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I first learned of Sonic the hedgehog a few years back on a saturday morning. It's the thing we alway's did on saturday morning we'd get up around 5:00 a.m sit down and watch cartoon's. We saw that this new one was going to be aired I was a little interested until I found out it was a bunch of talking animals. But my younger sister wanted to see it so I told her just this once. Anyway the four of us were watching and the first glance at Eggman I just grabbed the box back and switched. then my triplet sister jumped on me and took it back when my little sister started to cry. So every saturday morning we would watch Sonic X and even I began to like it to the point it's my favorite show. and now we are waiting for season 3.

Discuss:
How you first learned of Sonic The Hedgehog
Where you interested at first

Sidekicks never get any love. Look at Iolaus, poor guy died *twice*!

Sonic appears to be more uncaring about relationships now than he ever was - I still recall "Tails' New Home". Now that was a proper relationship. SatAM watered it down and it's never really been the same since...

Now, when did I hear about Sonic? Knew all about it in 1991 when I was ten. Didn't have a games console then though. A friend had Sonic 2 for the MegaDrive later on and at one point Sega were sponsoring Williams F1 team - while the competition was painting squashed hedgehogs on the side of *their* cars every time they beat Williams!

Borrowed Sonic 1 & Sonic 2 for the Master System and the first one I owned was Sonic Chaos. Got it for Xmas and completed it with Tails that day. Still haven't completed it with Sonic and all the chaos emeralds...

I saw a display of Sonic 3 in the US in 1994 and it looked so cool... I didn't actually own a MegaDrive until I bought one off a school friend in the sixth form - i.e. 1997. I picked up Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic 3D in university.

I had my Tails plushie a lot earlier than that though - and I still have a poster of Sonic & Tails from "Fast Forward" in my bedroom.

My brother had a secondhand Dreamcast when I came back from Spain so I picked up Sonic Adventure & Sonic Adventure 2. Loved those (although I've still not completed Sonic Adventure and only Samwise got me through SA2!).

Oh, and I saw SatAM when it was running on Channel 4 at obscenely early hours. don't know when that was, sometime in the mid-90s presumably. AoStH was running on the Big Breakfast, I remember. I picked up the Sonic OVA on video and later upgraded to DVD, although I'm not loving the fact that the R2 version has no Japanese track.

I never read any of the comics.

So, there you go, a potted history of my Sonic fandom. I've not included winning a GBA a couple of years ago, or the GameCube series of games, or Sonic X, cos they kind of go without saying.

DW

Hoookay, time to dip back into the chasm of my memories...

Let's see...The first time that I heard of Sonic in any form, as far as I remember, is when I was in either 1st or 2nd grade, I believe. I was in the library of the elementary school I attended, and was flipping through some magazine that I forgot the name or genre, and saw an ad for Sonic 1.

However, I didn't really gain an interest in the series until SatAM debuted. It was practically right after the first episode that I was hooked, and the following Christmas, I recieved a Genesis for Christmas, as well as Sonic 2 (bundled with the system...ah, how I miss those days), and I believe Sonic & Knuckles.

From then it was like a rolling snowball, and I had soon either obtained or played every Sonic-related offering that came out for the system.

Years passed, and I also obtained a Saturn and Sonic R, but I suppose my interest waned a little bit, with a lack of a "true" Sonic game, and the cartoons ended...All I had left were the Archie comics, and talk of a new Sonic game didn't really come out...

Until I rediscovered the blue blur, with the announcement of Sonic Adventure, courtesy of that months Electronic Gaming Monthly (coincidentally that was my first purchasing of the magazine, or any gaming magazine in general). And from then on, I stuck by the hedgie, not missing even a tidbit of new info regarding the series.

It's a bit funny when I think about how I literally grew up with the series. ^^;

Yes, but at least Herc actually showed signs of noticing that he was gone, missing him in the meanwhile and being happy when he was back!



I don't know about that. SatAM at least implied in episode like Sonic and Sally and Drood Henge that the two had a brotherly relationship off-screen, and that it was just that the stories being told centred more on the fan characters... sorry, Freedom Fighters.

Sonic X didn't even imply that. It was more than explicit which Marty-Stu Sonic wanted to be soldered to for the entire series (to the point where they made so many doe eyes at each other that I found myself wishing that they'd just turn the show into a yaoi and get it over with).



Nice to know that there's another former Fast Forward reader out there. It was never the same after it merged with Number One, was it? sad

You'd think that the publishers'd realise that if one magazine folds due to being crappy, you don't merge it with your long-running popular title... rolleyes



1993. The first series was repeated early in 1994.

And 9-9.30pm's not that early on a Sunday morning, is it? wink



I preferred the original Channel 4 airings. Stretching one episode of AoStH out over a whole five days is pushing it. smile



I can rectify that - again, memory like a sieve...

