Sonic Cartoons Over the Years

[cosmichaos]

So, I was watching SatAM earlier, and I started thinking about every Sonic cartoon that's ever come out, and then comparing and analyzing them, because heaven forbid I ever just enjoy anything. I figured I'd start this topic just for fun, to state my own opinions on each show, and hopefully hear some opinions from the rest of the community. So, in chronological order, here are my thoughts on each Sonic cartoon.

Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog: .....Hoo boy. I was hoping I wouldn't have to confront this one so soon. So...I have mixed feelings on this one. One one hand, I really enjoyed its spunky nature and goofy non-plot, but on the other hand, what was even happening. Like, who was chilling in their office one day in 1993 and suddenly had the idea to write the episode "Pseudo Sonic"? If you haven't watched that episode, DON'T. It has a lot of rough spots, and by a lot, I mean a LOT, but it wasn't terribly horrible. The animation never fails to somehow captivate me, with how goofy and expressive everything is, and it has a lot of loveable characters. It's a silly show, and it knows it. In fact, it owns it. AoSTH has some of the most crazy plotlines, from Sonic flirting with an ancestor of his and then getting himself erased from existence, to Robotnik running for president of Mobius and failing miserably(in the episode Sonic dresses up as a woman to get Robotnik to cheat on his wife, it's WILD), to Sonic(this seems to be a trend) crossdressing as a woman to get Robotnik to marry him(THERE'S AN EXPLANATION). By far my favorite episode of the show is "Tails' New Home", which features a guilty Sonic trying to find Tails a suitable foster hope after deciding that he's not a good enough caretaker. It's a surprisingly cute episode about how family can be chosen.

Sonic the Hedgehog(SatAM): Ok, I talked about AoSTH a bit longer than I expected. Sorry. Anyways, moving on, SatAM, beheld as one of the best Sonic cartoons by the fandom, is a show that certainly has its strengths. It takes on a more serious plotline, while also managing to incorporate lighthearted situations and characters. I really didn't understand the hype around this show or the Freedom Fighters before I watched, my only exposure to each of these things being some...um...not so great Archie Comics. After watching, I can confidently say that this show's popularity is certainly well deserved. The cast introduced are all funny, likeable, and endearing in their own way. When I saw how Sally Acorn was portrayed in some not-so-endearing comics(courtesy of you, Ken Penders), I am sad to admit that little me turned away from the character and show. Thankfully this bias was eliminated after watching, because Sally is an amazing character in that show. Her dynamic with Sonic is golden, and it feels completely natural. Their relationship grows over time, with both of them learning and building off of each other, with a bit of healthy arguments and playful banter along the way. Especially after watching "The Doomsday Project", SatAM Sonally felt like the most solid version of the ship. The other characters, like Bunnie and Antoine, are great as well.  If you haven't given the show a chance, please do. It's wonderful, and a worthwhile watch. 

Sonic Underground: I'm ashamed to admit how internally worked up I get over this show. It had such potential, and it was wasted on plotless episodes and a driving narrative that was never expanded upon. The show focuses on Sonic and his siblings, Sonia and Manic, being the royal heirs to the now dethroned Queen Aleena. After Mobotropolis is taken over by Robotnik, Aleena is forced to give up her children and then just....wait for them to find her. Yeah. And do they ever find her? NO. THEY DON'T. THE THEME SONG LIED, GUYS, THEIR MOTHER WAS NOT FOUND. The show ended before it could be given a proper conclusion, and this feels as if it was mainly due to the fact that they wasted too much time on side plots that contributed nothing to the main point of the show. There are a lot of episodes that just...don't need to be there, like "Sonic Tonic". Remember when I said not to watch "Pseudo Sonic"? Well, if given the choice between these two episodes, do not choose "Sonic Tonic". I was not prepared for what that episode had in store for me. Overall, it's a solid concept, but a horrendous execution. Also, Knuckles is in Sonic Underground, which is his first introduction into the cartoons, and is played by Brian Drummond, who also plays Eggman in Sonic Prime. I had the pleasure of meeting him in person at a recent Comicon I went to, and he was a super nice guy. We talked about voice acting, and the difference between Eggman's voice and Knuckles' voice, and then, out of nowhere, he yelled "I HATE THAT HEDGEHOG" really loudly in his Prime Eggman voice. It was great, and I'm super glad I got to meet him. Just wanted to share that, thought it was cool :)

