So, here's another episode of Sonic the Hedgehog that contains two short stories instead of a full, twenty minute one. The last one I looked at was a double-dose of Antoine and... I'm sorry to say this one is too. In fact, Antoine is far more annoying here than he was last time. I really think he was the producers' favorite character, because I can see no other reason why they focus so much attention on him and why he had so many stories revolving around him. He's not funny, he's obnoxious, he's fodder for entertaining small children. Thank goodness Rob Paulsen is fun to listen to, and you can tell he's having a lot of fun playing this character. In fact, I think Paulsen once said Antoine was his favorite character to play. Personally, my favorite Paulsen character is Raphael, but anyway, let's take a look at Fed Up with Antoine (most appropriate, meta title ever) and Ghost Busted, in light of today being Halloween. We open on a dark, desolate street in Robotropolis where Antoine was supposed to meet up with Sonic after collecting a message from Uncle Chuck. Bet you can already guess he fouled that up and didn't get the message. Sonic saves his worthless hide from a Swat Bot and is understandably angry when he learns Monsieur L'idiot didn't get their important inside information. Naturally, Antoine acts arrogant and stuck-up about it, so Sonic threatens to leave him there. Oh no, please, Sonic, Robotropolis has suffered enough. Oh of course, he takes the cowardly Frenchman back to Knothole, and I can only assume the message from Uncle Chuck wasn't important as the matter is never addressed again. Next day, Antoine watches as Bunny teaches Tails martial arts and asks her to teach him "marshmallow arts." Oh God. As you can expect, he's also clumsy, accidentally kicking a dummy of Dr. Robotnik into Sonic's hut and right onto the hedgehog himself. He next somehow causes himself to crash into Sonic, who rightfully kicks him away. You know, this type of scenario where everyone is angry at someone and he leaves as we're meant to feel sorry for him doesn't work here. Antoine is entirely in the wrong and we don't feel sorry for him. When Sonic and Bunny call him clumsy and say he's a nuisance, he IS. They're right! So, he goes off alone in the woods practice what he calls "king fu," or as I call it, "kung fool." Instantly, he crosses paths with a tough gang of hyena bikers, who are about to give him whatfor, until he again uses the words "king fu" and that instantly makes them think he's a king. Wow, what a gang of easily led bikers. They take his royal pain-in-the-highness back to their hideout, where he sits on a throne, wears a tin can for a crown and makes frivolous requests of his "pheasants". Eventually, Sonic and the others get worried about Antoine and go look for him, and when the hedgehog sees that he's been named king, he finds it hilarious, as do we. Despite Sally and Bunny trying to persuade him, Antoine announces that he is resigning from the freedom fighters, and at Sonic's insistence, they leave him there, unable to cite any use he was to their movement. I agree, leave him behind. However, Sally decides to do a little digging into this hyena gang, and she discovers that they're a group of cannibals who eat their king! In other words, those laughing jackals have a hankering for French food. The next day, Antoine finds himself in a boiling pot, oblivious to what was about to happen, and I like how his friends wait until evening to rescue him. But then, why would it take that long to cook him? I've heard of slow cooking, but this is ridiculous. Anyway, Sonic goes back to save Antoine who, in a rare bout of usefulness, saves Sonic when he's nearly attacked. Of course, Antoine took full credit for his rescue and demonstrates his "heroic" moves to those back at Knothole, with someone lamenting, "we should've let them eat him." Yes you should have, but I guess you spared those hyenas a really serious case of indigestion. This one was very annoying, as it's the type of story where you're meant to feel sorry for the protagonist and think his friends were too hard on him, but it doesn't work with Antoine. We don't feel sorry for him, his friends are absolutely right, and he's such a one-note character. Maybe the next story will be better?
