Sonic Underground

Back in the eighties the video game began to mature. It was only a short time between the now primitive ‘pong’ to increasingly realistic and action packed games. At the head of pack as the nineties began was Nintendo with its flagship series of ‘Mario Brothers’ games. It was only natural for competition to come along. One of the most popular of these rivals was Sega. The executives there decided a mascot was need for them and ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ was born. By the end of the decade Sonic had experienced several reinventions and had numerous games and three animated American television series to his credit. The third and last, Sonic Underground, is the one featured in the latest DVD release by ‘Shout! Factory’. There were also some anime treatments of Sonic which are out of scope for this consideration. There is good reason why Sonic has starred in so many games, cartoons, books and comics, the fans love him. He is arguably one of the famous of all video game personalities.

Sonic was created for the younger teen market, one of the most important in the video game universe. He embodied action but unlike a lot of newer games the violence is comical and far from the ultra-realistic blood bath games that dominate the market today. This helped to garner approval from parents and did a lot to increase sales. The first animated series, ‘Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog’ was light hearted and closest to the original video game. Next there was ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’, a darker older version of the characters. Finally ‘Sonic Underground’ hit the tube. This incarnation revamped the universe and added music as a key component to the stories. Forty episodes where aired in 1999. The first twenty are presented in this DVD release. There is also a CD of some of the songs used in the series and a number of extras for the die hard fan. Now I am not in the target demographic for this series and back when it was running my daughter was 15 and at the edge of the intended audience but she had moved on. This does mean I’m coming into this review cold, without much prior experience with the series. If you were one of he legion of Sonic fans out there then this might just be the thing for you.

In this incarnation of the character Sonic is born into a royal family. His mother, Queen Aleena Hedgehog had triplets of which Sonic was just one. He has a brother Manic and a sister Sonia. At one time the queen ruled all of the land called Mobius. That is until the evil Doctor Robotnik over threw her and forced to hide herself and her children. She then had to leave her children in a basket and leave them in order to protect them from Robotnik. According to a prophecy by the Oracle of Delphius one day her triplets would find her and they would become the Council of Four and overthrow Robotnik. Each of the little hedgehogs was adopted by separate families. As time goes on the three children grow to their teen years and eventually reunite. Each of them has a magic amulet that can either turn into a musical instrument or a weapon. Sonic’s can become a guitar or gun, Sonia has a keyboard/gun and manic can form his into a drum set or panel that can control the ground. The teen hedgehogs become a rock band and travel around in a van searching for clues to their mother’s location and fight Robotnik and his horde of minions. When Robotnik took over he allowed the rich aristocrats to continue their decadent lifestyles as long as they financially supported his rule. The rest of the population was ‘robotized’ turned into Borg like creature that would serve Robotnik.

Manic was adopted by a less than legally minded creature. He took on a more punk appearance and excelled in things like being a pick pocket. He also had a love for the drums. Sonia had a more gentile upbringing but that did not keep her from developing an adventurous side. She became very skilled at acrobatics as well as an excellent keyboard player. Sonic wound up with a nice middle class family. He was prone to ‘revving’ running at incredible speeds. He naturally took to music and loved the guitar. When the time was right the Oracle appears to Sonic to tell him of his destiny. He receives his magic amulet, starts singing and in split screen we see his siblings also in song. They each realize that they must leave their homes and search for the source of the music and each other. They eventually get together and form the band Sonic Underground.

The origin story is spread over three episodes, something rare for a kid’s cartoon. It does lay the basis for more of a back story than most cartoons but there is little done in each specific episode to further the story. There are some that add to the over all arc but for the most part the episodes are self contained. Jaleel White, better known as Urkel, does the voices for all three of the hedgehogs. This does tend to have the voices blend together too much. The animation initially seems fine but there are problems. It is generally not as static as the previous game based cartoons. This reflects the advances in both general animation and the gaming world. There are, however, several scenes where the animators seem to have forgotten to make the peripheral characters move at all. The stories tend to be flat, repeating the same basic themes every time. This is not that much of a consideration considering the age group this series was intended for. The big gimmick is the song in each episode. They do cover a wide range of musical genres here but they do all tend to sound pretty much the same.

Even though this is only a half a season Shout has done it up right. The full screen video is bright and free of defects. The Dolby 2.0 mono is fairly well done. Aside from the previously mentioned CD soundtrack there are several extras provided, very rare for a cartoon set. ‘Developing the Underground’ is an interview with the executive producer Robby London where he looks back at the series. ‘Songs from the Underground’ features the original music songwriters Michael Piccirillo and once again Robby London. Add to this a music video jukebox and story boards to screen featurette and you have everything a fan could want. Most kids today my fine this primitive but for those out there who where kids in the late nineties this is one to enjoy.

Posted 12/11/07