Let me just state right now I don't care for Sonic. I think everyone agrees that the modern games suck, or at least everyone with half a working brain does. And while the old games are slightly better I've never had the patience to play any of them past the first few zones, and Sonic's attitude to advertise the "hipness" of 90's Sega was always a turn off. But my experience with the cartoon was mostly limited to a YTMND of Sonic's "if a stranger tries to touch you, that's noooo good" message. Man, "You're The Man Now, Dog," that place is still around? I would have thought YouTube snubbed it out.

When I went to watch my DVD set, what I got was one of the most batshit insane things I've ever seen. I can't count the times I was left with my mouth agape, full of half-masticated Wheat Thins, my brain melted by the sheer madness I was watching. The intro alone nearly made me choke on crackers, what with Sonic forming his own name from balloons and planting seeds and ripping Robotnik's mustache off and throwing paint on Scratch and Grounder's dismembered parts. And don't get me started on that town of cannibalistic hot dog people.

And then there was Robotnik himself. On top his over-the-top villainy, somebody on the design team must have had Ren and Stimpy envy when making the character sheet, or maybe they just thought we wanted to see his lovingly rendered butt cheeks every time he turned around and/or bent over.

Okay, for the first five episodes this is the worst of it. And then we hit the sixth episode, the one that starts with the gambler shark swindling some sheep people out of everything they own. After Sonic foils the shark man's robot, it cuts to Robotnik overseeing the construction of a sphinx in his image while lounging around in a loincloth and a diamond stuffed in his belly button.

And before you get your chance to do a double/spit/double-spit take, guess what happens!



They take you in even closer, that's what!

A few episodes later, when that image has just started to fade from memory, Tails goes missing and Sonic shows up at Robotnik's place, demanding to know what Robotnik did to his little buddy. Robotnik doesn't have him, and explains to Sonic that if he did have Tails he'd be torturing him at this moment. As he does this, Robotnik tortures the viewer by making peudo-Playboy poses in the window sill.

This next bit isn't exactly about Robotnik, but still, what the hell is up with his mother?

I mean, she's about eight feet tall, has breasts the size of her head, and, well, she's Robotnik in a dress. WHY DOES SHE HAVE A MUSTACHE??? The only thing that could possibly have made her creepier would be if she was played by Long John Baldry doing a woman's voice.

Uh, jeez, sorry, had to get that off my chest. But she's still not the worst of it. And if there's something worse than that it's gotta be pretty fucked up. Just a couple episodes later, Robotnik goes to play an organ, and as he takes his seat he pulls his ass up over his head and drops it over the bench. At one point during his playing, the camera is so close to him and he's bent so far over the organ that about half the screen is taken up by his undulating ass cheeks.

NOOOOOO!!

And for an extra grossout bonus, try rereading that last paragraph while thinking of a different kind of "organ." I think that sound you just heard was every other one of my readers simultaneously closing their browsers in disgust.

The show eases up on our eyes and other senses for several episodes, then goes out with one last bang. On the second to last episode of Volume 1, Robotnik is giving a speech for the opening of his new water park or whatever, and Sonic scars the minds of Mobians and Earthlings alike by hacking into the system and putting a photo of Robotnik taking a shower on the monitors.

Let's try to forget the image itself for a second (yeah, yeah, I know, I know). Where did it even come from and how did Sonic get it? Did he take it himself? If so, what the hell was he doing spying on Robotnik in the shower? Did he steal it from Scratch and Grounder? Then what the hell were they doing spying on Robotnik in the shower?

That ends Volume 1, and now I have to go bleach my eyes. Oh, and please feel no need to inform me of the hypocrisy in me complaining about the character designer thinking people wanted to see Robotnik's ass, then writing an image-heavy article about it.