Were the cartoons and comics as big or bigger than the games among early Sonic fans?

its so weird i always just assumed this was from a random archie story

 

So a lot of my overt hostility towards the 90s western stuff specifically comes from the place it.....comes from, so to speak. Specifically, the context in which those changes and media were made. Toyoda explicitly stated on twitter that SoA outright ignored any requests made by the devs even for small things like the number of fingers Sonic has (four fingers is a no-no in Japan). Ogata apparently also requested that SoA not replace the music for the US Sonic CD release and was similarly ignored. Combined with how you have Kalinske claiming to do outright impossible things (unless he's a time traveler) after the fact and it doesn't really paint a picture of SoA (and by proxy, things they greenlit) as anything other than people who insisted they knew better than the original artists and developers and made changes out of a paternalistic "we know best" attitude, and taking the credit for things going well even though the core work wasn't even done by them.

As a result, it feels like I've been cheated out of the "original" vision that could have been sold to me when I was a kid, in place of a kind of uneven wishy-washy Changed By Corporate one made ostensibly to appeal to me, which it didn't really.

Now consider the later western stuff, like Sonic Boom and Sonic Prime, which I have almost wholly ignored outside some very funny Sonic Boom clips I still laugh with. Consider that I saw Sonic 3 twice in theaters because I like it. I have no opinion on the IDW comics other than that I know they exist, and I really liked Sonic Mania, which as I mentioned in another topic is developed largely by westerners. Hell, I even think writing the scripts in EN first and then translating them to JP later, like they did with Frontiers, is perfectly fine because it was done with the knowledge and consent of the original writers, which was something that was not present in many of the changes made in the 90s by SoA. A lot of the modern stuff has big western names (for Sonic) behind it even, like Hesse being co-producer on Sonic 3! The issue is not really a "west vs east" thing, it's a "take this vision and change it to Appeal To More Kids because we know better and kids are dumb" thing.

 

That's what the people on the Japanese side are claiming?

Because I've heard that people at Sega of America were constantly asking SoJ about how they should market the franchise in North America, only to get absolutely no guidance at all. Hell, SoJ forced Archie Sonic to adapt numerous games but refused to give its staff any material about said games because they supposedly were ridiculously paranoid over leaks. According to Archie staff, SoA were always more willing to give them material relating to new games, but like we've established previously, they often didn't get jack shit from SoJ either.

 

like thinking about it, this is entirely bonkers to me. imagine if you made a character, and then a JP team put a Manji on it (which culturally, to them, is extremely benign and associated with Buddhism), but you're like holy shit why did you put a swastika on my character and they just totally ignore you LMAO

 

yeah,


and my mistake, it was not Ogata, it was Masato Nishimura, which is sourced from us actually!

 

"SoA did not always listen to the demands of the Japanese developers" and "SoJ did not always give sufficient amounts of material to the American marketing department" are statements that can both be true at the same time.

When it comes to bad internal communication within large international corporations, it almost always goes both ways; We all know how the development of the Saturn and the 32X went, right?

 

oh yeah, Sega is absolutely stupid in every branch in practically every way, and even now they occasionally do things that make me go "yep, Sega is Stupid all right".

it's just the factor of the devs being "yeah they kept ignoring us when they made changes, some of those changes being quite offensive" + Kalinske and co claiming they "fixed Sonic and finalized his design (even though some of what they say is objectively untrue) and this is why Sonic was successful" that makes me resent the products of their work. Particularly when some of said people had never touched a single line of code in their lives or drew a single sprite, fundamentally piggybacking off the works of others they claimed to have "improved" even as Sega proceeded to crash and burn around them when the devs that actually made those successful works weren't actually putting out any Sonic games. I think if the changes hadn't been made in that context, I would probably just think of it as something different, like I do with other modern works.

Even if the context was just "SoA ignored us", because like Jaxer said that street can and often goes both ways, and it's easy to lose contact in a pre-internet era, I probably wouldn't care as much. It's all the chest-thumping and claiming of credit that really gets my goat.

(I honestly do appreciate the opportunity to explicitly sort through my feelings, which is often just a knee-jerk reaction any time I come across yet another Archie fanboy insisting that Ian Flynn is the worst because he hasn't brought Sally back, or...any time I think of the fundamentally incomplete Sonic CD US OST lol)

 

And lest we forget, there was a Dennis the Menace cartoon series in the mid-90s on the BBC. One more uh... "accessible"(?) than Sonic, on the grounds of being shown in an actual children's programming block and being advertised. The Dandy didn't have that... unless Desperate Dan made some cameos - I can't remember and I'm not looking it up.

