Dr. Robotnik

Dr. Robotnik/Eggman 🎵I am the Eggman, that's what I am I am the Eggman, with the master plan!🎵 Gender: Male Type: Hegemonic Scientist/Mastermind Enjoyable Supervillain Age: His 40s or 50s Species: Human Portrayed by: (English) Long John Baldry (1993-1996) Jim Cummings (1993-1999) Deem Bristow (1998-2004) Mike Pollock (2005-present) Jim Carrey (2020) (Japanese) Chikao Ōtsuka (1998-2015) Kotaro Nakamura (2016-present) Status: Alive Media of origin: Sonic the Hedgehog

"Ha-ha-hah! Citizens of earth, lend me your ears and listen to me very carefully: my name is Dr. Eggman, the world's greatest scientist and soon to be the world's greatest ruler. Now witness the beginning of the greatest empire of all time!" - Dr. Eggman, Sonic Adventure 2

Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik, better known by his alias, Dr. Eggman, is the main antagonist of the Sonic the Hedgehog series. He's a human scientist with an IQ of 300 and dreams of dominating the world, but his constant plots to create his Eggman Empire (a.k.a. Eggmanland) are always thwarted by Sonic and his friends.

Creation and Design

In 1990, Sega president Hayao Nakayama sought a flagship series to compete with Nintendo's Mario franchise, along with a character to serve as a company mascot. Several character designs were submitted as part of a contest. Among the designs was an egg-shape human wearing pajamas who resembled U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt, drawn by Naoto Ohshima. According to Ohshima, the resemblance to Roosevelt was unintentional, saying he was influenced by a variety of characters. Retrospective sources have indicated Ohshima based the character on Humpty Dumpty and Mario. The Roosevelt lookalike did not win the contest; rather, another Ohshima character, a hedgehog named Sonic—prevailed.

As development of the Sega Genesis game Sonic the Hedgehog progressed, however, programmer Yuji Naka and the rest of Sonic Team thought the rejected design was excellent and deserved inclusion in the game. Since the character could not be the protagonist, the team retooled him into the game's main antagonist. In developing Eggman, Sonic Team characterized him as Sonic's opposite. Eggman was designed to represent themes of "machinery" and "development" to play on the then-growing debate between developers and environmentalists, and as a symbol for humanity who views nature as dirty, and roads and buildings as clean.  The character was also designed to be easy for children to draw.

Naming

The character was always named Doctor Eggman in Japan, but Sega of America changed his name to Doctor Ivo Robotnik when localizing Sonic the Hedgehog. In a 2016 interview with Game Informer, Takashi Iizuka revealed Sega of America did this without consulting the development team:

They just kind of went off and did it. It became super popular and everyone in the West kind of learned about the character as Robotnik. That went on through the "classic" series in the Genesis/Mega Drive era, but as far as the developers are concerned... we really didn't want to have anyone in the [Sonic] universe with two names. To us, he's Eggman, but in the rest of the world he's called Robotnik. We wanted to unify that into one name moving forward. This is something I actually did in the Sonic Adventure series. I made it so that we understand the character's name is Robotnik, but his nickname is Eggman, and as far as everyone is concerned in the world now, we're just going to call him Eggman as his official name.

— Takashi Iizuka

The English instruction manual for his debut game Sonic the Hedgehog described the character's full name as "Doctor Ivo Robotnik", while the Japanese version's instruction manual for the same game called him "Doctor Eggman". It was not until 1999's Sonic Adventure that the character was called both "Eggman" and "Robotnik" in the English version, with all following English releases to date referring to him as "Doctor Eggman". Yuji Naka has explained that "Robotnik" is the character's true last name while "Eggman" is a nickname taken after his shape. Since then, English language sources have listed his identity as Doctor Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik at least once, and has recognized both the first name Ivo and the last name Robotnik as recently as 2016 in the video games and 2015 in social media, with Sonic Frontiers establishing his acceptance of the name "Eggman" as a way to defy Sonic's mockery of him.

