The twenty-second episode of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.
Robotnik constructs a robotic replica of Sonic to ruin Sonic's reputation and forces Lawrence the Lab Rat to pilot it, threatening to kill his parents if he refuses. Sonic comes face-to-face with Lawrence in Poison Flower Valley, and the two get a bad case of Poison Flower Pox as a result. With Sonic down for the count, Tails uses Pseudo Sonic to rescue Lawrence's parents.
This episode provides examples of:
- Anvil on Head: When Grounder mistakes Pseudo Sonic for the real Sonic, he tries to stop him by tossing an anvil at him. Pseudo Sonic dodges the anvil, causing it to fall back on Grounder.
- Assurance Backfire: At the end of the episode, while Robotnik is in the hospital moaning about how Sonic destroyed his Pseudo Sonic, cleared his name, and freed his lab rats, Scratch and Grounder tried to comfort him by saying he still had them.
- Bigger on the Inside: The Pseudo Sonic robot is this, since it's roughly Sonic's height on the outside yet oddly spacious inside when Lawrence and Tails are piloting it.
- Boom in the Hand: Scratch mistakes Pseudo Sonic for the real Sonic and tries to stop him with a bubble gum bomb. However, like the real Sonic, Pseudo Sonic won't hold still, and the fuse runs down before Scratch can throw the bomb. Cue the bomb exploding and Scratch getting covered in bubble gum.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: Tails when piloting Pseudo Sonic.Tails: “I’m hitting my speed, keed!”
- Bowdlerise: The Toon Disney broadcast of this episode cuts out a scene where Pseudo Sonic places a grenade in the Rabbit Gardener's lamp, leading to a minor Plot Hole where the lamp still explodes when the Rabbit Gardener pulls the switch.
- Burning Rubber: During their chase, both Sonic and Pseudo Sonic leave a trail of fire along the way.
- Clothing Switch: Pseudo Sonic's first crime involves stealing a priceless jewel crown from the Mobius Museum. As he does this, he runs past the museum's curator and a lady, stripping them of their clothes and leaving them in their underwear. After stealing the crown, he runs past the curator and the lady again, this time dressing them in each other's clothes, much to their horror.
- Evil Knockoff: Pseudo Sonic is this to Sonic, being created by Robotnik to ruin Sonic's reputation by committing crimes. Because it can run as fast as the real Sonic, it doesn't stand still long enough for anyone to notice it's obviously a robot.
- Forced into Evil: Lawrence was forced to pilot Pseudo Sonic and frame Sonic for various crimes because Robotnik threatened to kill his parents with a Surface-to-Sonic missile if he refused.
- Helping Granny Cross the Street: Played with; Pseudo Sonic helps an Elderly Lady cross the street deliberately at the wrong time so that she will get run over by a bus. This later comes to bite the real Sonic on the butt, as the Elderly Lady thinks he had her run over, and tries to alert the police to arrest him.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Robotnik makes Sonic this when he has Lawrence pilot Pseudo Sonic to frame the real Sonic for various crimes.
- I Have Your Wife: Robotnik holds Lawrence's parents hostage, threatening to kill them unless Lawrence does as he says.
- Impact Silhouette: While piloting Pseudo Sonic, Tails has no way to go through the doors other than bashing through them, leaving Pseudo Sonic-shaped holes in them.
- Inflating Body Gag: Sonic follows Pseudo Sonic, and the two wind up in Poison Flower Valley. Since poison flowers have similar effects to poison ivy, they make Sonic and Lawrence extremely itchy, then make them bloat like balloons. They stay that way for the rest of this episode (excluding its "Sonic Says" segment).
- Know Your Vines:
- When Sonic and Lawrence fall into Poison Flower Valley, they both suffer cases of Poison Flower Pox, which cause them to itch and swell up.
- In this episode's "Sonic Says" segment, Sonic tells the viewers that while there may not be any poison flowers on earth, there's a lot of poison ivy. He shows them what poison ivy looks like, advises them to stay away from it, and to get help fast if they do touch it and start itching.
- Literal Metaphor: One of Pseudo Sonic's crimes involves him taking candy from a baby.
- Mistaken Identity:
- When Scratch and Grounder first see Pseudo Sonic, they mistake him for the real Sonic and think he's trying to attack Robotnik. They continue to mistake Pseudo Sonic for the real Sonic after they capture Tails piloting him, and one last time when Tails tricks them into destroying him with the Surface-to-Sonic missile.
- The Elderly Lady who was run over by a bus mistakes the real Sonic for Pseudo Sonic and tries to alert the police to arrest him.
- Mythology Gag:
- Though this episode predates the first appearance of Metal Sonic, Pseudo Sonic was inspired by Robo Sonic, the penultimate boss of Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
- Lawrence and Tails pilot Pseudo Sonic, a reference to how small animals pilot the robots in the games, and escape when Sonic destroys the robots.
- Ocular Gushers: A baby cries this way after Pseudo Sonic takes his candy, and a dog also cries this way when Pseudo Sonic swaps his bone for a bubble gum bomb and the latter explodes in his face.
- Pie in the Face: Pseudo Sonic does this to the newscaster as she reports on the various crimes allegedly committed by the real Sonic.
- Poke the Poodle: The majority of Pseudo Sonic's crimes are mean-spirited pranks.
- Robot Me: Robotnik invents Pseudo Sonic, a robot resembling the real Sonic, to frame Sonic for various crimes.
- Squashed Flat: Happens to the Elderly Lady when she gets run over by a bus. She of course survives, and when she comes across the real Sonic, she mistakes him for Pseudo Sonic and tries to alert the police to arrest him.
- Sticky Situation: Scratch tries to stop Pseudo Sonic with a bubble-gum bomb, only for the bomb to explode on him, covering him in bubble gum. Pseudo Sonic is later seen using one on a dog.
