Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog Series Recap

I'm a pepper. Don't you want to be a pepper too?

Hello and welcome to the 93rd episode of Pixels

in the Animation. I am one of your host, TFG1Mike.

Joining me is TV's Mr. Neil. Want a chili dog?

No. Hell no. Those are not way past cool, and

I will not be waiting for them at all. Today

we are going to be giving you what you have been

waiting for though. That's right, we're done

with the Adventures of Sonic series. We are done

with Sonic overall. But we still gotta recap

it and give general thoughts after we've watched

the series and all that good stuff. Favorite

characters for me on this one? Sonic, Tails,

Grounder, and Robotnik. would say are the four

that I like the most I mean there really isn't

a lot of Okay, and in West Weasley But there

really isn't like when we first started watching

this it was just Sonic and Tails there was no

Other freedom fighters there was I mean there

have been characters as the series progressed

that has come that have come in and things like

that but For the main part Sonic and Tails are

the heroes of this series, and that's all you

get And at first, I thought that was going to

be boring as hell. And depending more so on the

writing in the episode, plot depends on whether

it was going to be boring or not. Do you have

any favorite characters from this series? No.

You mean Scratch? No, Grounder. Oh, thank God.

was just the perfect stupid character I loved

listening to his dopey voice even when the plot

was stupid he was always funny especially the

episode where he was smart yeah grounder the

genius I I'm so glad they did that because it

gave Gary Chalk a chance to use a slightly different

vocal tone and I remember when we interviewed

him was it right after Right after Captain N

or right there was a point because we were talking

about No, it was Mega Man. That's what it was

because God Mayor Squaresley and Gutsman and

all that so it was in he was either right before

or right after our Mega Man episodes And I remember

telling him, oh, yeah, well, eventually we're

going to be getting to Adventures of Sonic the

Hedgehog. And he's like, oh, yeah, I was the

voice on that. I was like, oh, yeah, that's right.

You were grounder. And I just love it when he

pops up in anything. It really doesn't matter

what it is. I've caught him in more live action

stuff recently than ever before. Not that. And

I know you're gonna cringe at this, but not that

anybody really will ever watch this. The David

Hasselhoff version of Nick Fury, Agent of S .H

.I .E .L .D. Gary's in that. He plays dumb dumb.

Plays dumb dumb doogan. Hello, dumb dumb. I might

actually have to go find that after this podcast

and watch that. I like that movie. For as bad

as it is, I mean. He was in several episodes

of Arrow and Flash and things like that. He showed

up as a prisoner in an episode of... And this

is just me, folks, remembering where I've seen

him. I'm not looking at any IMDB or anything.

An episode of Alcatraz, a very short -lived Fox

series about the prison Alcatraz. So that was

kind of cool. But yeah, no, Grounder the G...

Yes, Grounder was awesome. I love Grounder. That

was probably the best episode. Yeah. So speaking

of the best episodes, what are some of your favorite

episodes? Do you have any? Let's see. Well, Grounder

the Genius. That's really the only one that springs

to mind. There really weren't any other episodes

that jumped out at me. For me, it was... Birth

of a Salesman because that was Wes Weasley's

debut. Again, I just love that character. I love

that character voice, but I love that character.

Ground to the Genius as we've already said. Robotnik

Jr. and Sonic the Matchmaker because again, voices

Ian James Corlett is Robotnik Jr. So I like those

episodes. As we said when we were talking about

it, when we reviewed the episodes, I really think

the Chaos Emeralds arc should have been the final

five or final four episodes of this series. I

did like those because they had a specific story

in mind. So I like those. Favorite video game

based thing in the cartoon? Obviously, for me

the music. And when they eventually, I think

this was in the Candice Emeralds arc, when they

eventually hit the special stage thing, I thought

that was cool. Yeah, I'd say mostly the music.

Anything involving the storyline doesn't really

make any difference to me because it's a different

medium. Stuff from the video game doesn't necessarily

have to cross over into the show, so it doesn't...

No, it doesn't. Well... It doesn't have to but

I like when it like, you know If they mention

casino night zone or chemical plants just that

they mention it or they go to some weird variation

of it I think that is kind of cool Now we get

into the least favorite stuff least favorite

characters I think we could both agree on scratch.

Yeah He was okay at the beginning, but he just

wears thin on you after 65 episodes I would say

after 49 and a half. Really? I mean... No. Basically

after about 10 episodes. He got old really quick.