While no Japanese-language video game has directly referred to the character as Robotnik, less direct usages of the name have occurred, namely a brief appearance of the text "Robotnik Empire" in the background of a cutscene in Sonic Adventure 2 and the use of ロボトニック社 (Robotnik Corp.) as the name of his company in Sonic Riders. Although Eggman's true name was given as Robotnik in an eyecatch card in the Japanese version of the animated series Sonic X, Eggman's in-game profile in the Japanese version of Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II lists his real name as a mystery. The name "Robotnik" has appeared in official Japanese media as the surname of two other characters, both featured in Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic X and both relatives of Eggman: Eggman's cousin, Maria Robotnik[c][29] and their grandfather Gerald Robotnik.

Voice actors and portrayers

Several voice actors have portrayed Eggman/Robotnik in his game appearances. His first voice actor was Masaharu Satō, who portrayed him in a handful of arcade games such as SegaSonic the Hedgehog. In the Japanese game releases from 1998 to 2015, Eggman was voiced by Chikao Ōtsuka. Kotaro Nakamura assumed the role following Ōtsuka's death in January 2015, beginning with Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

In animation, he was voiced by Long John Baldry in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Jim Cummings in Sonic the Hedgehog (where he also voiced the character in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog's unaired pilot), Edwin Neal in Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie and Garry Chalk in Sonic Underground, and will be voiced by Brian Drummond in the upcoming Sonic Prime.

Deem Bristow was the first English-language actor to portray Eggman in a video game, debuting in Sonic Adventure for the Sega Dreamcast. He went on to voice him in further games of the series, with his last performance in Sonic Advance 3 before his death in early 2005. Mike Pollock, who first voiced Eggman in the English dub of Sonic X, succeeded Bristow in the games, beginning with Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic Rush in 2005. While it was announced that the rest of the cast would be replaced from Sonic Free Riders onward in 2010, Pollock retained his role, making him the longest-serving voice actor to portray the character in any language. In the Netflix series Sonic Prime, Eggman will be voiced by Brian Drummond.

Jim Carrey was the first to portray Eggman in live-action film, beginning with Sonic the Hedgehog in 2020. He reprised the role in the 2022 sequel.

