Follow those footprints Lass- er, Sticks!
Eggman and his robots do some excavating, looking for mech suits and ancient technology. Their digging ends up freeing Og, a subterranean Froglodyte, who causes a bit of trouble for Sonic and company.
Written by Ian Flynn.
Tropes
- Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: When Og manages to fight off the Froglodyte drill sergeant (and later taunts him with Team Sonic's help), the latter forces the Froglodytes to get back into the hole from which they entered the village from.
- Bait-and-Switch: Sticks starts sniffing around the footprints out of Meh Burger, eventually leading to their shack. When Tails asks about this, she says that the sniffing was irrelevant, and that she was following the footprints.
- Big Bad: The Froglodyte Drill Sergeant Nasty usurps the role as the main antagonist here while Eggman's only part here was drilling a hole that freed Og, leading to the Froglodyte sergeant ordering an invasion of the surface world.
- Big Damn Heroes: The usually-outcast Og becomes a One-Man Army and leaps to Sonic and the gang's rescue just as they are outnumbered by the invading Froglodytes. By himself.
- Brick Joke: Eggman is trying to find a Mech Suit by digging around Seaside Island. Turns out, the Og Caves are filled with Ancients and their mech suits.
- Call-Back: Both "Mech Suits Me" and "Counter-Productive" are essentially required watching to understand the significance of what Eggman's talking about when it comes to mech suits on the island and why he's digging, and why Og is annoyed at the Ancients leaving the technology around their caves.
- Commonality Connection: Og and Sticks become fast friends as they bond over playing music and having minimalist lifestyles. Though in the end, Og decides not to move in with Sticks deciding he'll get his own place.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Og is basically a peace loving hippie, and he looks, acts, and sounds the part. When push comes to shove and the other Froglodytes start attacking the village though, he's perfectly capable of kicking ass and sending them back to where they came.
- Denial of Animality: When chasing after Og, Team Sonic encounter an anthromorphic animal who says he's lost his faith in "humanity" — despite the show only having a single human, who is consistently portrayed as a villain.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: The Froglodyte drill sergeant. This guy's basically the R. Lee Ermey of the Boom universe, and if you dare mess with him, you shall face his wrath.
- Even the Rats Won't Touch It: Sonic exclaims that the mess at Meh Burger looks like a wild animal had gotten in. Dave refutes him, explaining that even animals won't eat the restaurant's food according to tests. That's hardly surprising given the ingredients include shredded newspaper and library paste.
- Furry Reminder: Played With. Sticks apparently uses her feral sense of smell to track down a froglodyte who caused the mess at Meh Burger, and then to their shack. In actuality, she was following the footprints like everyone else — the sniffing was just for effect. Then played straight again, as she uses her nose to work out that a froglodyte was sleeping on Amy's couch long before Og admits to doing so.
- Gave Up Too Soon: When Knuckles tries to knock some coconuts off a palm tree, Og advises him to be patient and let Mother Nature provide him. After waiting a whole day and not getting a single coconut, a frustrated Knuckles leaves to take Og to Sticks... and then a bunch of coconuts fall down.
- Heroes Gone Fishing: We get a brief glimpse of Sticks' rarely seen leisure life outside of fighting crime as when Knuckles decides to dump Og on her place, she was playing on a ukulele. Og joins her with his pan flute.
- Ludd Was Right: Og expresses Luddite sentiments towards Tails as he tries to talk Tails out of inventing things comparing Tails to the Ancients who built the mech suits that caused Sonic to go rogue three episodes ago. Tails gets agitated over the unfair comparison and as he tries demonstrating a can opener to Og who also disapproves, the can opener fires away the lid that nearly takes Tails head off.
- Magical Flutist: Og plays a few rounds on his pan flute to meditate while at Sonic's shack, much to the latter's unamusement. Said instrument also comes in handy as background music later on in the episode when he fights off the Froglodytes.
- Mystery Meat: Og is a vegan, and isn't into the mystery slop that other Froglodytes are supposed to eat. When questioned by Sonic why he would eat at Meh Burger, it's revealed that said burgers don't actually have any meat in them, just shredded newspapers and library paste.
- Open Mouth, Insert Foot: When Og insists he comes in peace, Sonic retorts he will be "leaving in pieces", but soon realizes how harsh that sounds to a non-robot.
- Reluctant Warrior: Og turns out to be an excellent fighter despite being a pacifist.Og: I don't like fighting, but I'll do it for a righteous cause.
- Sequel Episode: The episode is a sequel to "Closed Door Policy", an episode of Season 1 that dealt with the Frogloydytes and Sticks' passage blocking their escape onto the island, which is referenced when Og and Sticks discuss living in her burrow, and Sonic objects by reminding them of the passage (the modern shelf is also still there when Sonic goes to check too).
- Series Continuity Error: At the start of the episode Eggman says, "Ancient mech-suits seem to be spread all over the island like Easter eggs". In "New Year's Retribution", Easter is implied to not exist in this universe and instead uses an Alternate Calendar where Christmas and Halloween also don't exist.
- Shout-Out: The Drill Sergeant is clearly one to the sergeant from Full Metal Jacket. One of their lines "WHAT IS YOUR MAJOR MALFUNCTION, TADPOLE?!" is almost a direct quote from the film.
- The Martial arts battle Og takes part in is done in the style of a Bruce Lee flick, complete with appropriate Asiatic music.
- Taunt Button: After Og goes One-Man Army and manages to take down the Froglodytes and their drill sergeant, Team Sonic leap back into action and together, they and Og taunt their enemies back to where they came from.
- Unseen No More: Og, who was mentioned in "Closed Door Policy", makes his on-screen debut in this episode.