Episode Reviews - SatAM

SEASON 1

The strongest season.  Established the show effectively.  One thing that annoys me is that many of the episode titles are random puns based on “Sonic” and aren’t very helpful in identifying the episode.

Pilot 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

“Heads or Tails” “Sonic Boom” (the one with Cat) “Sonic and Sally” (the one in which Robotnik creates a robotic copy of Sally) “Ultra Sonic” “Sonic and the Secret Scrolls” “Super Sonic” (the one with Lazar) “Sonic Racer” “Hooked on Sonics” (the one in which Antoine almost ruins everything for everybody) “Harmonic Sonic” (the one with the satellite) “Sonic’s Nightmare” “Warp Sonic” (the one with Griff) “Sub-Sonic” (the most environmentalist one) “Sonic Past Cool” (the one with the dinosaur-things)

SEASON 2

Had more of a continuity leading up to the finale, but it ended way too abruptly.  Also, it had sillier animation, and Robotnik’s voice unfortunately lost the creepy echo.

1 2 3 4-5 6a 6b 7 8 9a 9b 10 11 12 13

“Game Guy” “Sonic Conversion” “No Brainer” “Blast to the Past” “Fed Up with Antoine” (the one in which Antoine joins a gang) “Ghost Busted” “Dulcy” “The Void” “The Odd Couple” (the one in which Sonic has to share a room with Antoine) “Ro-Becca” “Cry of the Wolf” “Drood Henge” “Spy Hog” “The Doomsday Project”

10th Anniversaries, Pt. 4

 

Sonic the Hedgehog

1993-4

**********

Pros: Decent Animation, Good Voice Acting, Dark Atmosphere, Emotional Subject Matter

Cons: Has Its Share of Plot Holes, Some Annoying Moments, Mildly Derivative, Antoine

Episode Reviews

       Sonic the Hedgehog has had more than his fair share of cartoon adaptations.  Despite the multiple attempts that range from mediocre-to-passable, there was one that ended up being truly worthwhile.  This show, often called SatAM (Saturday AM) to distinguish itself from  a more light-hearted Sonic cartoon that aired during the week, set itself apart with its serious tone.  For the most part, cartoons didn’t take themselves particularly seriously, and many of the more serious ones lacked characterization. 

      I only had vague memories of watching this show from early childhood.  I might have seen it once or twice at some kid’s house, but it had a bit of an effect on me even though I spent my youth watching Power Rangers (mea culpa).  I always remembered that there was this one dark show about Sonic.  Even when my family got cable, I knew the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog wasn’t it, mostly because SatAM’s theme song imprinted into my brain and remained there like a mysterious siren song.  It wasn’t until I was 20, a college student with internet access, did I finally discover this show in earnest.  A cartoon I mostly watched as an adult with minimal nostalgic influence impressed me.  In fact, I went through a bit of an embarrassing SatAM/Archie Sonic fanboy phase for a while.  Fortunately, I think I’ll be more objective in my assessment now.

      The show has been criticized for its alleged faithlessness to the show’s subject matter, but there really wasn’t much story to the games when Sonic 2 came out.  The stylized environments and badniks were toned down in favor of a more typical cyberpunk setting, but it was still about a fast blue hedgehog named Sonic (Jaleel White) who fought an evil scientist named Dr. Robotnik (Jim Cummings), who turned animals into robots.  Tails is also in the show, but he’s depicted as a child who mostly stays in the safety of the good guys’ headquarters.  If anything, the show adds more with its solid cast of characters.  Sonic is a member of the Knothole Freedom Fighters, who are led by Princess Sally Acorn (Kath Soucie), who is also Sonic’s love interest.  I like how Sonic is depicted a character with a dark past which he hides behind a positive façade, and his romance with Sally is well executed.  One of my favorite parts of the show is watching them bicker like a married couple.  Other members include a half-roboticized Bunnie Rabbot (Christine Cavanaugh), a cowardly French stereotype Antoine Depardieu (Rob Paulsen), and tech expert Rotor (Mark Ballou).  Sally also possesses a sentient computer named NICOLE (Soucie), a keepsake from her estranged father (Tim Curry)  In the second season Dulcy the Dragon (Cree Summer) was inexplicably added, and Ballou was replaced with Cam Brainard.  Other cells of Freedom Fighters are led by Griff (James Marsden), Lupe (Shari Bellafonte), and Ari (Dorian Harewood).   

