We open in Robotropolis as Antoine is, as usual, showing his usefulness in barely being able to get the correspondance from Uncle Chuck. He easily gets caught by a swat bot, and despite his best grovelling, he still manages to gets caught. Thankfully for him he gets saved by Sonic. Unthankfully he was unable to get the message from Uncle Chuck, and won't admit to his problems. This annoys Sonic enough to ditch the dimwit. But Antoine's additional grovelling is enough to bring Sonic back.
Antoine later comes to Bunny to ask for help with "marshmallow arts". One lesson in the act of martian arts is enough for him, he claims. But it turns out, again, shocker, he's terrible. Now we can add Bunnie to the people sick of Ant's antics.
But Ant's troubles continue to pile up a s he runs afoul of a random motorcycle gang. After showing his amazing "king fu" skills, the gang mess with him and call him their king. While the others decide to find him (using his rotten perfume to track him), Antoine is more than pleased with his new ruler position.
Sonic finds the arrogant Antoine, and refuses to bow to the king. In fact, he has some fun with him. However, Ant is quick to send his goons after him. However, it turns out that as usual Sonic easily bests them. The other freedom fighters come back to try and talk him out of his foolishness, but his ego is so massive that he resigns from the freedom fighters. The others want Antoine to come back, save for Sonic, who asks what qualities Antoine has to the freedom fighters. Sally can only say that he has good hair.
yeah, that's really it.
only to do what Antoine does best.
Out next short is "Ghost Busted", which starts with Sonic teaching Tails about how to track. Wow, I can't believe after technically 16 episodes we finally have more focus on just Sonic and Tails. They really didn't do much with the little guy in season one. And what is they discover while tracking?
Why Antoine of course. He was supposed to help Tails with tracking, but he was distracted by what he claims to be a ghost. We get some continuity with the "King Fu", claiming he tried to best it, but Sonic isn't buying the spook speculation. Sonic believes that it's mostly Ant making an idiot out of himself. That night Sonic tells some scary stories by the fire, with only Antoine being scared, as expected.
The scary stories do eventualyl get to Tails however, who has a a rough night sleeping with the nightmares roaming in his head. He awakens and sees what appears to be a flashing monster in the forest. Sonic doesn't believe him at first, but notices a lack of Antoine. The two make a search for it, using Tails' new tracking skills. They find the glowing creature as Tails flies back to the campsite.
Tails sees the glowing creature again, and ends up getting himself lost in the forest. After some close calls with some spooky bats and owls, he hears Sonic, but still believes it's hte creature. When he sees Sonic with the creature, he thinks the two are in collusion to get him. He runs off, but eventually gets found by Sonic. He gets cornered by the creature and Sonic and the truth is finally revealed. Shocker of shockers, it's Antoine who was the creature all along. He got caught in some foxfire plants and was lighting up.
The next day, the two pack up to come home. Sonic's hesitant to tell Tails any more scary stories, while Antoine is still being, useful. We end the episode with some signs that maybe there were ghosts after all. Wah-Wah?
I really enjoyed both of these mini-episodes more than I thought. Maybe it's just how Rob Paulsen plays him, or maybe it's that when used right he's a really good comic relief character, but Antoine is such a fun character. And yes, at least 48% of these recaps have boiled down to mostly ragging on how useless Antoine is. But weirdly, that's what makes him so great. He's a useless character that always winds up in insane situations. And the two presented here were great. Fed up with Antoine has some great gags, particularly the paprika bit. Also, you can tell the writers kind of like pairing Antoine with Bunnie, and while it's brief, they played off each other brilliantly.
Ghost Busted was a bit of a weaker episode, but still fun nonetheless. What I like about it is that for the first time, it really does feel like a Tails episode. Yes, Antoine's still involved, but the conflict comes from Tails' issues with the scary stories. I also like that we're seeing him more involved, learning how to become a freedom fighter like his hero Sonic. Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog didn't do much right, but I did like that it felt like Tails was important to the series, and up until season two, SatAM really dropped the ball on representing him well. The outcome was pretty predictable, even down to "or was it?" ending, but what was presented was still a fun sit. Two fun little episodes wrapped in a quick 22 minute package that are still fun to watch. Next time, there be dragons.