Jim Cummings

[Xerus]

The silly one was what they were originally going for, actually. ABC wanted an action style series. And I wonder who at Sega or DIC said they wanted 2 different series... I wonder if they had some commitment for a syndicated show as well. Something like that never ran concurrently. Super Mario 3 came about while reruns of Super Mario Super Show were still being aired in syndication... but the two never were made at the same time.

As for AOSTH, you can see clips of the pilot in another episode (I forget which one) and the closing credits use a scene of animation that was in the original pilot.

And here's something to add to the confusion:

Here's the original original concept that didn't get into the pilot stage

Stylistically, it looks like a marriage of the silly series and the action oriented series. Seems the SatAM series borrowed some leftover concepts.

Thanks again for sharing. Those were wild pictures.

I remember before Sonic first aired on TV, I got some Sonic comic books that introduced the characters from the ABC series like Princess Sally, Bunnie Rabbot, Antoine, Roter the Walrus(Who was called Boomer in the comic.) But the comic was more silly than the ABC series.

 

[Drtooth]

I remember before Sonic first aired on TV, I got some Sonic comic books that introduced the characters from the ABC series like Princess Sally, Bunnie Rabbot, Antoine, Roter the Walrus(Who was called Boomer in the comic.) But the comic was more silly than the ABC series.

If I recall, the comics were written by Michael Gallager and Drawn by Dave Manik... both worked extensively for Marvel's Star Comics line (Especially ALF) in the 80's... and Michael LOVED the puns. Always with the puns... and getting the title of the comic into the first word balloon in the opening of a comic.

I still wanna find out more info on what show came first and the deal with both of them. Wikipedia articles sort of contrasted each other. One suggests that SATAM was produced after AOSTH was completed, but another article hints at they planned on running 2 concurrently all along. Seems like they approached ABC to make AOSTH, with an American cast (as they only have 13 episode seasons, thus it wouldn't have been as expensive as paying an American voice cast for the 65 syndicated episodes a season makes), but they rejected, and both went into production not quite simultaneously. I.e. different teams animated and wrote for different series.

One last little footnote before we should return the discussion to Jim... AOSTH had a couple episodes animated by the Japanese animation studio TMS (who was extensively outsourced for American Cartoons)... years later, TMS would be the animation studio for the Japanese series Sonic X.