        The real star of the show was Dr. Julian Robotnik.  Most of the cartoons of my youth portrayed the villains as ineffectual, but Robotnik was a different story.  While most villains have trouble taking over the world, he has already taken over by earning the trust of King Acorn (Tim Curry) and enacting a coup years before the events of the show.  He ravages the world with pollution and subjects every inhabitant to roboticization, a horrifying process that transforms people into robots who can only do his bidding (the poor souls are completely aware of it the whole time).  He is aided by his nephew Snively (Charlie Adler), whom he abuses mercilessly.  The only being he treats with any compassion is his pet robotic chicken Cluck.  Meanwhile, the protagonists, despite being children had to learn to grow up fast while conducting guerrilla warfare from a hideout in the mostly untouched forest that resembles an abandoned Googie apartment complex.

The Ancients had very strange ways.

Our heroes have to struggle with only Pyrrhic victories to show for it most of the time.  Sometimes survival is what passes for a win.  Often they have to make heartbreaking concessions, especially when it comes to reuniting with their loved ones.  Sally and Sonic were both estranged from parental figure during the coup, with Sonic’s having to witness his Uncle Chuck’s (William Windom) roboticization.  On top of that, they also have to be parents to young Tails while they themselves are just teens.  There are a few moments when characters (including Sonic himself, much to Sega of Japan’s chagrin) break down and cry.  With these daringly dark themes, it’s no surprise that this cartoon has gained a respectable cult following.

       It was really refreshing to see some serious story-telling especially from a cartoon.  I definitely do not agree with most people that the classic toon style is inappropriate for it.  Characters drawn this way are expressive, and the artwork is animation-friendly enough without looking lazy.  It’s too effective a style to be relegated to gag cartoons.  Still, there are some flaws in the character designs.  Like many anthropomorphic cartoons it has a mild form of Furry Dimorphism, in that one sex (usually the fairer one) is clearly drawn to be more attractive that the other.  Most of the time the female characters will have svelte humanoid bodies while the males will have less detailed, and in some cases it’s really bad.  While the show is satisfied in drawing Sonic with rubber hose anatomy, Sally has a curvaceous form.  Unfortunately this form isn’t compatible to some aspects of the art style.  While she’s not drawn offensively (she’s no more nude than Sonic or tails), her body shape makes her nudity look more distracting.  Absurdly, this artwork issue is taken as an excuse by many to hate the character.  Also it doesn’t work with her proportions, and she looks like she has hydrocephalus.  Despite this issue, the artwork is mostly good.  The backgrounds are great, and the animation is decent despite DiC’s reputation. 

      The voice acting is also very good.  It has some the best animation voice actors of the time.  Sonic is voiced by Jaleel White of Urkel infamy, and it’s a mixed bag.  White’s voice is a bit grating, but it fits the character, and he emotes well when he needs to.  He does do a few annoying impressions occasionally.  The rest of the cast is great, but its true star is Jim Cummings.  It’s my favorite performance from possibly my favorite voice actor.  He voices Robotnik with smooth malevolence.  Unfortunately, the creepy vocoder effect was dropped in the second season.  Other cast members include Michael Bell and Frank Welker.