I also... Mama Robotnik? She wasn't around that

much to get annoying though. She was actually

kind of funny for what she was. Especially when

she had the mustache. yeah there is that one

episode where they ripped it off of him and put

it on her and I'm like how the hell does that

work? least favorite episodes pretty much everything

not listed in the favorite episodes for me Pretty

much. It's kind of a blur at this point. So let's

see here. In my favorites, I've got one, two,

three, four. I've got nine episodes total, because

if the Chaos Emerald Ark is five episodes, I

have four other. So I have nine favorite episodes

out of 65. And I really can't count the Christmas

blast thing as the 65th episode, because they

tried to amalgamate. both adventures and Satan

and it just didn't well it wouldn't have been

the 65th episode because it was it was after

Order 66 Order 66 there you go thanks a lot Emperor

Palpatine reference that movie that's the only

good thing about that movie They killed off all

of the stupid Jedi characters and all the CG

characters That was the one good thing about

Revenge of the Sith he was barely in it Yeah

Let's see do we have any trivia for this series

No, I don't no, okay I've highly doubt this would

be a show that I would ever go back to Not even

some of my favorite episodes I mean they say

that oh, this is the funny one and there are

funny parts in this but Too much chili dog stuff

too many catchphrases from Sonic the fact that

the one episode where they have to Get his memory

back by using cat his own catchphrases to make

him remember that just oh god right I Guess it

could be worse. We could have had You know 20

podcast episodes on Donkey Kong Country though

I mean, I only watched a compilation movie of

four episodes, and it was so weird to watch.

That animation, it's just... I can't put my finger

on it, but it's so ugly and wrong. Yeah. The

animation in this series in Adventures wasn't...

It really depended on... This series, most of

the cartoons in the 90s, like, I've recently...

In the last month or so, actually this month,

the month of July, people probably won't hear

this until God knows when, but July 2017, I went

ahead and I did the seven day free trial with

Boomerang, their streaming service. And after

the seven days was over, I paid the five bucks

to have the service. It's five bucks a month.

You can watch. There's all kinds of stuff on

there. So I've pretty much watched all of my

favorite Looney Tunes cartoons, you know, Duckamuck,

Rabbit Rampage, the Duck Season Rabbit Season

trilogy from Chuck Jones, other Elmer stuff,

other Yosemite Sam stuff, other Daffy, like Robin

Hood Daffy, to trip, to trip, to trip, to trip.

And what I've found on there now and that I've

been watching is Chuck Jones Tom and Jerry Because

that's my personal I like the Hannah Barbera

Tom and Jerry I do but the Chuck Jones stuff

because it's more It's Tom and Jerry, but it's

more what if Tom and Jerry was in the Looney

Tunes universe kind of thing? Somewhat and what

I've noticed about that and all of the other

bugs and Daffy and other Looney Tunes is how

much I pay attention to the names on The credits

like the like to see what because I've done I've

done that for years to see what animators are

there What writers or what whatever? But here

it's like With the animation on Adventures of

Sonic the Hedgehog. Sometimes it's really excellent,

sometimes it's great, and sometimes it looks

like, you know, a six -month -old did it. I mean,

I can't even credit like a two - or a three -year

-old kid, but there were times in the beginning

of this series where the speed animation on Sonic

made him look like he was fatter than what he

is. It made him look like he was sloppier than

what he is, and it just was not... Good animation

Well, it really comes down to it's a completely

different era I mean You're talking about the

Chuck Jones era of Tom and Jerry all that animation

was done over here Whereas with Sonic and a lot

of well pretty much all cartoons of the 90s were

animated overseas and it's a it's a little difficult

to to sometimes get people from other countries

who speak different languages to animate the

way you want them to. And it really took a long

time for that to even out, whereas today we have,

well, we sort of have better animation. Too many

flabby arms today though. Yeah, the Cal art style

needs to die. I hate that style. Yeah. You know,

people say to me, why don't you watch Steven

Universe? Why don't you watch Adventure Time?

I don't like the animation. It has nothing to

do with the story or the characters, but I just

don't like the animation style. So if I don't

like the animation style, why am I going to watch

the show? Yeah. I mean, Korra was pretty good.

Yeah. I remember Korra. Yeah. I miss good cartoons.

Yeah, that's true. I don't know. I'm trying to

see if there's any good trivia here. Most of

the bounty hunters in Adventures of Sonic the

Hedgehog, Super Sonic, Search and Smash and Squad

were used as the cast for Dr. Robotnik's Mean

Bean Machine. That is true, I remember that.

There's the one robot that looks like he's got

the Davy Jones hat or no not Davy Crockett. Mm

-hmm It looks like a coon skin hat He's in that

game Yeah, I Like the fact that they you know

took scratch grounder and coconuts out of Sonic

2 Because they were in the in the Sonic 2 game.

I like that Kind of yeah Yeah, I think scratch

also showed up in Sonic Spinball Mm -hmm seem

to remember a chicken enemy in that Yeah, apparently

the Roadrunner cartoons are a major influence

behind this series I can see that in the backgrounds.

