Greetings Ladies and Gents! It is I, The Shaman of Animation back again with another review! The year was 1993 and video game icon Sonic The Hedgehog was seemingly on top of the world: he was still very big competition for Mario, Sega was going strong with their consoles with him being their mascot. And his fanbase couldn't be summed up with this one clip:
Of course back in the day, if you were a successful movie, toy, or game, you were given a cartoon to cash in on said success...which is a practice that still happens today but it was more frequent back then. And the blue blur was no stranger to getting cartoons himself. One of which we'll be looking at right now. Let's jump into Sonic Satam!
Synopsis: Satam is about Sonic The Hedgehog and his friends known as The Freedom Fighters and their battle to take back their planet of Mobius that's been taken over by the evil scientists, Dr. Robotnik (Or Dr. Eggman for all those modern day Sonic fans out there).
While the Show was titled 'Sonic The Hedgehog' fans gave it the nickname 'Satam' to differentiate it from the more comedy heavy show 'The Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog' that was airing on the weekdays while this series aired on Saturday Mornings.
The Good: The most surprising thing to me about Satam was the effort put behind the world that was built. You see fans, back in his early years (and even to this day), there wasn't a lot of backstory given to our favorite blue hedgehog and his world outside of he's a super fast hedgehog and he goes to these different zones to stop an egg shaped scientist. So when Sonic was localized for the American audience, Sega of America took more time to establish the Hedgehog's origin. But Satam in my opinion took it a step further by presenting a monarchy and how Sonic's life (And also his family and friends) was before it was all taken away by Robotnik. Not only that but it also gives explanations of some of the elements from the games (I.E. the rings, the time stones from Sonic CD), and it shows off different locations of the world it made. The biggest compliment to give Satam is that it made something out of practically nothing.
Another big plus for Satam is its great voice acting; and when I took a look at the cast, it was no surprise why. There were a lot of big names here that did work for the series: to name some, you have Kath Soucie (Whose work I've briefly touched on in a previous review), Rob Paulsen (Animaniacs, Pinkie and the Brain, etc.), the late Christine Cavanaugh (Dexter's Lab), Charlie Adler (Cow & Chicken, Tiny Toon Adventures, etc.), Cree Summers (Kids Next Door, Drawn Together, etc.).
But to me, the two most stand out performances in this show were Jaleel White as Sonic
That's right folks, Steve Urkel was Sonic The Hedgehog at one point in time, and he was actually pretty good.
And Jim Cummings (Who you might have heard in Darkwing Duck, Winnie the Pooh, and other series). His performance is my favorite Robotnik/Eggman performance next to Mike Pollock's as his voice just has such a sinister and threatening vibe to it, I just love it.
I also enjoy the tone of the story in the show. The show was more or less set in a post apocalyptic world where you had this group of kids who grew up with this cruel dictatorship going on and they're in a losing battle really. The situation in which the characters are in is treated seriously and the characters do know that there's a possibly that they could actually die or be turned into robots (Roboticized is the term they use in the show) at least, which for a series like this is a very good thing. Compared to some of the other animated series that came out during that year, Satam was very different.
The Bad: It's very obvious that Satam came out in 1993; and I'm not saying that from an animation standpoint (it's still very decent) I'm talking from a dialogue standpoint. The series is filled to the brim with 90's lingo and I get that it was made for kids during that time, but it doesn't help the show's longevity. I heard the word 'mondo' being used more times than it was when I was kid. Also, Sonic constantly uses these silly little catchphrases whenever he's about to take off like "Jelly and Jam Time" or "Motor-Rama"; it sometimes gets to a point where you just want him to stop talking. I'll end this portion of the bad by saying that the phrase "Gotta Juice" in 2015 brings up some implications that aren't necessarily positive.
I'd like to take this time to say Steroids are very bad kids...don't take them.
Let's take time to talk about a certain character in this show, that character is Antoine. I do not like this character. He's a coyote from the French region of Mobius who's supposed to be the comic relief of the series with his scaredy cat like moments and his mispronunciation of words/messing up common English metaphors/analogies/phrases cause "Ha Ha, he's French". Outside of a few chuckle worthy lines delivered due to Rob Paulsen's great voice acting, I just found the character to be massively annoying. And that's where my suspension of disbelief has to kick in because if the situation The Freedom Fighters were placed in happened in real life, Antoine would've been put on the sidelines a long time ago in place of Tails.
I wouldn't spend so much time on Antoine if it weren't for the fact that he got more episodes dedicated to him and his "Hilarious Antics" and I get that the show writers wanted to have more humorous episodes (Which I wasn't a fan of because I just didn't find them to be funny) for the younger audience, but I honestly would've swapped those out episodes out for an episode focused on Bunnie Rabbot (who was actually partially Roboticized by Robotnik at some point) or Dulcy (A Dragon that was just introduced in the series half way without any real kind of explanation).
This was Sally's design in one (And only one) episode. Yeah, I don't know why this happened, but it was kind of weird...
Conclusion: While not holding up in some aspects, Satam is still a very entertaining series to watch, one that's stamp on The Sonic The Hedgehog mythos can still be felt mainly in today's comics and some traits of it in the games. The voice acting was great, and seeing characters or plot lines introduced in one episode come back in later episodes leads to some satisfying payoffs. It would've been incredibly easy for the show to just be some half baked messed used to cash on the success of the games (Kind of like Avengers Assemble is for The MCU...) but the creative team behind the show put a lot of care and effort in the show and it reflects in the final product. The show is serious, yet it still retains the attitude, fun, and adventure that people have come to love and expect from Sonic The Hedgehog. And while it's a shame the show was cancelled when it obviously had plans for a third season, I was glad I experienced the show as it was.
If you're a fan of Sonic The Hedgehog or if you're someone that just wants to kick back and just watch an entertaining show, Give Satam a shot. You may just like it.
Till next time folks, I'm The Shaman of Animation, and I gotta juice.
NO!! That's not what I meant! See, that's one of those phrases you can only say in the 90's without some strange double meaning...
Take Care...
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