Dr. Robotnik (The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog)

'''Note: This will talk about his incarnation from the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. Click here for the page that discusses about Dr. Eggman in the games (and other portrayals of Eggman). Also, this page is dedicated to John William "Long John" Baldry, may he rest in peace'''.

"Robotnik is... to me the perfect image of self-love. He's not perfect, he's imperfect... his full-blown belief in himself. He is actually extremely excited by the fact that he exists, and the fact the others do not feel the same way simply spurs him on to greater heights of villainy. He is jealous of the hedgehog -- why should he get the applause? Give it to Robotnik! He really believes in his own romantic self and... I don't know if I'm getting too adult here but in his own sexiness, "Animation's sexiest fat man"."

- Milton Knight describes Robotnik's narcissism as a part of his character.

'''Dr. Ivo. Robotnik, better known as Dr. Robotnik', is the main antagonist of the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog'' series. He's a human scientist with an IQ of 300 and dreams of dominating Mobius and turning it into Robotropolious, but his constant plots to conquer Mobius are always thwarted by Sonic and his friends like Tails, Professor Von Schlemmer, Professor Caninestein, and many more to list. Robotnik has a more comical "evil genius" persona than any other interpretation of the character. Rather than being the sadistic misanthrope that he is in the video games and other shows, in AoSTH however, he is more of a comedic foil for Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends to poke fun at.

Background
He has an abusive mother who raised Robotnik to be a lying scoundrel and to never tell the truth, practically raising him to become what he is today; this was also revealed in "Zoobotnik" as Momma Robotnik spanked Robotnik for telling the truth about what went wrong. As the verbal and physically demeaning abuse he receives from his mother was what raised him to be evil. And he has a mentally unstable cousin who Robotnik sent him to the World of Confusion for Warpnik's sheer insanity.

Robotnik became the villain that he is today ever since he was a teenager due to having a personal vendetta over Lucas being a love interest for Lucidina, a woman Robotnik loved and desired to be married to since he was a teenager, who cared more about Lucas and wanted nothing to do with Robotnik whatsoever. This led to Robotnik trapping him in a cage for thirty years and beginning his villainous career.

He created a squad of his own called the S.S.S.S. Squad, which has an organization that includes many robots of his own that were "hired" to catch and subdue Sonic the Hedgehog singlehandedly, where Robotnik would destroy Sonic himself. Scratch, Grounder, and Coconuts are his most notable members that are infamous for screwing up at catching Sonic, this is one of the biggest reasons his plans backfire and one of the biggest reasons why he mistreats the aforementioned trio through physical assault and verbal abuse. It's taken to the point where Robotnik's strongest weak points are taken to a fault are his extreme levels of arrogance and his countless shortcomings with defeating Sonic due to his fair share of mental lapses behind his actions like how he almost always places the blame for any failure on his underlings or anyone than himself. It's quite clear that Robotnik is not the smartest character or at the very least, not the most effective character in this show due to how much he is lacking in some level of common sense and showing a huge level of incompetence whilst still being all-knowing in robotology, wordplay, science, and self-image. Nonetheless, he is a cowardly and childish but still a very evil man, betraying everyone whenever he can yet still trying to lie his way out of situations by promising wealth and fortune for compliance. It is often made very clear that he would do whatever it takes to rule the planet of Mobius, even if it means the suffering of those around him.

Despite the comedic tone of his character to enforce the series' style of 'absurd fun' like Robotnik's humorous insults, hammy mannerisms, sarcastic wit, and constant failures to achieve most of his plans, Robotnik has demonstrated that he was capable of being threatening despite being inefficient, angry, childish and a very goofy villain. Notable cases of these include the episode "Mass Transit Trouble"; which involved him sabotaging mass transit systems all across Mobius with bombs that'd kill everyone and such to the point that Sonic couldn't save everyone at once. He also has kidnapped plenty of Mobian people, most notably Tails and Professor Von Schlemmer. Robotnik either forced them to create a weapon to use against Sonic, or made death threats to further Robotnik's goals. There were times when he can be violent, aggressive, or belligerent when he needs to be as seen in episodes like "Sonic's Breakout" and "Super Robotnik" for example, all because of how wrathful, egotistical and short-tempered he can be, showing how much of a formidable streak he has if he isn't being pathetic or whenever Sonic isn't hindering Robotnik.

