Eggman or Robotnik? The Many Versions of the Mad Doctor

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ones and without a doubt the most famous example of a name change revolves around this guy the villainous Mad Doctor Who traps animals and robots and builds giant Star Wars rip-offs I am of course speaking of the one and only doctor robot egg Jim Carrey alright so the one and only bit there is not exactly true and the name of this guy can be a little confusing depending on when you grew up and what part of the world you grew up in and depending on those factors you'll know the good doctor by one of two names Dr Eggman in Japan and now everywhere in the states or Dr Robotnik if you're an ancient creature like myself but yet somehow managed to find healthier interests in life outside of a blue Hedgehog you might be wondering why this guy you've always known as robotic is called by your idiot child Eggman that's because that's the name they decided to go with with over in Japan but as we've explained with that whole Mobius situation since they decided to make up lore in every region of the world when building up their new star mascot yeah the western side of things decided the name was a little too silly so out with the Eggman and in with Robotnik how'd they come up with the name well they probably just chopped off the first part of Sonic's name and then added the word robot in its place since you know the whole guy schtick was robots so you have saw Nick and robot Nick it's an ingenious naming scheme if you ask me that is one potential answer and it might even be part of the answer but robotic is an actual word I wasn't aware of that until I was doing research for this video but yeah Robotnik is indeed a Slavic word that means worker or slave depending on which Slavic language you're using and it's where the ward robot actually originated from as it means essentially a mechanical slave or worker there's a great Reddit post by real mod maker that summarizes all of this in a much more succinct and detailed way so I'd recommend go checking that if you want any more details there but yeah that's pretty cool and fairly creative honestly but with all of that sorted out in terms of the western side of things where on Earth did the name Eggman come from well design alone you can see why he would be called Eggman but I would imagine that the name probably comes from the same place everything in early Sonic came from pop culture references and yeah I know official sources will say one thing or another but I would not be remotely surprised if the name was first grabbed from the Beatles as it is a line from the ridiculous song I Am The Walrus what's it mean probably nothing the entire song is pure drug induced Madness and it's fantastic and also super super famous so no I don't believe for a second that yujinaka or the rest of Sonic team had not heard one of the most famous songs during the time where they were growing up who knows maybe they even got the idea for the mustache with the I Am The Walrus part of the song and that lyric I am the Eggman would be the title for eggman's sa2 theme but more on that a little bit later but even Stranger Than the name is his design itself as it might actually predate Sonic in terms of conceptualization when I was a kid I just assumed that the rotund body emphasis on red in his uniform and prominent mustache was a slight jab at Mario after all Sonic was created specifically to take down the plumber but apparently Iggy is inspired by Teddy Roosevelt and before Sonic was in the running to be sega's mascot I mean hey this all worked for Mario why not this guy stashes were in baby then again as much as early Sonic took from Castle in the Sky among plenty of other bits of Pop Culture as someone on Twitter pointed out yeah Eggman might have taken a few Inspirations leading to his final design outside of an old president but obviously they went with the Hedgehog over the ball ban in terms of the starring mascot but they'd love this design so much that he was recast as the main villain and has since become as iconic as Sonic himself and hey in terms of this specific version of the character I will give Sega this much in the early days he stayed pretty consistent he has plenty of egg themed Bots to send after those dreaded furries he hates so much all while building so many cities and carnivals there's not much else to him dude's real smart and he wants to rule the world with the help of his technology leading to a lot more obvious nature versus machine themes in the early days which would be used to inspire different cannons in the west a Mad Doctor that builds a bunch of robots and captures animals there's not much else you need to that but then you gave him over to the western side of Sega outside of Japan this dude got some of the wildest redesigns and flat out reinventions depending on the cannon you're looking at there are two obvious redesigns we need to look at but make no mistake these are not the only other versions of this one character I'm of course referring to the Dr robotniks of the two Sonic cartoons of the day there are other offshoots from these very designs but we gotta start somewhere so let's start with Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog Jaleel White's Sonic the Hedgehog didn't change a whole lot personality wise between either show and I'd actually argue that the tone of each is dictated by their versions of the villain as this version of Robotnik is a frustrated troll of a man stuck in a cartoon world voiced brilliantly by the late great long John Baldrick my full name is Dr Ivo Robotnik not that anyone's ever asked this robotic was largely overlooked by his sat am counterpart but thanks to the internet the sheer Insanity of his performance now lives forever in meme form I've always seen this version as the ugliest of all the designs and as such it was my least