Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (often referred to as AoStH for short) is an American animated television series that was first broadcast in September 1993, and has been running in cartoon syndication ever since. 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.

Premise
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog is a fast-paced cartoon with much slapstick humor, akin to such shows as Ren and Stimpy or Tiny Toons. 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 robots too. The plots often loosely follow 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.

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 first episode was "Best Hedgehog" (actually episode 13 in production order, shown September 6) and the last was "Hero of the Year" (episode 60 in production order, shown December 3). DiC ceased production on this comical interpretation 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 Sonic the Hedgehog such as Princess Sally in a non-speaking cameo, and 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", 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; the special's name was changed to match the game that did come out, Sonic 3D Blast.

Voice Talents

 * Jaleel White as Sonic the Hedgehog
 * Christopher Evan Welch as Miles "Tails" Prower (except Sonic Christmas Blast)
 * Long John Baldry as Dr. Ivo Robotnik
 * Gary Chalk as Grounder
 * Phil Hayes as Scratch
 * Ian James Corlett as Coconuts
 * Gary Owens as the Narrator (in the pilot episode)
 * Jim Cummings as Dr. Ivo Robotnik and Scratch (in the pilot episode)
 * Michael Donovan as Wes Weasley

Trivia

 * Jaleel White, who is the voice of Sonic in both this incarnation, SatAM, Sonic Underground and other Sonic cartoons is mostly known for his role as Steve Urkel on the show Family Matters.


 * In this series, there are references to 3 Sonic games (Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic 2 (8-bit)) such as the zones of the games, Badniks, Chaos Emeralds and the special stage. The main characters also appear in Sonic 2 (except Scratch and Grounder, but they were inspired by Badniks from the game).


 * Most of the villains in the first episode of the show later appeared in Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine. Scratch also appeared in Spinball and Grounder & Coconuts in Sonic the Hedgehog 2''.


 * In the Chaos Emerald mini-series, Sonic (and Tails) time-traveled using radioactive boots in the first two parts. But in the second half, they switched to using a para-sail and then an electric skateboard. Erroneously, in the final installment, when Sonic and Tails gather help from past versions of themselves, they're all using the skateboard to time-travel rather than their original vehicles.


 * 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.


 * 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.

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 last shown on that channel as part of a "Sonic Week". The show will move to Boomerang as a part of Boomeraction alongside the other shows in 2009.
 * USA
 * Syndication (1993)
 * USA Network (1995)
 * Toon Disney (1998-2002)
 * Boomerang (TBA 2009)


 * United Kingdom
 * Channel 4 (7 November 1993-1997)
 * The Children's Channel (1995-1998)
 * POP (February 2004 - TBC)
 * ITV2 (2005) (as part of "GMTV2 kids" )


 * Sweden
 * TV3 (Viasat) (1995-1998)


 * Malaysia
 * TV3 (1995-1997)


 * Canada
 * YTV


 * Australia
 * Network Ten (1995-1996)


 * Argentina
 * Magic Kids

VHS/DVD Releases
There were 6 VHS tapes released in the US with 2 episodes each per tape. In the UK, there were about 10 tapes released; Volumes 1 to 6 (except Volume 5 which is Quest for the Chaos Emeralds, a 4 parter edited without the title cards) had 3 episodes per tape, High Stakes Sonic/Sonic Breakout and Momma Robotnik's Birthday tapes had 2 episodes each. Also there was a bumper tape released that was roughly 3 hours long. None of the UK videos had the Sonic Says segments included except the episode High Stakes Sonic. It is worth noting that 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.

There is a DVD release in Korea with the first 12 episodes

Shout! has already released two DVD sets of the series, each with 22 episodes in chronological order, in the United States.

A "Sonic Christmas Blast" DVD was released, which included the episode "Sonic Christmas Blast." The remaining episodes, however, were that of the Sonic Underground cartoon.

In the UK, a DVD release of the show is planned but is currently unknown whether it would be single box set or volume packs.