Why He's An Amazingly Hilarious Version of Eggman

 * 1) As the very first portrayal of Eggman to be seen on television, his portrayal as an egotistical, tyrannical, self-serving, underhanded, and humorous mad scientist with a pompous attitude and personal hatred towards Sonic is extremely entertaining, funny, and unforgettable, and is by far, the most memeable/fan-favorite incarnation of Eggman ever made, right next to the more recent Fan-Dubs Eggman.
 * 2) He is an entertainingly over-the-top villain who felt fairly dominant and passionate, yet still human and fallible in character.
 * 3) Despite him often being the flamboyant, hotheaded, frustrated, and hare-brained comic foil to Sonic and his friends when Robotnik has an "Elmer Fudd vs Bugs Bunny" type of relationship with Sonic, there were episodes that have let Robotnik have his glorious moments of nearly succeeding at his plans and being somewhat of a threat outside his generally bumbling, childish and ridiculous nature (i.e "Super Robotnik" is a prime example).
 * 4) His exaggerated personality perfectly fits mh:besttvshows:Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog’s tone of "absurd fun".
 * Long John Baldry did an awesome and brilliantly entertaining job voicing him. You can just tell that he is having a blast voicing him by providing a comically hammy tone to Robotnik's British-sounding voice, making Robotnik incredibly expressive and exuberant whenever he expresses distress, misery, concern, zeal, sarcasm, deceit, fury, joy, megalomania and pensive thought.
 * 1) * He has a very unique vocal characteristic, placing a lot of emphasis on his speech, most notably rolling all his "R"s.
 * 2) * The jabbers, laughs, and growls he makes are just as amazing and perfectly fit Robotnik's comedic traits like his wrath.
 * 3) * Whenever he sings, it's like he does opera and it makes sense since Long John Baldry was one of the many vocalists to sing the blues in clubs.
 * 4) Due to Robotnik's levels of charm and enjoyability as a character, he has spawned a lot of memes (even to this day after the PINGAS meme was already overused), and it's all thanks to Robotnik himself (and the talented Long John Baldry who will always be remembered).
 * 5) Even when he's paired with his dim-witted assistants, he still manages to steal the show due to his humorous personality.
 * 6) * It's always entertaining and hilarious to see Robotnik lashing his anger at his robotic henchmen for being complete idiots who can't do anything right.
 * 7) He single-handedly brought the show alive. His manic, exaggerated, and purely comedic personality made almost every scene featuring him both insanely amusing as a mostly ineffectual yet eccentric villain that shows signs of hilarious egotism. Especially since he is depicted as the comic foil for Sonic to poke fun at, yet he is still intriguing as a character who was given a lot of focus as a secondary main character for how persistently underhanded and ambitious he is (especially with glorious moments of nearly succeeding at his plans and actually imposing a threat for once). His very presence and his ridiculous, campy, and wonderfully hammy moments still make him much more fun to watch than usual.
 * 8) His comedically harsh, sophisticated, witty, and silly-sounding insults and retorts are extremely hilarious, quotable, and entertaining to listen to.
