Sonic the Hedgehog, and his fox buddy, Miles "Tails" Prower, visit the Lakewood Plaza. Knuckles was tricked by Lord Boxman to hand over his Master Emerald. With Rad and Enid asleep from playing videos game overnight, K.O. teams up with Sonic and Tails to get the Master Emerald back from Boxman, all while he attempts to learn more of the heroic feats of his blue blur idol.
Tropes:
- Actor Allusion: Lord Boxman taking Dr. Robotnik's place plays on Jim Cummings, Boxman's voice actor, having been the voice of Robotnik in Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM).
- Call-Back: The robot K.O. created by Boxman is called "Metal K-0" as opposed to just "Metal K.O.", as a reference to the Mirror Universe robot K.O. seen in "OK A.U.!"
- Character Exaggeration: In keeping with OK K.O.'s zanier and more over-the-top humor (as had previously been done with other crossover characters like Captain Planet), Sonic's more self-centered or brash traits are given focus here, with him accidentally making Tails worry about being replaced and praising himself more frequently than usual.Sonic: (on the topic of the Spin Dash technique) It's, like, one of those things that can't be explained! Like me.
- Crossover: Between Sonic the Hedgehog and OK K.O.!
- Epic Fail: K.O.'s first attempt to Spin Dash ends up with him blowing up.
- Everyone Went to School Together: When explaining why Boxman was trying to capture Sonic, he adds that some "Egghead" he went to college with is always trying to do it.
- Four-Fingered Hands: Played Straight for the the show’s characters, but averted for Sonic and Tails like their own games.
- Fun with Homophones: When Sonic asks for a chili dog, K.O. offers him Dogmun in winter clothing, or a "chilly dog".
- The Ghost:
- Knuckles' Super Gullible actions are what sets off the events of this episode, but the red echidna himself doesn't make any appearances.
- Cream the Rabbit is the only directly named Sonic character that doesn't make an appearance.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Tails becomes jealous because he thinks K.O. replaced him as Sonic's sidekick. To Tails's credit, though, while he rolls his eyes a lot at K.O.'s antics at first, he isn't really outright mean to K.O. despite his jealousy, and even gives him pointers on how to master the Spin Dash, complimenting him once he gets the hang of it.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Lord Boxman attempts to crush the sleeping Rad and Enid, only for Tails to override his remote and crush him instead.
- I Have Your Friends:
- Played straight by Darrell, who grabs Rad and Enid (by wrapping up the blankets they were sleeping on into a sack around them) and racing back to Boxmore with them, telling K.O., Sonic, and Tails that they'll have to follow to save them.
- Double Subverted by Boxman. He didn't intend to do this, as he just wanted Darrell to directly kidnap Sonic and Tails. However, he decides that, since he now has Enid and Rad kidnapped already, he'll just use them as hostages anyway.
- Intercontinuity Crossover: It's a crossover between a video game character (albeit one who has starred in several animated series) and an animated TV character, which is pretty rare for modern media. While non-canon for any Sonic media, it is, however, canon on K.O's side since the latter has had multiple crossovers with several others. And they're all perfectly canon to them too!
- Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Mario appears in K.O.'s crude crayon drawing of Sonic and him at the Sports Games.
- Missed the Call: Rad and Enid sleep through most of the adventure due to staying all night playing video games and don't meet Sonic and Tails until the end.
- Mythology Gag: Plenty for Sonic, not only to his games, but also to his several Animated Adaptations:
- Edvard Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King serves as Sonic's theme throughout the episode, which mixes with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" and Sonic's original game theme in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.
- Tails' entrance is accompanied by a snippet of his theme from Sonic Adventure.
- At the beginning of the episode, K.O. uses a few of Sonic's poses, such as his pose from Sonic Adventure's cover art, and the finger-wagging pose he's had since the very first game. In addition, K.O. is also shown tapping his feet impatiently in a similar style to Sonic's Idle Animation in the classic games.
- The way the beginning and ending of the episode fades to black is a quite clever and technical reference to how Sonic Team handled fade transitions
in their Sega Genesis titles (which was also recreated in Sonic Mania). - KO says that they should be ready for when a legendary hero "3D blasts" through the front door.
- KO's drawings of Sonic depicts his adventures of destroying the Death Egg, fighting Shadow, and winning the Olympics, referred to here as the "Sports Games".
