Sonic the Hedgehog (Play-a-Sound)

Sonic the Hedgehog (Play-a-Sound)
Publication details
Date	1995
Publishing company	Publications International, Ltd.
Production staff
Writer	Raymond MacKemp
Pencils	Rod Vass

Sonic the Hedgehog is a Play-A-Sound book published in 1995. It features a plastic, battery-powered backing and a strip of buttons down the right hand side.

Description

The story inside is sprinkled with pictures instead of words in some of the sentences. When you see a picture show up in the sentence you're reading, you're supposed to push the corresponding button to enhance the story with noises. The story combines characters and elements from the video games along with the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog television series.

Appearances

Characters:

• Antoine Depardieu
• Badniks
  • Aquis
  • Buzz Bomber
  • Buzzer
  • Chopper
  • Clucker
  • Coconuts
  • Crawlton
  • Flasher
  • Jaws
  • Grounder
  • Nebula
  • Octus
  • Orbinaut
  • Rexon
  • SWATbot
• Bunnie Rabbot
• Dr. Ivo Robotnik
• Knuckles the Echidna
• Miles "Tails" Prower
• Rotor
• Princess Sally
• Snively
• Sonic the Hedgehog

Locations

• Mobius
  • Mobius Hospital (mentioned)

Synopsis

The story is about Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Sally on a scavenger hunt/race against Dr. Robotnik, Clucker and Grounder. Robotnik of course has all kinds of tricks up his sleeves. They go through many zones to find clues (Emerald Hill, Marble Zone, Chemical Plant, Mystic Cave, Sandopolis, Death Egg, and finally Metropolis). The prize is an ancient coin called The Cool Blue Baloo worth 6,000,000 Mobiums. At the end, Sonic wins and buys 1 million chili dogs for himself, and one for everyone else in attendance... and the Mobius Hospital gets to keep the change.

Sounds

The sounds were designed by Kristan Nordine.

• Sonic Running - Makes a zooming sound
• Knuckles - Pounding sound
• Sonic stopping - Cartoony halting screech dissimilar to the sound from the games
• Tails - Propeller sound similar to the games
• Spring - Spring sound similar to the games
• Dr. Robotnik - Evil laughter
• Rings - Chimes, a bit different from the games
• Sally - Girlish giggle
• Machine - Buzzing sound
• Sonic - A five note theme song that repeats itself 4 times. Sounds similar to the first five notes of the main theme in Sonic 1 and 2.

Trivia

• This book uses a lot of stock art for all the characters. Most notable is Knuckles who almost looks exactly the same in every picture.
• Sally's giggle sound effect is noticeable in the fact that it is not the voice of Kath Soucie.
• Bunnie Rabbot makes two cameo appearances, at the start and end of the race.
• Clucker seems to take the place of Scratch, next to Grounder as Robotnik's henchman. This is most likely because there was no stock art of Scratch available at the time. Grounder sports his Sonic the Hedgehog 2 design rather than his Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog appearance. Same for Coconuts as well, who uses his design from the games rather than his Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog appearance.
• Several locations from the video games at the time also make their appearances here. These include:
  1. Green Hill Zone/Emerald Hill Zone
  2. Chemical Plant Zone
  3. Marble Zone
  4. Metropolis Zone
  5. Death Egg Zone

Sonic the Hedgehog in other media