Coconuts

Coconuts is a robot monkey from the early years of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. He has a somewhat rounded body, lanky limbs, red fur, brown eyes, white face and wears gray jumpsuit with red boots. While he is roboticized, he has a lightblub on his head and a gray tail, while deroboticized, he has a red tail and no lightbulb. Coconuts speaks with a New Jersey accent. The characters' design has evolved with the most notable change being to his eyes, which pass from small pupils to wider and fuller brown eyes.

Personality
Coconuts, by nature, is very pessimistic and cynical. His attitude is basically 'Whatever can go wrong, will' or 'If everything goes smoothly, something has gone wrong', so when something does go wrong, it usually annoys him more than it actually surprises him. Overall, Coconuts is very stubborn, very grumpy, neurotic and doesn't like to admit his mistakes.

When he's not being a grouch he can actually be rather pleasant and casual to be around and, on occasion, has actually been known to display a mischievous and arrogant streak. While he's not a coward, he can get paranoid easily and is easily startled. Too much stress has been known to send him into hysterics. He has an ADD-like way of jumping from one thing to another in his activities, and because of this usually ends up buried under a pile of unfinished projects. In spite of this he's also an extremely determined individual, once having set his mind on a goal he becomes single-minded to the point he he's nearly impossible to pull away.

While he's much more intelligent than he actually lets on, his roboticization has made it hard for him to completely distinguish the line between reality and fantasy, and because of this has become very gullible. To the extent even that he's been known to trick himself, jumping to outrageous conclusions without evidence to back himself up. He gets flustered easily, especially when he believes he's looking stupid, which becomes most evident when he suddenly goes silent and storms off.

One of his biggest quirks is his obsessive compulsive nature. He was always naturally OCD to varying degrees, but his roboticization has only worsened the effect. Coconuts, for the most part, must almost always be doing something with his hands. If he's sitting around idle without doing anything he'll often become restless, anxious, nervous, and if left that way too long aggressive and perhaps even hysterical.

Another quirk that's developed after his roboticization, and quite possibly his most annoying, is that he's developed a germ phobia to the extent that it can be crippling. He obsessively cleans his surroundings and polishes himself, often patrols around cleaning invisible dirt, and has even been known to stalk people. He does try to control this, he really does, but it usually ends up getting the better of him. Despite no longer having his sense of touch he often complains about his skin feeling crawly and no matter what he does can't seem to get the dirty feeling off him. Though he adamantly refuses to speak of the details it seems to stem from some sort of trauma he suffered while still under Robotnik's control.

Abilities
As a monkey, he's naturally acrobatic. He's extremely fast when running on all fours or as long as there's plenty of things he can jump to and swing from. His tail is also prehensile and capable of supporting his weight while hanging. As a robian, he's considerably stronger than the average person, can shift his fingertips into screwdrivers, and is also capable of climbing almost any surface by digging his fingers into it.

Nothing really spectacular worth noting, he's something of a jack of all trades and is pretty adaptable and can learn quickly, he's just not especially good at anything in particular.

Weaknessess
Coconuts hates and fears dirt to the extent that it can be a crippling phobia. He will freak out over messes and often drops everything until everything is spotless. His OCD can also be used as a torture device against him and cause him to suffer from tunnel vision. Standard robotic weaknesses; Strong magnets can restrain, EMP blasts will 'knock' him out, he can be given viruses or be hacked, etc. He also lacks his sense of touch, taste and smell. Having been roboticized wearing shoes he's also lost the use of his feet which he could have used like an extra set of hands.

In the games
This particular Badnik was first seen in the Emerald Hill Zone stage of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, where he would be seen climbing up trees and throwing coconuts. He was named "Aiai" in Japan. A similar badnik called "Super Dude" later appeared in the Angel Island Zone stage of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, also throwing coconuts from trees. True to his name, Coconuts would throw coconuts at Sonic and/or Tails whenever they passed by. Except for compilation games containing Sonic 2, this Badnik did not appear in any of the other primary Sonic games although a similar badnik named "Kiki" appered in Sonic Adventure and its sequel. Coconuts also appears in Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure in the Neo South Island Zone.

The particular Coconuts from the cartoon and comics appeared in Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine as a stage boss.



Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog
Coconuts was featured more prominently on the animated series Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. There, he had been demoted to Dr. Robotnik's janitor, a position he was not very happy with. Even though he was seen in the show's introduction sequence, Coconuts did not appear as regularly as fellow Badniks Scratch and Grounder. Whenever he did appear, he would usually attempt to go after Sonic himself, and try to make sure Scratch and Grounder did not beat him to it.

While Dr. Robotnik and Grounder were drawn differently on the show than in the games, the AoStH version of Coconuts looks similar enough to his video game counterpart. The most noticeable difference between the two is that the animated Coconuts has a lightbulb on his head. Coconuts' voice was provided by Ian James Corlett.

Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)
The AoStH version of Coconuts also appeared occasionally in the early issues of the US Sonic comic book, making his first appearance in issue #2's "Tttriple Tttrouble", which marked the closest resemblance the comic had to the aforementioned cartoon. Here, Coconuts' head was colored light brown rather than red, and his face a light orange rather than the fleshtone used in the games and cartoon. However, this same color scheme was also used for the character's sprites in Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine (even though the box art used the cartoon's color scheme).

Unlike Scratch and Grounder, Coconuts appeared prominently a few more times in the comics. In issue #11, he captured the Freedom Fighters to lure Sonic into a trap in an attempt to get a higher spot on Robotnik's top ten favorite Badniks list (a list on which even Scratch and Grounder outranked him). He later starred in a short story in issue #30, in which he tried to prevent "an anteater" (Bunnie Rabbot, actually) from stealing Robotnik's Chaos Emeralds, using Wile E. Coyote-type traps that, needless to say, failed. Like his old costars, Coconuts' last appearance in the comic was part of a flashback in issue #57.

According to an article on Sonic HQ, writer Karl Bollers had planned for Coconuts to return to the comic by teaming him up with an amnesiac Nate Morgan. This idea never came to pass, and as a result, Coconuts has yet to make a substantial returning appearance. He makes a one-panel cameo appearance in "The Island of Misfit Badniks", printed in issue #170.