If there was anyone deserving multiple forms of media, it was definitely Sonic the Hedgehog! Sega wanted to cash in on his popularity and they came out with a multitude of everything from toys, glassware, clothes, and just about everything you would see in franchise spanning multiple countries across the globe. Sonic hit it very big for a very long time and we are still seeing him bask in his fame with not only TV shows, but also his own live action films.
The shows, however, have run the gambit from frightfully awful to just downright amazing! With a plethora to choose from, Planet Virtua will just be covering a select few. We've covered the movies thus far, but it may take a few swings to get to all of our favorite shows about the Blue Blur. These are the TV shows featuring none other than the man himself, Jaleel White. Urkle from Family Matters was the original American voice actor that we all remember and love to this day. He had such volume and scope in his voice and it was a delight to have him as his voice for so long. The shows, however, were a bit of a mixed bag.
The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog
Ask a collective of people and you will get a vast spectrum of different opinions on this very peculiar title. Not only is this a strange show by standards of this quality, but also by its continuity from start to finish. In the beginning, we have Sonic and Tails with a very inept, terribly realized Dr. Robotnik. By the end, you may as well have decided we were on an alien planet with how vast the races, species and animalistic all of the inhabitants of this world are. The very last thing in its continuity was a Christmas special and the people were humanoid but also had pointed ears and weird colored skin like they were from Doug.
The juvenile humor definitely appealed to a younger audience, but even then, there is clearly something wrong. The real problem with this show is that it is very repetitive by nature. Basically, Sonic will encounter the chicken and the dozer robot, have on a stupid disguise and fool them into getting destroyed. Dr. Robotnik will pull some giant robot out of nowhere or scam a whole bunch of people with plans that would never work. He lavishes in being evil and stupid and Sonic out smarts him. Somewhere in there, speed is involve. That sounds like it's over-simplified, and yes, it is. This show is not exactly something you can binge. You will run the risk of losing braincells.
It's such a cheesy show and there is some form of enjoyment out of it, but at the same time, it also takes itself entirely too seriously. Sometimes, it will get its own stupid humor, but sometimes, it also has mello drama and tired old plots. Then it has the strange tendancy to have some sort of moral at the end of the show. These deal with deeply strange and/or serious issues that are a bit jarring after such childish antics. The series was cheap in both writing and animation. This allowed them to make the episodes en masse.
Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic from Saturday Mornings was a very stark difference in quality from the show that was running along-side it. It also had a very stark difference in length, as it did finish its original season's plot, but ended on a cliffhanger. It was abruptly cancelled after a very successful run because the show's animation was extremely expensive.
This show was far more grounded in reality and took place in a dystopian future of the planet Mobius. The planet has been taken over by Dr. Robotnik, because he actually has competence and brilliance. The problem is that he is also very arrogant and constantly underestimates the resistance that keeps fighting against him and his death machines. While Tails was a whiney little baby with stupid questions in the other show, here, he's a whiney little baby with stupid questions that have depth and character. This actually has a story behind it with likeable and relateable characters and Sonic has more dimensions than just liking chilidogs.
It is a shame that there was a chance this show would have survived had it not been for Adventures. It had actual drama and a deep plot of trying to bring peace and prosparity to the planet while taking down a tyrant in the process. Sonic's powers are more defined and he is actually really cool when he fails, but then picks himself back up and comes back in style to save the day. While the story was ended in a very satisfactory fashion, despite the weird sequel bait and various small loose ends, it would have been nice to see what another season could have brought to the table. Instead, we got another TV show entirely.
Sonic Underground
It is very much understood that this show has a following and that many Sonic fans got their start from it. However, the content herein suffers a great deal from having a little too much Adventures of Sonic blood in it. While it does have more story and depth to it, that's not saying a great deal, as it also has a great deal of juvenile humor and head-scratching moments.
It really seems that the problem is that the characters have growth, but it's either entirely too slow or in the wrong ways. The siblings are constantly talking about how they need to find their mother, but it really seems like they are not going to extreme lengths and they are following clues that are obviously going to lead to all of the wrong places. There are just such enormous wastes of time and side-tracking that could have been avoided and that's saying something, given the quality of the writing.
Jaleel White is awesome and there is no denying that. The dialogue, however, is abysmal and the direction they all get for voices must have been some of the worst. White voices all three of the siblings and the way they differentiate his voice tends to grate on the ear the higher the pitch. The episodes are also very clearly meant to drag out the plot and the "mystery" of them and their big series long quest.
It's truth time, I don't even know if they find their mother or not. There is no way I could sit through every single episode of this. Unless there were some enormous payoff or there was some entertainment value in creating a youtube video or something, that would probably break the cerebral cortex for no payoff. It was hard enough sitting through the theme song. Seriously, if you wanted to hammer in your plot with obvious lyrics, you could have just skipped the song and had them explain the plot in a small speech at the beginning. Okay, that's rather harsh, but seriously, if you did not grow up with this show, there is no nostalgia to fall back on and that is a heavy hit.
So, one out of three are not great odds, but Sonic has had some gems of TV shows, as Sonic fans know. We'll be taking a look at Sonic X and Sonic Prime in due course, but until then, the hedgehog will just continue to be awesome. Virtua Believe It!