Scratch and Grounder as seen in the Sonic the Hedgehog comic book.
Scratch and Grounder are a pair of fictional badnik robots created by Dr. Robotnik as adversaries of Sonic the Hedgehog in the television series Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.
Scratch resembles a large, humanoid chicken (similar to one of the badniks in the Wing Fortress Zone of Sonic 2, and an enemy robot from the third stage of Sonic Spinball). Grounder, on the other hand, is a small green machine with tank tracks, as well as drills instead of his hands and nose. These drills can be unscrewed and/or replaced with other useful tools, such as grappling claws or helicopter blades. Grounder's design was purposefully derived from several different badnik characters from early Sonic games, especially a badnik of the same name from Sonic 2's Aquatic Ruin Zone, though their color schemes were different and they attacked by bursting out of walls or from the ground.
Scratch and Grounder are largely comic relief characters, as is this incarnation of Robotnik himself, and though charged with the capture of Sonic and his friend Miles "Tails" Prower, they almost always fail. Not only this, but the two are also highly gullible, easily being deceived by Sonic no matter how bizarre his disguises. These repeated failures frequently result in the two hapless robots receiving a lot of abuse (both verbal and physical) from Robotnik.
The two were occasionally aided by another robot, sometimes a robot monkey named Coconuts, although most of the time he would be competing with them rather than helping them. They all appeared as opponents in the game Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, which was a clone of Puyo Puyo.
Scratch and Grounder also appeared in the earliest issues of the Sonic comic book published by Archie Comics. However, the characters themselves prominently appeared in their first appearance there, published in issue #2. Subsequent appearances of the two were minor; their last appearance in the comic was in a flashback in issue #57.
