Who would have thought that it would be so sad seeing Sonic the Hedgehog cry?
Thanks to its darker tone compared to the rest of the franchise, Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) has quite a few sad moments.
- Any time Sonic's roboticized Uncle Chuck shows up, expect it to all end in tears.
- The Freedom Fighters first find him in "Ultra Sonic" — one of the show's earliest episodes. They restore his free will with the help a power ring, but only temporarily. Who could forget Sonic desperately begging his uncle to snap out of it, ignoring his friends' pleas to hurry? Or Bunnie having to pull him away in tears, and the poor kid crying as they flee for home? Especially given that at the time, Sonic hadn't seen Uncle Chuck for ten years.
- The end of "Sonic Conversion", Uncle Chuck finally has his free will back permanently, but he is forced to stay in Robotropolis.
- The ending to "Spyhog". Uncle Chuck is staying in Robotropolis as a spy. He refuses to argue, telling them to "Get those long faces back to Knothole. I have work to do!" Then, after Sonic leaves, he hugs Bunnie and Sally and tells them to take good care of his nephew.
- Sonic's situation with Chuck was almost mirrored with Sally in "The Void". After finally reuniting with her father and escaping the Void with him, they discover that he's been there too long; without the Void's magic to sustain him, he will turn into crystal and die. He has no choice but to return. King Acorn kisses his tearful daughter on the forehead and asks Sonic to take care of her before he is dragged into the portal. Later, back in Knothole, Sonic is left to comfort Sally, still in tears over her loss.
- "Sonic Conversion" has this in spades.
- Bunnie's tears
◊ when her body, which had finally been turned back to flesh and blood, suddenly reverts to its cyborg form. - Tails' terrified begging as he and Antoine are taken to Robotnik's lair by the newly-reverted Uncle Chuck."Please Uncle Chuck! I don't want to be a robot! Let us go!"
- Uncle Chuck being forced to stay behind in Robotropolis yet again, having only just fought off his robot slave programming.
- Of course, all those moments sort of become sadder when you realize that Uncle Chuck's voice actor William Windom passed away in 2012.
- Bunnie's tears
- "Blast To The Past part 2" has several, back to back.
- Sally's reunion with her father. Happy tears all around.Sally: Your Majesty... (softly) Daddy...it's me.
King Acorn: (annoyed) Sir Charles?
Uncle Chuck: This will be hard to believe, Your Majesty, but she's come from...the future.King Acorn: (skeptical) The future? (glances back at Sally, looking deep into her eyes) Sally...?Sally: Yes, Daddy.King Acorn: (kneels, taking her hand) The royal signet! (whispers) What is our secret family credo?Sally: (whispers back) To rule with honor.King Acorn: Sally, it is you!(They embrace tearfully.) - Young Sonic watching Uncle Chuck being roboticized. Poor kid.
- Sally's desperate final exchange with her childhood governess, Rosie (who in original history was captured and roboticized when Sally was just a child).Rosie: I know it's you, princess. You can't fool your old nanny!Sally: Rosie, I have to tell you something—Sonic: Bots coming!Sally: I can't explain now. Just promise me you'll never leave Knothole!Rosie: Never? Dear, I-I don't—Sally: Please, Rosie! It's very, very important!Rosie: Well...all right, then. I promise.(They embrace before Rosie escapes through the tunnel.)
- Seeing the destruction of Mobitropolis firsthand, and the banishment of Sally's father really drives home how much of a monster Robotnik is.
- Sally's reunion with her father. Happy tears all around.
- Tails befriends a Terapod youth in "Sonic Past Cool". The pair hit it off but eventually Sally and Sonic agree that it should reunite with its family, who are supposed to be on migration. Tails then tearfully laments that he wishes he still had his own parents. While a Tear Jerker in its own right, it's even more heart wrenching that his desire to stay with the young Terapod was a way for him to find something of his own to bond with. Since Sonic and Sally are always preoccupied with their Freedom Fighter duties (and share a close relationship with one another) and Tails lacks any parental figures at such a young age, his friendship with the Terapod is the first relationship he's been able to enjoy that was uniquely his own.
- When the Terapod asks Tails to stay with him and his mother, he declines because his friends need him. As he says this, we cut to the Freedom Fighters, and it's clear from their expressions that they feel so bad for Tails
- From "Sonic and Sally", Robo Sally reads Tails a story and when he asks her to do the witch voice, it brusquely declines and hastily leaves. Tails just looks so sad. From his point of view, someone who's like a mother to him just brushed him off in a cold manner. And this is before he finds out something's up.
- Even worse, the 'bot had a listening device on it, so Sally heard this and no doubt felt awful.
- Thankfully, it does get a heartwarming pay-off at the end when the real Sally comforts Tails and the fox jumps into her arms.
- Look closely at the way the robot behaves around Tails: when he giggles after she kisses him, she has a look that screams “You little brat”. She also gets increasingly annoyed when Tails keeps butting into a story it reads him. It’s a good job Tails cottoned on that it was an impostor, otherwise he'd have thought that his aunt no longer loved him.
- In "Sonic Boom", a mission gone awry leads to a Freedom Fighter - an elderly feline named Cat - getting captured by SWATbots. Cat manages to keep his head even after being tortured by Robotnik (offscreen). When Sonic arrives to save him, Cat informs him that Robotnik is onto Sally, and that she should be rescued. When Sonic askes "what about you?" he replies, "Doesn't matter". Sonic saves Sally, and returns to Cat's cell, finding it empty. In Robotropolis, that can only mean one thing. After they destroy Robotnik's attack force, Sonic says "Yo, Robuttnik! That was for Cat!"
- Becomes Harsher in Hindsight considering Cat's voice-actor David Doyle passed away a few years after this episode aired.
- Lazaar's backstory in "Super Sonic" is kind of sad, he's an old wizard who used to be evil but eventually grew to regret all of the evil he did, so he put himself in a suspended sleep to protect the rest of the world from himself.
- In "Sub-Sonic", we see a mutant living underground in a ruined civilization and after he's kidnapped the freedom fighters (and attempted to drown them in polluted water) he reveals that it's because he thinks they are responsible for all of the pollution that destroyed his world and killed off everyone, making him the Last of His Kind.
- A subtle one in "Sonic Racer", but when Robotnik sets up the dupe for a racing contest, Sonic is all for it. Sally lectures him over the fact it is an obvious trap, though Sonic argues the benefits, as playing along would make an ideal distraction for their sabotage mission. Sally however, just becomes very uncomfortable and fearful, telling Sonic straight up Robotnik could do something horrible to him. For all Sally butts heads with Sonic, it's for a clear reason, they're in a war and she fears him getting hurt at every turn.