Sonic X: So, before anyone goes nuts, I just want to say that I don't hate this show. Far from it. I'm just looking at the bigger picture rather than some individual gems from seasons 1&2. I felt like the pacing in this show was...less than perfect. Seasons one and two, in my opinion, were very slow at times, and felt a lot like bland retellings of games and storylines that already existed. The Sonic Adventure 1 arc was where I think the show really struggled, and while the Sonic Adventure 2 arc was absolutely an improvement, it still had a lot of things that just...didn't need to be there. Maybe I think this because I watched the English dub first, I don't know. I did go back and watch it in Japanese, and I remember liking it a lot more, so perhaps the only problem is 4Kids being a stick in the mud. Two episodes from the show that I absolutely adore in both EN and JP are "Clash!! Sonic vs. Knuckles" and "Cruise Blues". Season 3, however, is, in my opinion, one of, if not the best, Sonic story arcs of all time. The Metarex Saga is brilliant and well crafted, and the pacing suffered a LOT less in this season. Overall a fine show, though.

Sonic Boom: Though I personally love this show, there's not really a whole lot I can say about it. It had pretty much one goal. Be a dry, slapstick humor cartoon with no plot or purpose. Since it succeeded in that category, there's not too much to say. I know a lot of people went ballistic over the character redesigns, but I found them all nice, especially Amy. I really liked her dress in the show. My favorite episode has to be "Multi Tails". I remember watching it with my friends one time, and we all ended up laughing hysterically over that scene where the Tails clone is trying to use a fork to drink soup. Whether the comedy was actually good or if we were all exhausted out of our minds remains a mystery.

Sonic Prime: Ok, so, Prime hasn't finished, so I can't go too deep into this in case it changes with S3, but for the most part I'm pretty impartial to this show. This may be a hot take, or maybe it's cold as ice, but I think that Sonic's characterization is at it's weakest here. He just...doesn't feel like Sonic at all, and I really can't explain it. The Shatterspace characters are all good in their own rights, especially Rebel and Knux. Dread is...so the thing is I really like Dread, because, you know, PIRATES, but he feels kind of one dimensional. His one personality trait is "shard", and while that kind of fits the pirate memo we've been used to our whole lives, sometimes he just borders being stupid. Like, in No Place, they were surrounded by robots, and Dread just completely ignores all the danger and rants about how he has to get "his beauty" back. Read the room, bud. I do like that Nine is shaping up to be the major evil of the show, and I also like how Shadow is portrayed. I won't go into him as a courtesy of those who haven't seen the episode dropped on Youtube, but he is very interesting so far :)

 

Ok...so. I went on way longer than I intended to. Whoops. If you don't want to read all of this I totally get it, if you want you can just skip to your favorite show and list any opinions you agree or disagree with, and some of your own. I'm interested to see what others have to say on these cartoons!

[Cuz]

Yay reasons to talk about the cartoons again!

SatAM and Sonic X are my favorites. I love the cast that is the freedom fighters, and as you say Sonic and Sally's relationship is so well developed that it makes the show, but I wholy believe Bunnie and Rotor can hold thier own episodes. (in Bunnie's case if she ever got any). I love Sonic's relation to Uncle Chuck the poor guys brought to tears on occasion.  I followed the series into Archie and have been a life long fan ever since.

Sonic X finally gives us the princple modern cast, and the Amy centered episodes are some of my favorites. The beach episode with the bracelet, Sam Speed taking her up on a date, which provides some good insight in to how Sonic operates, and of course the Natsu No Hi scene in 52 being a peak SonAmy moment. What I see no problem in rooting for both SonSally and SonAmy. 

Sonic Underground I have a lot of fond memories of this flawed series and it had potential with the beginning episodes where the sibs come together and receive training, and then the Knuckles episodes stand out. It had good continuity compared to SatAM is what I'm saying. 

I still don't like Sonic Boom's Sonic he's too deadpan and bored all the time. Sonic's got to be in love with life you know. The other Sonic's would go crazy on an island as confined as Hedgehog Town. 

Edited March 27 by Cuz

[castell-neath]

A great summary of each cartoon there. Faie play some good points raised with each.

I have to confess that I really never cared for any of the cartoons, apart from Prime which I curretly think is pretty good.

I really hated Adventures when I was younger...it was shown at 6.30 Am on A Saturday on s4c and each episode just felt silly and at odds with the games I was playing. It messee with my 11 year old brain and I have NEVER been inclined to revisit it since.

