The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog- (Chaos Emeralds Saga 1) Blackbot the Pirate

 By Mark Rodriguez

Here's a look at a handful of episodes of this zanier 'Coyote and Roadrunner' version of Sonic the Hedgehog. These were the only episodes that followed a story arc and it dealt with the Chaos Emeralds. 

The episode opens with Robotnik forcing a dog scientist named Canine-stein (it's a kid's show, expect stupid puns) to make a time machine. Once completed, Robotnik reveals he wants to go through time and collect the four Chaos Emeralds that will grant him the powers of invisibility, invincibility, immortality and the power of life itself. Scratch and Grounder enter the room, and for whatever reason confuse a the time machine for a vacuum cleaner. Scratch sits in it and gets sent 300 years into the past. He returns a few seconds later, turned into a turkey saying the Pilgrims were trying to eat him. Wait... so Mobius had Pilgrims too? Happy to see that it works, Robotnik jumps into the time machine and vanishes, taking Scratch and Grounder with him. The scientist feels guilty for what he's done and runs off for help.

Sonic and Tails are the beach, and the blue hedgehog is about to check out the ladies, when Canine-stein arrives to tell him about Robotnik's plans to get the Chaos Emeralds. Tails says if Robotnik gets his hands on those, he'll be unstoppable. The scientist gives Sonic 'Atomic Relativity Boots' that will let him run fast enough to go back and forth in time. He gives the heroes a list of the 4 points in time Robotnik will go for the emeralds. Sonic grabs Tails and they both rush off to break the time barrier.

Robotnik and his minions arrived atop a pirate ship where they face Blackbeard. The pirate easily deals with Grounder and Scratch... but then Robotnik blasts him with a ray gun that turns him into a robot. As a robot, Blackbot is now loyal to Robotnik and shows him the treasure map with the location of the Chaos Emerald of Invisibility.

Sonic and Tails soon arrive on the ship and drop the pirate flag on the bad guys. Robotnik sees that the duo has followed him through time and sends his robots to stop them. Scratch and Grounder fire a cannon... that misses the heroes, but breaks a pole which lands on Robotnik, trapping him on the floor. Sonic is relaxing on a pile of barrels, and when the Badniks fire off a cannonball at him, he zips out of the way, and all the barrels roll all over Robotnik's face. More hi-jinx ensue as Sonic tricks the Badniks into shooting holes into the ship and firing a cannonball at Robotnik himself.

Tails sticks a hedgehog-looking hat on Grounder and paints him blue, then points him out to Scratch as Sonic (why would he believe anything Tails says?). Scratch fires at Grounder and blows him up. Robotnik is upset at the incompetence he has to deal with. Sonic laughs and asks for a real challenge, and just then Blackbot starts to attack him. Sonic dodges his sword and jumps to the other side of him, using his spindash to slice the mast off so the robot can fall. Tails cheers as he sees the hole the robot made when he fell, and gets grabbed from behind.

Somehow in a matter of seconds, Blackbot has Tails tied up and walking the plank. Sonic dives into the ocean a little before Tails falls in. Robotnik fires his robot ray at the duo, but misses. Just as they taunt Robotnik, they noticed he zapped a whale underwater, and now the robot whale swallows them whole.

With Sonic and Tails out of the way, Robotnik has Scratch and Grounder repair the boat. They ran out of wood to board up a hole, so Robotnik uses Scratch himself to patch the hole. Inside the whale, Sonic can't use his Spine Dash to saw his way out. They head for the whale's head and Sonic messes around with the robot's controls and now has control over the whale.

Robotnik arrives at Shark Island and Blackbot warns of booby traps. Grounder says 'booby traps? What do we look like? Boobs?' before they get trapped in a net. Sonic and Tails arrive on the island in time to see that the bad guys have found the X and have started digging. Sonic uses his Spin Dash to burrow underground and Tails jumps in after him. Sonic and Tails find the treasure chest first and leave a decoy for the Badniks. Scratch and Grounder show Robotnik the chest they found and when he opens it, it explodes and Robotnik is now some kind of chicken thing. Um.... what?

Anyways, Sonic decides they should get rid of the emerald before Robotnik gets his hands on it, and just then Robotnik and Blackbot grab Sonic and Tails. Sonic is surprised they were able to sneak up on him, and Robotnik explains he used the time machine to get there a few seconds before they did. When Robotnik opens the chest, he finds it empty and thinks Sonic did something to it. Sonic sees a butterfly land in the chest and turn invisible, meaning the emerald itself is invisible.

