Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog


 * For other titles with "Adventures", see Adventures

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (often abbreviated as AoStH) is an American animated television series that was first broadcast on ABC in September 1993, on Toon Disney in 1998, and after syndication, has stopped airing on Television.

It follows the escapades of the popular animated character, Sonic the Hedgehog, and his comrade 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. It marks as the first animated series of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.

Premise
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog is a fast-paced cartoon with much slapstick humor, akin to such shows as Animaniacs or Tiny Toons Adventures. The show features very few recurring characters, usually just Sonic, Tails, Robotnik and his two hench-bots Scratch and Grounder (with a third robot, Coconuts, appearing often). However, there are many occasional minor characters and robot who appear. The plots loosely follow the storyline of the video games' series, although the franchise was relatively new during that time, and lacks much plot or character development, which was filled in by the show's writers.

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog was created by DiC Entertainment, which produced a total of thirteen episodes for its first season, and was syndicated by Bohbot Entertainment, now BKN International. The first episode was "Best Hedgehog" (which was the thirteenth episode in production order, shown 6 September) and the last was "Hero of the Year" (which was the sixtieth in production order, shown 3 December). DiC ceased production on this comical interpretation to spend more time on its darker interpretation, entitled 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 Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) such as Sally in a non-speaking cameo, and has Sonic and Tails visiting Robotropolis, which is different from SatAM because it now 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", suggesting that it was originally intended to promote Sonic X-treme, a Sega Saturn game which was eventually canceled due to numerous problems in development.

Due to this the special's name was changed to match the game that did come out, Sonic 3D Blast.

Opening
The opening theme is an instrumental piece of music written by Clark Gassman. The tune borrows from the main theme of Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Some refrains are based on certain pieces of classical music, including "Flight of the Bumblebee" and Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King".

International versions
There was a different version that appeared in the French version. It was sung by Alexis Tomassian.

Cast (English version)

 * Jaleel White as Sonic the Hedgehog
 * Christopher Welch as Miles &quot;Tails&quot; Prower (Chris Turner in Sonic Christmas Blast)
 * Long John Baldry as Dr. Ivo Robotnik
 * Gary Chalk as Grounder, Captain Rescue
 * Phil Hayes as Scratch, Sergeant Doberman
 * Ian James Corlett as Coconuts, Wallace A. Ditso
 * Michael Donovan as Wes Weasely, Mad Mike
 * French Tickner as Professor Von Schlemmer, Doctor Warpnik

Broadcast history
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog was most recently shown weekdays at 8:00 a.m. Central Time on Toon Disney in the USA. Robotnik was also the featured villain occasionally on the "Chillin' with the Villains" marathon block (he was even featured in their commercials). In the UK, AoStH was originally shown on Channel 4 until the show's end; recently it was also shown on the satellite channel POP, until 17 April 2006 when it was replaced with Sonic Underground. It was shown on that channel as part of a "Sonic Week".

VHS/DVD releases
There were six VHS tapes released in the US with two episodes each per tape. In the UK, there were about ten tapes released; Volumes 1 to 6 (except Volume 5 which is Quest for the Chaos Emeralds, a four parter edited without the title cards) had three episodes per tape, "High Stakes Sonic"/"Sonic Breakout" and "Momma Robotnik's Birthday" tapes had two episodes each. Also there was a bumper tape released that was roughly three hours long. None of the UK videos had the Sonic Says segments included except the episode High Stakes Sonic.

One of these UK videos had four different versions. All of these four had the episode "Sonic Breakout" in it. However, in one the other episode was "High Stakes Sonic". In another it was "Slowwww Going" and the final version had all three of these episodes. Also there was a tape with just the "Sonic Breakout" episode.

Shout! Factory has already released two DVD sets of the series in the US, each with twenty two episodes in chronological order. The remaining episodes, as well as "Sonic Christmas Blast", were released in a third and final volume that is only available for purchase on Shout! Factory's website.

A "Sonic Christmas Blast" DVD was released, featuring the title episode. However, the remaining episodes are from Sonic Underground.