Why He's The Greatest Scientific Genius In The World

Overall

1. He is one of the most famous and popular villains in video game history.
2. His trademark narcissism made him one of the most iconic foes in gaming.
3. Many incarnations of Eggman over the years treat him in very different forms of his character by personality and motive, ranging from being a villain who is very threatening and competent to being a very goofy & comedic villain. Which has been carried to the point that his character is very much well-remembered for being an admirably comedic, eccentric, and self-obsessed yet formidable antagonist.
   • At his most threatening, he provides a scale from being the threatening and sinister yet enjoyable villain who fits the bill.
   • At his goofiest, he is at his most hilariously entertaining and over-the-top throughout the whole Sonic series (one who has provided many memes due to his hilarity and memorability).
4. He's a perfect opponent to Sonic, being the contrary of nearly everything the blue blur stands up to.
5. He is such a riot, just enough to be hands down, the most lovable character in the Sonic series in its entirety.
6. He makes every battle he has with his enemies count.
7. Many of his voice actors such as Deem Bristow, Long John Baldry, and Mike Pollock, are three of the most iconic voices in the series.
   • Additionally, even as the 4Kids cast was replaced in mid-2010, SEGA decided to keep Mike Pollock as Eggman as they believed that his voice was irreplaceable.
8. Despite his desire to be a dictating emperor who rules with an iron fist over an entire nation made of nothing more than machines, he can be a gentleman, a wealthy philanthropist, what have you. TL, DR: a man who can be so captivating to the point of fooling others into doing what he wants.
9. While most villains or anti-heroes in the Sonic series can be interesting and/or memorable (such as Metal Sonic, Merlina, and Mephiles), they're usually not as well-developed as Robotnik, as he became so important to the franchise that Sega just can't replace him (not forever, at least).
10. He's so desired and important to the series that putting someone else in his place may be a crime if it's not executed correctly.
11. He's been in more games than the titular Sonic himself.
12. He has such funny, quotable, and unforgettable phrases like "Get a load of this!", "No way, I can't believe this!", "Oh no you don't!", "You'll pay for this!", "Haha! How about that!", "I was just about to consume this delicious banana", "'The world'? I'll own the world once I'm finished with Sonic!", "I'll get fat from eating your black hearts. You Eggman wannabes!", "I'll burn your worlds, you rebellious scum! I will destroy everything you love and make you watch!", "As long as I can still strangle a Zeti, my hands are fine.", and "What is wrong with my mustache!?".
    • He also has provided tons of comedic insults and retorts that are flat-out hilarious and entertaining to listen to.
13. One of Eggman's more admirable, if not dangerous, traits is his courage throughout life-threatening situations. Despite his continuous use of machinery to protect himself and fight his opponents, Eggman shows considerable bravery and rarely shows any form of fear, regardless of who or what he is facing.
14. He's a mastermind so intelligent that he can build any machine, from Badniks to a giant Death Star copy with his face on it.
15. It's unanimously agreed that he's pushed to eleven in Sonic Adventure 2, where he, for example (but not limited to), holds Amy hostage at gunpoint and quickly sees through Tails' plan to replace one of the Chaos Emeralds with a fake replica. This makes him pretty badass as a comedic supervillain, especially when he blows up half of the moon.
    • In Sonic Unleashed, he was so formidable that he provided an enjoyable fight sequence with his technology, his robotic minions, and his weaponry that all poses a genuine threat to Sonic. Also, right after he got defeated and attempted retreat, Eggman was so cunning that he pretended to plead and act pathetic, but effectively deceived Sonic (even as Super Sonic) into his powerful trap that successfully harnessed Sonic's energy. This then leads to sending a laser beam onto Earth, thus creating Dark Gaia, this all makes his levels of competence rather compelling, and his comedic traits make him all the more entertaining.

SatAM

1. He is extremely menacing and intimidating, he's the type of villain who is taken seriously with some moments of wit. Making this version of Robotnik the first instance of him being depicted as a Complete Monster.
2. He is one of the best examples of making Eggman a badass villain. Where he is depicted as a completely serious threat without adding any form of childishness and goofiness to his character (despite him sometimes having his comedic moments here and there).
3. His despicable, rotten, heartless, and sadistic personality works off well with Sonic SatAM's serious tone (which can be the possible direction the writers had inspiration from with making Eggman's personality in the Sonic Fleetway comics to a greater extent).
4. Jim Cummings also provided a badass tone of voice that sounds a bit like Batman and Sweet Tooth from Twisted Metal with a unique edge to it, where Robotnik's extremely deep and gruff tone of voice along with his breathing is rather remarkable.

Boom

1. In the TV series, unlike his appearances in the Boom games, is a well-written and entertaining if inefficient antagonist and a frenemy of Sonic whose comic traits include his general lack of common sense, sarcasm, quick quips, banters, goofiness, childishness, and buffoonery are all played for comedic relief.
   • The way he roasts Sonic by calling him a "blue pineapple" and having a girlfriend is entertaining.
2. This incarnation of Eggman can be best described as a diverse, kid-friendly version of the Ice King from Adventure Time. Mainly due to being goofy and incompetent as a villain, having an on-&-off frenemy-styled relationship with Sonic & his friends, living in a big empty lair with friends he's created himself, and sometimes acting like a teenager whenever he tries to act hip & cool but comes off as eccentric and childish.
3. Despite having a comedic personality, he also has had moments where his high intelligence shines and moments of common sense that can help him make some good progress with his villainous efforts in a sense.
4. There are times when viewers can sympathize with him, just enough to find him a somewhat likable villain with understandable motives.
5. “I'll be back, with a new robot, who has an accurate name, and super laser eyes, and he'll feed me ham! Evil ham...”

