Sonic the Hedgehog SAT AM Episodes 14-15 Review

Hello and welcome to episode 75 of Pixels in

the Animation. I am of course TFJ and Mike. Joining

me in this episode once again is of course TV's

Mr. Neil. We're here once again. Episode 75 here

is going to be a little bit weird because we

only have two cartoons to talk about in this

episode because of that whole mix up with Heads

or Tails. Heads or Tails was originally going

to be the final episode for today. but because

we use it as the pilot instead of the finale

yada yada yada uh so we're going to be talking

about game guy and sonic conversion and then

after that at the end of the show we're going

to use the outro and things to talk about the

music of sonic the hedgehog the video games so

that's what's going on for today and we're going

to take a quick break come back with the first

episode for episode 75 yay I have a seven, Antoine.

Hmm. Go fishing. You are having a four? Go fishing?

I need a nine. So, I was on my way to this old

fortress where Robotnik's holding my freedom

fighters and... Whoa! Did you say freedom fighters?

Like us? Not exactly. We're only six. Well, we

were seven. Now there's only me. Isn't that interesting.

First up today is Game Guy. So, Game Boy grew

up? Oh god. Well, I... I don't know. And technically,

if that was the case, I can't believe Game Boy

let himself go because he became a goat or something.

I don't know what the hell kind of animal that

was. Sonic and Sally befriend an ally who claims

to be part of another freedom fighter group,

but he is not what he seems to be. Yeah. We can

tell. You're so thrilled with this one. Oh, I'll

get to the stupid part. That's what we count

on you for, dude, so I'm sure you will. The only

thing I have for this one is we get this under

-arcing story about her father's list at the

very tail end of the episode. The rest of it

was just... This is almost more cliche than the

Griff episode with the underground freedom fighters.

This is just wacky, so just tear into it. Well,

right there we have a plot hole because Sally

Acorn wasn't too skeptical of Griff, but all

of a sudden she's like, we can't trust this guy.

We don't know where he came from. I mean, maybe

she learned a lesson from Griff, but I don't

think that's what happened. I think that's a

continuity glitch. But what really drove me nuts

is that at the end of the episode, I'm already

going to jump right to the end, he's about to

get sucked into a wormhole. We'll have to explain

that in a minute, but he's about to get sucked

into a wormhole and he says, Sally Acorn's father

is still alive. And unfortunately, a few episodes

later, we find out what happened to her father

and it's like. How could he possibly know that?

We'll explain that when we get to it. It's crazy,

folks. The really stupid thing is that this wormhole

thing is part of a really contrived, elaborate,

almost Rube Goldberg -esque pinball game where

instead of just killing Sonic, Dr. Robotnik is

like, no. No, I'm going to play pinball with

Sonic. So, I guess we sort of have an adaptation

of Sonic Spinball. But not really, because Sonic

Spinball is nothing like this. Are you ready

to play my favorite rodent? Play what, Chromedome?

A little game I created just for the two of us.

Oh, man! Sir, we have the hedgehog in the palm

of our hand. Why not just squash him now? Oh,

no, Snivly. I've been waiting far too long for

this moment. I want to savor it. was kind of

pinball -esque, so they were like, let's make

a Sonic pinball game for the Genesis, and it's

a bad game, don't play it. But I guess they might

have been drawing an illusion to Sonic Spinball,

but it really has nothing to do with it. I mean,

Casino Night, I can kind of see it now. I can

kind of see that now. Now that you mention it,

but that was the first thing I thought of was

Sonic Spinball as well. And yeah, November 23rd,

1993 for North American release for Spinball,

which means this episode was September 10th of

94, so a year later. So Sonic Spinball was out.

Yeah. Yeah, no. Oh, should we bring up the totally

new character that they brought into this cartoon

for no apparent reason? Game guy? No, we're talking

about that stupid dragon. Free summer? Oh, uh,

Dulcy, or... Yeah, Dulcy. Yeah. She's... I'm

like, who's this? Where'd she come from? Yeah,

I guess her gimmick is that she's kind of dullard

and she runs into things She's not very good

at flying. So she's she's kind of the equivalent

of Launchpad McQuack That or Madame Raz just

proving my point once again that Sonic the Hedgehog

is She -Ra Princess of Power I'm so I can't help

it. It's right there The only thing Dulcy is

missing is Broome, because Broome was awesome.

And Madame Raz is awesome in her own right, too.

