incompetent henchmen. He builds a new robot called ART – whose name is an extremely vague acronym for Artificial Robot Technology – that learns from its mistakes and can rebuild itself when destroyed. ART is soon sent on a quest to eliminate Sonic, Sonia, and Manic. (Who is feeling a little discouraged these days.) After listening to the band's sick riffs, ART realizes tyranny is wrong and decides to help the Resistance. A new villainous scheme is engineered to capture the hedgehogs and the turncoat robot. 

As far as "Sonic Underground's" various one-off characters go, ART has more potential than most. As a threat, he's outfitted with a bunch of laser blasters and cannons. He also has Doc Ock style tentacles. His ability to rebuild himself, displayed after he pulls himself out of a vat of molten steel and regenerates his body from scrap metal, is fairly intimidating. Having this durable murder-boy learn the errors of his way and start to fight against evil is potentially interesting too. ART's personality starts out as childish, including speaking in monosyllabic sentences which grow more nuanced the more he learns. The design is mediocre, as his robotic lips are slightly unnerving and his Christmas-y color scheme is garish but that's to be expected from "Sonic Underground." 

Yet, as with all things with this show, "The ART of Destruction" doesn't have the convictions to actually make these ideas work. All it takes is one overheard musical number for ART to go from bad to good. He says he learned about "freedom and friendship" after a single rock song! The siblings similarly grow attached to the machine over a very short period of time, which certainly strains believability. As is usually the case, any attempt at real emotion this show makes comes off as deeply corny instead. Hearing a robot, with a stereotypical halting voice, laugh at bad puns or spout platitudes about never giving up is more humorous than touching. 

And "touching" is what the episode is going for. "The ART of Destruction" concludes with the robot sacrificing himself so the triplets can escape the ol' shrinking room death trap. The scene is drawn out, making the situation seem less urgent. ART repeatedly says he can't leave the room without being crushed but, considering how slowly those walls are moving, it really seems to me he had time to escape. Mostly, it's the horribly trite dialogue he shares with Manic in these final moments that make me roll my eyes. Manic makes repeated references to being discouraged that the Resistance can ever stop Robotnik throughout the episode, which is mildly out-of-character for him. ART's sacrifice, somehow, renews Manic's heroic spirit. At best, it's awkwardly done. At worst, it's the show trying to wring pathos out of an underdeveloped character. Mostly, it just comes off as "Underground" favoring a vague moral lesson over actual decent storytelling. 

It's not just ART's robotic dialogue and the contrivances of the shoddy script that are stilted. "The ART of Destruction" is another episode with some really questionable animation. The scene where ART corners the hedgehogs in the factory features maybe the slowest laser beam I have ever seen in a cartoon. Shortly afterwards, Sonic seemingly uses his glowing medallion to float over a tub of molten steel over something. It's such an awkwardly framed and animated moment that I'm not entirely sure what's happening. ART may be a shapeshifter of sorts but the animators seem to use that as an excuse to have him randomly change size throughout these twenty-one minutes. 

And it just wouldn't be "Sonic Underground" without some weird shit that makes me uncomfortable. There's also a moment where Sleet and Dingo, disgraced and cast aside by Robotnik, are reduced to vacuuming up a dirty alley way. Dingo is, of course, transmogrified into a vacuum and seems to be eating the refuge he sucks up in this form. This is followed by him sneezing a massive blob of sticky goop on Sleet and, afterwards, Sleet shatters apart like cracked glass in what I'm assuming is a really poorly deployed visual pun. It's a random deployment of cartoon physics that ends a gross, bizarre scene on an especially baffling note. 

As we close in on "Underground's" final episode, I'll continue to assert that the songwriting/performing team have gotten slightly better at their job. Today's song, "The Sound of Freedom" is a bit of cheesy butt rock. The chunky drum beat and driving guitar work is not bad actually. The lyrics are corny as hell but fit the hyper-patriotic, aggro Dad Rock sound – Sonic literally shouts "Freedom!" several times throughout – the song is going for. I listened to it a few times and I kind of like it. It makes me want to drink a cold beer and dip some mozzarella sticks in marinara sauce. Again, the team focusing on writing in-universe, anti-Robotnik rock anthems for the Resistance produces music that is, if not good, at least less cringe-inducing than the genre leaping attempts at moral education that previously employed. 

