How to Succeed in Evil Without Really Trying

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Sonic Boom How to Succeed in Evil Without Really Trying

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"How to Succeed in Evil Without Really Trying"
The title card for "How to Succeed in Evil Without Really Trying".
Overview
Series	Sonic Boom
Season no.	1
Episode no.	16
Written by	Dan Milano
Premiere dates
U.S. air date	7 March 2015
International premieres	30 May 2015 (AUS) 16 April 2015 (BE) 6 November 2015 (BR) 21 January 2015 (FR) 2 August 2016 (GER) 31 July 2015 (IE) 24 November 2015 (ITA) 1 July 2017 (JP) 27 October 2015 (KO) 30 May 2015 (NZ) 10 January 2016 (PL) 9 December 2015 (RO) 12 March 2016 (RU) 30 April 2016 (TR) 31 July 2015 (UK)
Episode chronology
Previous	"Aim Low"
Next	"Don't Judge Me"

"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

Characters:

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

Locations:

• Sonic Boom World
  • Dr. Eggman's Lair
  • Seaside Island
    • Tails' House
    • Tails' Workshop
    • Unnamed Village
      • Meh Burger

Items:

• Amy's Hammer
• Beige berry (first appearance)
• Boomerang
• Mutant Seed Gun (first appearance)
• Tails' Deforestation Machine (first appearance)
• Wrist controller

Vehicles:

• Eggmobile (mentioned)
• Tailsmobile

Misc.:

• Pie festival (mentioned)

Plot

On an orchard on Seaside 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.
• Tails creates his deforestation machine. It would make a reappearance in "Robot Battle Royale".

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.

Title in other languages

Language	Title	Translation
Brazilian Portuguese	Bom em Ser Mau	Good at Being Bad
Finnish	Kuinka olla ilkeä olematta ilkeä	How to be evil without being evil
French	Devenir un génie du mal en 10 leçons	Becoming an Evil Genius in 10 Lessons
German	Erfolgreich böse ohne Stress	Successfully evil without stress
Hungarian	A született gonosz	The true-born evil
Italian	Malvagio per caso	Evil by accident
Japanese	悪のクラブへのおさそい	Invitation to the Evil Club
Korean	번개표 비밀 결사대	Lightning Secret Society
Polish	Jak być złym?	How to be a bad guy?
Romanian	Cum să fi malefic fără să vrei?
Russian	Случайный злодей	Accidental villain
Spanish (Latin America)	Cómo Ser Un Genio del Mal Sin Esfuerzo	How To Be An Evil Genius Without Effort
Turkish	En Kötü Kim?	Who Is the Most Evil?
Ukrainian	Як досягти успіху у злодіянях, без зайвих зусиль?	How to succeed in the atrocities, without much effort?

Trivia

• This episode was originally listed as "How to Succeed in Evil".
• The name of the episode is a reference to the 1952 book 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 ion matrix 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".
  • Coincidentally, this episode was accidentally given preview images for "Sole Power" instead.

References

Sonic Boom episode list

• Season 1
• Season 2

• Episodes 1-26
• Episodes 27-52

"The Sidekick"

"Can an Evil Genius Crash on Your Couch for a Few Days?"

"Translate This"

"Buster"

"My Fair Sticksy"

"Fortress of Squalitude"

"Double Doomsday"

"Eggheads"

"Guilt Tripping"

"Dude, Where's My Eggman?"

"Cowbot"

"Circus of Plunders"

"Unlucky Knuckles"

"The Meteor"

"Aim Low"

"How to Succeed in Evil Without Really Trying"

"Don't Judge Me"

"Dr. Eggman's Tomato Sauce"

"Sole Power"

"Hedgehog Day"

"Sleeping Giant"

"The Curse of Buddy Buddy Temple"

"Let's Play Musical Friends"

"Late Fees"

"Into the Wilderness"

"Eggman Unplugged"

Chez Amy

"Blue With Envy"

"Curse of the Cross Eyed Moose"

"Chili Dog Day Afternoon"

"Closed Door Policy"

"Mayor Knuckles"

"Eggman the Auteur"

"Just a Guy"

"Two Good to Be True"

"Beyond the Valley of the Cubots"

"Next Top Villain"

"New Year's Retribution"

"Battle of the Boy Bands"

"Tails' Crush"

"Bro-Down Showdown"

Late Night Wars

"Fire in a Crowded Workshop"

"It Wasn't Me, It Was the One-Armed Hedgehog"

"Robot Battle Royale"

"No Robots Allowed"

"Fuzzy Puppy Buddies"

"Designated Heroes"

"Role Models"

"Cabin Fever"

"Counter Productive"

"It Takes a Village to Defeat a Hedgehog"

• Episodes 53-78
• Episodes 79-104

"Tommy Thunder: Method Actor"

"Spacemageddonocalypse"

"Nutwork"

"Alone Again, Unnaturally"

"The Biggest Fan"

"Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Worse-er"

"I Can Sea Sonic's Fear From Here"

"In the Midnight Hour"

"Multi-Tails"

"Strike!"

"The Evil Dr. Orbot"

"Knuck Knuck! Who's Here?"

"Mech Suits Me"

"FiendBot"

"Og Man Out"

"Knine-to-Five Knuckles"

"Blackout"

"Unnamed Episode"

"Robot Employees"

"Give Bees A Chance"

"Mombot"

"Muckfoot"

"Nominatus Rising"

"Eggman's Brother"

"Do Not Disturb"

"Robots From The Sky Part 1"

"Robots From The Sky Part 2"

"Robots From The Sky Part 3"

"Robots From The Sky Part 4"

"Flea-ing From Trouble"

"Lightning Bowler Society"

"Planes, Trains and Dude-Mobiles"

"Sticks and Amy's Excellent Staycation"

"Inn Sanity"

"Mister Eggman"

"The Haunted Lair"

"Return of the Buddy Buddy Temple of Doom"

"Eggman's Anti Gravity Ray"

"Victory"

"Three Men And My Baby!"

"Where Have All The Sonics Gone?"

"If You Build It They Will Race"

"Chain Letter"

"Vector Detector"

"Three Minutes or Less"

"Lair On Lockdown"

"You and I Bee-come One"

"Don't Make Me Angry"

"Eggman Family Vacation"

"Return to Beyond the Valley of the Cubots"

"Eggman: The Video Game Part 1"

"Eggman: The Video Game Part 2: The End of the World"