How to Succeed in Evil Without Really Trying

"How to Succeed in Evil Without Really Trying" is the sixteenth episode in the Sonic Boom television series. It first aired on 21 January 2015 in France and on 7 March 2015 in the United States.

Synopsis
When a berry picking machine created by Tails goes nuts and defoliates an orchard, a group of evil scientists thinks Tails is one of them and inducts him into their evil organization. Tails, not realizing their evil purposes, joins the group.

Appearances

 * Cubot
 * Dr. Eggman
 * Lightning Bolt Society
 * Dave the Intern
 * Tree Spy
 * Weasel Bandit
 * Willy Walrus
 * Orbot
 * Team Sonic
 * Amy Rose
 * Knuckles the Echidna
 * Miles "Tails" Prower
 * Sonic the Hedgehog
 * Sticks the Badger

Plot

 * For the transcript of this episode, see How to Succeed in Evil Without Really Trying/Transcript.

On an orchard on Bygone Island, Sticks is picking beige berries as ingredients to a pie she plans to bake for the upcoming pie festival. While Sticks walks around with her paranoid scruples, Tails drops by in his Tailsmobile and sees Sticks at work. Tails then heads for his workshop, where he builds a large berry-picking machine to help Sticks. As Tails gets Sonic to charge its energy source with a generator (with limited success), Tails is confident Sticks will like the device despite Sonic's doubts.

Once finished, Tails brings the machine to the orchard, but it quickly malfunctions and grinds up everything, much to Sticks' frustration, while Sonic, Knuckles and Amy then arrive to survey the destruction. A spy, disguised as a tree, flees the scene after observing it and brings the news of the destruction of the orchard to three cloaked figures, who get the impression that Tails is evil and that their organization could use a mind like his.

Back at the orchard, Tails misses the festival as he has been forced to replant the trees by Sticks. There, the hooded figures invite him into the Lightning Bolt Society. While Tails is willing to join them despite never hearing of them, he still has to replant the orchard, but one of the hooded figures uses a technological gun to plant the seeds for him. With his work done, Tails accepts their offer. Meanwhile in Doctor Eggman's Lair, Eggman, Orbot and Cubot get a status update from the Lightning Bolt Society in the form of a pop-up, announcing Tails' induction. While Eggman thinks little of this group since they scavenge his trash, he is unsettled by the thought of an alliance between them and Team Sonic and leaves to stop them.

At the orchard, Sonic, Knuckles, Amy and Sticks return from the pie festival which Sticks won, just as the planted seeds grow into mutant flowers. Amidst the chaos, the group find Tails' invitation to the Lightning Bolt Society. Sonic and Amy thus head out to find Tails while Knuckles and Sticks keeps the plants at bay. At the Lightning Bolt's clubhouse, Tails is enjoying the food and getting himself acquainted with the other members, some of which are revealed to be Dave the Intern, Willy Walrus and a Weasel Bandit. Meanwhile, on the outside, Sonic and Amy argue over the method of breaking into the club. Back inside, Willy welcomes Tails to the club and has him initiated as their new leader. However, when Tails hears their "evil" plan to take control of all fruit stands in the Village and beyond, he realizes they are crooks and admits he is not evil, shocking the members.

No sooner, Sonic, Amy and Eggman break into the club at the same time, the two parties thinking the other is here to team up with the Lightning Bolts. Once all is clear, Eggman begrudgingly commands the Lightning Bolts to attack Sonic, but due to their incompetence, they choose food as weapons, which is easily dodged and quickly depleted. Sonic and Eggman then get ready to fight, but the Lightning Bolt Society swarms Eggman, asking him for his autograph, so Sonic and his friends use the opportunity to escape. They then return to the orchard, where Tails takes out the mutant plants with his berry-picking machine; this causes Tails and Sticks to reconcile, though Sticks still wants him to replant the orchard. Meanwhile, Dave is back at Meh Burger, making a burger for himself with the Mutant Seed Gun.

Continuity

 * The Lightning Bolt Society is introduced.

Goofs

 * When Willy Walrus wears his club cloak, his hood does not show the shape of his prominent vertical tusks on the inside when wearing it.
 * When the mutated plants attack Team Sonic, Sticks' pie disappears from her hand in one scene.

Trivia

 * This episode was originally listed as "How to Succeed in Evil".
 * The name of the episode is a reference to the musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
 * The Eggman logo transition shown when Eggman prepares to leave his lair was done in a similar style to the transitions in the Batman TV series from 1966.
 * The pedal-powered generator used by Sonic to power up Tails' ion matrix is the same used to power up Dr. Eggman's fan in "Double Doomsday".
 * The burn marks Tails displays after his power source explodes are the exact same he got after he crashed in the Tornado in "The Sidekick".
 * The garden seen in the video game Dr. Eggman played is Eggman's meditation garden which would be fully introduced in "Sleeping Giant".
 * "How to Succeed in Evil Without Really Trying" was the last episode in the Sonic Boom television series to be given preview images on Twitter, until "The Curse of Buddy Buddy Temple".
 * Coincidently, this episode was accidently given preview images for "Sole Power" instead.