New Sonic Cartoon

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big_smile
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New Sonic Cartoon

Post by big_smile »

Tssz is reporting that a new Sonic cartoon is coming from Dave Polsky, who has written for other famous properties such as My Little Pony Friendship is magic and South Park, amongst others.

Apparently, it will focus on Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy and will be comedy based.

There aren't any other details. However, it's a bit of a surprise, as I never thought we would see another US based Sonic cartoon.

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by Jingles »

I hope I'm not the only one who would like to see the triumphant return of Scratch & Grounder.

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by Esrever »

I was wondering when we'd see the next Sonic cartoon. The license is still really popular with kids. Even now at Walmart I see t-shirts with friggin' Silver the Hedgehog right next to the ones for Skylanders and the new Ninja Turtles cartoon. It is kind of mind-boggling.

After what happened with Sonic X -- didn't the last season only air once at some ungodly hour in Japan? -- I'm not super surprised to see them passing the buck back to a studio in a country where people might actually watch the show. They've already got Americans writing the scripts for the games themselves, after all.

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by Locit »

This could be good if the show's quality (assuming it has any) and humor (assuming it's not terrible) seep back into the property proper. Too bad it's probably going to end up animated in in a MLP flash style, but hey, not every show can be Gravity Falls.

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by Radrappy »

Locit wrote: but hey, not every show can be Gravity Falls.
gold star

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by Malchik »

Esrever wrote: After what happened with Sonic X -- didn't the last season only air once at some ungodly hour in Japan? -- I'm not super surprised to see them passing the buck back to a studio in a country where people might actually watch the show. They've already got Americans writing the scripts for the games themselves, after all.
To be fair, the last quarter or so of Sonic X was intended for an American audience. 4kids commissioned the series to last much longer.

Since the majority of the franchises sales are America, I'd actually like to see Sega disband Sonic Team and source the games to more competent studios, entirely.

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by Radrappy »

Malchik wrote: Since the majority of the franchises sales are America, I'd actually like to see Sega disband Sonic Team and source the games to more competent studios, entirely.
I would agree but I am absolutely terrified of this franchise losing its Japanese flavor. Sonic is a strange beast in that it is a franchise made by the Japanese that only really does well in NA/EU territories but that absolutely must be made in Japan for us to like it. I guarantee it. Even Sonic R had Yasuhara and Naka breathing down Traveller's Tales' necks pretty heavily to turn out the way it did. Sonic Xtreme was developed without Japanese supervision and was an utter trainwreck in the making.

Retro does amazing work, but apparently Miyamoto is pretty goddamn religious about keeping their asses in check as well.

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by Neo »

Radrappy wrote:Even Sonic R had Yasuhara and Naka breathing down Traveller's Tales' necks pretty heavily to turn out the way it did.
Yes, as we all know, Yuji Naka is a pretty big Europop enthusiast. :wink:

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by Tsuyoshi-kun »

Radrappy wrote:
Malchik wrote:Sonic is a strange beast in that it is a franchise made by the Japanese that only really does well in NA/EU territories but that absolutely must be made in Japan for us to like it. I guarantee it.
Except that Sonic 2, Sonic 3, and Sonic & Knuckles were all developed in the U.S. So...no.

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by Neo »

But to be fair, only Sonic 2 was made with americans on board, which resulted in the most visually inconsistent Sonic game ever made (go look at Emerald Hill, then Oil Ocean). Sonic 3 was made exclusively with a Japanese team, except still under the roof of the STI.

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by Dr. BUGMAN »

Pac-man and Sonic having newly produced animated serials. It's like I never grew up... oh, wait.

Incidentally, the Pac-Man cartoon just aired. It's probably the hokiest video game adaptation since the DiC/Hanna-Barbera/Ruby Spears days, and I'm honestly not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing ("Pac-laration of Independence"!) It looks nice at any rate, though probably in spite of its aesthetics. I think Transformers Prime and Nick TMNT have proven that if there is any intrinsic advantage of budget CG productions, it's that it allows for dynamic choreographed action scenes. It's still not very conducive to expressiveness, though. Pac-Man's (so far) is a lot cleaner looking than either, but there's no telling what sort of budget it has, not that it's choreography is as impressive.

Though if I had a choice between My little Hedgehog or Sonic Prime, I'd pick the latter in a heartbeat. The mind boggles when people laud MLP's animation.

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by Radrappy »

Tsuyoshi-kun wrote:
Radrappy wrote:
Malchik wrote:Sonic is a strange beast in that it is a franchise made by the Japanese that only really does well in NA/EU territories but that absolutely must be made in Japan for us to like it. I guarantee it.
Except that Sonic 2, Sonic 3, and Sonic & Knuckles were all developed in the U.S. So...no.
Sorry, I should have said Japanese developed. I guess that should have been obvious since I was referring to Japanese tastes and game design sensibilities. And while Sonic 2 was indeed a joint effort between Japanese and NA staff, it was still heavily supervised by Naka & co.

And as for Sonic 3 & knuckles. . .well

"After the completion of Sonic 2, Yuji Naka made the final decision to only allow the Japanese members in the core development team to work on Sonic 3 & Knuckles. "

If you don't trust wikipedia, the "History of Sonic the Hedgehog" tells a similar story. Regardless of where they were developed, they're still Japanese games.