Movie series

1. He is one of the most hyper-competent incarnations of Eggman ever created, which is very unique since Dr. Eggman was always depicted as a consistent villain who never succeeds at his plans regardless of his reprehensible actions and grandiose schemes, this version of Eggman is both: humorous and somewhat of a threat at the same time.
   • Even though he was outclassed by Sonic in the first movie, he escaped from Mushroom Hill Zone and returned to continue his schemes, most of which work a lot more than expected.
2. Jim Carrey did a great job at his portrayal as Eggman in both movies. Eggman's cartoonish, eccentric, over-the-top aspects of his comedic & villainous personality are very entertaining and hilarious to watch.
3. Some of his lines are also quotable, examples of these include:
   • “OOOOOOOOOOOOH, GIVE ME A BIG! FAT! BREAK!”
   • “You see: Earth, is my, turf G. If you don't know how to floss you'll be lost without me!”

Bad Qualities

Overall

1. Despite his high intelligence, Eggman is rather immature, foolish, and childish, doing things like throwing breakdowns Sonic manages to wreck his plans, though it is mostly played for laughs.
   • An example of his immaturity is seen in the ending of Sonic Unleashed, when Orbot begins to insult him over his constant failures and calls him a loser (despite Eggman doing several competent things throughout the game); Eggman gets frustrated and screams "Oh, shut up!!", attempts to kick him only to comically fall on his back, and then chases him through the desert while making agitated noises and violently flailing his arms in an attempt to grab him.
2. Because of the previous pointer, there are times when he can fail to seem like an actual threat, specifically in games where he's supposed to be the main antagonist, prior to his comedic and ineffectual status.
   • Even though he is proactive enough to create many menacing locations in Mobius or even, pose threats with his gadgets and robot army in later games, several of his contraptions and death traps overall can be too ridiculous, goofy, or laughable to be taken seriously. Considering that many of his minions are extremely easy to destroy in one (or a few) hits, and the fact that many of the piloted machines he made to kill Sonic can be destroyed easily since Sonic can use his hit-box abilities against Robotnik himself, and Robotnik's cockpit for his mobile often being wide enough for Sonic to pounce onto him.
     • Many examples of these include his idea of dropping chemical water on Sonic in front of him in Chemical Plant Zone, the final battle that has him calling out his attacks for his Egg-Wyvern in Sonic 06, his long spiked hands mobile that has him playfully swatting his robot hands like it's a game in the Spring Stadium Zone in Sonic 3D Blast, his Hot Mobile launching mines in a pit of lava that can hit Eggman in the same path in Sonic 3 and Knuckles, and plans that could've worked like the lethal treadmill plan that has him trap Sonic to make Sonic vulnerable to the spikes behind him but falls apart when Robotnik placed his pod on the treadmill to get disintegrated as seen in the Quartz Quadrant Zone from Sonic CD and his Graviton Mobile with using electricity and a giant ball to harm Sonic; but backfires when the ball couldn't be picked up by Robotnik himself from a great height and has to lower himself to the ball and being open for Sonic to pounce onto his cockpit.
     • The most infamous of his foolish plans of action include the self-destructive Egg-Dealer from Shadow the Hedgehog; from the silly design that can be easily destroyed to the backfired attacks being capable to power up their enemies, and the fact he doesn't do anything after defeating Sonic in Sonic Forces; conquering Earth and doing nothing with it, as well as not torturing Sonic at all even though he imprisoned him.
3. His design from Sonic '06 is poorly made and uncanny.
4. His goals can be a little inconsistent: While he usually tries to dominate the world, he sometimes just wants to build an amusement park or take over a city. Heck, he even tried to conquer the entire freaking universe once! As a result, he often has his brand of setbacks and inefficiency because of the many silly mistakes that would go into his plans.
5. Some of his incarnations like in Sonic Underground, for example, are quite unremarkable and forgettable.
   • Speaking of which; even for Eggman's standards, his incarnation in Sonic '06 is easily one of the worst incarnations of the evil genius himself. Where his personality was watered down into being a straightforward, typical, and predictably (if stupidly at times) fallible antagonist because of being depicted as a very "serious" character who doesn't do much that makes him entertaining because of the story and the game's bad writing, with little to nothing being exactly enjoyable or notable to say about him. Where his excessive levels of seriousness made Eggman rather boring, forgettable, unremarkable, and generic than you'd expect of his comedic and villainous charm.