- When Sonic preforms the Light Speed Dash, he says "Gotta light speed, keed!", similar to the various rhyming quotes Sonic would say in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.
- Sonic is seen waiting on his beach chair from the Sonic OVA.
- Tails' flashback about how he created the Spin Dash is based off of his origin story from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Emerald Hill even makes an appearance in this flashback.
- At one point when Sonic pushes Tails off-screen, a death SFX can be heard and then Tails flies back on-screen, referencing how he would die and respawn in Sonic 2 and 3.
- The Sonic Sez segments from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog get featured. At the end, Sonic says "And that's no good!", which is a reference to the
memetic sexual harassment PSA. - Also from the above series, there are snippets of music from the show, Jethro and Darrell emulate Scratch and Grounder, complete with Darrell laughing in a similar fashion to Scratch's "Ha ha, ha ha!" laugh. In addition, Boxman declares that they deserve “promotions,” and the end credits sequence is reproduced (which itself was from the show’s pilot, featuring Jim Cummings as Robotnik).
- Tails appears to keep his Miles Electric up in his sleeves, which is a device that he carried around ever since Sonic Unleashed.
- Lord Boxman quickly succeeds at roboticizing K.O., which has occurred throughout the franchise since the beginning, but the way K.O. is turned into Metal K-0 is much closer to how roboticization is shown in Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) and, by extension, the Archie Comics series.
- Metal K-0 is a stand-in for Metal Sonic. As such, the battle between Metal K-0 and Sonic speeds through recreations of the Sonic the Hedgehog CD ending version of Stardust Speedway (though the place has more of a resemblance to Chemical Plant), before going through a variation of the Knuckles Chaotix Special Stage.
- When Metal K-0 is about to sink into a vat of water, Sonic reaches to save him, gets his hand swatted away, and Metal K-0 says "there can only be one little buddy".
- Right after the above, Sonic jumps into the vat of water to save K.O. after turning him back to normal from there despite not being able to swim. The drowning sound from the Genesis titles can be heard while Metal K-0 is sinking, then as Sonic tries and fails to bring both him and K.O. back to the surface, an interpretation of the infamous drowning music can also be heard playing.
- Tails reaching to grab the drowning Sonic (and K.O.) out of the water vat is similar to Chris rescuing Sonic out of his swimming pool at the end of the first episode of Sonic X, as well as Tails rescuing Sonic out from a deep lake in an episode of Sonic Boom.
- Lord Boxman also belts out the Adventures Robotnik's signature "I hate that hedgehooog!" line towards the end of the episode.
- While sending Sonic off, K.O. recites the eponymous line of the Sonic Adventure 2 theme "Live & Learn".
- Sonic and Tails' departure references Sonic's Golden Ending in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, with them using the Tornado to bring the Master Emerald back to Knuckles on Angel Island.
- Reversible Roboticizing: Metal K-0 is easily turned back to normal after being submerged in water and Sonic spin dashes into him.
- Rolling Attack: K.O. learns how to do a Spin Dash.
- Shout-Out: At one point, Sonic mentions Eggman as “The worst” in a singsong manner similar to Jean-Ralphio Saperstein, a Parks and Recreation character played by Ben Schwartz, who was planned and would later be the voice of Sonic in the 2020 film.
- Squee: KO, a big fan of Sonic, does this when the Hedgehog enters Mr. Gar's Bodega.
- Super Gullible: Knuckles the Echidna as usual. Lord Boxman cons him into handing over the Master Emerald by saying he needs it for a museum exhibit.
- Suspiciously Similar Song: Sonic's theme is inspired by but distinct from Live and Learn, while Tails' cribs from Emerald Coast's first theme.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Boxman, Darrell, and Jethro are clearly meant to represent Dr. Robotnik, Scratch, and Grounder.
- Unwilling Roboticisation: Upon being captured by Boxman, K.O. is turned into Metal K-0
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Sonic is very unpleased when his fight against Metal K-0 gets him chased towards a humongously-deep vat of water.Sonic: Oh... Water...
- Writing Around Trademarks: K.O. mentions Sonic winning the Summer and Winter Sports Games, rather than the Olympic Games, which is copyrighted.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Sonic and Tails are not too thrilled that Boxman conned Knuckles out of the Master Emerald.
