How about that? I go from not doing a Blast From the Past for nearly a year to doing two a week!
Greetings Ladies and Gents! It is I, The Shaman of Animation back once again, and welcome back to Sonic Week! Yesterday, we covered the first episode of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and now today, we cover one of the...stranger Sonic cartoons, Sonic Underground!
Sonic Underground is the third of the 3 Sonic animated series produced by DiC Entertainment (The other two being Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and SatAm) and it premiered in 1999. The first episode is titled Beginnings and it begins (pun intended) with a narration by Queen Aleena Hedgehog, the ruler of Mobius of her homeland Mobius and how the city of Mobotropolis was one of peace and serenity. Then everything changed when the Robotnik attacked, and turned the city into a robotic nightmare along with also making a lot of the civilians into his robot slaves.
After being outlawed and having a bounty placed on her and her children, Aleena is shown a prophecy by the Oracle of Delphius, this ugly, green, pimpled mother shut yo' mouth, that her and her triplets Sonic, Sonia, and Manic will reunite to become the council of 4 and overthrow them. But for this prophecy to come true, she has to give up her children; and so she gives them all to three different houses...that are all in the same general area. I'm not kidding folks, I mean, they're different houses and they all look different, but I'm PRETTY sure it's all in the same one spot. Which, considering the bounty that I'm sure is still placed on their heads, is not a good thing. Sonia is given to a high class looking lady, Sonic is given to a middle class family, while Manic is placed on the doorstep of a woman, until he's kidnapped by a couple of thieves.
So I just summed up the first 4 minutes (Opening included) of this episode; and it would be remiss of me to not bring up the fact that Ben Hurst (one of the writers of the fan favorite series SatAM) actually wrote this first episode along with others. I bring this up because in these first four minutes, you do see some inklings of SatAM: Mobotropolis in this post apocalyptic, roboticized state and Robotnik as its dictator, the design of Robotnik himself is taken straight from SatAM, and you do see a statue of king Acorn before it crumbles to pieces; and the all around darker nature of the previous series is felt in these first four minutes.
Now with that said, Hurst and Pat Allee who co-wrote the episode still had to write around the general ideas the show was going for. Which brings for one the strangest yet interesting Sonic continuities. In this series, Sonic is a prince with a brother and sister and his fight with Robotnik is more or less prophesied. I mean, a part of me wants to say it's dumb, but at the same time, is it? The Sonic games, especially around this time, were blank slates. We didn't know much about Sonic as a character. Sure, he was the blue dude with an attitude, but he didn't have a backstory, nor did we know if he had a family or not. So, while it's personally not what I'd do with the character, I can't exactly say that this portrayal is wrong.
Back to the episode, we fast forward a couple of years and we see Manic just sitting on a bench tapping away with his drumsticks and holy hyper sonic, Manic looks SO stupid. It's not just the particular picture above I'm showing you, it's his overall design, all the spikes on his head just annoy me, not to mention his earrings and his fanny pack (It's the 90's...going on the 2000's). It's like if someone's fan character actually made it into an episode. Okay, I went on this tangent for too long. Manic is being given a lesson by Farrell, the thief that ended up finding him, and how to properly steal from someone. Passing with flying colors, he's given a new pair of drumsticks, or he would've been had he not already stolen them from Farrell. We also get scenes with Sonia and Sonic. Sonia is more of a studious, high class kind of girl while Sonic is the same get up and go, high octane guy he's always been.
And it's at this point, I should mention the fact that all three of these characters are voiced by Jaleel White, yes even Sonia. Now, it could be argued that because these characters are triplets, the team in charge of voice acting wanted these three characters to roughly sound the same, but the cynical prick in me likes to think that DiC was too lazy to hire a girl to do the voice. And to be fair to him, White does try to sound more feminine, but it comes off sounding more like his Urkel voice if you ask me...
The next scene sees Robotnik's Swatbots invading Sonic's house and his adoptive parents are trying to get him to get out of there and not look back, Sonic does take off, but he quickly runs back for his parents only for him to see them carried off and the house on fire. The scene in itself is actually pretty good and kind of dark with these parents trying to get their son to run away from this dangerous group of people after them and the pain on his face when he sees them run away. The problem with the scene is that we only saw one scene of Sonic and how he interacted with his family prior to them getting taken away, so there isn't really that much of an emotional connection as there should be.
As Sonic watches the house burn down, his Uncle Chuck eventually finds him and they make their escape. Uncle Chuck was another SatAM creation carried over to this series. In that series, he was Sonic's biological Uncle. Here, he's only his adoptive Uncle. Which, maybe it's just me, but having a blue hedgehog that looks nearly identical to Sonic and them NOT being related by blood makes for a confusing time. It probably would've been best if the character was axed, if you ask me.