I like how Robotnik tells Blackbot to grab Sonic when he is right there and just grab him himself

Robotnik doesn't notice this and continues to blame Sonic for the missing emerald. Sonic tricks him into locking him into the chest and burying him. Robotnik threatens to leave Sonic in the treasure chest unless he tells him where the emerald is. Sonic says he'll talk, and when the scientist opens it up, he finds Sonic gone. Now invisible due to the emerald, Sonic plays pranks on Robotnik, Scratch and Grounder, and slices Blackbot to pieces (dude... he used to be human!!!). Robotnik tosses sand over Sonic, and is able to see him just enough to grab the emerald for himself.

Robotnik removes Sonic's time boots and rips them up so they're trapped in the past. He then escapes in the time machine with Scratch and Grounder. Tails worries since they'll never get home, and Sonic tells him to relax and starts writing a letter. He puts it in the chest and buries it. Moments later another pair of time shoes appears. Tails wonders how and Sonic explains he figures someone will find the chest in the future and read the note addressed to Dr. Canine-Stein to send another pair of time shoes to them.

Sonic and Tails dash out of that time period. Never mind that they killed a pirate and altered history in some way. They catch up to Robotnik in the time stream and snatch the emerald. Robotnik turns the time machine around and gives chase. Robotnik, Scratch and Grounder land back in the past but get chased by the Calvary before they can find the gem. Sonic and Tails go back to the present.

Sonic Says

Tails wants to play with Blackbot's sword, who tells him it's not a toy. Sonic comes in and reminds the kiddies at home that things like knives aren't toys and can hurt themselves and others, so don't use one unless your parent lets you. Hey, Blackbot was revived long enough to teach kids about safety. Though he was never turned back to normal. Oh well.

My Opinions

It was a decent episode. Some of Sonic's shenanigans were kinda cringe-worthy, like him singing a modified version of rock-a-bye baby as he took care of Blackbot but eh... It's a kids show. The plot was interesting since it gives this show a multi part arc and it features the Chaos Emeralds from the actual games. Or at least four of them. It's interesting how they were all given different designs and powers. In the games they all look the same and come in different colors and you usually find them in hidden bonus stages and such. Their power are used in several ways. Robotnik usually uses them to power up his Death Egg or any other weapon of mass destruction. Sonic can use them to become Super Sonic. In the comics Robotnik can even use them to warp reality which causes the whole crossover with Megaman to happen.

I also like the homage to The Time Machine, which is what the design for Robotnik's time machine is based on. Yep, that classic device based on the book of  H.G Wells, you might remember the cameo it made in the Gremlins movie... or that one episode of Big Bang Theory where the main characters were fighting over who gets to keep it. Plus I'm sure other cartoons have used a similar design to this.

Overall an entertaining episode. Glad Sonic left the tired disguise bit alone for most of the episode. He did that um....time cop thing near the end of the episode, but at least noone fell for it. Even as a kid I kinda wanted the cartoon to be more action packed... and well... this IS based on a videogame, and the Sonic games were NOT about Sonic sneaking past or tricking the bad guys with disguises. It was about him bashing robots with his Sonic Spin Dash. As for my nitpicks.... I think since we're supposed to just handwave them and be like 'well... it's a kid's cartoon, so who cares...' so I'm making a new section for these particular cartoon revieas called...

Over analyzing a kid's cartoon-

First off... the whole going to the past thing. The pilgrim joke, it kinda snuck past me as a kid, and it was a gag anyway.... but then I remember and ask... well... where there pirates in Mobius? Again, this is a kid's show and I imagine this isn't the first cartoon based on some other world or planet to have a 'going back to the past' episode and still feature things from our own history like dinosaurs, pirates and vikings. So eh, free pass.

Secondly, dude... they killed Blackbeard!!! Yeah Robotnik turned him into a robot, and then Sonic sliced him to ribbons... but dude, he was a regular human before. Even if we count the PSA at the end, everyone just went back to the present and never turned the guy back to normal. As a robot, I imagine he'll live way longer than he would as a human (unless he broke down cause noone would know how to fix a robot back then) so whatever trouble he's cause would be way beyond his years, and thus altering history. Not to mention we also have a robot whale swimming around.

Third.... Sonic and his stupid time letter. Yeah, I know they were going for the Back to the Future vibe... but if you really think about it, in this particular case it made no sense. Sonic assumed someone would find the treasure chest in the future. What if it was some undiscovered treasure that wasn't found til way past Canine-stein's time? What if whoever found it never heard of the guy or wouldn't even know how to find him to tell him about it? What if whoever found it just said 'I found a treasure chest and all it had was a stupid note' tore it up and threw it away? That's an awful lot of assuming there Sonic.

Lastly, the Robotnik chicken thing.... Just.... Just no words. No idea what happened there.

So that wraps up this episode. We'll continue onwards as we see what happens in this Chaos Emeralds saga, and try to not let our brains melt.