Cowbot (episode)

"Cowbot" is the eleventh episode in the Sonic Boom television series. It first aired on 24 December 2014 in France and on 31 January 2015 in the United States.

Summary
Tails reprograms one of Eggman's robots and accidentally turns it into a killing machine determined to destroy Eggman. Because it's their fault, Sonic and Tails must protect their enemy and move into Eggman's evil lair for a night of bonding.

Appearances
Characters:
 * Badniks
 * Motobug
 * Cowbot
 * Crybot
 * Cubot
 * Dave the Intern
 * Dr. Eggman
 * Lamebot
 * Mathbot
 * Orbot
 * Spoonbot
 * Team Sonic
 * Amy Rose
 * Knuckles the Echidna
 * Miles "Tails" Prower
 * Sonic the Hedgehog
 * Sticks the Badger

Locations:
 * Sonic Boom World
 * Angel Island
 * Bygone Island
 * Sonic's Shack
 * Dr. Eggman's Lair

Items:
 * Chili dog
 * Mootonium
 * Wrist controller

Vehicles:
 * Eggmobile
 * Tails' Plane

Misc.:
 * Coconut hurl

Plot

 * For the transcript of this episode, see Cowbot (episode)/Transcript

On Bygone Island, Sonic and Knuckles are playing a game of coconut hurl. Tails plays the role of commentator while Sticks and Amy watch, though Amy shows little interest. As Knuckles throws Sonic into a coconut tree, they beat their previous record by knocking four coconuts down. Suddenly though, Dr. Eggman arrives in the Eggmobile and introduces them to Cowbot; while Eggman considers it to be his most destructive creation, Team Sonic laugh at its non-threatening appearance. Eggman leaves Cowbot to destroy Team Sonic in order to check on his laundry, but not before telling them that Cowbot is filled with Mootonium, which will vaporize everything within a twenty-mile radius if Cowbot is destroyed.

As Cowbot starts firing cud missiles, Team Sonic come up with the plan to reach Cowbot's access panel so Tails can reprogram it. While Sonic distracts Cowbot, the rest of the team tip it, allowing Tails to get to work. However, when Tails finishes, Cowbot does not deactivate, its eyes turn red, and it slowly flies away. Tails explains that since he reversed Cowbot's programming to destroy Sonic, it is now going to destroy Eggman. Sonic is amused, but Amy insists that it is not right to let Cowbot kill Eggman. Begrudgingly, Sonic leaves to warn Eggman and takes Tails with him.

Arriving at Dr. Eggman's lair, Sonic sneaks ahead of Eggman's defenses, only for Eggman to tell him at the door that he used his defenses to build Cowbot. While Sonic warns him of Cowbot, Eggman convinces him and Tails stay and protect him while he is defenseless. However, even if the defenses were brought back online, they learn that Cowbot's stage two directive has been activated, which would render them useless. As such, the group's only option is to upgrade Eggman's defenses, with Sonic gathering the parts, and Tails and Eggman assembling the equipment. Together, the unlikely allies build a freeze ray and a force field to protect the lair.

As Cowbot appears in the horizon, Sonic, Tails and Eggman have a plan: when Cowbot gets in range, Eggman will lower the force field, allowing Sonic to immobilize with the freeze ray, thus enabling Tails to disarm it. However, Cowbot is taking a long time to get to the lair, so Eggman invites Sonic and Tails inside while they wait. In the lair, they have some cookies and hot chocolate (all with questionable seasoning in them), then watch a film. Upon returning outside to see Cowbot still very far away, the trio play a game of coconut hurl, though Sonic had to use a catapult to throw Eggman. As night falls, they spend their time roasting marshmallows over a campfire and seemingly bond over their conversations about things like Dave and Amy.

The next morning, Cowbot has finally arrived and the allies begin their plan, only for it to fall apart due to their defense systems shorting out from the marshmallow gunk on their fingers. However, this give Tails the idea of using marshmallows to gunk up Cowbot's machinery. Going with this plan, Eggman catapults Sonic up to Cowbot where he empties a bucket of marshmallows into it, which successfully disables the robot. Upon celebrating their victory though, Eggman reveals that his master plan was to trick Sonic and Tails into upgrading his security system, which he could now use against them. However, Sonic swiftly foils Eggman's plan by dumping marshmallows into his new defenses, causing them all to short-circuit. As Sonic and Tails take their leave, Orbot and Cubot come out of the lair and eat some of the marshmallows, causing the pair to suffer the same fate as Eggman's other machinery.

Continuity

 * Dr. Eggman recalls his dislike of his former intern Dave in "Double Doomsday".
 * Cowbot is introduced.

Production
According to Bill Freiberger, the original premise for this episode was that Tails reprograms a killing machine created by Eggman and then feels the needs to protect him. Once the developers started to move forward with that premise, they thought it would be funny if the killing machine looked silly near the end of the process. They then thought of a cow, which led to them thinking of "cow tipping", leading to the creation of Cowbot.

Censorship

 * In Brazil, the shot of Sonic hitting the coconut tree during Coconut hurl was shorten.

Trivia

 * This episode aired in France as the twelfth episode in the series.
 * This episode was mistakenly listed as "Cow Bot" up until its release.
 * This episode marks the first time Dr. Eggman left one of his robots alone to fight Team Sonic.
 * This is the first episode in the Sonic Boom television series to refer to the events of an earlier episode.
 * The line "It's Game Over Man, GAME OVER!" is a reference to the film Aliens.
 * The pajamas worn by Eggman is the same one he wore in "Can an Evil Genius Crash on Your Couch for a Few Days?".
 * Eggman is seen wearing his goggles over his eyes for the first time.
 * This is the second episode named after an invention of Eggman's. The first one was "Buster".
 * When commentating on Knuckles, Tails mentioned that Knuckles comes from Angel Island. This is the first location from the Sonic the Hedgehog video games to be mentioned in Sonic Boom.