SatAM

1. Despite being competent and badass, this version of Robotnik is rather stereotypical and lacks the charisma of his other portrayals.

Sonic X

1. In the first season of Sonic X, he's portrayed as a generic Saturday morning cartoon villain, doing stuff such as selecting a random robot to cause havoc and wagering the Chaos Emeralds over a game of baseball. His levels of incompetence pretty much rivals the recurring trio of Team Rocket from Pokemon (luckily, he still has his trademark narcissism and he gets better as the series goes on).

Boom

1. He often poses little to no threat whatsoever at the end of Season 1 and throughout Season 2 because of his goofiness and his status as an ineffectual villain. He is often the laughing stock that is treated as the scapegoat because of being a mostly harmless villain towards Sonic, his friends, and the village they live in. However, this can be warranted sometimes when Eggman can be written to be a "karmic-jerkass" type of character where his shortcomings with being a jerk lead to consequences and several setbacks that serve as his comeuppance (comedically or not) for something he did wrong as his supposedly justified acts of villainy in an episode, a good example of this is the Season 1 episode "Let's Play Musical Friends".
   • He was badly flanderized in the Sonic Boom games, despite being the only likable character in Rise of Lyric. In these titles, he is depicted as an overly childish, flamboyant, unfunny, moronic, and incompetent villain who always gets himself into trouble and never poses a threat since he makes so many mistakes that he comes off as an extremely pathetic dork who tries way too hard to be badass, all in a rather irritating and boring way.

Legacy

Reception to the character has been very positive, with Dr. Robotnik going on to become one of the most well-known villains in gaming. GameDaily ranked him number one on their list of Top 25 Evil Masterminds of All Time article, stating "Out of all the evil masterminds in video games, none are more despicable, more cunning, or more menacing". They also included him in their most persistent video game villains list and their craziest video game villains list. In a later article, they listed the "evil mastermind" as one of the top 25 video game archetypes, using Robotnik as an example. He was featured at number three in a "Reader's Choice" edition of GameSpot's "Top Ten Video Game Villains" article, which noted a massive complaint by fans at his exclusion from the original list. Eggman was also named the 15th most diabolical video game villain of all time by PC World. Game Informer notes that in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, "Eggman's villain ego shows some amusing tarnish after constant defeat at the hands of Sonic." IGN listed him at number nine above Mario-series villain Bowser in their "Top 10 Most Memorable Villains" article, calling him "PETA's videogame public enemy number one", and has also commented that his character is a "pretty clever riff on Teddy Roosevelt" that has added to the attraction of the series. Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition listed Dr. Eggman as 43rd in their list of "top 50 video game villains". In 2010, IGN listed Dr. Robotnik 11th out of their "Top 100 Videogame Villains". Nintendo Power listed Dr. Robotnik as their seventh favorite villain, also listing him as having one of the best mustaches. Nathan Rohe, writing for Odyssey considers him the best video game villain of all-time, reasoning "...he often strikes that perfect balance between silly and sinister. Eggman is often depicted as a bumbling buffoon who gets beaten time and time again by a teenage blue hedgehog and his friends. However, when you actually look at his plans they can be quite vile."

A macrocyclic molecule discovered by a Harvard University research team to potentially inhibit the protein Sonic hedgehog was named "Robotnikinin" after the Dr. Robotnik character. The researchers felt that after Sonic hedgehog was named after the Sega video game character, they should "adhere to the convention" in naming the inhibiting compound after the character's archenemy.

