WesternAnimation Sonic the Hedgehog (1993 TV series)
I've heard much about this show. And that intrigued me to look at it.
The darker of the two sibling shows of 1993 based on the video game franchise we all know, it gives something radically different (because it seems that the games didn't really had much lore at the time): Sonic and other friends (Tails is in the sidelines this time; man, I miss 65+1 episodes of a brotherly dynamic) fight against a more sinister Dr. Robotnik to liberate Mobius and restore it. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, as I've heard, but I liked it because it was a well-crafted show. Okay, I had a hard time trying to at least tolerate Antoine and Dulcy (at least the latter was somewhat helpful).
Well, as a conclusion, it didn't dissapoint. It was a very interesting spin, after all. Too bad that it will never reach its plans.
WesternAnimation Decent but very overhyped.
Sonic SatAM has always been a relatively decent but overhyped show to me, no matter how times I give it a try.
Sonic is the only useful Freedom Fighter 90% of the time, but he's an arrogant tool at the same time. Sally is the somewhat bossy but reasonable leader who serves as the tech support on the field and the rest of the Freedom Fighters really aren't that useful.
Dr. Robotnik is basically a kid-friendly genocidal sadistic monster except he has a machine and oil fetish with Snivelly is his snarky jaded sidekick and that's all they are. The best part of Dr. Robotnik is that Jim Cummings voiced him.
Outside of that, the more interesting parts of the story is that the world of Mobius gets fleshed out beyond just Knothole and Robotropolis. But overall, Sonic SatAM was a product of the 90s hasn't aged well when it comes to story, voice acting (Outside of Jim Cummings), animation and art.
Still an important part of the Sonic franchise that spawned the Archie Sonic comics and I will always remember it for that.
WesternAnimation Fun but Flawed Take on the Franchise
Sonic Satam was Di C's second attempt at a Sonic The Hedgehog Animated Adaptation, and in many fans eyes, the most exceptional. It separates greatly from Di C's usual affair with video game series, and compared to Adventures Of Sonic's more light hearted affair, is a darker story with continuity based plots.
The show gets credit in it's execution of a darker take, as while very different in style, it keeps mostly true to the basic surreal ideas of the games, just slapping a Cerebus Syndrome onto them, rather than trying to make Sonic something it isn't by giving him a gun or lecturing him on romance and politics. It also doesn't overdo it and still has a nice balance of drama and the usual whimsy found in Di C's shows. That's not to say it isn't pretentious at times however, sadly a bit of story loses out due to lack of emotional development. There's a blatant use of 'Red shirt' characters here for example and the backstory utilised in the two parter is rather poorly done.
The characters are fairly likeable, but don't expand that much to be very exceptional. Sonic is basically a more arrogant replica of his Aosth counterpart, even mirroring his voice and dated 90s slang. Sally is a decent original character but still largely just Di C's Princess Zelda in cartoon squirrel form. The show's enterpretation of Robotnik is delightfully sinister, but still a rather cardboard embodiment of eeevil. The rest of the cast are just background extras or comic relief that add a little fun, but don't add much to the plot.
The show also sadly suffers in the second season due to placing all creative control onto one writer. While Ben Hurst (RIP) had some decent ideas, they were a bit skewed into very particular prefered concepts, perhaps most blatantly Sally. She takes over everything, appearing as Sonic's co lead and most of the cast being downgraded to boost her role. Sally is at least very likeable but a lot of stuff seems to get put in the background in favor of her banter with Sonic (Bunnie has a great concept but is barely given any spotlight).
All in all, it's a fun show, but not much different from the standard cheesy Sonic fare, it has it's definite good points, but the same can be said for nearly every cartoon of the franchise. Watch expecting a bit of fun but don't expect it to be the epic blockbuster material many make it out to be.
WesternAnimation My gateway back to animation
As a kid, I watched the comedic Adventures Of Sonic The Hedgehog. Being not very familiar with the Sonic franchise (I didn't own a Sega console as a kid, or know anybody who did), I never even know that this show existed until I saw a Nostalgia Critic review on it. When I saw the intro sequence, my jaw dropped. I had missed out on something. There I was, silently bemoaning the fact that I wasn't a kid anymore.
