The pilot episode of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.
Some elements of it would be used for the first episode of the show, "Super Special Sonic Search and Smash Squad", and the scene in which Robotnik is squashed twice is reused for the credits sequence, but it's mostly non-canon. Jim Cummings (who is his Sonic The Hedgehog SATAM actor) voices Robotnik, rather than Long John Baldry.
This episode provides examples of:
- Badass in Distress: While on the beach, Sonic gets captured by Robotnik when the latter sneaks up on him with his Egg-O-Matic Tunnelizer and Town Terrorizer. Sonic is soon rescued by Tails.
- Bull Seeing Red: Sonic uses a red capote to provoke a bull into charging, causing it to hit the rest of the Badniks chasing him.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: When Sonic has to get the village's water supply back from Robotnik, he is shown to be unafraid of water and swimming very well, in contrast to his canon video game counterpart.
- Inflating Body Gag: After Robotnik is Squashed Flat by his own weight in the scene that gets re-used for the show's closing credits sequence, the next scene shows Scratch using a bicycle pump to inflate him back to his normal state.
- Mustache Vandalism: Inverted; Sonic comes across a billboard that says, ROBOTNIK WANTS YOU, and since Robotnik already has a mustache, he pulls it off.
- Mythology Gag:
- Before Sonic comes across the robot bull, he runs through a checkered loop, much like his video game counterpart does in the games.
- When Sonic is underwater, he gets chased by Mashers, an Octus, and Chop-Chops, all underwater badniks featured in Sonic 2.
- After Sonic foils Robotnik's plan to build a new air base, Robotnik chases after him with a wrecking ball attached to his Egg-O-Matic hovercraft, which is also the boss of Green Hill Zone in Sonic 1.
- Narrator: A narrator voiced by Gary Owens describes the events at the start of each scene, though he wouldn't appear in the rest of the series.
- Pie in the Face: Sonic puts Robotnik in a carnival-like attraction after destroying his Egg-O-Matic Tunnelizer and Town Terrorizer and throws a pie in his face.
- Pilot: For the entire series. The seven-minute pilot produced entirely in America. The pilot doesn't have an overarching story and is more like a series of Looney Tunes-esque vignettes of Sonic foiling Robotnik, but the animation style and slapstick comedy is fairly close to the finished series. It even includes a "Sonic Sez" segment and Jaleel White provides Sonic's voice, but there are some sequences clearly inspired by the games and Jim Cummings provides Robotnik's voice instead of Long John Baldry. Some segments of footage from the pilot were integrated into the series itself, most notably the show's credits sequence.
- Rule of Three: Robotnik has his moustache pulled three times - first by Sonic to annoy him at the meeting with Badniks, then a depiction of him as part of the "Robotnik Wants You" billboard, and when Coconuts gets him out of his tank covered by trees.
- This Is a Drill: Robotnik uses his Egg-O-Matic Tunnelizer and Town Terrorizer (which he would later use in "Lovesick Sonic") to drill in the ground underneath Sonic so he can sneak up on him and snatch him when his back is turned.