 * 9) * Examples of these include "You metallic morons!" & "That blasted hedgehog!" as two examples from his series of insults.
 * 10) * They are always varied as a form of puns, wordplay, and the word usage can sometimes even be clever enough to the point of teaching different and unusual bits of vocabulary that aren't often said or used for the intended young audience that Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog was set on. These range from conventional insults like "twerps", "boneheads", "fool", "brats", "idiots", "nitwits", "nincompoops", "pests", and "incompetent fools". To the much more unique, distinctive, or wackier bits of dialogue like "You metallic morons!", "You dumb-bots!", "You fish-fondling fruitcake!", "That blasted hedgehog!", "That blue brrat-nik!", "You bolt-brained dolt!", "You breakaway bumpkin!", "You clanking cretins!", "You despicable rrruiner of rrromance!", "You dunce-bots!", "Those unsuspecting fogies", "You brrrainless buffoons", "You glorified porcupine!", "That heinous hedgehog!", "You ingrates!", "You insolent junkpile!", "You lamebrrrained, knuckle-drrragging dork!", "That meddling, high-speed hedgehog!", "You metal-brrrained meatheads!", "You miserable mess of micro-chips!", "Nicombots!", "Rapscallion!", "You shrrrimpy sherlock!", "Listen to me you, sniveling tokey robot!", "You steel-headed stupid-niks!", and especially "You two-tailed two-timer!".
 * 11) Despite being a buffoon and a childishly incompetent narcissist, there were a fair amount of times when he can be quite dangerous. As he did manage to keep Sonic (or his friends) captive at times, has terrorized Mobius plenty of times, and has a formidable streak that most Mobians tend to underestimate of him.
 * 12) * There were many implications that Robotnik took over Mobius, in episodes like "Musta Been A Beautiful Baby" showcased Robotnik his trophies and awards for conquering Mobius, and in the Christmas episode "Sonic's Christmas Blast"; it is shown that he literally takes over Mobius and turned it into Robotropolis as you see statues of Robotnik everywhere and Sonic, while making a hoax to trick Scratch and Grounder, claimed that he'd have to pay Scratch and Grounder in Robotnik Bucks.
 * 13) His powerful and empowered egos, Super Robotnik and Supreme High Robotnik, are incredibly awesome. As both of these ultimate forms are great examples of making him a good threat to Sonic, as his comedic traits make him all the more entertaining.
 * 14) He even got his own game in the 90s for the very first time! That being Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine (1993), which is an addictive Puyo-Puyo-styled game.
 * 15) * Of the game, the way he is animated in the 16-bit game is spastic and energetic, making him full of life.
 * 16) * In the 8-bit cutscenes, he may be typically bossy with his henchmen, but his phrase "Now quit smirking and start working.", is pretty cool.
 * 17) * Even though in the show all of his droids are hopelessly stupid, his robots in this game are far more intelligent and formidable to beat. To the point where it's surprising how intelligent Scratch and Grounder's AI is, and especially the robots that Sonic easily tricked in the pilot (the final three before Scratch in particular), in a puzzle game no less!
 * 18) All of his theme songs is pure gold, as it's the most iconic theme for a villain ever made!
 * 19) His scientific gadgets, interior designing, and contraptions are very creative and extravagant, especially by sci-fi standards.