Then I gave in and watched the series anyway. And what a joy it is! Allright, it's a kids show so it never gets too edgy, but it's still surprisingly dark. It takes the concept of woodland critters fighting a mad professor's robots and turns it into something that I can actually take seriously. The characters are likeable and well voiced, although there's disappointingly little Tails - isn't he supposed to be Sonic's sidekick? And then of course there's Robotnik - what a total contrast to the buffoon of Adventures. This is one of the most menacing villains I've ever seen on a kids' show. So there you have it - just enough darkness and complexity mixed in with just enough jokes and cuteness to make it possibly the best video game adaptation ever.
On a related note, watching this show rekindled my love of animation and helped to lower my resistance to watch kids' shows - if it's good enough, who cares? Quality is quality. This eventually led to me checking out series like Avatar The Last Airbender, WITCH, Gargoyles, Thundercats 2011 and My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic. I owe it all to Sonic.
WesternAnimation High ambitions, executive meddling, and unrealized potential
I first encountered this series in reruns when I was very, very young. I only saw two episodes (Sonic and Sally and Sonic Racer), and, being a fan of Science Fiction and Cyberpunk, I immediately fell in love with the setting and atmosphere. Unfortunately, I was unable to find the series again until the 2010s with the help of the internet - I would always get the other, sillier cartoon instead of the one I was actually looking for. Once I found it online, I watched through every episode, and discovered that I still loved it... and that I also hated it. Make no mistake: Sonic the Hedgehog is an American SaturdayMorningCartoon. However, it's obviously trying to be more than that... until it isn't.
The overall tone of the cartoon - the part I loved so much - is like if you took the quirky personality of the original Star Wars and crossed it with the visual style of the war sequences
from The Terminator, and somehow made the result family friendly (to see what I mean, compare that war sequence to this scene
fromSonic and Sally - the inspiration is clear). The show is about a small band of heroes fighting against overwhelmingly powerful evil using their creativity and grit, and the heroes don't always come out on top with a runaway victory. For the most part, the characters' personalities are surprisingly deep, with multiple motivations and a wide range of emotions and interactions you won't find anywhere else in the Sonic Franchise. The villain is terrifying, and is quite believably threatening to the heroes, and the rest of the world. The show deals with subjects like PTSD and the emotional trauma that comes from losing a loved one, all while never allowing itself to become too dreary: it has a sense of humor, and it's quite cathartic when the heroes pull off a major win.
Unfortunately, the show is beset with the most extreme Mood Whiplash that I've ever seen in a cartoon, and I'm absolutely certain it's the result of some executive getting their pants in a twist over the idea of cartoon animals fighting a guerrilla war against a mad scientist, even though that's what the entire franchise was always about in the first place.
Whoever was in charge obviously mandated that the cartoon should lighten up for the next season. That isn't a problem on it's own: the problem is how that was implemented. Moments of comic relief
already existed in the show... but then there's Antoine
and Dulcy
- two characters who don't seem like they belong to this particular cartoon in ANY capacity. Antoine was originally
◊ conceptualized
◊ as well-spoken, self-important fop; somehow, he became a shrieking coward who can barely speak English instead. He was always there, even from the first episode, but he was far more tolerable in season 1 because the writers knew to keep his presence to a minimum. That changed in the second season, where he gets 2 entire episodes to himself out of a 13 episode season. Dulcy appears in the second season without warning and seems like she was imported from a cartoon designed for a preschool audience. Her character is essentially one joke: she crashes into things and then, dazed, says something about her "Ma" ("Okay, Ma, I'll pick up my room..."). Both characters clash strongly with the established dystopian tone and do nothing but detract from the series, and that's sad.
In my opinion, Cartoons, as a medium, have suffered in the United States due to a phenomenon that TV Tropes calls the Animation Age Ghetto: the frivolous assertion that animation is a frivolous medium primarily suitable for children aged 12 and under, and further, that anything that doesn't fit that overly narrow age bracket is vulgar and sexual. This cartoon - among many others - was an attempt to appeal to an older demographic without making any extreme and unnecessary effort to avoid a G rating: it just was a cartoon for a somewhat older audience, but the Powers That Be clearly didn't allow it to be a cartoon for a somewhat older audience. I call that a waste of potential.
You may notice that I didn't talk much about the videogame series that this show is adapted from. That's because I'm judging the show on it's own merits, not on it's ability to emulate a videogame. For what it's worth, I think it does a good job of exploring the environmental themes that Naoto Ohshima tried to touch on in his games (Like Sonic The Hedgehog CD
, which he personally directed), without being painfully preachy about it. Apparently, he thought so too.