favorite as a kid but looking back on it now he's an absolute treat and honestly there's a lot more modern Eggman in this version of the character than I initially realized it's got two dimwit Sidekicks he's always yelling at but always keeps around for some reason constantly praising his own genius while making cartoonishly ridiculous Contraptions and hey they try to stay true to the games sort of he has his egg Mobile on occasion he has plenty of egged themed puns and even is referred to as guess again Eggman just the one time but that beats out Adventures by quite a few years so I guess adventurers beat out Adventure huh there were always obvious nods to his original name and the Egg themes even here in the west little noticeable background details or the obviously named Death Egg among plenty of other robots but on that note the Western named badnics have stuck around and personally I'm thankful for it I love that name and on the flip side you had obvious nods to the name Robotnik at least in terms of Robotnik winter in triple trouble which yes that was the name of the level even in Japan so yeah this version of Robotnik stayed a little more true to the original Eggman than I had ever realized but still I've never understood why the West Was So Keen to make this design the established game version of the character in merchandise or in this cartoon this was his design for the Sonic 3 McDonald's tie-in here in the west they swapped out classic eggy for the Game Gear version of spinball's cover he is the version of Robotnik in robotnik's Mean Bean machine they even made a big stink about changing the original Eggman design over to this goofy troll in the Fleetway comic that is technically a separate character since that's a separate Canon so we might as well get into it now and hang on tight because this is a wild series of events and it's not even the craziest one we're covering today see in the Fleetway series robotics started off looking like the original game version at least to a degree this was still that weird eyeless version you'd see on the covers of the American releases of Sonic 2 and 3. but Robotnik didn't even start off looking like this as it turns out robotic was originally a good natured scientist named Dr Kinto bar yeah it's robotic backwards and it's not the last time you'll see that name thrown around in comic books Kindle bar only became Robotnik after a lab accident in which he was bathed an evil chaos energy alongside of rotten egg yeah dude is literally part egg and they still called him Robotnik but like I already stated this design would not last too long as he would later transform into that ugly troll form by uh encasing himself and then literally hatching out of an egg still called the Robotnik as wacky as all this sounds the Fleetway series is actually a lot of fun and this version of the character while chock full of egg puns is actually fairly intimidating especially compared to the adventures of version he's large gross and somewhat terrifying and when the adventure games came into play he swapped out his little elf shoes for the modern Eggman design and I gotta admit it looks awesome apparently the writer of the book pitched the idea of redesigning them yet again once the adventure games came into play but that idea was shot down and I'm kind of thankful for it otherwise we wouldn't be able to look at this particular design and again I love it but yes this dude has basically gone through three designs and yet somehow that record was beaten but all of that in due time we first need to talk about the other prominent Western Robotnik design that one being of course the sad am version of The Care character voiced by the legendary Jim Cummings yes that's Winnie the Pooh among like a million other characters the guy is incredible and hey fun little note here Jim Cummings actually plays an evil doctor in okko who did a crossover episode with Sonic the Hedgehog in which that character played into a lot of Dr Robotnik references so for a little while it was like Jim Cummings was also playing The Adventures of version of the character which is just adorable fun little factoid just wanted to throw it in there anyway back to this guy it's still Beyond me why they went so far as to not only redesign the original game version of the character but make two entirely different designs and personas at the same time this version of robotic is less of a doctor and more of just a flat out Tyrant while there's no Death Egg there is still plenty of Star Wars at play here giving the doctor a chunky Darth Vader Vibe alongside Stormtrooper like SWAT Bots this dude is not a goofball like his counterparts he is cruel and gets off to it there's a mixture of Fury and pleasure you're dripping with every word coming out of his mouth he lives in a world of furries if there's a kink you could post on deviantART this boy is probably into it also unlike a lot of other eggs in this batch of baddies this dude actually won he has taken over mobotropolis he is an overwhelming threat to this world that Sonic can't just take down in a couple of spin dashes Robotnik was originally warlord Julian in the Kingdom of mobotropolis right up until he betrayed King Acorn and over in the city with pollution and turned the citizens into robotic slaves with his roboticizer well I say his roboticizer but it was actually minted by Sonic's Uncle Chuck which personally I never liked that much I think robotization is a really scary and cool concept but I don't like that Robotnik himself didn't invent it feels like it takes away from his genius and the whole doctor thing and honestly thinking about it now I kind of like how much of eggman's Personal Touch is in his wacky ass robot designs in the games the drab uniform designs of a.m kind of take away a lot of that charm but all that said it really helped with the tone of the show and the tone of