Where you respect the speed of sound

Circus of Plunders – Sonic Boom Season 1, Episode 12

Title card of Circus of Plunders (Sonic Boom, 2015)
SeriesSonic Boom (TV series, 2014–2017)
SeasonSeason 1, episode 12 (S01E12)
Episode no.12 of 104
US premiere7 February 2015 · Cartoon Network
France24 December 2014 · C’est quoi ce cirque ?
Written byStory by Mark Banker; teleplay by Mark Banker and Alan Denton & Greg Hahn
StoryboardJean-Charles Andre
Directed byNatalys Raut-Sieuzac
US viewers0.94 million (Nielsen, premiere)
PreviousCowbot (S01E11)
NextUnlucky Knuckles (S01E13)

Circus of Plunders is episode 12 of Season 1 of Sonic Boom, the CGI comedy series made by OuiDo! Productions with Sega of America. It premiered in the United States on 7 February 2015 on Cartoon Network.

Synopsis · Trivia · Watch · All Season 1 episodes

Synopsis

Scene (Circus of Plunders)
A scene from Circus of Plunders.Screenshot: Sonic Boom (2015), “Circus of Plunders” · via Sonic Wiki Zone

Tails’ latest invention needs work. Fired straight off the drawing board in mid-battle, the Unbolterizer misses its target and nearly buries Amy, Knuckles and Sticks. Their fury (Sticks decides he must be a mole) sends Tails off alone to fix it.

Moments later the others are nearly flattened by a road train. Its driver, the ringmaster T.W. Barker, is short of acts (food poisoning, he says), so Amy volunteers everyone, and a quick dare gets Sonic on board. Soon the whole team is in the ring, from human cannonball Knuckles to Amy, a deeply unhappy sad clown. The show is a smash.

Too much of a smash: Barker’s old troupe ran away, and he has no intention of losing his new stars, who end up behind bars, with Sonic sealed in a sphere bought from Eggman Industries. Luckily Tails, who has spent the day perfecting his invention by repeatedly zapping Eggman’s TV remote, comes looking for his friends, rips the tent off and blasts them free. Barker gets a spin in his own sphere, and the team owes Tails an apology.

Sonic in the Sphere of Fear, with T.W. Barker (Circus of Plunders)
Sonic in the Sphere of Fear, with T.W. Barker.Screenshot: Sonic Boom (2015), “Circus of Plunders” · via Sonic Wiki Zone

Trivia

  • T.W. Barker returns as Eggman’s lawyer in “Don’t Judge Me”.
  • On DVD: Universal’s UK volume The Sidekick (8 Feb 2016); in the US, NCircle’s Season One, Volume One (2019) and The Complete Season 1 (2021).
  • French title: C’est quoi ce cirque ?. The episode aired in France on 24 December 2014, before its US premiere.
  • About 0.94 million US viewers watched the premiere broadcast (Nielsen figures as listed by Wikipedia).

Watch the Episode

This episode does not have an official full upload on YouTube at the time of writing. Season 1 is on DVD from NCircle in the US (The Complete Season 1, 2021) and Universal in the UK (2016), and has been available on services including Hulu, Netflix and Tubi; see the series page for details.

Part of our Sonic Boom Season 1 guide. See the series page for the cast, the redesigns, the games and the comics.

Sources: air dates, writers and storyboard artists from Luke’s original Sonic Scene episode list, cross-checked with Wikipedia, Sonic Retro (Wayback copy) and Sonic Wiki Zone; synopsis written for Sonic Scene from the episode summaries on those sites; title card and screenshots via Sonic Wiki Zone, copied to our media library.