Sonic and Tails are camping in the woods, with the hedgehog teaching his little buddy the art of tracking prey. Their intended target was Antoine, who reeks of fine perfume, however scent wasn't needed to track him but rather ears, as the clumsy fool was falling down a cliff and screaming for help. They find him in a mud puddle, claiming to have seen a ghost. Sonic and Tails laugh it off and later that night, around the campfire, the hedgehog tells his little pal a story about a gopher highwayman who stole a gold medallion from a sorcerer and lost his head, and he still haunts these woods. This story terrifies Antoine was just... sitting there sucking his thumb for some reason. Man, he's pathetic. Before hitting the hay, Sonic tells Tails another ghost story, this one is about an evil spirit who decided to become a duck...as you do. Anyway, Tails has trouble sleeping that night, as he looked up at the moon, which now had the face of a duck. 'I am terror that flaps in the night, I am the moon giving you a cheesy grin.' He next sees the headless gopher ghost, which has a pair of evil, disembodied eyes, riding an angry bull and carrying a gold medallion. But the worst thing of all was a large, misshapen yellow creature that had a strobe light effect, marching like a zombie through the woods. He wakes up Sonic and they discover Antoine is missing. Now if you're like me, you put two and two together quickly and deduced who that ghost is, but we'll play along for now. Sonic goes to investigate, leaving Tails to fend for himself, as he wanders the spooky woods and into a cave, infested with bats. He runs, flies and stumbles around the woods, tormented with visions of headless gophers and duck-faced moons, and fearing that the yellow glowing ghost has possessed Sonic's mind. Man, this kid has a really overactive imagination. Eventually, he gets cornered by the glowing ghost, who Sonics points out as being Antoine (called it!) who accidentally stumbled into a patch of fox fire plants. How convenient. Next day, they pack up and leave, with Sonic reiterating that ghosts aren't real... that is until Tails finds the golden medallion under his sleeping bag, and they hear a horrific cackling! They scream in fright and haul ass right out of there. So I guess the moral of our stories are: self-awareness can be a strength so have a hefty supply, and watch where you sleepwalk because you can become a strobe lighted ghost and scare little kids with active imaginations to death... and then find out ghosts are real? Why would I expect anything less?
These episodes are not great, but they're not terrible. Well, "Ghost Busted" was kinda fun, but boy was "Fed Up With Antoine" a chore. I've already stated how useless and pointless this character is, so there's no point in going over it again. He's clearly there for comic relief, except he's not funny. They didn't try to build or give any depth to his character, he's like this throughout the entire series. Maybe little kids find him funny, but the adults, especially the French, find him downright incorrigible. Not much plot to these stories, and I'm not sure why they did two minisodes instead of just one big one. They could have built on and expanded these stories into half hour segments, like say, in "Fed Up With Antoine", perhaps the cowardly Frenchman could finally learn a lesson, and maybe it would be up to him to save his friends when, like, maybe all of Knothole gets captured. He could end up saving the day and learn some humility. I mean, it would be gone by the next episode, but at least we would finally get a reason to care about this guy and see him learn from his mistakes. Instead, we get him acting like a highfalutin creep with a complete lack of self-awareness, and although he does save Sonic, he takes all the credit and claims he's a master of king-fu. This is why nobody likes you, Antoine! And as for "Ghost Busted", make it the whole show, like have Robotnik invent some kind of soundwave generator to make them think the forest is haunted, or use some kind of... holographic projector to make ghosts, or something of that nature, or make it a real ghost who possesses the forest, but Sonic convinces him not to be evil, and he scares the pants off Robotnik. I know, I'm just reaching here. "Ghost Busted" was fine the way it was, but Len Janson could've done a much better job with the Antoine one. But gripes aside, the animation and voicework were really good, and it's still a fun show. If you like these shorts and want to see Tails get in on the action, then check out "Ghost Busted", but by all means, skip "Fed Up With Antoine." What are my personal feelings about him? To quote John Hammond: "I really hate that man."