this version of the character he does stand out from the pack he felt like a truly dangerous presence every time he was on screen and while the lore veers far from the games there are so many elements kicked off inside am that I genuinely Miss and would love to see return to the franchise turning allies into robots and turning against the rest of the cast was always a terrifying idea robotropolis is such an overwhelming presence I really wish the games would establish a home City Base that was a little more permanent like this place was and again I never really liked the robot designs of the show I will talk about that stupid cheetah another time but I gotta admit I love the SWAT Bots they are still iconic and I would love to see them again we of course also have his Lackey snively but this video isn't about him point is this version of robotic brings a lot to the table and while the original showrunner and writer has unfortunately passed away they did at least end his story in a real cool way but who knows the fan created season 3 might bring more to that story that certainly didn't stop Fleetway and Archie fans that said Saturday and robotic would serve as the basis for the Archie version of Robotnik and if you're not familiar with the history of this version of the character you might need to sit down for this I'm gonna do my best to do this entire series events from memory I'm not looking any of this up so let me know if I get anything wrong but first thing I want you to do is take a look at the cover of issue zero of Sonic you'll notice that Robotnik looks a lot like the original game design you see that cool because it's going to take them at least 25 years to come back to this design because the moment you take a peek inside the book you'll see that he actually Sports the sad I am design but carries a personality that's more in line with Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog's Robotnik this is a separate continuity from both of those shows but if the early tone is close to anything it's closer to Adventures but within a a year or two it would lean far more into the stadium version of things the first rendition of this robotic uses the classic game batnix as his lackeys to abuse as well as the occasional SWAT bot we'll talk a little bit more about all of that in Archie sonic speed reading but I'll tell you right now I think these are by far my favorite Robotnik lackeys I love these guys anyway as the comic carried on as I said it would drop this particular tone and fall more in line with the lore being set up in season 2 of sat am and Mal is a technically different series of events Archie does kind of act as a continuation of the sad am lore at least they would right up until issue 50. Robotnik died in his own way in setium and he would die in a different way here in Arch as a team was under the assumption that the book was coming to a close and as such Ken penders would write a story where Sonic and robotic would have one final battle with the good doctor ending of dead but as you probably know the comic continued going from issue 50 all the way up to issue to 290 and that's not including all of the spin-off books but while the comic kept going Robotnik did not that's right this character died in the first quarter of this series existence and stayed dead technically there was an issue where he returned and met the modern Eggman who is technically a separate character and that would be a really cool idea I would love to see Jim Cummings and Mike Pollock in the same room playing these versions of the character but this comic itself was awful just a waste of a great idea anyway back on track yeah after issue 50 Sonic and Pals would go on to different adventures with different enemies and they could get away with this for a while this was during the Saturn era of Sonic content so not a whole lot of stuff was coming out but when Sonic Adventure came around and realigned everything the comics had to come more in line with the new game canon and while Fleetway was doing its own insane thing Archie said hold my beer so to get around the lack of a Robotnik they brought back an alternate Universe version of the character that was introduced all the way back in the early days of hinder's writing that would be robo-robotnik originally he had conquered the Mobius of his universe and then roboticized himself or maybe he was always a robot anyway he comes back to the prime version of Mobius but actually he might be a different version of robot Robotnik as his backstory doesn't quite line up I don't know if they ever actually said he was a different version I have to go back and check so this could not only be just a separate version of Robotnik but a separate version of robo-robotnik are you keeping up because I'm not done Sonic and the Freedom Fighters defeat this new robo-robotnik 2.0 but since he is a robot he backs up his digital presence into a new body that of the then newly designed Adventure era Dr Eggman and since this is the start of the adventure era yes Sonic and his Pals start calling him Eggman but since this is Archie getting away with whatever they wanted to get away with they interchanged that name with robotic a whole lot for years to come on am I to buried lead but yes the first time the modern version of Eggman showed up in Archie he was introduced as a robot a robot that can turn any organic thing he touches into robots yeah he has a robotization touch it's an interesting idea I guess but we need to hang on we're not even halfway done for this when they grew tired of this robot shtick they brought in aliens that turned Sonic and Tails into robots to fight Eggman and snively as humans because snively was turned into a robot for a little while it was this weird tournament thing but the whole point of it was to basically turn everybody into organic beans and get all this bot nonsense off the table