Cruise Blues

"Cruise Blues" is the twentieth episode of the anime series, Sonic X. It first aired on 17 August 2003 and 14 February 2004 in Japan and the United States respectively.

Appearances
Characters:
 * Sonic the Hedgehog
 * Miles "Tails" Prower
 * Amy Rose
 * Cream the Rabbit
 * Cheese
 * Christopher Thorndyke
 * Nelson Thorndyke
 * Chuck Thorndyke
 * Ella
 * Mister Tanaka
 * Doctor Eggman
 * Decoe
 * Bocoe
 * Bokkun

Japanese version

 * "SONIC DRIVE" - Opening theme
 * "The Shining Road" - Closing theme

English version

 * "Gotta Go Fast" - Opening theme (USA and CAN)
 * "Sonic X" - Opening theme (AUS, NZ and UK)
 * "Gotta Go Fast" (shortened) - Closing theme

Plot
The episode starts with Chris's father offering Sonic and co. to a cruise to the glaciers on a ship as a means for relaxing after their battles with Eggman. They (except Sonic) are willing to board. Meanwhile, Eggman, Decoe and Bocoe tries to fix and reboot the Egg Fort but the craft fails to launch. Frustrated, Eggman introduced his 3 new flying fortress segments inventions: one for Decoe, one for Bocoe and one for Eggman (these segments were named in the Japanese version as Babang, Bababang and Bang respectively). When Eggman suggested some names, Decoe and Bocoe didn't like the name of their machines and started accusing Eggman for not asking them what name is there to give their own machines, starting an argument.

Chris is relaxing in his swimsuit with a drink but then Sonic comes to him on his knees to get him off the ship as he claims that he is seasick. Chris tries to tell Sonic that the ship is for him to enjoy, but Sonic wouldn't listen, he just wanted to get off. Everyone else seems to be enjoying in the ship but Sonic had some plans to make. He is going to trick his friends so that he can get off.

As everyone gathered in one of the ship's interior cabins sitting in their couches, Sonic just dashes in front of them. They were surprised because they've never seen Sonic acting so hyper before. Amy was mad at Sonic's attitude and interrupted his run. She tells him to behave and try to make the ship fun for himself while Tails, Chris, Cream and Cheese watched in surprise. As Sonic walks off, he pretends that he fainted, Amy and the rest actually thought he fainted and Chris decides to call his father to send a helicopter to take Sonic get back home. Sonic, very excited, gets up with joy because he's finally getting out of the ship. But when he opens the door of the helicopter, he sees many senior people from the Silver Star Retirement Home coming out of the helicopter along with Mr. Tanaka. Sonic ignored them and was going to get into the helicopter. However, the helicopter left. Sonic, on his knees, is very sad that he has to stay in the ship because Tanaka forced him to stay and enjoy.

The senior citizens start enjoying with Sonic and co. though they were slightly annoying. An old lady was watching the clouds with Tails, but then Tails saw the clouds turning darker and formed an image of an aircraft resembling the X-Tornado, feeling scared and starts hesitating. Another old lady was talking with Cream repeating the same question about her origins. Sonic was trying to get off the ship by jumping long distances, but it was no use as he kept falling into the water. This behavior angers Amy. An elderly man notes her feelings for Sonic.

