PlanetDreamcast | Features | Sonic Merchandise

Sonic Week: Day 3 - Sonic Merchandise Sonic you can watch, read and wear. - by Reojojo Sonic the Hedgehog has been a Sega icon since his introduction in 1991. He's appeared in tons of games over several different consoles. He's touched our lives like no other hedgehog ever has. So we've decided that it was time to show him exactly how much he means to us. Along with any good mascot comes loads of merchandising in all forms, and Sonic the Hedgehog is no exception to this rule. Though a fair amount of Sonic merchandise has hit the street, most of it landed in Japan, which makes sense. But when I began to do some research, I realised that there's so much of the darned stuff out there, that it would take 10 pages to list the names of the products, alone. So instead of providing you a list of all the Sonic merchadise, I've compiled a list of the most important stuff that hit the States and the UK. Cartoons The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog Chewable Sonic... The greatest bubble-blowing adventure ever! The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog was the first Sonic cartoon. Unfortunately, it was promptly cancelled after its first season due to a general lack of interest. The cause would likely have been the fact that the show was being run during primetime, when people had much better things to watch. The show plots were fairly mediocre and the art was a bit cheesy. But overall, it wasn't a bad cartoon. Sonic the Hedgehog The most popular, and in most viewer's opinion, the best Sonic television show was aptly titled Sonic the Hedgehog. The show was lucky enough to be run on Saturday mornings, the perfect timeslot for such a show. It aired for three long seasons, and received excellent ratings, especially in its second season. The voice actor portraying Sonic was none other than Jaleel White of Family Matters fame. Yes, that's Urkle. Strangely, he sounded quite good as Sonic. Each episode's plots tended to be interesting and fairly well developed. The cartoon also featured top-notch animation and art direction. Sonic Underground Forget about normal Spagetti-Os. Eat Sonic the Hedgehog Pasta, complete with meatballs. When the whole post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk craze was going on in the late 90's, somebody had the idea of throwing Sonic smack-dab in the middle of it. The result was Sonic Underground. The idea wouldn't have been completely terrible, except that the writers seemed to be third-graders who somehow got jobs. Also, the voice acting was utterly terrible. The art direction in Sonic Underground was quite good, and I actually enjoyed watching it; my televivsion was muted, of course. I can't find the words to describe just how bad the voice acting was. How about a metaphor? Sonic sounded like a 12 year-old boy who was constantly being kicked in the groin, causing his voice to crack, constantly. The rest of the cast sounded as if they were found on a street corner and paid minimum wage to read the script into a microphone with no time to rehearse. The stories were also yawn-inducing and far too predictable, not to mention repetitive. Comics Sonic the Hedgehog Don't lose your keys or you may be losing a friend too. Sonic and friends keychains! Published by Archie, and based off the cartoon of the same name - not so much on the games - this was the definitive, American, Sonic the Hedgehog comic. It was published until a few years ago and was fairly popular with the hardcore, Sega crowd. Unfortunately, they weren't enough to keep the book on the shelves... much like we weren't enough enough to keep the Dreamcast on the shelves. The art was very clean and professional with great shadows. The stories were also top-notch, and it managed to seamlessly interweave with the games and the television show. Sonic A short-lived comic by Fleetway, Sonic was basically just a re-vamp of the Archie book, with new covers and more British sounding dialogue. (Fleetway is in the U.K.) Unfortunately, none of these books were really worth the cash though. You see, each of the comics only consisted of one quarter of a single Archie book. If you're looking to pick up some Sonic comics, I'd look for the Archie versions instead. Miscellaneous Sonic Stuff These aren't your average Sonic t-shirts. These are hip! Watch out Abercrombie & Fitch! There have been plenty of Sonic toys, from action figures to Pogs to yo-yos to plush dolls. For the real Sonic freak you can drink Sonic Cola, chew Sonic Bubblegum, and eat Sonic Pasta. There are also plenty of Sonic Adventure hats and shirts available in all colors and styles. Sega made plenty of Sonic tie pins too, but they never saw the light of day outside Japan, even though the ties did. Sonic also spawned key chains, a walkman, and VMU straps. Come back tomorrow for Day 4 of Sonic Week here at PlanetDreamcast. We'll be taking a look at the creators of Sonic. Same Sonic time, same Sonic channel. Choose a day of Sonic Week coverage: Day 1 - The Games of Sonic (1991 - 1994) Day 2 - The Games of Sonic (1995 - Present/Unreleased) Day 4 - The Creators of Sonic Day 5 - The Future of Sonic Special thanks goes too our hosted site, Shadow of a Hedgehog, for most of the media and some great info.