Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog


Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog is an animated series that was based on the Sonic the Hedgehog video game series produced by Sega. Airing during the fall of 1993, 65 episodes were produced for first-run syndication. The series was co-produced by DiC Animation City, Sega of America, Inc., Bohbot Entertainment and the Italian studio Reteitalia S.p.A. in association with Spanish network Telecinco.
On November 24, 1996, USA Network aired a Christmas special which was produced to promote Sonic 3D Blast. The series inspired a video game, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, which features several original characters from the show. Furthermore, some elements of the series, such as Sonic's fondness for chili dogs, appeared in later video games and media of the franchise.

Plot

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog is a comical, light-hearted and gag-driven adventure series based on the titular character Sonic the Hedgehog, an arrogant yet kind-hearted and mischievous teenage hedgehog with the power to move at supersonic speeds. Sonic, along with his idolizing young friend Tails, regularly oppose the main antagonist Dr. Robotnik, his robot henchmen Scratch, Grounder, and Coconuts, and thwart their plans to conquer their home planet of Mobius. The series features a short PSA segment titled "Sonic Says" at the end of each episode; these segments were written by Phil Harnage.

Characters

Main

Special

Voice cast

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog was created by DiC Animation City, which produced a total of 65 episodes for its one season, and was syndicated by Bohbot Entertainment, later known as BKN International, and the Italian Reteitalia S.p.A., part of Fininvest. The show's animation was outsourced to four animation studios:
Pierre DeCelles, who worked at Hong Ying as a Senior Animation Director, has described the show as "fun and humorous".
According to Robby London, DiC originally made a deal to produce only the Saturday morning Sonic series for the ABC network. However, DiC also wanted to go further and produce additional episodes for weekday syndication as well, similar to what DiC has previously done with The Real Ghostbusters, but Mark Pedowitz, ABC's senior vice president of business affairs and contracts, expected Sonic to air exclusively on ABC and rejected the idea, telling London "If you guys want to do syndication, be our guest, go with God, but you won’t be on our network." ABC would not agree to the deal until London came with a proposition that DiC would produce a separate, vastly different Sonic show for syndication instead, the end result of which became Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Broadcast and distribution

First-run broadcast

The series was shown through syndication in the United States in 1993 on weekday afternoons. In the United Kingdom, the series was screened on Channel 4 in 1993 on Sunday mornings at 9:00, but with the "Sonic Says" segments edited out. They were also edited out on The Children's Channel And the UK VHS releases of the series. The weekday mornings airings in Australia on Seven Network as part of Agro's Cartoon Connection retained the segments. The cartoon was broadcast in the Republic of Ireland on RTÉ Two from 12 September to December 1994 on weekday afternoons with the segments retained also.

Rebroadcast and international airings

re-aired the original episodes of the show in the United States from 1994 to 1996, and later returned to Broadcast Syndication on the BKN block from 1997-1998, and later BKN Kids II from 1999 until 2000. Toon Disney would start broadcasting the series in September 1998, and aired on the channel until 2002.
This TV subsequently aired the first 13 episodes of the show from 2010 to 2011 on their Cookie Jar Toons block. The series was also available on Netflix, containing the 20 episodes. In December 2018, reruns of the series began airing on Starz. Later starting on September 3, 2019, the show aired its reruns on the streaming channel called Pluto TV for the first time since another Sonic cartoon Sonic SatAM aired back on sometime 2017.
In the UK, Channel 4 and Pop re-aired the show with the "Sonic Says" segments restored.
In Italy, the show aired on Italia 1.
In Japan, the show aired on TV Asahi.
The show was re-aired on in Australia Saturday mornings on Network Ten as part of Cheez TV from 1993 to 1999, and also aired on Nick Jr. and Disney Channel.
In Brazil, the show aired in January 1996, on Rede Globo on the block Colossus TV. Only the first 22 of 65 episodes aired in Brazilian Portuguese, as well as the Christmas special. The show also aired in Sweden on TV3, in The Netherlands on RTL4, in Germany on RTL II and in 2005 in Arab countries on Spacetoon.
The series also aired on KidsCo, like with many other DIC-produced cartoons.

Home media

North America

In 1994, Buena Vista Home Video through their DIC Toon-Time Video label, released 6 VHS tapes of the series each containing 2 episodes.
Shout! Factory have released all 65 episodes of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog on DVD in Region 1 in three volume sets. The first volume, released on July 17, 2007, features the first 22 episodes along with two featurettes: "A Conversation With Artist Milton Knight" and "How to Draw Sonic the Hedgehog". The second volume was released on December 9, 2008, and features episodes 23–44 with the featurette "How to Draw Dr. Robotnik". The third volume contains the final 21 episodes of the series, plus the "Sonic Christmas Blast" special and the featurette "How to Draw Tails". These episodes were not compiled in the correct airdate order in the final volume. These sets were discontinued in 2012 along with Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Underground after Shout!'s deal with Cookie Jar Entertainment expired.
From 2007-2010, NCircle Entertainment released a number of single disc releases of the series.
Invincible Pictures re-released the complete series set on August 13, 2019.
The series along with its successors Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Underground is available on the streaming services CBS All Access and Tubi

International

Throughout 1993-1994, Abbey Home Entertainment through their Tempo Video label released 8 VHS volumes of the series each containing an assortment of episodes. PolyGram Video through their 4Front Video label would also release a VHS tape of the series in 1997.
In Region 2, Delta Home Entertainment released Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog: The Complete Series on DVD in the UK on June 11, 2007.
Broadcast UK history
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog received mixed retrospective reviews. Randy Miller III of DVDTalk said, "While it's obvious that The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog won't ever be mentioned in the same sentence with Disney, Pixar or Studio Ghibli, there's enough goofy fun here to entertain any resident of the 16-bit gaming era." Michael Rubino of DVD Verdict criticized the show for being dated, contrived, and bloated with chili dog jokes. GamesRadar listed the show as one of "the worst things to happen to Sonic." It commented that it "made Ren & Stimpy look like a rigid, strictly story driven opus of animation", and criticized the supporting cast as "wholly uninteresting, unfunny and just all around annoying." Emily Ashby of Common Sense Media gave the series an overall rating of 3/5 and noted that while the show's pace is "frantic", "the series emphasizes positive themes for kids about personal safety and interpersonal relationships." Bob Mackey of USgamer wrote that the show's attempts to emulate Looney Tunes and The Ren & Stimpy Show "were done in by the lack of quality control that typically plagued 65-episode syndicated series", and that "the zippy, timing-reliant slapstick Adventures relied on never stood a chance against the animation sweatshops DiC regularly used to pump out their nearly endless supply of televised content." Ian Flynn, writer for the Sonic the Hedgehog comic book series by Archie Comics, remarked that Adventures was the closest to " Sonic right" despite "fail on the details", although he observed that the show's gags were "polarizing" and that the guest characters "ranged from tired tropes to Saturday Night Live knockoffs ".