 * 20) Despite being narcissistic and a power-hungry megalomaniac throughout the show, he is extremely sympathetic. As revealed in "Zoobotnik", Sonic enjoys making Robotnik suffer even though Sonic had several opportunities to get rid of Robotnik for good, and Robotnik also has an abusive mom who wants him to be evil, always coming back to make Robotnik win or to humiliate him for not being a threat. So where his incompetence is often comedic, it can raise a certain level of sympathy. This is carried to the point where Robotnik was considered rootable by many fans.
 * 21) He also provided tons of quotable/unforgettable one-liners and dialogue, these include:
 * 22) * “Snooping as usual I see!”
 * 23) * “I've called you all together because you're the worst assortment of low-life mercenaries I ever made! You're mean! You're malicious! You're my kind of rotten!!!!”
 * 24) * “Ever since I launched my ingenious plan to conquer the planet Mobius, one trouble-making teenager has made me tear every hair from my beautiful head!!”
 * 25) * “I HATE THAT HEDGEHOG!”
 * 26) * “No-wa!”
 * 27) *“Sonic!! They are doomed! There is no escape! From the wrath, of Rrrobotnik!”
 * 28) *“Sonic fell for it! Tails is ours! I'll have to give myself a prrrrrrromotion!!”
 * 29) * “Me??? Keep a prrromise? That's rich! Fools, idiots!”
 * 30) * “You are corrrect, you should've captured Sonic!!”
 * 31) * “Five miles of my sewer unplugged with crrudge and sludge, go and clean it out!!”
 * 32) * “Hahahahaha how gorgeously grrross! How fantastically frrightful! Now all of Mobius will be in my power!!”
 * 33) * “Scare everrybody out of their pants! I want the village cleared! I just live for these mean moments.”
 * 34) * “He's out there still! Mocking me with his scarless speed!”
 * 35) * “Yes! That's it! My eyes like pools, my teeth like polished ivory! That's what I look like!!”
 * 36) * “Get on with it you pre-fabricated piece of poultry!”
 * 37) * “You got trouble spine-puss!”
 * 38) * “What are you doing? You mutinous mutants!”
 * 39) * “You metallic morons!!”
 * 40) * “You miserable micrro-brains! You bunch of blunders! You metal-brained meatheads!!”
 * 41) * “Then allow me to repeat myself yet again! YOU! ARE! NINCOMBOTS!!”
 * 42) * “Then go open it YOU nincom-bot! You stupor! You miserable mess of micro-chips!!”
 * 43) * “A rock?! You brrrought me a rrrrock?!?!”
 * 44) * “It's my new Eggomatic tunnel-izer and my town terrorizer!! See that ugly empty space in front of my fortress? In six hours that village will be gone!! Vanished! Destroyed! Obliterated!! I'm flooding it! I'm going tunnel into the main Mobius reservoir, steal all of its water, and turn that town into Lake, Rrrrobotnik!”
 * 45) * “You two-tailed two-timer! If you weren't duped already, YOU'D be doomed!!”
 * 46) * “Of course there's a Robotnik day! I just declared it one minute ago, in honor of myself!”
 * 47) * “No one can outsmart me!! For I am Rrrobotnik! Evil genius extraordinaire! How dare you insult me!”
 * 48) *“I'm never in trouble, I make trouble!”
 * 49) * “That tears it!! I always say if you can't join 'em, beat 'em!!!”
 * 50) * “I thought I was rid of you, you fish-fondling fruitcake!!”
 * 51) * “🎵Merry Christmas to me!! Merrry Christmas to, me!🎵 Ah, hapPINess is always so much more enjoyable! When it's based on the misery of millions.”
 * 52) * “That vile little crrreature, that prrrickly vermin!”

