Sonic the Hedgehog (TV series)


Sonic the Hedgehog is an American-Italian animated television series based on the video game series of the same name. It was story edited by Len Janson and produced by DIC Productions, L.P., Sega of America, Inc., and the Italian studio Reteitalia S.p.A. in association with Telecinco. It is the second of DiC's Sonic cartoons, following Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. It features a more dramatic and dark story than the lighter Adventures series, depicting Sonic as a member of a band of freedom fighters battling to overthrow Doctor Robotnik. To distinguish it from other Sonic the Hedgehog media, the series is commonly referred to by fans with the identifier "SatAM", in reference to its Saturday morning timeslot.
The program aired for two seasons and 26 episodes on ABC from September 18, 1993 to December 3, 1994, and continued in reruns until 1995. A third season was planned, but ABC canceled the show, ending it with a cliffhanger. Despite its cancellation, a fan following has elevated the series to become a cult hit. The show also inspired a video game, Sonic Spinball, and a long-running comic book series of the same name.

Plot

The series takes place on Mobius, a planet mostly populated by anthropomorphic animals. The Kingdom of Acorn, based within the city of Mobotropolis, was at war with an unseen enemy. The King recruited a human scientist, Julian, to build war machines to end the war with a victory. However, during peacetime, Julian and his nephew Snively launched a coup d'état against the kingdom. The King is banished to another dimension, the Void, and the citizens are captured and transformed into robot slaves, through a machine called the Roboticizer. Julian renames himself as Dr. Robotnik, now the ruthless dictator of Mobius. Mobotropolis is renamed Robotropolis, a polluted, industrial cityscape.
Robotnik finds himself at odds with a small collective group called the Freedom Fighters, who operate out of the hidden woodland village Knothole. They are led by Sonic the Hedgehog and Princess Sally Acorn, the King's sole heir. Other members include Sonic's best friend Miles "Tails" Prower, computer genius Rotor the Walrus, French coyote Antoine Depardieu, half-roboticized Bunnie Rabbot, and Dulcy the Dragon. They act as a rebellion against Robotnik's regime. Sonic uses the Power Rings to gain a temporary boost in power. Both the rings and the Roboticizer were designed by Sonic's uncle Chuck, one of the victims of the machine.
Early on in the series, Sonic uses a Power Ring to restore Uncle Chuck's free will in his mechanical body. Chuck decides to act as a spy for the Freedom Fighters, operating from within the city. He is eventually discovered by Robotnik in the second season, and escapes to Knothole. Sally searches for her father during the series. He is found alive within the Void, shared with a sorcerer, Naugus, who was also imprisoned within the dimension by Robotnik. Naugus attempts to escape the Void, but both he and the King discover their bodies turn to crystal whilst back on Mobius, and are forced to return to their prison. The heroes gain other allies, including Ari the Ram, and Lupe, leader of the elusive wolf pack.
In the series' sole two-part episode, "Blast to the Past", Sonic and Sally use the Time Stones to travel back in time, in an attempt to prevent Robotnik's planned takeover. They fail, but manage to get their younger selves to the safety of Knothole, with help from Sally's nanny Rosie Woodchuck. In the series finale, Robotnik builds the Doomsday Project to destroy the population. The Freedom Fighters launch a full scale attack against Robotnik, with Sonic and Sally destroying the Doomsday Project with the power of the Deep Power Stones. Robotnik is killed, and the Freedom Fighters declare victory, with Sonic and Sally kissing.
In a final scene, Snively becomes the main antagonist, accompanied by an unseen ally with red eyes. Ben Hurst, one of the series' writers, confirmed the figure was Naugus.

Characters

Knothole Freedom Fighters

Sonic the Hedgehog was created by DiC Animation City in association with Sega of America, which produced a total of 26 episodes for its two-season run, and the Italian studio Reteitalia S.p.A., part of Fininvest company, in association with Spanish network Telecinco. The show's animation was outsourced to the Korean studio Sae Rom Production, with the exception of the opening sequence which was animated by the Spanish studio Milimetros.
According to Robby London, DiC originally made a deal to produce only the darker, more story-driven Sonic cartoon for ABC to air on Saturday mornings. However, DiC also wanted to go further and produce additional episodes for weekday syndication as well, similar to what DiC has previously done with The Real Ghostbusters, but Mark Pedowitz, the then-senior vice president of business affairs and contracts at ABC, who expected the Sonic cartoon to air exclusively on ABC, rejected the idea, saying that if DiC puts the show in syndication, then it won't be on their network. ABC wouldn't agree to the deal until London came with a proposition that DiC would produce a separate, vastly different Sonic show for syndication instead, the end result of which became Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. The show bible for the Saturday morning Sonic cartoon was written in February 1992 with the final revision made on March 10, 1993.

Episodes

Series overview

Season 1 (1993)

Season 2 (1994)

Cast

Initial run

The Saturday morning series differs from the daily Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, which premiered the same month. While Adventures is lighthearted and comical, Sonic the Hedgehog featured a comparatively complex plot and dramatic atmosphere. It explored unusual story concepts for animation, including losing loved ones to war and relationships focusing on young couples. At ABC's request, the second season included episodes devoted to humor, while darker and dramatic elements were reduced. Other changes include Princess Sally donning a jacket for season two, and Rotor receiving a new design.
ABC also ended up, in some weeks, airing back-to-back episodes of this show during the 1st season, while in Season 2, each time slot for the show was for a single episode only.