[cosmichaos]

17 hours ago, Cuz said:

Sonic X finally gives us the princple modern cast, and the Amy centered episodes are some of my favorites. The beach episode with the bracelet, Sam Speed taking her up on a date, which provides some good insight in to how Sonic operates, and of course the Natsu No Hi scene in 52 being a peak SonAmy moment. What I see no problem in rooting for both SonSally and SonAmy. 

Oh, absolutely! Both ships are valid and good. I remember when I was a kid, my stupid little kid brain thought that something always had to be superior to the other, instead of just having two things coexist and be just as good as the other. Shipping included. Then one day I grew up and suddenly gained the gift of common sense, and ever since then the pool of things and characters I like has greatly expanded, shipping included. I can never fully understand grown adults on Twitter who are needlessly rude over petty little things involving fictional characters. People fought for so long over whether Sonamy or Sonally was the better ship, instead of just realizing that they both have their ups and downs, but both of them are good in their own rights. Being a multishipper, I can never understand why people compare things that are nothing alike. 

[Cuz]

AoStH matched with Looney Tunes pretty well. Both were formitive cartoons for me growing up. Now days it's a little hard to go back to. I'll take SatAM, X over it. I think I rate it about even with Boom. I don't really care for Prime much but we'll see what it's like at the conclusion. 

5 hours ago, cosmichaos said:

Oh, absolutely! Both ships are valid and good.

Absolutely agree. Both ships are compeling for their own reasons. Sonic and Sally in particular stand as equals in their relationship. Were Amy has to work harder to be reconized. 

[StreetSonic2022]

AoStH: In attempt of putting Sonic in a Looney Tunes-style cartoon. That is all. Nothing special, although no one mention about the Sonic Says at the end of the show. Usually brought in real-life messages for kids.

SatAM: Ah, yes. The one with Sally and the Freedom Fighters. Yeah, this was the show that brought Sonic to the non-gaming public. At first, the show was good when I was a kid. But after getting the complete DVD set (with the ugly artwork cover from Ken Penders of ALL people!), and rewatching it, the show feels off. It would have been better to bring in Sally, Bunnie, etc. to the games but we know how SEGA and certain members of Sonic Team felt about them as of today. And I did like Sonic and Sally together as they had chemistry. Unfortunately, the ship had to be destroyed due to Sally isn't an official Sonic character. 

Underground: While the concept of Sonic having siblings is nice, the show was a poor attempt to revitalize it as SatAM 2.0, without Tails, shockingly and the Freedom Fighters. The musical medallions were iffy (Sonia has the better set than Sonic and Manic). And then, the songs... Plus, it ended with the siblings still couldn't find their mother, who was a plot device! Knuckles appearances (with Athair as his grandfather from Archie Comics) couldn't help the show either. Oh, I forgot, why they had Jaleel White played Sonia? They should had hired another female VA for her.

Sonic X: This one was a big show when I first saw the announcement. An anime with the first appearance of Amy (not counting her cameo animation in Sonic CD), Cream, Shadow, and Rouge. Because of how they have Sonic, friends and enemies (Eggman) transported on regular Earth to get them settled in, the pacing was a bit slow in Seasons 1 and 2. Season 2 added in adaptions for Sonic Adventure 1, 2, and Sonic Battle which helped. I really wished the team continued to add Sonic Heroes and maybe an adaption of Sonic Advance 3. Season 3 about the Metalrix was interesting and original. Although there were some cons, and Chris is one of them. 4Kids dub was off because I was so used to the games' VAs. Some were OK (Eggman, Amy, Shadow) but others: Rouge (she sounded like an old 40-year-old woman) and Cream (she was okay in Season 1 but then her voice started to sound like a chalkboard, especially in Season 3 (episode when Shadow attacked the Blue Tornado... holy cow, Cream almost made my ears bleed!) Oh, I did like the SonAmy scenes. 

Sonic Boom: At first, because of Cartoon Network, for some damn reason, didn't want to promote the show properly and riding on Teen Titans GO! the show was doing... not so good. Most of Season 1 stuff and animation wasn't good. A second attempt in comedy, the writing was meh. Season 2, however, was better. Unfortunately, it didn't help because CN still wouldn't promote and moved it to Boomerang, in which many people did not have access to.

Prime: Now, this is a better Sonic cartoon. The concept of having a multiverse, different variations of the cast is a great idea. I felt Sonic's characterization is very childish, in contrast to the other predecessors. Chaos Sonic is super annoying, so is the Chaos Council, especially Dr. Babble. I just wished other Sonic characters (Cream, Silver, Blaze, the Chaotix) would make an appearance in this show to utilize the different counterparts concepts.