     But few shows are perfect.  Most of the children’s cartoons designed with more serious storylines are not airtight in terms of logic.  Off the top of my head, the only such cartoons that really hold up to adult scrutiny are Avatar: The Last Airbender and Batman: The Animated Series.  I’d say that SatAM is as solid as Harry Potter; it’s enjoyable, but it has its holes.  Episodes are hit-or-miss (the half-length standalone gag episodes are definitely misses), which warrants episode reviews in the future.  The biggest one is the Knothole Plothole.  It shouldn’t be too hard for Robotnik to find Knothole by simply extending his scorched earth policy toward the Forest, or through intelligence work.  In fact, he has roboticized many of Knothole’s freedom fighters, and since he can upload their memories into a computer (or simply ask them), he’d have no trouble gaining information from them.  Sometimes even the good guys do nonsensical things to maintain the status quo. 

      Another problem is that the show is perhaps a bit derivative.  Freedom Fighters, a cyberpunk setting, the works.  Princess Sally herself is vaguely familiar, as is her relationship with a smarmy protagonist.  However, if there is one work this show is the most like, it’s probably the 80’s scifi show Captain Power, which also involved freedom fighters in a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk environment. 

Apparently not the only time J. Michael Straczynski was ripped off.

Then again, considering how my favorite show is suspiciously similar to a forgotten 70’s sitcom, maybe that isn’t too bad.          

      Finally, there’s Antoine.  In a show that usually does a great job with complex protagonists, we have cowardly French stereotype.  Not that he doesn’t have his moments, but his panicked demeanor and idiocy almost spell doom for the Freedom Fighters multiple times.  That he’s still allowed to accompany the heroes on mission makes one Sally’s leadership skills.  In one of its few improvements over the show, the Archie comics actually develops him into a brave, complex character.  Shallow as it is, we do get some amusing moments from his buffoonery and Sonic’s reaction toward it.  The show and Rob Paulsen deserved a better character.  

        I'm not sure if I liked future plans for the show, though.  Secondary villain Ixis Naugus (Michael Bell) was going to be the primary villain after Robotnik's defeat at the end of Season 2, with Robotnik playing a subservient role to him.  Unfortunately, the show was cancelled after only two seasons due to poor ratings.  The finale is incredibly rushed, crammed into one single-part episode that ends with an ill-advised cliffhanger.  The president of ABC hated it for some reason, and it was sabotaged by being placed opposite to the wildly popular Power Rangers.  It was also bafflingly comdemned as “violent” by moral guardians at the time (dark themes aside, it “violent” was a stretch).  So SatAM has its flaws.  It wasn’t nearly as good as its contemporary Batman: The Animated Series, and Saturday Morning Cartoons have gotten better written since then, but it definitely was a trailblazer for the time.  It demonstrated that cartoons can be serious and emotional, let alone anthro cartoons.  It also stands as proof that Hollywood can make a decent game adaptation.  It’s also the best DiC cartoon I can think of.

 

DVD REVIEW

Sonic the Hedgehog: The Complete Series

2007

Above Average

Pros: Great Value, Special Features, Good Cover Art

Cons: Bad Cover Art, Questionable Packaging

     It was a good day for DVD’s ten years ago today (My Gosh, I’m getting old).  This was released on the same day as Children of Men, and I rushed to the store to buy both.  After dragging its feet with random episodes, the complete series was finally released in one fell swoop.  Four discs of an entire 2-season TV series for $20 was a great deal.  The DVD has a few good features, such as storyboards, scripts, concept art, and some  interviews with Jaleel White and writer Ben Hurst.

    As a nod to the fans, Shout! Factory asked them to contribute fanart for the covers.  The main slipcover is a grotesque picture done by Ken Penders that makes the characters look like they’re covered in donut glaze.  No matter, I prefer to dispense with the slip cover and simply stack the individual DVD cases, which have much better art, with the other DVDs.  The inside covers are peppered with absurdly shrunken fanart of varying levels of quality.  Questionably, they tried took two half-width DVD cases and tried to cram two discs into each of them.  It’s nearly impossible to shut them securely.

10th Anniversaries, Pt 3

 

Grindhouse

2007

D: Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, et al.

