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International Names
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (Original English), Les Aventures De Sonic (French)The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog started due to the quick rise of Sonic. After his first game was a big hit, more and more stuff flooded the market to also help boost Sonic's roll as Sega Mascot. It was only a matter of time before the Hedgehog got a role in a cartoon series. Much like the popular series for rival Mario, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog were aimed at a fairy young crowd but designed so they could be enjoyed by others. The show featured light hearted stories, full of comedy, classic slapstick action and many much liked characters. The original Pilot was commissioned and featured the voice of Jaleel White as Sonic. The Pilot proved enough of a hit with the network that a full series was commissioned, and until recent, the only clips of the Pilot to ever been seen outside the original studio group were used in the episode 'Untouchable Sonic'. The Show featured many parallels with the popular Mario cartoons done by the same studio, the Canadian 'DIC Entertainment'. The Show featured a lead with a young sidekick (Mario & Or Lugio and Toad-> Sonic & Tails), A evil villain shown in a comedy way (King Bowser Kooper -> Dr Robotnik), a small time of evil 'useless' henchmen (Kooper Kids/ head Gomper -> Scratch, Grounder, Coconuts), an army of disposable Villains (Gompers, Bullet bills, etc -> Badniks) and various villages that needed to be saved. The Series was designed for syndicating, which means it could be repeated fairly often and the order of the episodes didn't really matter much,a lot like how some channels show other Syndication like shows like 'The Simpsons', 'Camberwick Green' & 'Garfield & Friends'. Like a lot of Syndication shows, it was designed to have a large number of episodes in it's series (64 in this case), and was shown weekdays (Monday to Friday) when it was first shown on American TV. This way, the show could be (in theory) shown for about 13 weeks and then repeated. Repeating it 4 times in the year, would take up the whole year. The show itself had very simple themes and few returning Characters, one that did return included the Smart but very careless and forgetful Professor Von Schlemmer, later replaced by Professor Caninestein, who was much less careless and forgetful, the money hungry Wes Weasely, Robotnik's insane mother ,Momma Robotnik & the Robotic love of Sonic's life, Brezzie. Each episode would mostly start out with Dr Robotnik reviling a new plan to take over some village on the planet so he could take over it all in the end, or something good would be happening, mostly to Sonic, that would lead Robotnik to creating a plan to stop him. Sonic would then met up with Sonic locals that would be either oppressed by Robotnik or Robotnik wants to use for his plans. After some trouble, Sonic would save the day leading to Robotnik stating the line "I hate that Hedgehog", which was his catch phrase for the show. The Episodes would then end with a 2 minute "Sonic Says" in which, often with the help of people from the episode, Sonic would teach the kids the dos and do not does, mostly relating to the episode, such as the Episode "love sick Sonic" had the Sonic says about Sexually harassment, or episode "Subterranean Sonic" where the section talked about Sharing. The vocal brought together many famous, or at lest known (by voice only most of the time) actors such as Jaleel White (from "Family Ties") as Sonic, Long John Baldry (a Blues Singer) as Dr Robotnik, Gary Chalk (A lot of bit parts in a large number of shows) as Grounder, Phil Hayes (again, a lot of bit parts) as Scratch (Gary Chalk and Phil Hayes later went on to play seminar roles in 'ReBoot' by fellow Canadian company Mainframe Entertainment), Ian James Corlett (Another known bit part voice actor) as Coconuts, with a number of bit parts being filled by other known voices belonging to such as Kathleen Barr, Scott McNeil & Michael Donovan. also featured a main theme by Clark Gassman (who did music for Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs and the Smurfs) which was based heavy on the classic Game theme. The show ran from September 1993 with new episodes until December 1993, but kept on being repeated for a while. The show was first shown in England in November of 1993. 3 years later, in 1996, the cast were mostly brought back together for a Christmas Special which, while mostly taking story and characters from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, featured a more then a few references to fellow show 'Sonic the Hedgehog' and was simply titled in the credits as 'Sonic Christmas Blast'. This special wasn't shown in England until 2004. The show is still shown on TV in some places, and is easily and cheaply available on DVD in all main regions, with the Special 'Sonic Christmas Blast' being released on it's own with Sonic Underground episodes in the US, or AOSTH episodes in the UK (only with Double Pack, Single pack is just the episode). |
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