Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog

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Not to be confused with Sonic the Hedgehog (TV series).
For other uses, see Sonic the Hedgehog.
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog

Opening title card
Genre Animated series, Adventure, Comedy
Created by DIC Entertainment
Sega (characters)
Voices of Jaleel White
Long John Baldry
Garry Chalk
Ian James Corlett
Phil Hayes
Christopher Welch
Country of origin  United States
 France
Language(s) English
French
No. of episodes 65 (List of episodes)
Production
Running time 22:05
Broadcast
Original channel NBC
Original run September 6, 1993 – March 20, 1995
Chronology
Followed by Sonic the Hedgehog
(1993–1994)

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (also known as: AoStH) is an American and French animated series that was first broadcast in September 1993 on NBC. It follows the escapades of Sonic the Hedgehog, and his best friend Miles "Tails" Prower, as they attempt to stop the evil Doctor Ivo Robotnik and his array of vicious robots from taking over the planet Mobius. However, in typical Sonic style, Sonic always finds time to indulge in as many Chili Dogs he can get his hands on. This series is very much a slapstick type comedy, especially with the incredibly melodramatic explosions and quirky story lines. But Sonic is always portrayed as being skilled and clever, whereas Scratch and Grounder are clumsy and often Robotnik's downfall. This series was panned widely by critics, including The Nostalgia Critic citing its slapstick storylines, villains, and animation.

Contents

[edit] Production

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog was created by DIC Entertainment, which produced a total of 65 episodes for its first season, and was syndicated by Bohbot Entertainment, now BKN International (in the original run, every episode began and ended with the "Bohbot Entertainment Presents" logo).

The plots often loosely followed the storyline of the video games series, although when the cartoon began, the Sonic games were still quite new, and lacking much plot or character development, which was filled in by the show's writers.

Later DiC ceased production on this comical version to spend more time on its darker interpretation, dubbed just Sonic the Hedgehog (commonly known as SatAM by fans), a series launched on ABC's Saturday morning line-up.

[edit] Post-production

After the original airing, DiC created one more episode in the winter of 1996, "Sonic Christmas Blast", which has features from the other Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon such as Princess Sally Acorn in a non-speaking cameo. It also has Sonic and Tails visiting Robotropolis, which has a human population and a name pronounced with two "T"s. In this episode, Robotnik replaces Santa with a robot duplicate and demands that everybody gives him Christmas presents instead of getting some from Santa. Sonic, Tails and Santa team up to save the holiday. The letters page of issue #41 of the Sonic the Hedgehog comic book promotes the special as "An X-Tremely Sonic Christmas."

[edit] Premise

Doctor Robotnik as he appears in the first episode of the series, 'SSSSS Squad'.

Pierre De Celles, an animator who worked on Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, described the show as "fun and humorous."[1]

The central protagonists are Sonic the Hedgehog and Miles "Tails" Prower, while the main antagonists include Robotnik and his two hench-bots Scratch and Grounder (with a third robot, Coconuts, appearing on occasion).

There are many occasional minor characters and robots too, including Robotnik's dominating mother or Wes Weasley, a salesman and con-man, not disimilar to Phil Silvers.[2] The city has more non-human creatures, like anthropomorphic animals and robots than other projects. The planet, Mobius is more of a zany, colorful cartoon world in this version.

Sonic and Tails from the episode "Robotnik Jr."

Each episode featured the famous "Sonic Sez" segments where Sonic gave viewers advice on different topics, ranging from staying in school, not running away from home and not using guns to smoking, alcohol abuse, false advertising, sexual harassment, and even the dangers of riding in clothes dryers. Today, the segments, along with the entire show are often used in internet memes.

In the United Kingdom, the series was screened on Channel 4 in 1993 on Sunday mornings at 9:00 which had the "Sonic Sez" segments edited out, possibly because of either time constraints or they were more aimed at American audiences and that many of the subjects were considered too controversial or hard to understand for UK audiences. They were also edited out on the UK VHS releases of the series. However, the segments were intact on the TCC and POP! airings, as well as the DVD boxset. The end credits always mentioned the segments, even on the Channel 4 version and VHS releases.

In Australia, the show was aired on Agro's Cartoon Connection on weekday mornings and on Cheez TV on Saturday mornings. Unlike in the UK, all "Sonic Says" segments were left intact.

[edit] Sonic the Hedgehog series

De Celles said in an interview that the staff of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog did not possess an awareness of nor a sense of competition against the Saturday series, which he describes as "serious and heavy." De Celles said that the approaches to the cartoons differed and he described the staff as too busy to pay attention to the other series.[1]

[edit] Voice cast

[edit] Additional voices

[edit] DVD releases

On June 11th 2007, All 65 episodes were released on a 8 Disc region 2 DVD in the UK.

On July 17, 2007, Shout! Factory released Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog: Volume One on DVD in Region 1. Volume Two was released on December 9, 2008. They are only available on Shout! Factory's online store.

DVD Name Ep # Release Date Additional Information
Volume 1 22 July 17, 2007 Cotains episodes 1-22
  • "How to Draw Sonic the Hedgehog"
  • "A Conversation with artist Milton Knight"
Volume 2 22 December 9, 2008 Contains episodes 23-44
  • "How to Draw Dr. Robotnik"

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b "Pierre De Celles on Animating Sonic the Hedgehog and Other Tales," Toonzone
  2. ^ Adventures Of Sonic The Hedgehog - Television Tropes & Idioms

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Sonic the Hedgehog features
Other
Spin offs
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_of_Sonic_the_Hedgehog"
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