Anyone says anything bad about Madame Raz, I

will fight them to the death. The overall cartoon

of She -Ra may be mostly bad, but at least those

two characters fight like an old married couple,

folks. I mean, come on, how can you not like

that? Anyway. And she kind of reminds me of Witch

Hazel. A bit, yeah. But yeah, Dulcy was, like

you said, pretty much a dullard. I get confused

because there's an episode later that will be

reviewing in episode seventy seven of the podcast

called all say and i thought that was her introduction

episode but no she's someone back to the dragon

meeting ground or something or other but like

they just you know. Don't mind a cold open but

a cold introduction to a character. We've never

seen before come on people I could see if she

was a background character and didn't do anything

But they make it seem like she's been with the

freedom fighters all this time. She has not right

Like you have all these little rodent characters

living and living in trees and huts and like

where where was this character all this time?

Yeah I hate to bring it back to Transformers,

but that's kind of what they did, too. It's like,

where did tracks and smokescreen come from? Oh,

they were always there. You just didn't see them

before. Yeah. Yeah, that's very true. You know.

But then again, as much as I like Michael McConaughey,

who voiced tracks, all his tracks ever did was

try to stop an auto theft ring. I mean, seriously,

what else did that guy do? Not much they could

have done more with him. He had he had he had

a cool Trip it he was kind of a triple changer

because he had the car with the wings mode. Mm

-hmm. So that was kind of cool I wish they did

more with him. Yeah, me too. But anyway Sonic

Moving on over to Sonic conversion Knothole's

de -roboticizer is a success. Bunny, Rabot, and

Uncle Chuck are back to their normal selves,

but the Freedom Fighters' latest accomplishment

seems too good to be true. Well, of course, if

it's too good to be true, it must be bad. Ready,

Bunny? Ready! Nicole, activate de -roboticizing

sequence. Bonnie! Are you okay? Huh? How do you

feel? Well, I... All my stars... Look at this...

Alright! So they have a de -roboticizer and it

loses power and it it it works on bunny rabot

and she goes back to not being roboticized which

I was like, okay, so she's not roboticized cuz

bunny is not an evil like bunny is not like the

SWAT bots or the or any of the other bots that

Robotnik controls, you know, she ever since we've

seen her in this cartoon She has never shown

an evil side like like uncle Chuck does So if

she doesn't have her cyborg robot bits, then

what the hell is the point of having her on the

freedom fighters? Because they have rotor working

on her legs. This is going to sound creepy and

wrong, and I already know it is. They have rotor

working on her legs so she can have these go

-go gadget leg type of things and do more stuff

and everything else. And now they're trying to

make her human again? I mean, the retro mutagen

ray from the TMNT cartoon made more sense than

this. Yeah, now she's just gone back to being

an aerobics instructor. Now she's just a rabbit

in an aerobics leotard. Up to the point where

we've watched episodes, they have not yet explained

what's going on with her because there's an episode

coming up where they could have explained it,

but they didn't. So I'm like, okay, what the

hell? Yeah, that makes no sense either. And again,

it just seems to be that they're just doing the

cartoon to do it. They're not really like I've

said in this episode and the other, you know,

the last few episodes and pretty much almost

the whole run here. They don't know what the

hell they want to do with it They don't know

whether they want to do a storyline or one -offs

or whatever and this one I like that they start

this you know they kind of continue this whole

storyline with uncle Chuck and You know we see

you know we kind of see him You know coming to

and we see a little bit of flashback here and

there and everything else and you know we now,

because we had already seen Uncle Chuck before,

so this one is kind of like the middle chapter

of it, where it's like, hey, now that I can control

my evil powers, I can be a spy for you, and it

kind of leaves it on a 2 -B continued kind of

thing. You okay, Unc? I'm back, Sonic. At least

up here, that's the most important thing. The

body will come later. Good to see you, Sonic.

Good to see you too, Unc. Yo, Unc, bail time!

No. You go Sonic I'm staying here say what Robotnik

won't know that inside. I'm still me I have a

better chance of getting the D roboticizer parts

from here You mean like some kind of Mondo spy.

Yes Sonic I know this isn't what we planned,

but I can help more from here now play along

How do they relapse back into robots. That's

something else I don't understand. They completely

got turned back into flesh. Then it's like, oh

no, I'm being turned back into a robot. And then

they're back to being metal. I'm like, what?

They're partly metal, partly real? I guess. It's

like they're borgs. They must be filled with

little implants that just turn them back into

robots or something. It's nanomachines. Yeah,

everything explained even I use nanomachines

Yeah, everything can be explained away with nanomachines

I mean if nanomachines can destroy the Eiffel

Tower in the first GI Joe movie it can you know

reconstitute robot bits on people I guess I think

what it was was though to explain this they had

been saying that once they had transformed them

back to human that they did not know if there

were going to be any side effects. And I guess

the ray just kind of wore off? I don't know.

