Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog is an American animated series that was first broadcast in September 1993, and has been running in cartoon syndication ever since. It follows the escapades of Sonic the Hedgehog, and his best friend Miles "Tails" Prower, as they attempt to stop the evil Dr. Ivo Robotnik and his array of vicious robots from taking over the planet Mobius. However, in typical Sonic style, Sonic always finds time to indulge in as many Chili Dogs he can get his hands on. This series is very much a slapstick type comedy, especially with the incredibly melodramatic explosions and quirky story lines. But Sonic is always portrayed as being skilled and clever, whereas Scratch and Grounder are clumsy and often Robotnik's downfall.
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog was created by DiC Entertainment, which produced a total of 65 episodes for its first season, and was syndicated by Bohbot Entertainment, now BKN International (in the original run, every episode began and ended with the "Bohbot Entertainment Presents" logo).
The plots often loosely followed the storyline of the video games series, although when the cartoon began, the Sonic games were still quite new, and lacking much plot or character development, which was filled in by the show's writers.
Later DiC ceased production on this comical version to spend more time on its darker interpretation, dubbed just Sonic the Hedgehog (commonly known as SatAM by fans), a series launched on ABC's Saturday morning line-up.After the original airing, DiC created one more episode in the winter of 1996, "Sonic Christmas Blast", which has features from the other Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon such as Princess Sally Acorn in a non-speaking cameo. It also has Sonic and Tails visiting Robotropolis, which has a human population and a name pronounced with two "T"s. The letters page of issue #41 of the Sonic the Hedgehog comic book promotes the special as "An X-Tremely Sonic Christmas."
Pierre De Celles, an animator who worked on Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, described the show as "fun and humorous."[1]
The central protagonists are Sonic the Hedgehog and Tails the Fox, while the main antagonists include Robotnik and his two hench-bots Scratch and Grounder (with a third robot, Coconuts, appearing on occasion).
There are many occasional minor characters and robots too, including Robotnik's dominating mother and salesman Wes Weasely who sells defective goods to whoever has the money, is a fast-talking smoothie who addresses everyone as "pal-sy" and is similar to Phil Silvers, who also specialised in the parts of lovable con-men. The city has more non-human creatures, like anthropomorphic animals and robots than other projects. The planet, Mobius is more of a zany, colorful cartoon world in this version.
Sonic and Tails from the episode "Robotnik Jr."
Each episode featured the famous "Sonic Sez" segments where Sonic gave viewers advice on different topics, ranging from staying in school, not running away from home and not using guns to smoking, alcohol abuse and false advertising. Probably the most famous of this segments is the one featured in "Lovesick Sonic", which dealt with sexual harassment. Sonic Sez segments are frequently posted and edited on YouTube.
In the United Kingdom, the series was screened on Channel 4 on Sunday mornings which had the "Sonic Says" segments edited out. They were also edited out on the UK VHS releases of the series. However, the segments were intact on the TCC and POP! airings.
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