Near the start of the new millennium, sega launched a new round of heavy advertising for its main franchises, one of which was sonic the hedgehog. To enhance the hype, they commissioned a new cartoon from DIC entertainment, the same company that did the previous 2 Sonic cartoons. The result was SONIC UNDERGROUND, a curious little series with many questionable Creative decisions.
For a start, they got the head writer of the more serious SONIC THE HEDGEHOG cartoon on board for plotting SONIC UNDERGROUND. Instead of continuing that cult classic, which many fans were clamouring for, they incorporated broad strokes events and loose elements of that story into a whole new story unrelated to past animated series or games. In this new continuity, Sonic and his siblings Sonia and Manic are the heirs to the throne but the evil Doctor Robotnik launches a coup and took over the royal capital of mobotropolis. Instead of establishing a pollution spewing all powerful empire of machine Troops and servants created from roboticizing civilians, Robotnik in this show is content to let the rich and powerful civilians remain untouched so long as they do as he says and do not get in his way. Only the lower castes were roboticised. As such there are populated towns and much more in the way of talking critter side characters contributing to the plots of episodes.
In terms of tone, it is no where near the comedic camp of ADVENTURES OF SONIC THE HEDGEHOG but it is also much lighter than the post apocalyptic dystopia of SONIC THE HEDGEHOG. The stakes are not as dire, the villains are still evil but not as monstrous, and the world is "friendlier" with the episodes consisting of the 3 Hedgehog siblings travelling the globe in search of allies, clues to locate their mother and to fulfill a prophesy to take back their kingdom.
The second and most divisive creative decision was....the songs. No this is not Sonic The Musical, though it might have been better if it was. In every episode, at least one of the sibling Hedgehogs will whip out their magical instrument (electric guitar for sonic, drum set for manic, and keyboard for Sonia) and start this late 90s MTV music video sequence full of cheap visual tricks like multiple split screens, fade ins, cross dissolves etc. Again, I have nothing against a good musical but the transition between the episode story and the sudden music video is so jarring. There are a few catchy songs but the majority are a cheesy dated mix of 90s pop and rock tunes which border on cringe. A pity since they are generally well sung and with voices that sound much better than the characters' speaking voices. Namely because Sonic, Sonia and Manic are voiced by Jaleel White, Jaleel White doing falsetto, and Jaleel White doing surfer dude.
Having the same guy doing all 3 main voices, including a female character's voice, really does not work especially when at times the voices seem to slip into each other like Manic would suddenly talk like Sonic or Sonic himself would have that higher Sonia pitch. The other characters' voice actors do a decent job with the cheesy material they are given, and fan favourites like Knuckles do appear later on. However some of the casting choices just do not seem to fit. Like Doctor Robotnik is played by Garry Chalk, sounding exactly like his Optimus Primal role from BEAST WARS. For Knuckles he is played by Brian Drummond and one would expect a gruff warrior type voice similar to his Zechs Merquise role from GUNDAM WING but he sounds like a whiny teenage geek.
The animation on SONIC UNDERGROUND is equally hit or miss. Other traditional animated contemporaries in 1999 include series like Redwall, Big Guy and Rusty, and Batman Beyond in the west, along with Digimon, Monster Rancher, and Zoids in the east. No matter how you compared, SONIC UNDERGROUND's animation does not hold up. While the character models are much more consistent and there are some exceedingly well animated sequences, these are far in between. There are a fair share of animation mistakes, mostly in compositing, and A lot of the animation comes across as lazy. For example, in past SONIC cartoons when sonic ran they would animate his full body motions of running with at most his feet being a blur. In SONIC UNDERGROUND the typical portrayal of Super speed is to reduce Sonic to a glowing blue smear streaking across the screen. There is also reused and looped animation which pop up most frequently in the previously mentioned music video segments.
The series itself ended with no resolution to any of the ongoing plot lines. Though there is a Small segment of fans who do like the unorthodox approach, it never got the level of fan following that SONIC THE HEDGEHOG did Nor did it achieve the memetic status of ADVENTURES. Between the indecisive tone, juvenile writing that did not match the epic fantasy setup, and the comparatively mediocre visuals I would consider SONIC UNDERGROUND less of a classic and more a mere curiosity.
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