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 on ABC 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 &quot;Tails&quot; 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 The Ren & Stimpy Show 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 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 13 episodes for its first season, and was syndicated by Bohbot Entertainment, now BKN International. 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 (SatAM) such as 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.

Voices (English version)

 * Jaleel White as Sonic the Hedgehog
 * Christopher Evan Welch as Miles &quot;Tails&quot; Prower (except 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, Momma Robotnik
 * French Tickner as Professor Von Schlemmer, Doctor Warpnik

Trivia

 * In this series, there are references to 4 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, but they were inspired by Clucker, a Badnik from the game).


 * Most of the villains in the first episode of the show later appeared in 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 he is always talking about eggs being his favorite food.


 * 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 governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his most well known role as the Terminator, in the episodes "Too Tall Tails", "Coachnik" and "The Robolympics", in which he was called, "Arnold Robonegger."


 * In the episode The Magic Hassle, sound effects from the game Super Mario Bros. can be heard when Robotnik uses the computer.


 * 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-dubbed version of "Sonically Ever After" accidentally made Tails into a female character, confusing many children in Latin America.
 * Thruout the show, Sonic never seems to have his Aquaphobia, or fear of water.

Episodes

 * 1) "Super Special Sonic Search &amp; Smash Squad"
 * 2) "Subterranean Sonic"
 * 3) "Lovesick Sonic"
 * 4) "Slowwww Going"
 * 5) "High Stakes Sonic"
 * 6) "Sonic Breakout"
 * 7) "Trail of the Missing Tails"
 * 8) "Close Encounter of the Sonic Kind"
 * 9) "Momma Robotnik's Birthday"
 * 10) "Big Daddy"
 * 11) "Sonic's Song"
 * 12) "Birth of a Salesman"
 * 13) "Best Hedgehog"
 * 14) "The Robotnik Express"
 * 15) "Too Tall Tails"
 * 16) "Tails' New Home"
 * 17) "Over the Hill Hero"
 * 18) "Blank-Headed Eagle"
 * 19) "The Mystery of the Missing Hi-tops"
 * 20) "So Long Sucker"
 * 21) "Sonic Gets Thrashed"
 * 22) "Pseudo Sonic"
 * 23) "Grounder the Genius"
 * 24) "Tails in Charge"
 * 25) "Sno Problem"
 * 26) "Submerged Sonic"
 * 27) "Boogey-Mania"
 * 28) "Musta Been a Beautiful Baby"
 * 29) "Robotnik Junior"
 * 30) "Full Tilt Tails"
 * 31) "Mac-Hopper"
 * 32) "Momma Robotnik Returns"
 * 33) "Spaceman Sonic"
 * 34) "Mad Mike, Da Bear Warrior"
 * 35) "The Last Resort"
 * 36) "Robotnik's Rival"
 * 37) "The Magic Hassle"
 * 38) "Sonic the Matchmaker"
 * 39) "Tails Prevails"
 * 40) "Zoobotnik"
 * 41) "Attack on the Pinball Fortress"
 * 42) "Mass Transit Trouble"
 * 43) "Coachnik"
 * 44) "Untouchable Sonic"
 * 45) "Super Robotnik"
 * 46) "Robolympics"
 * 47) "Magnificent Sonic"
 * 48) "Blackbot the Pirate"
 * 49) "Hedgehog of the Hound Table"
 * 50) "Robotnik's Pyramid Scheme"
 * 51) "Prehistoric Sonic"
 * 52) "Baby-Sitter Jitters"
 * 53) "Honey, I Shrunk the Hedgehog"
 * 54) "Robotnikland"
 * 55) "The Mobius 5000"
 * 56) "The Little Merhog"
 * 57) "Road Hog"
 * 58) "The Robots' Robot"
 * 59) "Tails' Tale"
 * 60) "Hero of the Year"
 * 61) "Fast and Easy"
 * 62) "Lifestyles of the Sick and Twisted"
 * 63) "Sonic is Running"
 * 64) "Robo-Ninjas"
 * 65) "Sonically Ever After"

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". As of 9/27/10 This TV announced it along with Sonic Underground will be on it's sunday morning line up.
 * United States
 * ABC (1993-1995)
 * USA Network (1995-1996)
 * Toon Disney (1998-2002)
 * This TV (2010-)


 * 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" )
 * CITV (1993-2012)
 * CBBC (1994-2002)


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


 * Malaysia
 * TV3 (1995-1997)
 * Disney Channel Asia (2002)


 * Canada
 * YTV


 * Australia
 * Network Ten (1995-1996)
 * ABC (1996-2013)


 * Argentina
 * Magic Kids


 * Greece
 * STAR kidz (1995-2013)
 * Alter (1998-2014)


 * Germany
 * Super RTL (1994-2013)
 * Junior (1993-2012)
 * RTL Kids (1997-2011)


 * France
 * France 3 (1999-2014)
 * France 5 (1995-2013)
 * Czech Republic
 * Premiera TV / Prima (approx. 1996-1998)


 * Russia
 * Klaskolishka Television (1994-2013)
 * Poliska TV (1993-2012)

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.

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! 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.