Yeah Part of the theme is in the Hall of the

Mountain King by Edward Grieg, okay Let's see

here. What else? Dr. Robotnik was originally

conceived as a television's sexiest fat man.

They do show his ass a lot. Yeah, they do. The

animators weren't up to the challenge, but it

didn't stop them from slipping in a lot of shirtless

scenes and scenes that draw too much attention

on Robotnik's ass. There also includes a bikini

peg from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog Hero

of the Year. God. Jesus Christ. Oh, this is interesting.

Jaleel White, Mr. Urkel there, was the only American

voice actor. Everyone else was based in Vancouver.

You know, I was going to say, yeah, he's the

odd one up because everyone else in the show

is Canadian. You know, I mean, yes, this show

and Satan were going at the same time. That's

fine, I have no problem with that. I think it

makes sense because they were going at the same

time that you have the same guy voicing the lead

character. I hear they have to instruct all those

actors to speak American. So you can't say sorry

about the hoose. It won't happen again. Yes.

We're talking to you JT Mr. I can't afford the

stripper Ella DVDs Professor Von Schlemmer, a

character that appeared in Adventure Sonic the

Hedgehog, Two Tall Tales, made an appearance

in a modernized design in the Sonic Universe

comic book story, art titled The Silver Age.

I saw that. So that's kind of interesting. Yeah,

he looks completely different. He's the same

color. Same color scheme, but yeah. They kind

of gave him that retro sort of American anime

look that... was all the rage for a while. I

am. I can see that. Like I said, I'm glad we

went through this because we needed to cover.

When I set out to have us do this we were gonna

cover every major video game character that had

a cartoon and I think in almost four and a half

five years We've kind of done that because next

year will be our fifth year that we're gonna

end the show on But it's one of those things

where you know, we got Mario we got the captain

and stuff. We got the Zelda stuff Mega Man Sonic

we did one episode for Donkey Kong Country And

then of course the darker the darker episodes

with you know the stalkers and and Street Fighter

and Mortal Kombat Those are terrible those are

probably the worst shows we watch I mentioned

Neil off air. I said, oh, I said, we're going

to wrap up the show, the podcast, the way that

we have set out now, folks. So it's not going

to continue. But I did say if we were ever going

to continue, I said, there's a new Castlevania

thing on Netflix. And he's like, no, too new.

It's that sort of weird hyper -anime style that

I don't really like. I like the old anime. Vampire

Hunter D. Are you sure? You want to admit to

that? Liking that? Don't you tell me. That's

a great cartoon. Okay, no, I'm not judging it.

I'm just saying I remember when I told you about

this, your response was, no, I put my anime time

in 20 years ago with Vampire Hunter D and I thought

it was a negative. That's a pretty good show.

Okay. Booby actually. Yeah. It always amazes

me when some of the anime stuff pops up over

on Hulu. Yeah. It's really hit or miss. Yeah.

I think I could be wrong, but I think the first

version of it, and I'm sure you don't like this,

but... when Yu -Gi -Oh! first started way back

when with the the whole Kaiba Corp and it like

that that first series that they started it wasn't

it was on Netflix for a while but I think now

they have because I watched the first two seasons

I think they have all of the seasons on Hulu

now which I got disappointed watching that on

Netflix I'm like wait I can only watch two seasons

of this hello yeah so but yeah Adventures of

Sonic the Hedgehog I like Jim Cummings as the

original Robotnik in Satan, but Long John Baldry

did a damn good job in this. He was pretty funny.

Yeah, he was pretty funny. That was very, very

well done. So I think instead of dragging this

out, folks, we're just going to put a full stop

to Sonic. You got anything you want to talk about

before we get out of here? Just at the next episode

I had picked out a short list of cartoons that

says basically gonna One episode each we're gonna

basically go I'm gonna go over the 80s Video

game cartoons, you know Saturday Supercade I

picked out an episode of pole position and then

we're gonna do the Christmas episode of Pac -Man

finally And one of those is really good and the

other two are Saturday Supercade and Pac -Man

Wow Finally, I'm going to give some props to

poor old Gene Shalapin who basically made DeWalk

the Plank at Deek. What we basically watched

over the course of this podcast was all the cartoons

that were made after he left. I mean, does Deek

really have... That might be an interesting...

