Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (partially lost unaired pilot of DIC animated series; 1992)

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Adventures of sonic the hedgehog title.jpg

The show's title card.

Status: Partially Lost

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog was an American animated series produced by DiC Animation City and Bohbot Entertainment that was based on the Sonic the Hedgehog video game series produced by Sega. A total of 65 episodes were produced for its one season and were originally shown through syndication in the United States from September to December 1993. A Christmas episode, entitled Sonic's Christmas Blast was later produced and broadcast in December 1996.

History

In 1992, a pilot was produced to sell the show. It was produced in-house in America rather than being outsourced to Asia as the series was. It was unaired and was not included on any of the DVD releases of the series as it was not meant for public broadcast. However a portion of it was later included in the episode Untouchable Sonic (Ep. 44, 01 November 1993) when Scratch and Grounder are watching television. The version shown features a full sound mix and suggests that the pilot was eventually completed in some form. An additional segment featuring Dr. Robotnik being crushed by an anvil was later incorporated within the end credits sequence of each episode. Clips of the pilot were later featured in a 1994 commercial for Fox 39 Kids Club and again in the 2008 'The Vision' trailer for the video game, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood.

Then, in March 2009, a 7 minute version of what appeared to be the full length pilot was uploaded by YouTube user dvariano, with permission from Milton Knight. This version is notable for featuring no music or sound effects, and it also appears to be a rough cut of the final film (i.e. there's a timecode present and the film appears to have not yet been telecined). There is hardly any talking from most of the characters, except Sonic. The voices of Dr. Robotnik and Scratch are provided by the American voice actor Jim Cummings, instead of Long John Baldry and Phil Hayes respectively. Tails is voiced by an uncredited actor, and Gary Owens, who would normally play Grounder, instead voices a narrator.

It is likely that a final, finished copy of the pilot does exist, as evidenced above. Whether this will see the light of day however, remains to be seen.

Credits

(Incomplete):

  • Kent Butterworth (producer, director, storyboard)
  • Milton Knight (animation, storyboard, layout, Robotnik character design)
  • Ed Love (animation)
  • Gary Paul Terry (storyboard, layout, Scratch and Grounder character design)
  • Eddie Fitzgerald (storyboard)
  • Mike Fontanelli (design)
  • Marc Schirmeister (design)
  • Jordan Reichek (design)
  • Gary Owens (voice: narrator)
  • Jaleel White (voice: Sonic)
  • Jim Cummings (voices: Robotnik, Scratch, additional characters)

Videos

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog 144 - Untouchable Sonic (a portion of the pilot appears at 6:31).

The full length unfinished pilot episode, uploaded with permission from Milton Knight.

Clips of the pilot appear in this Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog promo (1994).

Clips of the pilot appear in the Sonic Chronicles 'The Vision' trailer (clips appear at around 1:01).