Back where Sonic was suffering, Sonic thought of a few sneaky ideas to trick Tails and Amy. He goes to Tails and tells him that the X Tornado is "awfully lonely" ever since they left. The fox feels guilty and begins to feel depressed because he's been rude enough to leave the X Tornado all alone and thus, being tricked by the hedgehog. Now, Sonic goes to Amy, since he is aware that Amy is crazy in-love with him, he tricked her that he shares her feelings. Amy believed him and then Sonic dramatically exaggerated that he could feel better if she swung her hammer. Amy took his words literally and started swinging her hammer as if she was insane. Sonic reports to Chris and Chuck that Amy has gone berserk. As Chris and Chuck are wondering why Tails and Amy are not behaving as their usual selves, they are discussing if they could turn the ship around but Chuck grows suspicious. Just then, Cream and Amy enters in the cabin discussing about Sonic's sudden change in his personality, with Amy feeling happy that there is a possibility of Sonic returning her feelings. Chris realises that Sonic said that on purpose so he can get off the ship. Chris then shouts out Sonic's name. Later, the scene changes to where Chris's house is. Bokkun goes inside the house but he sees no one inside Bokkun gets very sad that there is no one in the house and that he is so lonely. Then, Ella comes to him and consoles him. Naughty as ever, Bokkun tricked her by planting a bomb and ran away. This resulted Ella getting extremely furious.

Later, Amy discovered that Sonic tricked her and started running after him so that she can whack him with her hammer (Sonic was on top of the pole so that he can get away from her) Amy started using her hammer to break the pole. The ship finally reached the glaciers as a whale surfaced. However, Eggman showed up and combines his new flying fortress components to form the flying fortress: Egg Fort II. Sonic tried to stop him, but he wasn't able to, as he kept on slipping due to the ice. With the advice from an old lady, Sonic was able to regain his confidence. Later, Bokkun came and started crying because he is getting away from Ella. Ella flies to the scenery on the X-Tornado (much to everyone's surprise) and blasts off Eggman using the Cyclone Kick, with a little of Sonic's help. In the end, the ship continues to sail back from where it started. Tails asks Sonic if he was still seasick and wanted to leave, but Sonic finally got used to the ship and told Tails to relax.

Regional differences

 * The following scenes have been cut from the English dub:

These pictures show Chris playing chess with an elder.

Trivia

 * This is the first episode that two characters are seen playing chess with each other (although it is not shown in the English version).
 * Sonic tricks Amy by saying, "When you swing that little hammer of yours my heart beats a million times!" but when Amy tells Cream about this she says, "He said that his little heart beats every time I swing my hammer!" but Sonic was referring to the hammer little, not his heart.
 * Although in the end of the episode, Sonic was okay with staying in the ship though that does not recover his phobia of water.
 * In the Japanese version, Cream states that she lived in Green Hill.
 * The fourth wall has been "broken" several times in the Japanese version of this episode:
 * Decoe and Bocoe said that took a while to repair the Egg Fort because they didn't appear in the previous episode.
 * Amy convinces Sonic to stop misbehaving by warning him about what fans of Sonic X would say to Sonic.
 * When Eggman launches the Egg Fort 2, he receives phone calls from the "viewers" complaining that they couldn't see the flying fortress. In response, Eggman tells them to get bigger televisions.
 * Ella is the first human to pilot the X Tornado.
 * According to Chuck in the English version, Ella can do anything she puts her mind to except cleaning windows. In the Japanese version, he said he taught Ella how to fly the X-Tornado when he was bored.
 * The engine room of Eggman's Egg Fort has the same appearance as the Wave Motion Engine from Star Blazers. The only difference is that it's colored blue instead of the usual red.
 * This episode reveals Sonic can move his ears, since he used them to eavesdrop on Chuck & Chris' discussion before Amy and Cream came in.
 * Chris also acts as the narrator for this episode.
 * Although Sonic attempts to jump all the way to shore only to fall into the water (according to Chris, this has happened at least 15 times), it is unknown how Sonic manages to return to the cruise ship after each time.
 * One of the portraits on the wall at the beginning of the episode is of the RMS Queen Mary, but it has been mistaken as the RMS Titanic. The Queen Mary has three red funnels as seen in the picture, instead of four yellow ones like the Titanic.
 * The glaciers that Sonic and his friends visited resemble Cool Edge from Sonic Unleashed.
 * In the English version, when Eggman goes through various potential names for the Egg Fort II's components, he suggest that they be named Eg, Egg and Eggy, a clear reference to the cartoon show Ed, Edd n Eddy.