There might not be much in the way of art to this particular episode but I also didn't completely hate it. At least it was trying a potentially interesting story. The execution wasn't very good but, with this show, you earn points for trying. If nothing else, it's better than that hillbilly shit Bright wrote last time. [5/10]

Sonic Underground, Episode 1.31: Country Crisis

Sonic Underground, Episode 1.31: Country Crisis

Original Air Date: October 11, 1999

Last time, I referenced the "Sonic Underground" writers being completely out of ideas by this point. That continues to hold true with "Country Crisis," even if this was writer Laren Bright's first "Sonic" related credit. After performing an act of domestic terrorism in Robotropolis, Sonic and his siblings come across a note written by their mother. It informs them that Robotnik is building a dam in "Southern Mobius." The local Freedom Fighters could destroy it but are too busy feuding amongst themselves, a tradition that goes back to a visit from the Queen decades earlier. The royal triplets go about trying to patch over this schism and save the day. 

 

Divorced completely from its actual premise, "Country Crisis" has a good idea. More than one group of revolutionaries have been broken up by ideological differences within their own camps. In fact, it almost always happens. The idea of Freedom Fighters getting distracted from their fight against Robotnik, to fight each other, is an intriguing premise. (And one the Archie comic would touch on from time to time.) Sonic teaching an isolated resistance groups that there's more that binds them than separates them could produce a totally solid twenty-minute cartoon, even one with a nice moral. 

But that's not what "Country Crisis" is actually about. Instead, it explores the underwhelming premise of "Sonic, Sonia, and Manic meet the hillbillies." The episode is, obviously, inspired by the legendary backwoods feud between the Hatfields and McCoys. This includes the details of the youngest members of both families secretly falling in love. As many Appalachian stereotypes are touched upon as possible. Overalls, straw hats, mangy beards, shotguns, and bare feet are accounted for. There are numerous references to hoedowns and jugs. "Y'all" and other bits of Southern dialect are abused. The episode stops just shy of including moonshine and incest. As a resident of Appalachia myself, I'd be offended by these portrayals if I wasn't completely numb to seeing them in pop culture by this point. 

It's uninspired backwoods grotesquery and that extends to the character designs. The Valley Folk and Mountain Folk – as they are called even though they all seem to live in the valley – represent yet more unappealing design work from the "Sonic Underground" team. Granny, the leader of the Mountain Folk, has preposterously bad posture. Zeb, leader of the Valley Folk, is a hideous revival of every hillbilly cliché, including protruding teeth and a foot long beard. Jerod, the speedy raccoon type thing, wears bright green pants, a yellow shirt with a giant collar, and red suspenders. Which makes him look more like a New Romantics reject than a redneck. It's all ugly as fuck and is paired with some extremely shaky animation. A scene of Sonic running while holding his guitar makes it seem like his head is detached from his body, while I'm pretty sure the triplets' eyes never move in the first scene. 

Honestly, what insults me the most about this episode is not the reliance on long-since-outdated stereotypes about "mountain folk." Rather, it's the half-assed laziness of the entire script. The primary antagonist of the episode is an enormous robot guarding the dam. That's cool but the machine is never utilized in an interesting way. The episode seems to be building towards the neat visual of the robot smashing through the dam. Instead, the machine accidentally blows up Sleet and Dingo's aircraft and it's up to Manic's drumming to destroy the structure. Lame. Very little imagination was expended on this script. 

This is far from the only questionable writing. The feud between the two clans is based on a gift from the Queen, a medallion split in two, going missing. Each side blames the other for the theft. The actual answer – Granny lost it in her jug and never thought to look there in all this time – is one of the biggest ass-pulls this show has attempted. Moreover, it really says a lot about Queen Alena that she never once stepped in to resolve this conflict herself, even though she's well aware of it and is wandering around Mobius all the time. Instead, she gives orders to her kids to clean up her messes, her children never once asking why this is their responsibility. This is because, I guess, the completed medallion contains a map to some location. What are the odds this show will ever revisit that plot point? What do you think? 

Other than just laziness, why would the writers of a "Sonic" show stick the hedgehog in the very Earthly realm of squabbling hillbillies? Because this is a musical show and bluegrass is one of the genres "Underground" hasn't abused yet. "How You Play the Game" is an embarrassing riff on "Dueling Banjos," between Sonic's guitar and Sonia's keyboard on the banjo setting. It's about as lame as you'd expect, with both singers attempting weak southern accents. It's more forgettable than bad, which really tells you more about this show's standards for badness than anything else. Granny pulls out a washboard throughout the song, which is an instrument not actually associated with bluegrass music but I wouldn't expect the creators of this show to know that. 

Oh yeah, remember when I said kissin' cousins is one of the few Appalachian stereotypes this episode doesn't indulge in? I lied. But it doesn't come in where you'd expect. At the concluding hoedown, Sonia asks Sonic for a dance. Which is only mildly weird, I guess, but becomes way weirder when the hedgehog makes a point to dance with his brother instead. After all, royalty makes more of a habit of fucking their siblings than hillbillies ever did. Anyway, this episode is bad. [4/10]