**********

Pros: Great Grindhouse Style, Well-Executed Violence

Cons: Two Individually Flawed Movies

       Quentin Tarantinio and Robert Rodriguez have always been avid fans of trashy 70’s B-Movies, and Grindhouse represents their ultimate love letter to them.  It’s a double feature with a full-length movie by each director with vintage animated bumpers and various fake trailers contributed by some guest filmmakers Edgar Wright, Eli Roth, and Rob Zombie.  The double feature consistently uses low-budget practical effects, heavy gore, and intentionally worn picture quality. 

      Both features earn their R-Rating through copious amounts of violence, but the sex scenes are edited out through fake “missing reel” segments.  This is bad if you’re a horndog with no sense of humor.  It also could be interpreted as a commentary on the double standard between depiction of sex vs. violence in movies.  

The features in order are:

1. FAKE TRAILER- MACHETE

D: Robert Rodriguez

Starring Danny Trejo as an action hero.  Rodriguez wrote the movie in 1993, and the fake trailer later motivated him to make the full feature in 2010.  The trailer stars Cheech Marin and Jeff Fahey.

2. FEATURE – PLANET TERROR

Planet Terror

D: Robert Rodriguez

**********

Pros: Well-Done violence, Grindhouse Style, Humor

Cons: Depressing Child Death, One Unlikeable Heroine

       With this zombie spoof, Robert Rodriguez pulls out all the stops.  The violence is over-the-top, with gory body explosions and the biggest blood squibs I’ve seen until Django Unchained.  Unlike most of these midnight movies, it keeps the action going.  Special effects are mostly practical, except for well-done CGI on Cherry Darling’s (Rose McGowan) M-16 leg.  I was wondering how they pulled that off, considering the directors’ bias for practical effects.  Sometimes that kind of misdirection is the best kind of effect.  Humor is more campy than witty, and the style is more exaggerated than it is in Death Proof, with an even scratchier picture and a stereotypical film burnout (for all I know it could be what that actually looks like, I’ve never seen one).  The missing reel humorously cuts straight to a third-act battle scene, skipping many important plot points.  Planet Terror has a memorable score made by Rodriguez and Graeme Revelle, and stars Stacey Ferguson, Quentin Tarantino, and Tom Savini.

     The movie stars Rose McGowan as Cherry Darling, a go-go dancer whose leg is ripped off by a zombie and replaced with an M-16.  She and the heroic Earl Wray (Freddy Rodriguez) fight off a zombie plague triggered by the release of a chemical caused by Dr. Abbington (Naveen Andrews) and an elite military group led by Lt. Muldoon (Bruce Willis).  The chemical spreads across the area, forcing the heroes to escape form a bar owned by JT Hague (Jeff Fahey) and his sheriff brother (Michael Biehn).  The movie is action-packed, funny, and stylish.

      The one thing that ruins the movie’s quality, reducing it to a mere guilty pleasure, is the character arc involving Dr. Dakota Block (Marley Shelton).  Married to Dr. William Block (Josh Brolin), she’s been cheating on him with other women.  We’re supposed to automatically dislike the cuckholded husband, and Dakota’s father Texas Ranger Earl McGraw (Michael Parks) always disapproved of their marriage, knowing he was a bad man.  However, Dr. Block doesn’t really do anything wrong until the moment he attacks Dakota halfway through the film.  As if Dakota wasn’t unsympathetic enough, she later irresponsibly hands her young child (Rebel Rodriguez) a gun to shoot at any attacker while she leaves him alone.  Unfortunately, the boy almost immediately shoots himself, and that’s where the movie loses me.  I guess I draw this line at children, and I hate it when people can’t tell the difference between dark humor and depressing garbage.  If there was any character I wanted to see get hers, it was Dakota, but she frustratingly survives the movie.

3. FAKE TRAILER – WEREWOLF WOMEN OF THE SS

D: Rob Zombie

A parody of Nazisplotation movies starring Udo Kier, Sheri Zombie, Andrew “Test” Martin, Oleg Prudius, and (hilariously) Nicolas Cage as Fu Manchu.