 

I did a little research, and it doesn't seem like anything from The Dandy got an animated adaptation.

Also, when I first read this post, my dumb American brain defaulted to DiC's 1986 series starring our blonde Dennis. I just wanted to mention that for funsies.

 

Closest you'd get is some animated adverts with Dan in them


RE: SoA making changes. When Streets of Rage 2 was in development they didn't approve of some of the designs, and requested the in-game sprites be changed to match what they had drawn up for the box art. Ancient for the most part refused (Max had his bandana removed). We know SegaSonic Arcade had a planned switch for the Robotnik sprites but I wonder if they ever requested similar changes for the main series.

 

Without bothering to look it up.

Dandy was the top comic from something like the 1950s - 1980s.

But the Beano would take the top spot every now and again during that period.

Then in the 90s, the Beano definately overtook the Dandy, to take that top spot.

Now where STC comes into this, the old staff are adamant that STC did or came amazingly close at one point to taking the top spot for a time.

If it did indeed even take the 2nd top spot, that's still one hell of an achievement.

Because whilst the 90s comic scene for the UK wasn't that amazing, there was one other comic that was still very popular, 2000AD.

Everything else was Marvel/DC UK publications which from what I recall, wernt the easiest to get unless you had a decent local comic book shop.

 

I largely agree with you, though I think that Sonic Boom is really worth the minimal time investment. I think I'll treasure that show forever, and as a fan feel lucky that it even exists. I really enjoy hearing established voice actors in a medium where they get to cut loose and have fun with the inherent silliness.

 

I might have enjoyed Boom if it hadn't completely bastardized everyone. I know it's supposed to be a silly gag show, but you can write comedy without flanderizing the characters into one-note memes.

 

I'm logged in so I'll add to the anecdotes. I started with the Sega Master System before my mom (or dad) bought a Sega Genesis for the family in 1991, and it was packaged with Sonic the Hedgehog. I believe many people have or will tell you when that "it" factor happened with them, when they realized this game (or its sequels) were unlike anything they've played before, but for me, honestly, it was the entire aesthetic of Spring Yard Zone. I've never heard music so cool from a video game before, nor have I ever seen what might as well be a borough from New York used as a location from a video game. Games were allowed to do this!? I thought they had to all be fields and mountains and stuff (and even if they were cities, it was always the heart of a metropolis and never anything so... cozy). I feel like that alone won me over because it made me realize the sky was the limit. Labyrinth Zone would scare the daylights out of me, though. Sonic's drowning sprite was pretty fearsome for a small child. I guess I felt compelled to master it, though, and to this day Labyrinth Zone is my favorite Zone in Sonic 1 (and if I'm lazy, the only one I'll cheat-code my way into playing).

In the Christmas of '92, my dad would get each of us a video game: I got Sonic the Hedgehog 2, my older brother, Batman Returns and my younger sister, Ariel the Little Mermaid. I'm pretty sure I liked Sonic 2 back then, but these days I'd rather not bother with it at all. I did, however, find Tails ultra cute, and he's been my favorite character ever since... with caveats considering he hasn't really been cute in the current setting for the longest time. I've read people describe him as "Jimmy Neutron" in his current form? Yeah, no thanks. Classic (up to about Heroes) Tails all the way.

I would consider that slightly relevant because this is where Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog comes in. DiC's method of using child VA's for child characters added a lot of charm to Tails for me, and really only cemented his status as personal favorite for me. I don't know if I related to him or anything, but I definitely enjoyed the found-family dynamic of Sonic and Tails in AoStH, and it seemed on par with what I would imagine from the games. On that note, however, I was never under any impression that the games, the TV shows, or the comic were all the same universe. Even in my early grade-school years I knew there was no cohesion, and therefore these branches had to be different interpretations. In fact, that lack of brand cohesion likely helped to tip me off. I was never really into "serious" things, so I found it hard for me to get into SatAM, despite getting up on Saturdays to watch it on ABC-7 anyway. That Tails got sidelined extra hard for characters I honestly didn't care about didn't help, I felt cheated that Knuckles never showed up, and I vastly preferred AoStH's Robotnik.