Bad Qualities

 * 1) He can be so irrational and immature, that not only does his behavior cause him many backfires on his countless plans, but he has some truly moronic and questionable moments. The biggest example of this is being easily deceived by Sonic whenever he gets the best of him (to the point of  marrying Sonic even!  in the episode "Best Hedgehog"). Another moment includes Eggman crying like a baby as his face gets red in "Sonic's Breakout".
 * 2) * Even though he claims to have conquered half of Mobius, to the point where Robotropolis is a theme in Sonic's Christmas Blast, he doesn't seem to have Mobians that respect him nor fear him unless Robotnik terrorizes Mobius. Making it seem like Mobius is as peaceful as it is.
 * 3) Many of his decisions put into his plans tend to be very problematic, hare-brained, and foolish in execution, it often causes him to be very bumbling and vulnerable to being defeated very often. Despite being condescending and a "genius", his plans always backfire due to his egotism, occasionally exploitable gullibility, prolonged procrastination, and lack of keen premeditation. As he often toys around with whatever powers he possesses (and not using them to his full advantage) and would make impulsive mistakes towards his underhanded plans of action, sometimes sharing his plans in front of his victims before he does anything.
 * 4) * Despite being a genius with single-minded goals, he doesn't seem to realize capturing his most hated enemy may require some physical effort on his part to get rid of him for good. At this point, you'd think he would either step up his game or quit whining about his failures and issues but he still fails at his plans due to his lack of premeditation.
 * 5) ** In “Hero Of The Year”, even though he forced Sonic to surrender or else his friends will be drowned in their ship (as well as planning to sink Sonic's friends to prevent Sonic from succeeding), he did nothing but procrastinate on his conquest for conquering Mobius by making a celebration with nobody but Scratch and Grounder and relishing on his past actions, not realizing that his agreement he made with Wes Weasely would backfire given how much he'd help anyone for cash.
 * 6) ** In episodes like "Sonic Breakout", "Sonically Ever After", "Super Robotnik", and most especially "Lifestyles of the Sick and Twisted". The latter has him managing to successfully capture Sonic, Tails, and the niece of Throbbin, all of which are chained over a pit of lava, which he chains Sonic with clever use of double-crossing towards his and Sonic's deal. But instead of killing off Sonic like he claimed he wanted to do when he had the perfect chance to do so, he decided to sing and dance before killing Sonic, procrastinating with offing Sonic over his endless narcissism and obsession with show tunes. He even complied with Sonic's final request with getting a makeup artist for him, which obviously makes Sonic have the lucky opportunity to deceive him and his henchmen, all by replacing Sonic himself with an unfaithful lookalike in chains for Robotnik to interview and Sonic gets to humiliate Robotnik on live television.
 * 7) * Even though his gadgets and contraptions are impressive, his robots tend to be very useless. As they are either complete idiots (that being Scratch, Grounder, Coconuts, and many more to list) or traitors who'd betray Robotnik when Sonic gets them to be good (ex. Breezie and Robotnik Jr). At worst, some of Robotnik's droids can turn out to be disobedient or even worse, good-willed. At best, they are loyal but incompetent fools like Scratch and Grounder themselves.
 * 8) * In Sonic's Christmas Blast, while the idea of removing the joy from Mobius sounds doable, the mere exception with this idea by him replacing Santa Claus and calling himself "Robotnik Claus" on live television is extremely laughable, and his plans for this turn of events like making his minions get all of the presents in Robotropolious (not Mobius by the way; this episode heavily implies Robotnik took over Mobius), while he fakes his act as Robotnik Claus as well as ordering his henchmen, Scratch and Grounder, to capture Sonic, is very absurd and aimless. Especially since Robotnik orders his minions to build countless chimnies on his fortress for those presents, getting children to sit on his lap as an act to trick the public into thinking Robotnik is good as Santa Claus (to the point of resorting to chaining kids in his robot factories if they misbehave), and doesn't think about he could do to prevent Sonic from succeeding were shortcomings of his own.
 * 9) Sometimes his flamboyance, aggression, overreaction, incompetence, bossiness, rowdiness, pettiness, and childishness can come off as a tad bit annoying to some viewers.
 * 10) There were times when he was subjected to some moments of obnoxious slapstick that treat him like a joke when he sometimes didn't deserve the verbal/physical abuse he gets from other characters or shouldn't be receiving it from like his mother who is stupidly evil and Katella in the episode "Zoobotnik", to the point that his failures can get stale and predictable a la Sylvester and Wile E. Coyote style of wanting the villain to succeed. This can be the very reason why Robotnik in this show would come off as a very campy buffoon nobody would take seriously at all despite his villainous and sometimes threatening actions.
 * 11) Not everyone is a fan of his character design. While it's diverse, unique, and brilliantly fits the show's ludicrous nature, some viewers feel like his character design wasn't fitting to Robotnik's character in the games or a general sense. As discussed in Hill Top Terebi's video "WHY did ROBOTNIK look like THIS for most of the 1990s? The Ghost of Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog", he subjectively shares his opinion on how his design that was seen outside of AoStH wasn't the best idea since it can be confusing on why this design was glorified onto other works outside of the show.
 * 12) * His giant butt enlarging to exaggerated proportions somewhat predates The Red Guy with showing off his giant buttcheeks for jokes very often.

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Trivia

 * Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog was the only English-speaking series prior to Sonic X to have Dr. Robotnik be referred to as "Eggman" in the episode "Lifestyles of the Sick and Twisted" by Tails, which was even said before Sonic Adventure introduced this alias for the real Dr. Robotnik.
 * Milton Knight, the original design artist for this Robotnik, was pushing the animators to make this take on Robotnik to be "animation's sexiest fat man" by exaggerating his body like the revealing clothing and the size of his buttocks.
 * His catchphrase "I hate that hedgehog!" has been said by other incarnations of Dr. Robotnik, such as his SATAM and Boom counterparts.

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