Syndication

After the program's initial run, it appeared on the USA Network's Action Extreme Team block from June 1997 to January 1998. ABC did not replicate this, replacing Sonic with reruns of Free Willy. Sonic the Hedgehog aired in Canada on the CTV Network, with a bonus summer run between June 10 and September 2, 1995. It has not been rerun on broadcast or cable television in Canada since its cancellation on CTV, but was present on the Shomi video-on-demand platform until its November 30, 2016, closure. From 1994 to 1996, it had a complete run on the UK television on ITV and Channel 4, In December 1994, the first season was broadcast in the Republic of Ireland on RTÉ Two. On September 2, 2016, reruns of the series began airing on Starz. As of 2020, the show can be found on Pluto TV and on demand at CBS All Access.

Home media

This show has never been reissued on DVD after its expiration in 2012, but the remaining copies are available on Amazon and eBay with expensive prices. However, the complete series is available to purchase and download on iTunes.

In other media

Comics

Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comic book was initially based on the Saturday morning cartoon. From its earliest issues, the book shared the characters and story premise established within it. However, the comic differed in that it featured humorous plots modeled after the weekday show. After writer Ken Penders had the opportunity to view the Saturday morning program, the comic gradually became adventure-driven. The comic series shifted focus again after ABC cancelled Sonic the Hedgehog, developing into a relationship-based superhero story, and following a reboot, Archie's Sonic was primarily inspired by the video game series. Nevertheless, the characters and locales from the Saturday morning cartoon remained prominent until the comic's cancellation in July 2017.

Video games

Several video games were intended to use elements from the TV series, although only one was completed. This was Sonic Spinball, released in 1993 for the Sega Genesis. It contained characters from the show, including Princess Sally, Bunnie Rabbot, Rotor and Muttski. The characters were also planned for use in another game, tentatively titled Sonic-16. A prototype was created by the Sega Technical Institute. Yuji Naka disliked the project, and it was cancelled without further development. Directly afterwards, the same team worked on Sonic Mars. Prior to cancellation, this would have featured Princess Sally and Bunnie Rabbot as playable characters.

Cancelled film

In 2002, writer Ben Hurst attempted to pitch an animated film in order to revive the series. Hurst said that he proposed his idea of "a feature film to be the Third Season of SatAm" to a Sega executive, who was interested in the project, and that he later received a call from Ken Penders, head writer of the Sonic the Hedgehog comic series by Archie Comics, who had been alerted about the movie. He stated: "I generously offered to include him in the effort and told him my strategy. Get Sega to become invested in the idea by hiring us to interview their creative game designers, execs, etc. and see if we could develop a story line that would fulfill the third season - and simultaneously give them creative ideas to develop new games." However, he stated that after calling Sega back, his contact's demeanor had completely changed, angrily stating that Sega is paid to develop Sonic projects, rather than paying others to do so. Hurst theorized that, "Penders had related my strategy to them in a less-than-flattering way... Then dropped hints that he would be the writer for a big Sonic Feature Film." Penders pitched Sega his own concept for a movie, titled Sonic Armageddon. He created four concept arts and a homemade pitch video, but the project never saw fruition due to what Penders described as "massive corporate upheaval."

Reception

Sonic the Hedgehog ranked #9 for all of Saturday Morning with a 5.2 rating, an estimated 4.8 million viewers during its second season.
Patrick Lee of The A.V. Club gave it a positive review, saying that "the show pushed its cartoon animal characters to the most dramatic places they could go without venturing into self-parody. Over the course of the series, the characters dealt with loss, romance, and death The entire series successfully pulled off that sort of balancing act, and even 20 years later, it’s still a solid Saturday morning cartoon". In contrast, Mark Bozon of IGN criticized the show as dated, considering it "so bad, it's good." Writing for DVD Talk, Todd Douglass Jr. remarked that Sonic didn't stand the test of time. Overall, he considered it to be of low quality, although he found the stories "Ultra Sonic" and "Blast to the Past" to be "the crème of the crop." Luke Owen of Flickering Myth felt Sonic aged better than is often supposed, praising its well-executed characterizations and treatment of war, although he considered Antoine to be "one of the worst characters committed to a cartoon series." GamesRadar listed the show as one of "the worst things to happen to Sonic." It criticized its plot and characters as "unwanted". Escapist journalist Bob Chipman credited the series with providing a viably menacing take on Doctor Robotnik, and an engaging narrative. Bob Mackey of USgamer wrote that the cartoon's writing didn't live up to its intriguing premise. In particular, he argued that the Antoine character perpetrated negative French stereotypes. Sonic the Hedgehog was also reviewed by Doug Walker in his web comedy series Nostalgia Critic, who considered it "a great show," and better than he remembered; he praised it for "literally taking nothing and turning it into something," with a strong story and good character development, as well as a subtle environmental message.