“ | Scratch: Look at em' run! Fear, panic, dread, terror! Bwahahaha! Grounder: Yeah, makes you proud to be a robot! Ha Ha! |
„ |
~ Scratch and Grounder. |
Scratch and Grounder are the secondary antagonists of the animated series Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.
They're Dr. Robotnik's dimwitted henchmen and members of the Super Special Sonic Search and Smash Squad. Despite being exclusive to the cartoon, they also occasionally make appearances in other Sonic media, such as the comics.
Scratch was voiced by Jim Cummings in the pilot, who also voiced Dr. Robotnik in the latter. In the final series, Scratch was voiced by Phil Hayes, and Grounder was voiced by Garry Chalk.
Descriptions[]
Scratch[]
Scratch is a tall, roughly humanoid robot with chicken-like features, including "scaled" feet, wing-like arms, a feathered tail, and a beak. Scratch seems to be the leader of the three badniks (himself, Grounder, and Coconuts), and is marginally smarter than Grounder, making up for his lack of Grounder's assorted gadgets - though Scratch does possess a laser pistol, a drawstring, and hands that can turn into scissors.
Grounder[]
Grounder is a short, teal mole-based robot with continuous tracks for mobility. He has a drill for a nose as well as two on the ends of his arms. Grounder specializes mainly in gadgetry; he can turn his drill "hands" into any number of weapons or tools (including actual hands), stores assorted equipment (commonly, a telephone) in his torso, and (according to the episode showing his creation) even has the components of a Swiss Army knife installed in his tongue. Grounder also seems to be the most fragile of Robotnik's robots (himself, Scratch, and Coconuts), getting blown to bits slightly more often than the others, though he is able to put himself back together more easily than them. Despite this, Grounder is the most dimwitted of Robotnik's henchmen, possessing a very low IQ and is often on the butt end of his and Scratch's failures.
History[]
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog[]
In the first episode, Super Special Sonic Search and Smash Squad, the origin of the dim-witted duo is explained. After failing to capture Sonic with an army of mechanical bounty-hunters, Dr. Robotnik decides to create a pair of robots that are much more efficient than the others. After placing several items into his robo-matic machine, he ends up creating Scratch, which is almost the exact opposite of what he desired. He then yanked off one of Scratch's tail-feathers into the device to create a clone of Scratch, but then Scratch pulls a lever that wasn't meant to be pulled and out comes Grounder.
Ever since then, Scratch and Grounder have served Robotnik in several of his plots to conquer Mobius and destroy Sonic, only to fail each and every time and then suffer the brunt of their creator's wrath. They also often bicker and fight over which of the two Robotnik likes better, much to Robotnik's annoyance.
Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine[]
Scratch and Grounder make an appearance in the puzzle game Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, where they try to stop the hero, Has Bean from stopping Robotnik from turning his kind into mindless robots. Grounder is the eighth opponent in the puzzle game Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine. He is the margin point where the game becomes much more difficult. Scratch is the secondary antagonist and semi-final boss who you fight on Stage 12 and is almost as difficult as Dr. Robotnik himself. However, his style of gameplay causes him to do stupid things, which can end up killing himself.
Archie Comics[]
Scratch and Grounder also appear in the Sonic the Hedgehog comic series by Archie. Initially created by Dr. Robotnik to vanquish Sonic, but after several failed attempts, Robotnik decided to dump them out. They, along with Coconuts, later became employees of Mammoth Mogul at his Casino Night Zone.
After the Super Genesis Wave, their history remained almost the same, except that they now work for Breezie the Hedgehog.