From what I can remember, in the Chicagoland area, AoStH and SatAM started broadcasting not that long from each other, and I think AoStH aired first, or at least, it was the first one I saw, aired on broadcast station WPWR-TV (later, UPN 50). The station held a contest for a Sonic merch box, and I actually was the winner for that. I remember there was an RC car that looked like this (I may still have this thing somewhere), and a Sonic mask, among other things. Maybe a balloon, poster and a t-shirt, I forgot most of it, but it may be the only contest I've ever won, so the event itself has stuck with me, at least.

As for the comics, I remember attempting to buy them regularly, because like most kids at the time, Sonic was Sonic (even if it wasn't my preferred iteration of Sonic). I liked the early ones enough, groaners and all, but I remember it getting kind of dramatic, which again, I didn't sign up for (and apparently it got much worse after I dropped off). I still preferred it to SatAM because it was marginally closer to the games like AoStH was, moreso with the tie-in issues. I stopped after Robotnik "died" in issue 50, because at that point, I really didn't care who they were cooking up next. Plus I feel like it started getting into middle Earth fantasy or something, and I don't play with that (see my amazement with Spring Yard Zone above).

Needless to say, the SatAM/Archie verse had very little hold on me.

I never owned Sonic 3 until I was an adult, but I certainly rented it enough times. One of my parents bought me S&K, though, and the lock on experience was pretty life changing. All said, though, I feel like Sonic 3 part 1 was life changing enough. Every act had a different aesthetic experience, and there was a progressive story being told via cutscenes (which Mania couldn't top, I'm afraid. They did the best they could, but it comes across like a grade schooler's on-the-spot tall tale with "and now Sonic is here, and now Sonic is there!"). If Sonic 1 was the game that told me what video games could be, Sonic 3 was the game that showed me the wonderful world of presentation, and it's pretty hard to go back. It's even influenced how I consider the art, sound and direction of personal projects today. Contrary to the current public opinion, honestly, I'm grateful for the John Jay Smith/Buxer cues for Sonic 3. Again, I had no idea video game music was even allowed to be contemporary. It spoke to me in a way that a lot of Nintendo music was likely never going to. Among others, that sub-boss track is really something, and I feel like it had a very wide influence on fan musicians (turned professional), including Tee Lopes himself. I'm not a Hard Times fanatic or anything, but I really can't help but feel the prototype tune for Ice Cap Zone causes the game to lose a bit of an adult, sophisticated edge in turn for something super gamey and generic. Same said for Launch Base Zone (the OG retail track being the S3 track I get down with most, myself). I'm aware the Act 2s are of varying degrees of half-assed, but in a strange way, they kind of work in game in a atmospheric sense: Semi operational, chilly, stealthy.

Sonic 3D & Spinball I've played, and they were just OK (even though I feel like Maeda's tracks in 3D are some of the best composition and arrangement work on the Mega Drive/Genesis). CD and R I would only be able to play on PC later on. CD further cemented how I felt about video games/the franchise by Sonic 3. However, I think 3D, CD and R would drive a further wedge between me and the western auxiliary media as being "not actually Sonic" because the character designs in these were so obviously not what DiC/Archie was utilizing.

I never really watched Underground, though I feel like I caught a bit of one episode at some point. I don't remember when I saw the OVA, but I can say, like most people, it was my preferred Sonic cartoon. And as for the online experience, I don't recall the details, but I believe I ""started"" here, and by "started" I mean "lifelong lurker", and by "here" I mean when it was known as "Simon Wai's Sonic 2 Beta", or at least I'm pretty sure. May have been Area 51 first, I can't remember. I gravitated to the research sites instead of the Archie-verse sites because I was probably closer to one of the "SegaSonic" types, but a lot milder as I only really cared about the games, and didn't care to make my opinions known (I honestly still don't, I didn't even join until, what, 1 or 2 years ago?).