then later on after Ian Flynn took over the book robotic goes crazy for a bit but when he snaps out of it he decides to soft reboot the world which shakes up the cannon and changes the old robotic design into the classic game Eggman with the Sonic Genesis miniseries but then they pop back right into the Canon they had just left so I don't know how much that is actually part of the cannon after this point but then they pull that nonsense again with the super genesis wave and this time it sticks changing the old lore of Julian and changing him over to Eggman who's always just been called Eggman and technically always a part of this new Cannon so all of that crap with the death and Alternate Dimension robot stuff is just out the window but yeah like I said took them a really long ass time just to get back to that original Eggman look Archie Eggman was kind to every other version of Robotnik and Eggman rolled into one character changing drastically but yeah as insane as this sounds if you're familiar with superhero comic history this is fairly standard they pull this crap all the time go read about like any Spider-Man character if you want a nice trippy headache the history itself looks insane when explained out but the overall point is to develop some sort of new status quo or return a character to their default classic iconic design Archie Eggman had a wild ride but really even with the DraStic retcons Dr Eggman still talks and acts the same wavelength as always written in a super casual fan could pick up one of Ian Flynn's late art sheet books then pick up a random IDW book by the guy and while you will notice some different stories and obviously some different casts Dr Eggman sounds like Dr Eggman even though those are technically two very different versions of the character I still see people in the comments of these videos and in a lot of Sonic Speed reading videos that think these are the same guys in the same Canon universe and that was intentional Flynn was tasked to help bring Archie more in line with the games and in turn a lot more consistency and characterization for these iconic characters which is why Sonic Boom makes absolutely no sense while I could never see myself calling the setting Robotnik Eggman the exact opposite is true for the boom version of this same character even though ironically he's the most fit of any version of Eggman well okay super robotic might give him a run for his money and actually that version of the character also sported an ace bomber look before boom so man I don't know what to say Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog's Robotnik was a trendsetter and boom Eggman has the most consistent English voice actor of the character Mike Pollock who was already iconic by the time this show and video games came out but this one is sillier than even The Adventurous version of the character he is still technically a threat but he's a major source of comic relief in a show full of comic relief and it's never actually that big of a problem I think Sonic and Pals just see him as some means to break up the boredom in their lazy Beachside Village we'll talk more about this offshoot of the franchise I'm not the biggest fan of the designs but I really love this version of Eggman and I got a lot of love for the jokes of this show but yeah wow that's a lot of eggs and that's still not including that weird French comic the manga Sonic Underground which is technically a different version of the sad am version of Robotnik and of course the Jim Carrey take on the character which is just Jim Carrey and whatever the upcoming one in Sonic Prime will end up being you might be wondering why did I talk about all these versions of this one character if the point was to sort out which name is better between Eggman and Robotnik now I'll get to my point but they actually solved this problem a long time ago in a rare bit of Brilliance from Sonic team as many of you Sonic fans already know they came up with what is possibly the single best compromise we could have ever asked for the greatest scientific genius in the world whatever you say Eggman the western side of the world finally had the name Eggman become commonplace in the franchise and not even stopping there in the sequel Sonic Adventure 2 they would do the same for the Japanese audience with the name Robotnik as we finally get some history of the character and see some of his family in Gerald and Maria Robotnik all while fully embracing the name Eggman as we can see with his theme song but still being proud of the robot nickname as it's violently swirling along with a whole bunch of other nonsense while he's threatening the world the two adventure games cemented and canonized both the names in a rare but beautiful Union between Sega of America and Japan but it does need to be said going forward from here and still technically to the present day it does feel like this was Sega trying to firmly cement Eggman as the one true name of the character and bury the name robotic as it was rarely seen in the Years following but even with it being buried as so many other Western ideas were when it comes to Sonic the name robotic still persisted partially thanks to Archie and largely in older Generations fondly remembering their time with their Sega Genesis occasionally wondering why the hell they changed a name into something so silly but even though they paid the Swap all the way back in 1999 all these years later that name is just too iconic to ever truly erase it from Sonic history and unlike the constant fight for relevance for the name Mobius or the inclusion of Freedom Fighters Sega actually did the decent thing and once again doubled down on acknowledging both names in their recent Tales tube series which exists to help streamline the current game cannon here they said the doctor's true name is Dr Ivo Robotnik but has since embraced what was once an