In the UK, the show was released in its entirety by Delta Home Video, who also released the Sonic the Hedgehog television series and Sonic Underground in the UK, as one boxset with eight discs on 11 June 2007.

Ncircle Entertainment also released several themed DVD's and two-disc boxed sets (called season set collector's editions). The boxed sets were "Let's Race" and "The Fastest Thing in Time".

Trivia

 * The majority of voice actors from the show also did voice work for the 1994 Mega Man cartoon. Some of which included:
 * Ian James Corlett - Mega Man, Mega Man X and Snake Man
 * Kathleen Barr - Roll
 * Jim Byrnes - Dr. Light and Crystal Man
 * Scott McNeil - Dr. Wily, Proto Man and Eddie
 * Garry Chalk - Guts Man and Dark Man
 * Terry Klassen - Cut Man
 * Lee Tockar - Vile
 * Byrnes & McNeil both also voiced Dr. Light & Dr. Wily in the OVA Mega Man: Upon a Star (The former also voiced Beat).
 * John Stocker (who provided additional voice work), also voiced the Mario character Toad in both The Super Mario Bros: Super Show and The Adventures of Super Mario Bros 3.
 * In this series, there are references to four Sonic games (Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic 2 (8-bit) and Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball) such as the zones of the games, Badniks, Chaos Emeralds, Rings and the Special Stage. The main characters also appear in Sonic 2 (except Scratch, who was inspired by a variety of Badnik from this game named Clucker).
 * Most of the villains in the first episode of the show later appeared in the game Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine.
 * In the last Chaos Emerald episode, we learn that Tails goes to school (or did) due to his statement that he learned something at school (big bang theory) after Sonic recommended it during "Over the Hill Hero ".
 * Scratch's third sentence was "Are you my mother?", a reference to P. D. Eastman's famous book Are You My Mother?
 * This was the only version of the American cartoons where Robotnik was referred to as "Eggman" in an episode, keeping with the egg-themed insults used by both Sonic and Tails. Many of his inventions were egg themed, and eggs are repeatedly mentioned to be his favorite food.
 * The episode Tails' Tale is the only time where Tails reveals his full name to be "Miles Prower". In Tails' New Home, however, he does state that his given name is Miles and goes on to say that he dislikes it.
 * This was the only animated incarnation until Sonic X to use music from the Sonic video games in any form. The only piece that was constantly reused was the classic title theme from Sonic the Hedgehog.
 * During the show, references were made to the Austrian-American actor (later Governor of California) Arnold Schwarzenegger and his most well known role as the Terminator, in the episodes like Too Tall Tails and Coachnik. In Robolympics, there's a robot version called "Arnold Robonegger."
 * In the episode The Magic Hassle, sound effects from the game Super Mario Bros. can be heard as Robotnik uses a computer. The sound effects are heard again in Attack in Pinball Fortress
 * In Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, the tips that Sonic is shown giving during the loading screens are entitled Sonic Says, presumably a call back to the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.
 * Due to poor translation issues, the Spanish (Latin America)-dubbed version of Sonically Ever After accidentally made Tails into a female character, confusing many children in Latin America. Also, the Latin American translation include character renames: Tails for "Colitas" (Spanish for "Little Tails") and Robotnik for "Mostachón" (Spanish for "Big Moustache"), mistakes carried onto SatAM's dub. None of the these changes are present in the Spanish (Spain) version.
 * This is the only continuity in which Sonic does not show any fear of water.
 * Sonic had two birthdays in this show, once in Tails Prevails and another in Robotnikland.
 * The Sonic Says (Sonic Sez) segments were never shown on original UK airings.
 * DiC Entertainment planned a second season for Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog but the second season didn't come around due to the fact that DiC was busy working on the second season for SatAM.
 * Grounder and Coconuts were based upon the identically-named enemy Badniks in Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
 * One episode was adapted for the Sonic the Hedgehog comic books published by Archie Comics, specifially "Pseudo Sonic" in Sonic the Hedgehog #9.
 * A pilot film for The Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog was made that never aired on television. Some scenes ended up in the series including the attempted crushing of Sonic by Robotnik that was played at the end of every episode during the credits.