Grounder (Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog)


 * This article is about the character in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. For the Badnik in the games, see Grounder.

Grounder is one of the main antagonists in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. He is a Badnik and a partial clone of Scratch, created by Dr. Ivo Robotnik as an adversary of Sonic the Hedgehog. Along with Scratch, he is a member of Robotnik's Super Special Sonic Search and Smash Squad, and one of Robotnik's main henchmen.

Grounder and Scratch serve largely as the comic relief in the series. Though he and Scratch are in charge of capturing Sonic and his friend Tails, they are incompetent and almost always fail. These repeated failures frequently result in Scratch and Grounder receiving a lot of abuse (both verbal and physical) from Dr. Robotnik.

Appearance
Grounder's design was purposefully derived from the Grounder enemy from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. He is a small, short, stocky teal machine with tank tracks for feet, an antennae on the back of the top of his head, compass bellybutton as well as drills instead of his hands and nose. He also carries a plate on his back that reads "X-14".

History
Grounder was conceived by Robotnik to be a super-robot that could catch Sonic for him where his other mechanical bounty hunters had failed. He was created from one of Scratch's tail feathers that Robotnik's plucked and put into a cloning machine, intending to make him a clone of Scratch. However, Scratch pulled an extra lever on the cloning machine during the process that caused, as Robotnik put it, some "slight modifications" to Grounder as he was created.

The two were occasionally aided by a robotic monkey named Coconuts (also based on an enemy from Sonic the Hedgehog 2), although most of the time, he would be competing with them rather than helping them, in hopes of being promoted out of janitor status.

Personality
Easily the most dim-witted of Robotnik's henchmen, Grounder is amazingly stupid, possessing an IQ of 25, and fails at almost everything he does. He is highly gullible, easily being deceived by the most simplest or bizarre of Sonic's disguises, and falls for practically any trick. Regardless of all his failures, however, Grounder is quite persistent and keeps trying no matter what. Although he is typically able to re-assemble himself, Grounder is prone to losing pieces of himself, especially his own head.

Powers and abilities
Grounder is the basically the brawn/artillery of Robotnik's henchmen - his robot body is filled with accessories, mostly stored in his drill-mounted arms, which can be replaced with hands or any number of weapons or tools such as ropes, Ray guns, helicopter blades, Rocket engines, gas guns, parachutes and boxing gloves, stores assorted equipment (commonly, his telephone called the Robo-call Phone) in his torso and even has the components of a Swiss Army knife installed in his tongue.

Besides his gadgetry, Grounder is also noticeably stronger than Scratch, often doing the heavy lifting involved in setting up traps or assembling machinery. His treads also allow for considerable speed, usually carrying Scratch on his shoulders in attempts to catching Sonic. His treads can also turn into Rocket engines to increase his speed. Despite his low intellect, Grounder is also shown to be a competent cook.

While appearing very fragile due to constantly blowing up, Grounder is fairly durable - whenever he gets damaged or blown to bits, he can be repaired very easily and always comes back for more.

Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
Grounder, along with Scratch and Coconuts, appeared as the eighth opponent in both the 16-bit and 8-bit versions of the game Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, which was based around the AoSTH show. As the 16-bit version of game is basically a Western edition of Puyo Puyo, Grounder has the same pattern like Witch.

He calls himself as SAM, which states "Surface of Air Missile" and is attempting to use the player as his launch. Grounder is also seen with Scratch in intro scene listening Robotnik's plan and in prelude scene before the last opponent as being mocked by Robotnik.

Archie Comics
Scratch and Grounder appeared in the earliest issues of the Sonic comic book published by Archie Comics. However, the characters themselves were prominently featured only in their first appearance there, published in issue #2. Subsequent appearances of the two were minor; their last appearance in the comic was part of a flashback in issue #57. However, Scratch appears in issue 4's story Tails' Little Tale without Grounder, and Grounder appears (without Scratch) in the story "Sonic Spin City!", published in Sonic Super Special #15. Oftentimes Grounder would be purple instead of green.

In issues #187 and #188, Scratch, Grounder, and Coconuts returned, now as employees of Mammoth Mogul, who has taken over Casino Night Zone, and has employed the old Badniks as workers; Grounder in particular is employed as the Casino's cook. In issue 15 of Sonic Universe, Grounder makes a cameo, simply appearing in the foreground of one panel.

Sonic Live in Sydney
In the puppet show version of Sonic Live in Sydney at SegaWorld Sydney, Grounder made an appearance as Robotnik's "ultimate weapon", but is then defeated.

Quotes

 * "I'm Grounder...but you can call me SAM - 'cos I'm like a Surface to Air Missile...and I'm gonna have you for launch." - Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
 * "Hooray! we got promoted from useless!" - Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, "Big Daddy"
 * "You did that on purpose!" - Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, "Super Special Search & Smash Squad"
 * "Single 700 pound villain looking for suitable companion" - Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, "Sonic's Song"
 * "Yeah! And I can be a real life huh...huh...whatever I am!" - Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, "Prehistoric Sonic"
 * "OOOOH MAMAAAAA!" - Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, "Robo-Ninjas"
 * "Lock up the throttle!" - Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, "The Robotnik Express"

Trivia

 * Grounder is based on a Badnik of the same name, from the game Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
 * Scratch and Grounder started a trend of Dr. Robotnik/Eggman having two incompetent and annoying sidekicks. In Sonic Underground, Dr. Robotnik had Sleet and Dingo. In Sonic X, Dr. Eggman had Decoe and Bocoe. In the games as of Sonic Colors and Sonic Boom as of, Dr. Eggman had Orbot and Cubot.
 * In Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, Grounder plays like Witch from Puyo Puyo, the game on which Mean Bean Machine was based. Ironically, since Witch is the eighth opponent, Grounder's MBM AI is rather smart, whereas he is an idiot in AoStH. His AI is still weaker than Scratch's, who was based on Rulue (the second-to-last enemy) and has very smart AI, referencing Scratch being the brains of the two in the show.
 * As a running gag in multiple episodes of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Grounder often says he wants his mama. Scratch then reminds him that he doesn't have a mama, to which Grounder replies that he wants one.
 * Grounder and Scratch throughout the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog series fall for Sonic's disguises constantly, however in "Momma Robotnik's Birthday", Grounder states that the robot repairman Robotnik sent was a small blue spiny guy, a trick by Sonic to reprogram tree killing robots, meaning that he does recognize that Sonic's disguises are poor, but is still too dumb to recognize Sonic regardless.
 * In the episode Grounder the Genius, Grounder is shown to have an on/off switch on the back of his head, which is never visible in any other episode. Additionally, the episode shows that Grounder's dim-witted voice is apparently due to his intelligence, as it vanishes entirely once he becomes a genius. The episode also reveals that Grounder apparently has, inside of his head, a stupid chip which is deliberately making him stupid, and it is so powerful that it turns Robotnik as dumb as Grounder when Robotnik puts in his head.