Sonic and Tails are camping in the woods, with the hedgehog teaching his little buddy the art of tracking prey. Their intended target was Antoine, who reeks of fine perfume, however scent wasn't needed to track him but rather ears, as the clumsy fool was falling down a cliff and screaming for help. They find him in a mud puddle, claiming to have seen a ghost. Sonic and Tails laugh it off and later that night, around the campfire, the hedgehog tells his little pal a story about a gopher highwayman who stole a gold medallion from a sorcerer and lost his head, and he still haunts these woods. This story terrifies Antoine was just... sitting there sucking his thumb for some reason. Man, he's pathetic. Before hitting the hay, Sonic tells Tails another ghost story, this one is about an evil spirit who decided to become a duck...as you do. Anyway, Tails has trouble sleeping that night, as he looked up at the moon, which now had the face of a duck. 'I am terror that flaps in the night, I am the moon giving you a cheesy grin.' He next sees the headless gopher ghost, which has a pair of evil, disembodied eyes, riding an angry bull and carrying a gold medallion. But the worst thing of all was a large, misshapen yellow creature that had a strobe light effect, marching like a zombie through the woods. He wakes up Sonic and they discover Antoine is missing. Now if you're like me, you put two and two together quickly and deduced who that ghost is, but we'll play along for now. Sonic goes to investigate, leaving Tails to fend for himself, as he wanders the spooky woods and into a cave, infested with bats. He runs, flies and stumbles around the woods, tormented with visions of headless gophers and duck-faced moons, and fearing that the yellow glowing ghost has possessed Sonic's mind. Man, this kid has a really overactive imagination. Eventually, he gets cornered by the glowing ghost, who Sonics points out as being Antoine (called it!) who accidentally stumbled into a patch of fox fire plants. How convenient. Next day, they pack up and leave, with Sonic reiterating that ghosts aren't real... that is until Tails finds the golden medallion under his sleeping bag, and they hear a horrific cackling! They scream in fright and haul ass right out of there. So I guess the moral of our stories are: self-awareness can be a strength so have a hefty supply, and watch where you sleepwalk because you can become a strobe lighted ghost and scare little kids with active imaginations to death... and then find out ghosts are real? Why would I expect anything less?
These episodes are not great, but they're not terrible. Well, "Ghost Busted" was kinda fun, but boy was "Fed Up With Antoine" a chore. I've already stated how useless and pointless this character is, so there's no point in going over it again. He's clearly there for comic relief, except he's not funny. They didn't try to build or give any depth to his character, he's like this throughout the entire series. Maybe little kids find him funny, but the adults, especially the French, find him downright incorrigible. Not much plot to these stories, and I'm not sure why they did two minisodes instead of just one big one. They could have built on and expanded these stories into half hour segments, like say, in "Fed Up With Antoine", perhaps the cowardly Frenchman could finally learn a lesson, and maybe it would be up to him to save his friends when, like, maybe all of Knothole gets captured. He could end up saving the day and learn some humility. I mean, it would be gone by the next episode, but at least we would finally get a reason to care about this guy and see him learn from his mistakes. Instead, we get him acting like a highfalutin creep with a complete lack of self-awareness, and although he does save Sonic, he takes all the credit and claims he's a master of king-fu. This is why nobody likes you, Antoine! And as for "Ghost Busted", make it the whole show, like have Robotnik invent some kind of soundwave generator to make them think the forest is haunted, or use some kind of... holographic projector to make ghosts, or something of that nature, or make it a real ghost who possesses the forest, but Sonic convinces him not to be evil, and he scares the pants off Robotnik. I know, I'm just reaching here. "Ghost Busted" was fine the way it was, but Len Janson could've done a much better job with the Antoine one. But gripes aside, the animation and voicework were really good, and it's still a fun show. If you like these shorts and want to see Tails get in on the action, then check out "Ghost Busted", but by all means, skip "Fed Up With Antoine." What are my personal feelings about him? To quote John Hammond: "I really hate that man."