Ack, I'd been repressing Sonic Underground. The only thing going for that cartoon was a) Jaleel White (yeah, I'm old school, can't help it) and b) Maurice LaMarche as Sleet. *shudders*

Diggit was running it around about the time that Disney output went downhill, right?

Nuala: glad you got my reference - I realised after I posted that there were possibly people in the world who didn't watch Hercules: The Legendary Journeys religiously smile

I'll take your word for it on the SatAM hints - I don't think I caught enough episodes. The rerun I caught was at around 7am on a Sunday. I think I was only up because they were running Count Duckula on ITV at 6.30am on a Sunday and I *did* get up for that.

Sonic X explained the current interpretation of the relationship very well. Tails basically told Chris that Sonic wasn't always around when you wanted him, he tended to dump you to go off and do his own thing. But if you really *needed* him, he'd be around. Maybe they'd just grown apart a bit - but Sonic was around for Tails at the end of the latest season, if nothing else. I'm not saying I like that interpretation, but there you go, that's the new "Sonic Age". Enter the Sonic Age indeed - I did in 1991, thank you smile

I have to admit, it was a friend of mine who read "Fast Forward" - I begged her to give me the poster. Somewhere there was another one with a jungle scene (also used on the choose your own adventure books, possibly "Zone Rangers"), which I borrowed off her long enough to trace and colour in. Years later I transferred it to graph paper and produced a cross stitch.

AoStH, yeah I remember watching that on Channel 4 at the weekends on my black & white TV, now you mention it. It was so weird seeing it in colour for the first time and asking why on earth Tails was coloured brown...

Big Breakfast was a big waste of time, except when it was running "Sam & Max: Freelance Police".

DW

I'm not really sure, but probably when I started getting into videogames and went to play at the dentist's office. They have this cool vintage Sonic poster from the 90s. It's awesome.

Yep.



Not religiously - just enough. Ioalus had a tendency to steal it. smile



It was literally maybe one episode a season, though, so you had to be watching at the right time. Don't laugh, but I used to keep a tally of how much Tails actually featured or did something useful in each SatAM and AoStH episod - and in over half of the SatAM episodes, he wasn't even there or had maybe one line.

As I've said before: that's one reason why I have a hard time seeing it as anything other than a televised Mary-Sue fanfic revolving around Sally.



Maybe we can share a zimmer frame and a cup of hot cocoa in Bristol this year?



So that's where the cross-stitch came from! I did wonder...

It occurs to me that part of the point of this forum was to say what interested us in the first place; and I don't think I ever mentioned it in my posts.

I think the number one attraction was speed. I've since played Super Mario Bros and my goodness it's slow! I loved how you could bomb through the levels if you wanted - that's part of the attraction of two-player Sonic 2, although it's that much more fun if you make every item box a teleport. Equally, there were loads of the levels where you could explore if you liked. I'm thinking especially of Hydro City in Sonic 3 - it's possible to go whizzing through that almost without entering the water (loved the skimming across the water part!), but also there's a tonne of stuff below the surface should you want to go investigate.

It was an easy to grasp game, with none of the button-mashing required for things like "Street Fighter".

And the background music rocked - I've always had a soft spot for it and will often find myself whistling it at work. Some folk on here will know I have tapes full of the stuff in the car, from Sonic 1 right up to Sonic Heroes (latest soundtrack I've got round to picking up).

Finally, Tails was so cute smile He had a good backstory if you read the leaflets that came with the game. And he could fly! Nothing cooler in the world. Later on in Sonic 2 when he turns up in the Tornado is fantastic - I love biplanes biggrin Plus if you had a friend to play Tails in Sonic 3, you could get him to airlift you to places Sonic couldn't reach. Meanwhile in Sonic 2, he could at least help out with defeating Robotnik.



Didn't he just? He was always one of my favourite characters, right up there with Ares smile The crossovers with Xena were quite good too - especially the one with Prometheus and humans losing the ability to heal themselves.



That sounds like a plan to me biggrin I keep in a stock of hot chocolate mix, anyhow. Nothing like it for relaxing over embroidery before a nice early bed biggrin



Yup, I was quite the creative type in my youth. Well, I say youth, I finished it in my second year at uni...

When I'm done with my Disney Afternoon masterpiece (which may be by next May, you never know), let me know if you want me to recreate it for you. I'm sure I've still got the pattern somewhere - and we can make a guess at the thread colours. You supply the materials and I'll sit in front of the TV with it smile

DW