AoStH: Egg-based jokes for Robotnik?

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bringkaitlynthehorizon

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I've just been watching the first of the Adventures of StH DVD, and something interesting I noticed was the extensive amount of egg-based jokes and insults aimed at Dr. Robotnik (who, of course, wasn't known as Dr. Eggman in the US until years later). "That egg-olomaniac is about to crack", "You can't keep a bad egg down", etc. Can anyone shed some light on the deal here?
 
The bad doctor's name has always been Dr. Eggman in Japan, hence why he's shaped like an egg and the word "egg" or the letter 'E' is incorporated into so many of his robots/creations. His name was changed to Dr. Robotnik when the Sonic games were 1st brought to the U.S..
 
Yes, that's established...but the thread is asking why they still used egg jokes in the early cartoons if his name was changed to Robotnik. It's pretty odd.
 
Didn't the first Sonic game have a near simultaneous release? (Wasn't the US release even a few days earlier than Japan's, or am I mistaken?) A simultaneous release by an international company suggests not a name change but rather two parallel localizations. In that case, "Dr. Robotnik" is as official a name in the US as "Dr. Eggman" is in Japan, as Robotnik was not a later change.

--Romey
 
Actually, most Sonic games come out in America a few days before Japan.

I believe that they switched his name to "Eggman" in the American version of Sonic Adventure for technical reasons. There's a puzzle where you need to type in "Eggman", plus all of his robots are named "E-10X", among other things. They probably just figured it would be easier to change his name incase anything else like that came up again in a later game, instead of having to edit everything that says "Eggman" on it.

(It's a good thing they did. The next game had a song that repeats "eggman" multiple times)



So yes, I think it's safe to say that name was just as official as "Eggman" until SA.
 
It was obvious the writers in the series gave Robotnik an egg obsession, not to mention the fact that he was shaped like one. As Dudley said, I'd say it was just a reference to his original name.
 
I guess it was just to hint at the fact he was named Eggman. In fact, there are a lot of other references to Eggs in the show, Vis a Vis Robotnik. Wasn't the name of his ship the Egg-o-matic hovercraft? And I distinctly remember the episode about the robotic Pirate, he mistakend the word "X" for Eggs.

Something like:

"The treasure is under the X"
"Eggs? Where?"
"Not Eggs! X! X!"

not to mention in a rare promotional comic (nothing to do with Adventures) the doctor became Robotnik when spilling soda and Eggs on a control pannel. So, there was a link established even there.
 
While his official American name may have been Dr. Robotnik, the character wasn't completely divorced from the egg motif--the Death Egg, which was prominent in Sonics 2, 3, and S&K, was still identified as such in America. Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog merely took it a step further, and made it part of his personality. Heck, wasn't his robot wife named Omeletta?
 
The origin story mentioned above is worth pointing out. For most of Europe, the whole "transformed from an egg" backstory was pretty much canon for a long time.

I wouldn't be suprised if there was also some kind of fear that if Sonic used specific fat jokes kids would pick them up and use them for bullying. 'Egg bellied slow mo' is pretty tame.
 
To me the "egg" comment goes beyond a simple fat joke. I mean, the character does look like an egg (though due to comedic animation purposes, he looks more like a large water balloon filled with Pudding, or something else thick and heavy to really give it that shape). So, the Europeans had that comic as canon?

I think they even still use the egg belly comments in the Sonic the Hedgehog comics, dispite the fact they changed him to Eggman (I read the free comic book day promo comic, I haven't read that one in years, so I don't know what could have happened in the actual comic since).
 
In the episode "Lifestyles of the Sick and Twisted", Tails actually calls Robotnik "Eggman". I know that was another use of name-calling, but I was surprised when I heard that.
 
Hmmm... is this on the DVD set? I never heard of that. And I think I saw that episode too.

I will say it's funny that Robotnik got away with his American name, while King Koopa (in SMB SS) got his Japanese name. Just would like to point that out.
 
There was one episode where this cartoonist bird caricatures Robotnik as "Humpty Dumpty", another egg insult (Robotnik took considerable umbrage to that, too. The bird was arrested, which was IIRC that episodes's central conflict.
 
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