Sonic Boom: A Hilarious Self-Aware Take on the Iconic Hedgehog

Sonic Boom is the hedgehog’s first cartoon animated show, and its humorous writing and brilliant character interactions make for one of Sonic and Co.’s funniest adventures yet.

Sonic is no stranger to being on a TV screen. Even in the franchise’s early years there were three shows aired, two even at the same time, and 2003’s Sonic X was the hedgehog’s first foray into anime. Sonic Boom is the fifth TV series and is the first fully cartoon animated, with full 3D CGI animation enabling for higher quality scenes and character expressions. The show ran from 2014 to 2017 and consisted of two 52-episode long seasons.

The series follows Sonic and his best friends: Tails, Knuckles, Amy, and newcomer Sticks the Badger, battling against Dr Eggman and his henchmen (or should I say henchrobots) Orbot and Cubot in short and witty episodes that boil down to an underlying issue that gets resolved by the end of the episode.

Some examples of episodes are when Sonic and Eggman are stuck in a temple that requires teamwork to escape, Knuckles becomes mayor of the village for a day and accepts every proposal the villagers have which causes chaos, and an episode where Sonic and Eggman switch bodies and Sonic in Eggman’s body must get his own body back before Eggman can cause serious damage.

The characters have received drastic overhauls not just to their looks, with proportion sizes changing, but also their tone and personality. Sonic Boom was set to be an alternate universe for the franchise until the video games flopped and the whole idea erased. Sonic is more self-centred, egocentric, and sarcastic, Knuckles is dumb, and Amy is more independent and smarter than her video game counterpart. Dr Eggman is also vastly different, going from a formidable adversary to being flat-out a comedic frenemy to Team Sonic. This was to aid the writing and create a more diverse cast, which works for the better here.

The show is full of fourth wall breaks and self-aware jokes that sometimes make references to other forms of media within the franchise. The character interactions are some of the bests in the entire series, and the new characters are a delightful addition to the cast. Sonic Boom is easily some of Sonic’s best voice acting in the series. The main cast from the games came over to voice their respective characters in Sonic Boom, with stellar performances. The writing enables the voice actors to deliver their character’s range of emotions, for example, Roger Craig Smith as Sonic emphasises the sarcastic and impatient nature of the blue blur extremely well, as well as his massive ego that gets in his way often. The CGI animation is colourful and smooth and enables the characters to be as expressive as they have ever been, enabling the cast to feel more alive and diverse with one another.

Sonic Boom is a cheerful and funny delight of a TV show that does not overstay its welcome. Its mix of action and humour combine to create a show that is engaging, with entertaining characters and some of the best writing in the franchise. It was a shame the show was not successful enough for a third season, but the two seasons we have are well worth a watch. Sonic Boom is now available to stream on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQvlW2MGlKI