Relationships[]
Allies[]
- Dr. Ivo Robotnik (creator and boss/father figure)
- Coconuts (depending on Coconuts' goal/brother)
- Badniks
- Swatbots
- Cluck
- Wes Weasley (sometimes)
- Mammoth Mogul (Archie Comics; Pre-Super Genesis Wave)
- Breezie the Hedgehog (Archie Comics; Post-Super Genesis Wave)
Enemies[]
- Sonic the Hedgehog
- Miles "Tails" Prower
- Knuckles the Echidna
- Professor Von Schlemmer
- Sally Acorn
- Freedom Fighters
- Coconuts (depending on Coconuts' goal)
- Wes Weasley (sometimes)
Quotes[]
“ | Scratch: He made me first. I'm his favorite. Grounder: Yeah?! I've got more accessories. He likes me best. NEEEHHH!!!! |
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~ Scratch and Grounder upon meeting each other for the first time. |
“ | Scratch: We've got ways of making you talk, hedgehog. Grounder: We do? What ways? Scratch: Stupid! Grounder: Yeah, right! We've got stupid ways of making you talk! So start blabbin', Missy. Scratch: Tell us where we can find Sonic! |
„ |
~ Scratch and Grounder to Breezie while they're pretending to mob her. |
“ | BOTH: We hate that hedgehog! | „ |
~ Scratch and Grounder whenever they're defeated. |
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Scratch and Grounder are both based off of badniks from the mainstream games, specifically Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Scratch is based on the Clucker model while Grounder is based on the badnik of the same name.
- Besides Scratch and Coconuts, Grounder is the only one of the three whos appearence is somewhat identical to his said basis, though with only one exception of the latter having eyes that resemble screws.
- Scratch and Grounder started a trend of Dr. Robotnik and other villains having two incompetent sidekicks:
- Sonic Underground had Sleet and Dingo.
- Sonic X had Decoe and Bocoe.
- The mainstream games, comics (both Archie and IDW), and Sonic Boom had Orbot and Cubot.
- The IDW comics also included Rough and Tumble.
- Grounder had a smarter alter ego version of himself who, alongside Dr. Qwark, are proven to be smarter and more creative than Robotnik himself.
- Robotnik had a pet robotic chicken named Cluck in SatAM which is also the name of the badnik Scratch is said to be loosely based off (albeit pronounced as ''Clucker''), ''Cluck'' is even said to be Scratch's Japanese name. He might have also loosely been based off both Scratch and Clucker.
- It’s being theorized that Dr. Robotnik's badniks in the Sonic in Sydney live show are both Scratch and Grounder as he calls them his "two incompetent cronies" and abuses them much like in the cartoon. Although due very little number of photos of the show, besides the revamped puppet version which Grounder did make an appearance in, its unknown if the two made an actual appearance on stage or are just heard, as footage of both shows have been considered lost for many years now while only the audio of the costumed show still exists. Thier voices don't sound the same as they do in AoStH, and they don't have any lines save for sneezing, grunting, and laughing, save for possibly being the background singers singing the line ''Give Me Chaos'' in Robotnik's Give Me Chaos song.
- Scratch was voiced by Jim Cummings in the pilot, although he is nowhere seen to be speaking at all, however due to the pilot being considered partially lost with some scenes said to be missing which may have included his dialogue, no footage of his original audio has yet been found.
- According to a pre-production page, Sonic SatAM was apparently intended to be a sequel to Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. If this were true, it is unknown what may have become of Scratch and Grounder after Robotnik conquered Mobius, but it is likely that both of them would've either been destroyed by Robotnik due to incompetence or were fired by him for the same reason.
- According to an early production document, both Scratch and Grounder were planned to make a return in Sonic Underground as Robotnik’s “bumbling” robots, possibly either replacing or accompanying Sleet and Dingo. While the document refers to them as "Robotnik's dumb-bots", it's unknown whether their backstories as to their creation would have been altered (i.e. be Mobians that were subjected to roboticization). However, for unknown reasons, they were scrapped from the final show.
- Grounder’s voice actor Garry Chalk did however voice Robotnik in Sonic Underground and Scratch's voice actor Phil Hayes voiced Bartleby MontClair in the said show.
- While Grounder is teal green in the show, his game counterpart is red, however in the 2013 remaster of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, a green colourized Grounder appears as a new object in Debug Mode, which is most likely a nod to Grounder from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.
External Links[]
- Scratch on the Sonic the Hedgehog Wiki
- Grounder on the Sonic the Hedgehog Wiki
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Sonic Cartoon Villains | ||
Others
(OVA) See Also |