The Tail of Two Sonic’s
Two Sonic the Hedgehog Cartoons could only mean twice the Sonic goodness? Right?
In the early 90’s, Sega was basking in the glory that was Sonic the Hedgehog. The blue blur with attitude was going head to head with Nintendo’s Mario Bros. with two masterpiece titles to his name on the Genesis. Seeing Sonic move to the small screen was an obvious move, so Sega of America joined forces with cartoon king DiC Entertainment to develop a morning cartoon show. After some time developing Sonic and company, DiC secured TGIF mainstay Jaleel White to be the voice of Sonic, and to help win over ABC.
Sonic The Hedgehog TV Show
ABC liked the idea of a Sonic show, just not what DiC had to offer. Instead, they wanted a plot driven show to appeal to the Saturday-morning audience. DiC went back to the drawing board, but instead of abandoning their original idea, they decided to make two complete different shows. The original pitch pilot would become the syndicated Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, and the show that evolved from the meeting with ABC would become Sonic the Hedgehog.
Outside of White being the voice of Sonic in both shows, they share very little in common. Two completely different teams worked on the cartoons, neither paying attention to the other. At one point in the production of the shows, the teams attempted to work together, but nothing ever came of it. And that was probably for the best, as neither style would have worked with the other.
Adventures was a reskin of the franchise it was directly competing with and its foray into morning cartoons, Super Mario. DiC also produced the plumbers adventures on Saturday mornings, so the formula was already in place. Each episode consisted of Robotnik attempting to defeat Sonic and gain control of Mobius. To help him in his efforts, the Dr. created the robots Scratch and Grounder, with a third robot, Coconuts, occasionally joining the ruckus. The plan would usually work for most of the show, until Sonic and Tails could figure out a way to stop and humiliate the baddies, and once again save Mobius.
The relationship between Robotnik and his robots is a very abusive one. Robotnik oozes incompetence, and rather taking the blame for anything, he takes it out on his robots. And they seem self aware of this abuse, but rather than run from it, they keep coming back for more. It eventually turns into them trying to one up one another, always placing the blame on the other to Robotnik won’t torture them. In other words, typical late 80’s-early 90’s cartoon protocol.
As for Sonic and Tails, they couldn’t have a more boring relationship. They wonder around Mobius eating chili dogs and stopping Robotnik…that’s about it. They don’t seem to have any other job or even a home for that matter. And as fast as Sonic is, Tails has no problem keeping up with him. Tails is actually more of a deterrent to Sonic, as he is always in need of being rescued. Good thing that Sonic is such a master of disguise though, being able to fool Robotnik and company in mid battle with a quick costume change.
Oddly enough, in 1996 the show was revisited for a Christmas special. It was originally meant to tie into an upcoming Sega Saturn game, Sonic X-treme, that would ultimately get cancelled. So the episode was renamed to “Sonic Christmas Blast” to instead tie into Sonic 3D Blast. The show would also feature the only cameo of Princess Sally Acorn, who is Sonic’s love interest in the Sonic the Hedgehog show.
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog TV Show
Sonic the Hedgehog would air on ABC for two seasons. Dr. Robotnik has overthrown Mobotropolis and has been robotizing its civilians for nearly 10 years. Preventing his complete control is the Freedom Fighters, a small group of resistance fighters led by Sonic and Princess Sally. This series is plot driven, with episodes building off of one another and character development throughout. Tails is really a secondary character throughout the series run, as the show was cut short before his character arc could fully develop.
Much of the first season is simply following the Freedom Fighters on various missions. The second season delves more into the history of The Great War and the whereabouts of the King, Sally’s father. We also get to witness Robotnik’s takeover in a fun time-travel arch.
The only misstep in the series was due to ABC wanting more comedy driven stories. So in season two we get two episodes dedicated to the bumbling coward, Antoine. These are dramatically different from the rest of the series because they are the only episodes in which Sonic is really a secondary character, as well as they are actually split up into two smaller episodes within the 30 minute runtime. They ultimately don’t serve much purpose, other than to give Antoine a bit more air time.
Sadly, this show would be cancelled before it could really stretch its legs. No exact answer has ever been given, but it ultimately came down to politics between Sega big wigs. Several reboots have been attempted, but nothing has ever gotten off the ground.
Each of the Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons have their own fan base. At the time, critics hated Adventures while Sonic received some praise. Time has not been not been kind to either cartoon, but Adventures takes the bigger hit. It reeks of the 90’s, and not in a good nostalgic way.
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