The band Intercontinental Music Lab included a song about Dr. Robotnik on their 2008 album, Superheroes of Science.The power metal band Powerglove wrote a song called "So Sexy Robotnik" based on the boss theme from Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and features snips from various other level tunes from the same game. It appears as the first track on their 2007 album "Metal Kombat for the Mortal Man".

Gallery

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  Doodles that inspired Robotnik's design

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  Robotnik, when he was gonna be considered "SEGA's mascot".

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  In-game Dr Robotnik from Sonic Spinball.

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  Robotnik in Sonic 3D Blast

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  Robotnik from Sonic SATAM

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  Dr. Robotnik (2021)

Trivia

• This is currently the third longest page on this wiki among its other contenders.
• His classic design was originally inspired by Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States. His basic characteristics, such as his clip-less glasses, toothy smile, and mustache are based on the features of Theodore Roosevelt by appearance.
• The character was originally designed as "Dr. Eggman" for the Japanese audience and adapted as "Dr. Ivo Robotnik" in the English release. Although references to both names, such as the "Eggman-01" designation of Wing Fortress in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 or the "Robotnik Winter" level in Sonic Triple Trouble, were present in both Japanese and English versions of the games, there was no unified canon on the naming convention until Sonic Adventure series. Sonic Adventure introduced "Eggman" as Dr. Robotnik's nickname by Sonic, which he later adopted as his own supervillain alias by Sonic Adventure 2 for Western audiences. For Japanese audiences, Sonic Adventure 2 introduced Gerald Robotnik and Maria Robotnik, Eggman's relatives, officially establishing "Robotnik" as his real surname in both canons, along with the words "Robotnik Empire" appearing behind Eggman during a cutscene. The character was mostly referred to as "Doctor Eggman" after that, although references to his real name still appeared from time to time.
• An early version of Eggman was originally one of the choices to be the main character and even the hero of the game that would become the first game of the Sonic the Hedgehog series.
• In the games, comics, and anime Sonic X, Dr. Robotnik (also called Dr. Eggman) idolizes his grandfather Professor Gerald Robotnik, and in SatAM, he cared for his robot pet Cluck. To date, Gerald Robotnik and Cluck are the only people he loves apart from himself.
• In 2D artwork, Eggman is portrayed as having pencil-thin arms, and no chin, but in games, he has a more masculine face, a big chin, and thick muscular arms.
• Eggman's first name 'Ivo' is simply a backward spelling of the Latin word 'ovi' which means 'egg'.
• "Robotnik" is an actual word, meaning "worker" or "slave" in the Slavic languages. This could explain his preference for using enslaved animals and robots as his minions. His first name, Ivo, is also a Slavic name.
• It is revealed in Sonic Generations that before Eggman decided to become a villain, he was offered a teaching degree (which Dr. Robotnik said he was going to try to get).
• The enormous mustache that Eggman wears in his various incarnations gives him a passing resemblance to the iconic Looney Tunes villain Yosemite Sam, although Eggman's is less huge in size than Sam's.
• His nickname "Doc" (aside from his other alias "Doc Eggman") is a reference to the nickname of the Marvel supervillain Doctor Octopus (also known as "Doc Ock") from the Spider-Man comic books, the nickname of the time-traveling genius Dr. Emmett Brown (also known as "Doc Brown") from the Back to the Future franchise, and the famous catchphrase "what's up doc?" of the famous Looney Tunes character Bugs Bunny.
  • Dr. Robotnik is referred to as "The Master" by his brainwashed slaves who are under a hypnotic trance due to the Mind Pollens derived from Colonel Stench's special artificial flowers.
  • His AoStH version's catchphrase "I hate that hedgehog!" has been said by other incarnations of Dr. Robotnik, such as his SATAM and Boom counterparts.
• In the live-action/CGI big-screen adaptation of Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Eggman is portrayed by lovable comedian and actor, Jim Carrey.
  • Carrey's portrayal has been indefinitely praised by the fanbase, even being called the "saving grace" of the film, before the redesign of the main character, of course.

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