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
AoStHtitle.jpg
Opening title card
Also known as AOSTH
Genre Animated series, Adventure, Slapstick comedy
Created by DIC Entertainment
BKN
Sonic Team/Sega (characters)
Voices of Jaleel White
Long John Baldry
Gary 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 first-run syndication
Original run September 6, 1993 – December 3, 1993
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, and only for one season. 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 serve as Robotnik's foil.

The show was originally offered to be broadcast on ABC's Saturday Morning line-up, but ABC reviewed the show and found lack of animation, unpopular story plots, and other things. As a result, ABC declined the deal and the show ended up only being broadcast on syndication.

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 dissimilar 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. Sonic Sez is commonly used in spoofs of the show on the internet.

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. 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] Characters

  • Jaleel White as Sonic the Hedgehog
  • Long John Baldry as Doctor Ivo Robotnik: A bumbling despot who seeks to rule Mobius, but his plans are always foiled by Sonic, in no small part due to Scratch and Grounder's stupidity. His catchphrase, which is muttered at least once per episode (usually when Sonic thwarts him), is "I HATE THAT HEDGEHOG!!"
  • Phil Hayes and Garry Chalk as Scratch and Grounder: They are a pair of robots created by Robotnik to capture Sonic. The two are extremely incompetent to the point where they struggle with even simple tasks, and are highly gullible, easily being tricked by Sonic no matter how bizarre, obvious, or pathetic his disguises are. Their constant failures result in the two regularly being abused, both verbally and physically, by Robotnik. Scratch was originally created by Robotnik to be a super-robot that could easily catch Sonic for him, but a malfunction created Scratch, a product almost the exact opposite of what Robotnik wanted. He attempts to clone Scratch sometime later, but Scratch pulls a lever that Robotnik didn't, resulting in the creation of Grounder. Scratch resembles a tall, humanoid chicken, and Grounder is a small teal swiss army knife-like robot with tank tracks and drills instead of his hands and nose.
  • Ian James Corlett as Coconuts: He is a small robot monkey, who is demoted to Robotnik's janitor. Unhappy with his position, he attempts to capture Sonic with the hope of obtaining a promotion. Despite appearing in the show's opening sequence, Coconuts appears less often than Scratch and Grounder. Whenever he does appear, he usually attempts to go after Sonic on his own and make sure that Scratch and Grounder don't beat him to the punch, though he will occasionally join forces with them. Despite his low status and general disrespect by his peers, Coconuts has proven that he is much smarter than Scratch and Grounder, often being the only one to see through Sonic's disguises. His plans also come close to succeeding, until Scratch and Grounder come along and ruin them.
  • Christopher Evan Welch as Miles "Tails" Prower (excluding Sonic Christmas Blast, where he is voiced by Chris Turner)

[edit] Appearances in Other Media

  • A video game based on the show, entitled Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, was released for the Sega Genesis and Sega Game Gear. As well as Robotnik, Scratch, Grounder and Coconuts, the character roster of the game also features several one-shot characters that appeared in the first episode of the show.
  • Scratch also appears during the 3rd bonus stage of Sonic Spinball for the Genesis, which features a bunch of them protecting a crate containing animals.
  • Grounder can be found in the game Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Unlike in the TV series where he's green, he is red there. The Sonic 2 model of Grounder reappeared in Sonic Pocket Adventure as an enemy in the Aqua Relix Zone. Coconuts also appeared in Sonic 2 but he looked slightly different. The Badnik that he was based on set a standard for future monkey-robots in the series.

[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 (distributed by Universal Studios Home Entertainment and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment) on DVD in Region 1. Volume Two was released on December 9, 2008.

It was announced on Dec. 9, 2009 that Volume 3 would be released in 'Early 2010', but would only be sold through their website as a Shout! Factory Exclusive, and that it would contain 4 DVDs. [1]

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] UK VHS Releases

VHS Title Release Date Episodes
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 1 1993 Sonic Search and Smash Squad, Subterranean Sonic, Lovesick Sonic
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 2 1994 Best Hedgehog, The Robotnik Express, The Birth of the Salesman
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 3 1994 Too Tall Tails, Big Daddy, Tails New Home
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 4 1994 Close Encounters of a Sonic Kind, Sno Problem, Tails In Charge
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 5 1994 Blackbot the Pirate,Hedgehog of the Hound Table,Robotnik's Pyramid Scheme,Prehistoric Sonic,Trail of the Missing Tails
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 6 1994 Honey I Shrunk the Hedgehog, The Mobius 5,000, Spaceman Sonic
The Adventures Of Sonic The Hedgehog - The Biggest Ever Video Road Hog, Robolympics, The Little Merhog, Birth Of A Salesman, Robotnik's Rival, Tails' New Home, Love Sick Sonic, Sonically Ever After, Hero Of The Year

[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
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