I recall having strange dreams every now and then as a kid about that unsettling unused song in Sonic 2, along with what little I could gain from that level select icon in Sonic 3 that I just knew had to be related, and as long as I could never get closure on them, said dreams haunted me with some really bizarre Zones. The discovery of the Sonic 2 prototype finally provided that closure and some peace of mind, but the vastness of "what could have been", even at the time, was so impressive that it became the next foundation of the Sonic franchise/fandom for me, along with the amazing talent of the best of the earliest fan games (Retro Sonic really made a statement). This community (which includes sites like Sonic CulT and Area 51) seemed like it was about both of these things, and frankly, I didn't care about the rest. So for me, I became kind of a lurking-in-the-shadows knowledge head who could be sustained by amazing discoveries and fan talent.

At this point in time I'd say I'm only really still in it for the discoveries. Mania was the last game I bought and even before that it was Gens 2011 (which I don't even like, unpopular opinion indeed). I think I got more out of that contemporary Genocide City thread than any game released over the last 8 years. I'm surprised I stick with Sonic despite my mostly-apathetic attitude towards the franchise, but I feel like a lot of those previously mentioned revelations, foundations and influences keep me around whether I like it or not. I cannot deny the impact it has had on me.

TL;DR - It was the games first, I liked AoStH (and won some swag for it), never believed they were all the same continuity, R&D was the only branch of the fandom I felt worth following in my teen years and onward, comics and cartoons held no real influence on me outside of the fact that I got used to Tails being voiced by a kid and was kinda sad when they stopped doing that (hang fire, I'm aware of why it happens in the industry). Then again, Tails stopped acting like believable 8 year old at some point and absolutely doesn't even look it anymore with the current modern models, so I haven't given it any thought in a really long time.

 

I know what you mean. In S3K it feels like you're witnessing a story unfold and evolve as you advance through the campaign, particularly in the S&K half. Mania on the other hand? It feels like you're just traveling from zone to zone at random.

Agree on IceCap, but I'm on the other side of the fence on Launch Base. The MJ tune made me go "WTF? Is that supposed to be a Sonic level song?" when I first heard it, whereas I've always loved the atmosphere of the proto/S&KC LBZ tracks. Act 1 sounds like you're making the preparations for an important mission, act 2 sounds like you're carrying out said mission. Very fitting for a level in which you're infiltrating Eggman's base to stop the relaunch of the Death Egg.

 

Make no mistake, I actually like the prototype version of LBZ2 (the good one, not what all the poor souls who own Origins are stuck with). But I can't get down with proto-Act 1. Though believe me, I can see and I've surely read the amount of people who are the opposite. Seems like LBZ altogether is kind of a love-it-or-hate-it on both sides, though, so there's far from a consensus. I think most can agree that with Carnival Night, though, the later proto is great music for both acts. Which even for me is a big surprise because I cannot stand the earlier prototype's CNZ1 in any form, ripped from cart or in some midi variant. Amazing what a bit more time in the oven and better mixing can do.

Having said all that, and this one might very well be unconscious bias or nostalgia talking, I still can't play Sonic 3 with the proto music, even if by listening to it standalone, some of the music is definitely better (calling a spade a spade, the MJ entourage Carnival Night felt like it was done to get it over with, which doesn't shock me from artists of that caliber with more lucrative things to do + the attitudes adults had on video games at the time). It always seems like something is off or I'm being gaslit in some way. It's hard to describe, because it's not like I want to feel that way. Then again, I honestly can't even play Sonic 3 without the way the Mega Drive fades out the bgm (via muting the DAC and PCM), so it very well may be something I'm stuck on, like audio muscle memory. For example, the opening cutscene of Sonic getting his clocked cleaned by Knuckles on Angel Island just doesn't feel timed out right musically in Origins, but again, creature of habit at this point. Along with changed gameplay timing, physics and other quirks, I feel like this is why at best I'm stuck with Sonic 3 Complete, though I don't know how AIR works tbh. I've never needed widescreen, however, so I'm not complaining.

 

I had a tiny look for this:

https://tvrdb.com/listings/1994

According to this, AoStH did indeed air on a Sunday at 9:00... but these listings don't mention SatAM (save for one Sunday in June 1994 that might be a typo?). It starts in September-ish 1993 and goes on until January 1995.

We're claiming there are 66 episodes of AoStH - maybe they aired every episode? Or the listings are wrong?? Question marks???


But if it is a case where SatAM was mislabeled... I mean that might be another reason why people don't remember it - because according to Channel 4 it didn't exist. Dunno.


I wonder what the viewing figures were for 9AM on a Sunday - it feels a bit early in the morning, and yet also late.