Scratch and Grounder in the comic book
Scratch and Grounder are a pair of fictional Badnik robots created by Dr. Robotnik as adversaries of Sonic the Hedgehog in the animated series Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. They form the greater part of Robotnik's "Super Special Sonic Search and Smash Squad" (often abbreviated to SSSSS Squad and, occasionally, 6-S). Scratch and Grounder were voiced by Phil Hayes and Gary Chalk, respectively. Scratch was originally voiced by Jim Cummings.
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog[]
Scratch and Grounder from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.
Scratch and Grounder are largely comic relief characters, and though charged with the capture of Sonic and his friend Tails, they almost always fail. Not only this, but the two are also highly gullible, easily being deceived by Sonic no matter how bizarre or obvious his disguises. These repeated failures frequently result in the two hapless robots receiving a lot of abuse (both verbal and physical) from Robotnik.
Scratch was originally created by Robotnik to be a super-robot that could easily catch Sonic for him, since all of his other mechanical bounty hunters fail. But unfortunately, the machine malfunctioned and gave birth to Scratch, a product almost exactly the opposite of what Robotnik wanted. Grounder is a sort of "clone" of Scratch with different abilities and body structure. While being created by Robotnik in the cartoon, Scratch has his feather plucked and put into a cloner, but Scratch pulled an extra lever that caused, as Robotnik put it, some "slight modifications".
The two were occasionally aided by a robotic monkey named Coconuts (also based on an enemy from Sonic the Hedgehog 2), although most of the time, he would be competing with them rather than helping them, in hopes of being promoted out of janitor status.
Physical appearance[]
Grounder's original design from Sonic 2
Scratch resembles a tall, lanky roughly humanoid rooster or chicken with gray skin, scaled feet, wing-like arms, black collar and belt, a red rooster comb on top of his head, a red two-feathered tail, and a yellow beak and legs, similar to Cluckoids or Clucker (named "Kokekko" in Japan, one of the enemy Badniks in the Wing Fortress Zone of Sonic 2. He is distinctified by his prominent cockadoodle-like laugh, "Ba-ha! Ha-ha!". Scratch seems to be the leader of the badniks, has a IQ of 40, and is marginally smarter than Grounder, making up for his lack of Grounder's assorted gadgets.
Grounder is a small, short, stocky teal machine with tank tracks for feet, an antennae on the back of the top of his head, compass bellybutton as well as drills instead of his hands and nose. Grounder's design was purposefully derived from the Grounder enemy Badnik from Sonic the Hedgehog 2's Aquatic Ruin Zone, though those Grounders (named "Handrill" in Japan) were massproduced, their color schemes were different and they attacked by bursting out of walls. He has a IQ of 25, and is notably less intelligent than Scratch, but once acquired a chip that made him super-intelligent - it was subsequently lost. Grounder also seems to be the most fragile of Robotnik's robots, getting blown to bits slightly more often than the others.
Along with Nack the Weasel, Scratch and Grounder are the only Sonic character to have only four fingers (but Sonic had 4 fingers in Sonic the Movie, AoStH, and SatAM).
Abilities[]
Scratch does not have much in the way of abilities. Like a real rooster/chicken, Scratch is capable of pecking foes, with the pecking more reminiscent of a woodpecker. He is also said to be the smartest of the badniks, which doesn't say much for the badniks in general.
While Scratch seems to be the brains, Grounder is the artillery - his robot body is filled with accessories, which switch usually in his drill hands with any number of weapons or tools, stores assorted equipment (commonly, a telephone) in his torso and even has the components of a Swiss Army knife installed in his tongue.
In the episode "Trail of the Missing Tails", Scratch, Grounder and Coconuts are temporarily transformed into giant monster versions of themselves. Scratch looks more like an ordinary chicken in this state, almost resembling Cluck, the mechanical chicken pet of Robotnik in the "SatAM" animated series. Grounder acquires a blocky, humanoid body with hands and legs instead of drills and tracks. Coconuts, meanwhile, becomes a hulking, tusked, mechanical ape. In this state, they are much bigger and stronger than normal, but it is unknown if they have any further new abilities.
Other appearances[]
Grounders first appeared in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 as a regular enemy in the Aquatic Ruin Zone. This version looked a little different from its AoSTH counterpart. Instead of being a green color he was red and did not have a mouth.
Scratch, Grounder, and Coconuts all appeared as opponents in the game Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, which was based around the AoSTH show. Scratch also appeared in a stage of Sonic Spinball.
Scratch and Grounder also appeared in the earliest issues of the Sonic comic book published by Archie Comics. However, the characters themselves were prominently featured only in their first appearance there, published in issue #2. Subsequent appearances of the two were minor; their last appearance in the comic was part of a flashback in issue #57. However, Scratch appears in issue 4 (Tails' Little Tale) without Grounder and Grounder appears (without Scratch) in the story "Sonic Spin City!", published in Sonic Super Special #15. Often times Gounder would be Purple instead of green. Recently in issue #187 Scratch, Grounder and Coconuts have all returned, now as employees of Mammoth Mogul who has taken over Casino night zone and employed the old badniks as workers.
For the SatAM and comic series, Scratch and Grounder seem to have been replaced with Cluck and Snively, most likely due to their similar appearance.
Trivia[]
- In Japan, Scratch's name was Cluck, which happens to be the name of Robotnik's pet chicken in the Sonic the Hedgehog television series.
- In Sonic Spinball, on the status strip, Scratch was known as Cluck even in the US version.
- Grounder makes a cameo appearance in the comic Sonic Spin City.
- Scratch and Grounder started a trend of Dr. Robotnik having two incompetent side kicks. Example: Sonic Underground had Sleet and Dingo. Sonic X had Decoe and Bocoe.
External links[]
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The original article can be found here and the original contributors here.
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