How does it wear off? Again, I'm overanalyzing

a dumb cartoon. Well, that's what we're here

to do, right? Alright folks, we're gonna give

our ratings now because after this we're gonna

be talking about the Sonic the Hedgehog at least

the first two games the music of the game so

Before we take the break. I will give game guy

one and a half It was a poorer version of the

other episode with the other freedom underground

freedom fighter thing. What about you? I'll give

it a two It's better than what we've had up to

this point because it's actually starting a story

of some sort. It's not just a Episode that ends

on a reset button. It's actually going somewhere

Mm -hmm, but there's that whole thing about the

pinball game and it's just so stupid You know,

it would have been higher if not for that, you

know And Sonic Conversion, I'm gonna give it

a three and a half. I really enjoyed it Yes,

there are bits of it that that are not that well

done But the whole story with uncle Chuck and

kind of developing that and getting that a little

bit of backstory there is good What about you

for? Sonic Conversion. I'll give it a two and

a half. It's starting to go somewhere, I guess.

Finally. Alright folks, we're gonna take a quick

break and we'll be back after this. We are back

here on Pixels and the Animation, the 75th episode,

and it is now time to talk about the Sonic the

Hedgehog music of the video games. Now I will

fully say that I have not listened, I should

have, but I, after watching all these cartoons

today, I just couldn't listen to any more Sonic

stuff. I have not listened back to the music

of the first game, but I do, at one point, I

think it was last year, I went onto YouTube and

I ripped out... all of the tracks, and I have

them in my iTunes now from the second game, and

there are times that I just love listening to

the second game's music. What were you thinking

between the first and the second game and the

music and all that? Basically a huge improvement

overall the first game has good music, but it's

kind of kind of pokey like the I forget what

the name of the second area is but it has kind

of that slow plotting Music and it's not really

what you think of when you think of Sonic in

the second game. It had very had a very I don't

want to say techno but kind of an electronica

feel where it's it's very upbeat kind of not

quite rockish but not quite hip -hop either.

It's just kind of this nice electronic sound

that, you know, basically the best of what you

could do with the Genesis anyway. Yeah, I love

the Sonic... I love the Sonic 2 stuff. I really,

really do. It's just so cool. And like I said,

I love listening to that because I can listen

to that and I can, you know... I can listen to

that doing anything, it doesn't matter what it

is. I can be sitting here at the computer, I

can be playing Grand Theft Auto, it really doesn't

matter, it still works. I think some of my favorite

tracks off of Sonic 2 would have to be... Chemical

Plant Zone. Everybody loves Chemical Plant Zone.

Casino Night, what I enjoyed about the Casino

Night track is, as we already mentioned, Casino

Night is essentially a giant pinball level and

some of those sound effects over and over and

over again can be annoying. But hearing the music

track without the game sound effects, absolutely

love it. Hilltop Zone was one of my favorites

again too, off of the second one. And I think

another one was the finally being able to get

the special stage music. always loved the special

stage music I don't know what it is about that

music but I just really dig that and you know

it's just one of those things where having a

fully clean version of it without the the rings

and the bombs and the jump effects and whatever

other effects and that was the the only time

they did At least in the Genesis games, the only

time they really did the first person, because

that was almost, it wasn't 3D, but to me it was

3D because it was third, first person. It wasn't

the traditional side -scroller, it was... Yeah,

it was like third person, over -builder, running

through a half -pipe. What's interesting about

that is that, yeah, that's a really impressive

technical... sort of trick that they did because

it's all it's all tile graphic so it's it's basically

redrawing the background like I guess I guess

it's running at like 10 to 15 frames but it's

it's still smooth enough that you know it's not

it's not too bad and and plus I think if I remember

correctly they're they're kind of blown up graphics

too they're like super oh yeah but yeah it's

still pretty neat the the recent remake of Sonic

2 that got released on PC actually redid that

completely now it's just it's totally it's totally

polygonal now and it looks weird because it's

so it's so smooth and it's so slick that it's

like no no this is wrong it's supposed to be

choppy and pixelated and but I've seen it it

actually plays really well it's very faithful

but you know the original is just it's hard to

beat that. I think one of my favorite stages

as far as music goes is the Mystic Cave Zone.

Both the single -player and the multiplayer versions

are two different tracks, and both of them are

really good. Yeah, I pretty much only have what's

in the main game. I know there is a multiplayer

version, but like I said, I like the Mystic Cave

Zone stuff as well. The boss battle was always

interesting to me, the stage boss. But really

where it really does soar is is chemical plant

Sky chase was good, too Yeah, that's that's another

one. That's kind of very very soothing and like

kind of weird for a sonic game, but it's yeah,

absolutely Alright folks, we're gonna get the

heck out of here This has been our 75th episode

and we will catch you next week when we talk

about more Sonic stuff Where can people find

your webcomic sir does cn .com das I en .com?

Absolutely, you can follow us on Twitter. It's

at TF doing Mike for me peel and Bailey for him

See, I didn't do any pauses that time But you

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