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.

Characters

 * Sonic the Hedgehog
 * Miles "Tails" Prower
 * Knuckles the Echidna
 * Amy Rose
 * Sticks the Badger
 * Dr. Eggman
 * Orbot
 * Cubot
 * Moto Bug
 * Cowbot
 * Dave the Intern
 * Spoonbot
 * Crybot
 * Mathbot
 * Lamebot

Plot
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 Egg Mobile and announces the arrival of his most destructive creation yet, Cowbot, to Team Sonic, but they laugh at it. Eggman leaves Cowbot to destroy Team Sonic as he has to go home to check on his laundry, but not before telling Team Sonic that Cowbot is filled with Mootonium which will vaporize everything within a twenty mile radius if it 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's 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 Eggman's defenses 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 put together 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 taken itself 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 coco with garlic powder and watch a film, before playing another game of coconut hurl where Sonic had to use a catapult to throw Eggman. As night falls, they spend their time roasting marshmallows and seemingly bond over their conversations, where Eggman would talk about Dave and ask Sonic of his deal with Amy.

The next morning, Cowbot has 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 getting stuck on them. However, this give Tails the idea of using the 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 Cowbot and shortens it out. Upon celebrating their victory though, Eggman reveals that his master plan was to trick Sonic and Tails into upgrading his security system with their tech which he could now use against them. However, Sonic puts a stop to Eggman's plan by swiftly 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 which instantly gunk up their circuits.

Continuity

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

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 the cow tipping joke, and it was decided Cowbot would be designed after a cow.

Trivia

 * This episode was mistakenly listed as "Cow Bot" up until its release.
 * 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 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 series to be mentioned in Sonic Boom.