4. FAKE TRAILER - THANKSGIVING

D: Eli Roth

Feeling that Thanksgiving was an underrepresented holiday in the slasher genre, Eli Roth made this (the slasher is dressed up like a pilgrim).  It almost got Grindhouse an NC-17.  It stars Jordan Ladd, Michael Biehn, Jay Hernandez, and Roth himself.  Mary Elizabeth Winstead stars as a cheerleader played by her character in Death Proof.

5. FAKE TRAILER – DON’T   

D: Edgar Wright

An affectionate parody of American trailers for Hammer Horror films.  The cast (which includes  Jason Isaacs, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost) are never shown speaking, and a narration is provided by Will Arnett.

6. FEATURE – DEATH PROOF

D: Quentin Tarantino

**********

Pros: Grindhouse Atmosphere, Well-Executed Violence, Witty Dialogue, Good Cast, Clever Premise

Cons: Resolution Partially Ruined by Unlikeable Protagonists

A clever twist on the slasher genre in which the killer uses a death-proofed car to kill women, a premise which speaks of Tarantino’s love for old-style car effects.  It uses a wittier, more restrained style than Planet Terror, and it stays more faithful to old grindhouse features.  It takes a while to build up, but when the payoff occurs, it’s quite satisfying.  The car chase at the end is great, but the morally reprehensible act of setting up their friend for rape renders the heroines less sympathetic, and the movie’s resolution suffers for it.

7. FAKE TRAILER – HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN (CANADIAN RELEASE)

D: Jason Eisener

Later made into a full-length movie starring Rutger Hauer as as the hobo.

    

       The two feature films take different approaches.  Planet Terror is more exaggerated and action-packed, while Death Proof is more akin to a wittier version of a real grindhouse movie.  The double feature benefits from the variety in my opinion.  They both clearly take place in the same universe, with Planet Terror’s coming after Death Proof in continuity, but before it in the movie’s runtime.   Both movies are enjoyable, but each suffer from one fatal, frustrating flaw.  However, since Grindhouse is an experience in itself, the features’ individual quality can be forgiven, thus allowing me to call the Double Feature masterpiece.

 

DVD REVIEW

Grindhouse Double Feature

Pros: The Entire Double Feature on One Disc

Cons: Lacks Extra Footage from Uncut Versions

I was really upset when I found out that Grindhouse was not initially going to be released as the Double Feature we saw it as in the theatres.  No vintage bumpers, no fake trailers, just the movies.  I was also afraid that the humorous “missing reels” would be removed, robbing the films of their humor.  Fortunately, they finally came around and released the version they should have released in the first place.  The first disc is the entire double feature, trailers and all on one side of one disc (apparently not a given for long movies).  The movie comes with English and French tracks a commentary for Planet Terror.  Death Proof’s lack of commentary is not surprising considering the creator backlash it got.  The second disc is chock full of goodies like behind the scenes features and an extra fake trailer.   

     

QUOTES

[Crying after losing her leg]

CHERRY DARLING: Look at me!  I was going to be a stand-up comedian!  Who’s gonna laugh now?

EARL WRAY: Some of the best jokes are about cripples.  Come on.

CHERRY DARLING: Name's Cherry Darling...

EARL WRAY: Sounds like a stripper name.

CHERRY DARLING: No, it sounds like a go-go dancer name. There's a difference.

DR. FELIX: Viral infections. They came pouring in. Some are rapidly developing coliform leisions... highly contagious. What do you think?

DR. BLOCK: Self-preservation comes to mind.

[From Werewolf Women of the SS trailer]

NARRATOR: Featuring Udo Kier, Sheri Moon Zombie, Tom Towles, Sybil Danning, Bill Moseley, and Nicolas Cage…as…Fu Manchu.

NICHOLAS CAGE AS FU MANCHU: This is my Mecca! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[From the Thanksgiving trailer]

DEPUTY: [tasting blood from decapitated body]  It’s blood.

SHERIFF: Son of a bitch!