Pods Beyond, Tooncast Beyond, but that might

be an interesting look back. The history of the

Deke animation studio. Yeah, that's one of those

where it's like... So it's Inspector Gadget and

The Littles and... Okay, we're done. No, they

had a couple good cartoons. The Mysterious Cities

of Gold was pretty good. And then... Lot of not

so good stuff. Mm -hmm Yep, yeah, they just they

just wouldn't die. I mean they kept making shit

and Sunbow was like Done in about four years.

Yeah, and that just really broke my heart. Mm

-hmm Yeah, and oh I know another bad thing deep

did No, worse than that. The new adventures of

He -Man. Oh boy, you're crazy. Hashtag not my

He -Man, hashtag not my Skeletor. Hell no. Have

you gone back and watched any of it recently?

I've seen some of it. I know the animation gets

really hairy about halfway through. And it's

really not that good at the beginning, but there

are parts of it where I look at it and I'm like,

wow, this looks like a really mediocre episode

of... of like Robotech or something. And then

He -Man shows up and I'm like, God damn it. It's

like, I feel like it could have been a good cartoon

if it wasn't Masters of the Universe. And also

if it wasn't based on toys, because like I said,

it was like, there's that one guy who's in a

scuba outfit, like at all times for some reason.

And it drives me nuts when the cartoon characters

have to be in the toy design all the time. Optimus

Solo and I are going through all, I think there

are 65 episodes for that series. As of this podcast

recording, we've recorded the first six cartoon

reviews, so the first two podcasts for that.

And there's one episode in those six that basically

has three different reference points for the

87 Masters film. And I'm like, seriously, really?

Can you not? It's not even the animation with

that series that bugs me. It's the fact that

the pilot of the very first episode it took them

eight and a half minutes to mention anything

about he -man Yeah, that's it's more so the writing

that I have a problem with that series is why

I say it's bad it's not the animation is okay

at least for the first six episodes that I've

seen at this point, but No, the animation starts

out. Okay, it kind of looks like a regular deep

series that kind of has sort of the inspector

gadget looks are also sort of the Captain and

look and then it just it gradually goes downhill

like the last 20 to 30 episodes are really bad

and it's really sad because the character Mara

I'm gonna again I have to be good and point this

out, but the character Mara gets a wardrobe change

about two -thirds of the way through the show,

and it should be a good wardrobe change, the

kind that I like, but she's drawn so poorly,

and it just makes me cry. I think at this point,

everything about that series makes me cry. You

know what it is? They draw her like a linebacker.

Oh, no! It's like, what? What model are you using?

I mean, I know, like, a lot of these animation,

a lot of these animators, they'll use, like,

rotoscope footage. I mean, more complicated than

what filmation does. You know, all animation

uses rotoscoping. But, like, it's like they were

using all men. So Mara looks like this big, beefy

dude, and she's just got these weird lumps on

her chest. I'm like, what the hell is going on

here? Gives new term to the gives new meaning

to the term lovely lady lumps That's going to

do it for the summer of Sonic, folks. We're going

to take a little bit of a break on the podcast

here. And episode 94, as Neil already said, is

going to be the Pac -Man Christmas thing and

the Saturday Supercade and all that. But that'll

probably come out somewhere in between Halloween

and Thanksgiving, maybe. Somewhere around there.

Somewhere right before Christmas, I guess. And

then you'll hear me say this in that episode

as well. But next year. The final five episodes

of Pixels and the Animation. 95 is Nintendo Power

and the Nintendo Merchandise. 96 is the Nintendo

Comics. Oh god, that's gonna be a nightmare.

Howard and Nester, Mario and Zelda, Captain and

the others. both includes nintendo power comics

and the valiant comics in march we're gonna have

a review of wreck -it ralph 2 and we're gonna

do an april fools special animation in the pixels

so it's not an april fools special if you tell

them what we're gonna do sure it is alright Didn't

tell them what we I told them what it's called.

I didn't tell them what it's what we're doing

In May it'll be the Mega Man Sonic stuff and

then also Also in May will be the Street Fighter

and a little bit of Mortal Kombat stuff in there

And then June June 21st 2018 will be the final

episode episode 100, so it'll be the finale Yay

Almost there Now this has been a fun ride it

really has I can't believe it's taken us five

years, but hey I'm glad the cartoons are over.

I could just do normal research and look at bad

comics. Actually, a lot of good comics. The Nintendo

Power comics are really good. Yeah. Yep, I remember

those. Alright, thank you for joining us here

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you enjoyed the latest Epil - Ugh, fuck. Shut

up. Shut up, shut up, shut up. We hope you enjoyed

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I wish you'll join us next time when we'll be

covering some other Christmas stuff. Yay. For

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