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by Malchik »

Dr. BUGMAN wrote: The mind boggles when people laud MLP's animation.
I concur; it's just well done flash animation.

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by Esrever »

The funny part is, American and Canadian studios switched to Flash-style animation so they could afford to do all the animation in house instead of overseas... but now the overseas studios have also switched and are doing most of it anyway.

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by Radrappy »

Esrever wrote:The funny part is, American and Canadian studios switched to Flash-style animation so they could afford to do all the animation in house instead of overseas... but now the overseas studios have also switched and are doing most of it anyway.
This is the problem when there are no measures in place to prevent outsourcing work to countries that have zero labor union laws or any kind of restrictions when it comes to wages. The cheapest option will always be the ones studios gravitate towards. Although, some of the work that Canada based Mercury studios has been doing is just excellent, even if all the animation is done in Harmony with puppet tools (the new mickey mouse shorts were produced there).

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by cjmcray »

Screw Lost World. I'm way more excited for this.

I hope it's 2D. I don't care if it's done in flash, just as long as it doesn't have Johnny Test-levels of ugly.

Also, I really hope it's made by Disney. After all, Sonic was in Wreck-It Ralph, Ralph was in All-Stars racing, and now SEGA's making a new Mickey Mouse game.

Anyone remember CatDog? There was a character called Rancid Rabbit. He played a variety of different roles, from a doctor, police officer, lifeguard, principal and more. I'd LOVE to see Eggman portrayed that way..

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by Radrappy »

cjmcray wrote:Also, I really hope it's made by Disney. After all, Sonic was in Wreck-It Ralph, Ralph was in All-Stars racing, and now SEGA's making a new Mickey Mouse game.
I can confirm that that's not happening.

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by Locit »

And I can confirm there was no chance in hell it ever would have. Besides the obvious impossibilities, do we have any clues about the actual animation studio yet?

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by Esrever »

I'm really curious about the channel! CN, Nick, or the Hub? (I am guessing the Hub.)

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by Popcorn »

what do you kids make of the new Mickey Mouse cartoon? You can see an episode here, apparently it's going ahead: http://chrisbattleart.tumblr.com/post/4 ... all-my-old

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by G.Silver »

I really liked it. It wasn't like, blow-my-mind great or anything, but I'm glad they're making them and am looking forward to more. I think my favorite thing about it is that it exists at all, like how many execs had to be beaten down just to have the thing made in French? That's cool!

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by Wombatwarlord777 »

I think this is a new one, too. It has all the same style as the one Popcorn linked to: http://video.disney.com/watch/disneycha ... 3c9c01a272

I gotta say, I really enjoyed that Paris short. The watercolor-inspired art and the pre-WWII-esque character designs mesh extremely well together. And I think it succeeded as a funny, physical-comedy-based short as well. It's kind of reassuring that talented people can still successfully craft those.

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by Esrever »

I like them. I wish they had sprung for more traditional full animation, but they have very wisely picked an art style that makes digital shortcuts look good and feel stylistically intentional.

These shorts have been in the works forever -- I remember hearing about them nearly two years ago! I'm glad they are turning out well. The people behind them are a veritable whose-who of cartoony TV animation vets from shows like Spongebob and Powerpuff Girls. It would be sad if that talent had not amounted to much, or if it had been suppressed by too much corporate interference. But I get the impression it's intended as a bit of a prestige project. (Well, and probably the anchor for a new line of merch.)

I think the global vibe, with different shorts in different locations and languages, is actually a pretty wise one strategically. It doesn't have ambitions to be a regular TV show, after all, just a series of shorts to revive interest in the characters. So Mickey and co. visit each of the major markets Disney wants to attract. Probably no coincidence that at least two of the chosen cities, Paris and Tokyo, have Disney theme parks in 'em.

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by G.Silver »

I wonder what French people actually think of the cartoon? Like if it isn't better as "marketing" for Paris Disneyland to the rest of the world than it is for people who actually live there? It seems a little touristy.

Do you think the Tokyo one will actually have the characters speaking in Japanese? I appreciate that they're targeting a world-wide audience but the simple coffee-shop level language of the first one made sense to me in the same way that the visual style does. "No Service" has considerably more nuance to its dialog so I'd expect that one to be translated into other languages, but I wouldn't expect that for "Croissant." Japanese as a language doesn't have the "world" audience that French and English do.

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Re: New Sonic Cartoon

Post by Dr. BUGMAN »

Cinderella's Austrian!

It's interesting that Disney seems intent on using Mickey's vintage design these days. I thought it was brought back because it jibed with Oswald's (odd seeing as Disney doesn't seem to want to do anything with the rabbit now). That scooter reminded me of My Life as a Teenage Robot (which itself is deliberately retro), right down to XJ9's color scheme. Donald seems weird retro-styled without his goose neck. And Goofy looks like something out of those What a Cartoon shorts, ewww. Was that their inspiration, if not staffed with the same people?

Christ, Disney's video service sucks something fierce.

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