Fast forward a year (?) later, and Sonic and Uncle Chuck are making plans to take out one of Robotnik's factories, something they'd been doing for quite some time if their exchange is anything to go by, Moving as fast as only he could, Sonic manages to destroy the force field to Robotnik's current factory and blows it up using explosives, forcing Robotnik to retreat. After a job well done, the blue blur returns to his home and rests up, but he doesn't get much rest as the Oracle of Delphius reveals himself to Sonic, and informs him of his royal status and of his brother and sister.
As this takes place, Robotnik hires a couple of bounty hunters: Sleet and Dingo to find the source of what's been destroying his factories (He doesn't yet know it's Sonic causing all this damage). Since, i have yet to get to it, let's discuss Robotnik's voice in this series. He's voiced by Garry Chalk (who was also the voice of Grounder in AOSTH) and...he does a fine job voicing Robotnik, the problem is that he just doesn't compare to previous Sonic cartoon Robotnik VA Jim Cummings who managed to make the man sound downright sinister, like he was the most evil man on the face of the planet.
Moving on, Sonic asks the Oracle where he can find his brother and sister, only for the Oracle to tell him to sing the song in his heart. It's shortly after saying that and making an exit that Sonic's medallion around his neck, that's been shown all throughout the episode begins to glow and when Sonic goes for the guitar that's been laying on his couch and strums it, he somehow triggers a song, and coincidentally at the same time he starts playing on his guitar, Manic is playing on the drums and Sonia's on the piano and they're all together singing this song as a cohesive unit (don't ask, it's weird).
Fun fact for you Ed, Edd, N' Eddy fans: Sam Vincent, the voice of Double D, is the singing voice for Sonic.
Yeah, so as it turns out, singing is kind of a huge staple of this series. and for the first song in the series, I kind of like it. I mean, it's nothing I'd buy on Itunes, but for the purpose of this series, it works. Now for some, the song will be cringe worthy like you wouldn't believe. But when the song comes to an end, Sonia and Manic are left wondering what triggered such an event while Sonic himself is confirmed that his brother and sister are out there.
Meanwhile, Sleet and Dingo eventually find out that the cause of Robotnik's factories going down under is Sonic and he is suddenly reminded of the prophecy that the Oracle warned him of. So wait, you mean to tell me that the Oracle went out of his way to warn Robotnik of this prophecy that will come true? This may be me looking too much into something that's not even there, but was there something that compelled the Oracle to tell Robotnik of the prophecy? Because as far as I can tell, he could've gone without doing so, and the kid would've had an upper hand over Robotnik and catch him off guard. But if that didn't happen, I guess we wouldn't have a conflict now would we? Anyway this decision causes Robotnik to wage war on the freedom fighters.
We cut to Sonic on a stage and he begins to play his guitar, to draw out his siblings. The plan does work and the trio all meet up and begin to play much to the joy of the crowd. Unfortunately, their jamming is cut short when a Swatbot busts into the place like he's the Kool-Aid man, forcing the three to retreat.
Unfortuantely, Robotnik manages to find all people associated with the triplets (Namely, their family figures) and they end up getting kidnapped. When Sonic, Sonia, and Manic decide to save their families, the Oracle reappears and gives them the bad news that they've been roboticized. With no other option, the Oracle gives them a map to travel to so they can bond and learn to master the power of their medallions. With no other options, Sonic and his siblings walk off hand in hand with an uncertain future ahead of them.
You know, it dawned on me throughout this review: the horribly designed characters that are relatives to Sonic, them and Sonic being some form of royalty, the musical numbers. Sonic Underground is the earliest instance of Sonic Fanfiction come to life. Hurst and Allee tried their best with what they were given and there was some flashes of good material in there, but at the end of the day, there was no winning with the hand they were dealt with.
You can definitely see that Sonic Underground was a product of its time, much like the previous two Sonic cartoons. But whereas SatAM had a strong enough story and characters and Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog was just balls to the wall insane and that in itself gave it this weird "charm" that made you want to come back for more, Sonic Underground really doesn't have any real substance to it and unfortunately it's just a really dated show.
Maybe I'm being harsh on the show and that it does get better from that first episode, but that discussion is for another day. We've still got plenty of Sonic to cover, so be on the lookout folks as next time we're taking a look at something special. Want a hint? Well, here ya go:
In the meantime, if you want to know what I'm up to on Social media check the fancy little box on the right, and if it's more Sonic talk from me you're craving check out my review of Sonic SatAM from last year or my Blast From the Past on Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog yesterday.
Til then folks, I'm the Shaman of Animation.
Take Care...
this is dumb
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