insult of a name and now calls himself Dr Eggman look at this bad he's letting it all flow out this man puts his face on everything Sonic may be fast and bust robots but eggman's body positive activity is his true superpower and of course the movies themselves once again took on the name Robotnik the name Eggman is thrown around here and there of course but as an old fan I cannot tell you how great it is to hear that name again and on the big screen no less and I can walk into a Target in the year 2022 and pick up an action figure that proudly displays the name Robotnik on it and in that same store I can go and grab a different figure with the name Eggman how great is that the reason I went to so much trouble to talk about all the different versions of this one character is to show that these two names have always been a part of the franchise and you can see bits of every version of this one character in every other version of this character there have always been references to both names and I feel like this character is a shining example of how to compromise and roll in different aspects of this franchise into one beautiful can earthworm Mobius Hydro City or hydrosity Freedom Fighters or Gamecast or Fleetway cast Mecha Sonic or Silver Sonic my man Dr Ivo Eggman Robotnik is here to respond to all of those choices with why not bull yeah I always have my preferences and my biases we all do but the point is less about trying to say one is better than the other and more that every option has Merit and with just a little creativity we can have our eggs and eat them too and with all that said I'm kind of hungry I think I'm gonna make myself an omelette but that's going to do it for another episode of what's in a name thank you so much for hanging out with me today and it feels so good to finally talk about the most iconic Sonic villain on this channel I just realized it's the very first video I've ever dedicated to him and it feels good to actually talk again I don't feel like death anymore I finally have conquered covid so thank you guys so much for hanging out with me and waiting for me to get my act together and thank you to my dear friend Channel pop who has been helping me stay afoot because I've not been able to do much of anything for the last little while the man is amazing he just up his channel into three different segments so you can get a nice healthy variety of content in all three categories so go check out his stuff and be sure you check us out on Sunset City our weekly Sonic podcast we've covered a lot of Sonic obviously but we have just a great time in general we do a lot of streaming we do a lot of goofing off so once again check that out links are in the description would really love to see that show grow so give it all the support you can please and hey if you want to help support this channel I do of course have a patreon those folks get shows early they get the audio of the show even earlier than that it access to our Discord server which I will hopefully be in a little bit more often now that my health has returned so if you want to come hang out with us there all you gotta do is pitch in a dollar two gives you a vote which I've not been doing a whole lot of so we might reorganize that particular tier and five dollars gets a name shout out and there's quite a few people that want their name shouted out by my weird voice so let me go ahead and thank them all individually right now so massive thank you to Kyle winter Siris the skeptic Joseph Sonic 2 blue John Josh Strider Casey eggmon Rowe zanderoni the painter hatsworth Ginger Bob Jack of all Spades Tristan trap Meekers dun dun quote resident Fanboy miles the Prower Jeremy singer Mr Blue Jay rain Sam Webster Dwight Graham fish flop Lucas lipker the bad pal Jonathan Dobbs just really likes Princess Sally shout out to my fellow sipmunk cloverhood shodin Mr SP Cecil the Glade the dark neon Stefan plot conica three monik Thai cyan Graham J hall Lenny X Wayne is boss Jamie Chevalier lederic David 20 The Lumberjack wiki wiki give me that funky beat yo my name is Mick Nick and on the web I'm the gist TM but you can call me icky Nikki because my Rhymes are sick and he left a dash there oh God there's going to be more and I was literally sick so good on you notice nbtv mute trash Baphomet Autumn from twitter.com that tlos main Muay Spades the Nocturne Ken k then 101 Paxton Bisby sandaran 7 Stevie Cole twylor asir warns of a deadly fate Paisley Eric Delgado Cody gracias kodinski jamo art p k durbar give up your children separate Sonic p-a-j Zagar lagon and if any haters say I'm not funky on YouTube let him know I got sponsored saying tutu wiggity wiggity word up Mr Blue Jay beautiful Otis Bravo Roxas the cat and Blake Smith I wonder if we do need to reconfigure the naming thing here because there's a lot of names to read off now which is a good chunk of the end of the video so hey patrons if you want me to switch that out to something else just let me know otherwise if you want me to keep doing these insane readings I'm more than happy to I am honored to see all these names on here supporting this very stupid thing I do for a living thank you so much again for all the support thank you all for watching and I will see you all next time Warriors

Channel: Game Apologist

Views: 473,053

Keywords: eggman, robotnik, eggman vs robotnik, sonic, sonic the hedgehog, what's in a name, game apologist, dr robotnik, satam, adventures of sonic the hedgehog, long john baldry, jim cummings, mike pollock, sonic adventure, sonic adventure 2, robotnik meme, tails, eggman reference, ok ko, cartoons, 90 cartoons, animation, videogames, i am the eggman, beatles, ian flynn, archie sonic, idw sonic, sonic comics, sonic lore, eggman origins, robotnik name, sega, eggmans announcement, maria

Id: 4iXC7LwiIMw

Length: 29min 26sec (1766 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 12 2022