Why Sonic Underground Sucks (In my Opinion)

[Ryannumber1gamer]

You guys might remember a topic by @Sami from a while back where he basically went over Sonic Adventure, and explained all of the reasons he loved the game, and thought it was still a great experience. and that led into discussion over the points and such. Well, this is sort of the same idea, only I'm going to be looking at Sonic Underground because if I'm going to go through 28 more episodes of this shit, I need something to vent it with.

So, Sonic Underground? Where do we begin? Well, beforehand, I think it's only fair to say one main thing. I think this is the worst piece of Sonic animation to date. I found at least one or two redeeming things in everything else, but not in Underground. So before we start, I want to take a quick look at the other Sonic pieces of media and try to explain while they're less terrible than Underground. 

Adventures of Sonic/SatAM:

 

Well, I thought I'd group these together because I don't remember a lot of Adventures of Sonic, but remember all of SatAM practically due to having watching it with SSMB during Summer. For all of SatAM's issues, such as the wonky animation, poor plots, poor characterization, I think that SatAM is still a lot more admirable. And it's why I can see others really enjoying it. SatAM was dealt a crap hand, especially being made by DIC, who thought animation was just take a frame, and show it from another camera angle (According to the creator of Ren and Stimpy, who worked with DIC for a while). However, SatAM made a genuine effort to try set up a universe and atmosphere. It tried to have quiet character moments, with characters feeling remorseful or guilty. The world did truly feel like it was a shit world, and every corner was dangerous. The Freedom Fighters' only place of refuge was Knothole. The rest was completely dominated. And for their issues with characters, they did genuinely display the heartbreak that can be made from having your loved ones brainwashed and twisted into a shell of their former self, and set against you, as shown with Sonic and Uncle Chuck. SatAM made genuine attempts to take something that by all fairness, didn't have that deep a story, and didn't have the best of budgets, and still make something half way respectable out of it, and for all of it's issues, I feel that it still managed to pull off a lot of it's character moments, and atmosphere well, as well as having animation that while not amazing, was at least lively. 

And while I don't remember Adventures of Sonic that well because I haven't seen it in a very long time, I do at the very least remember it having a decent Looney Tunes style approach, and having some very lively animation. It's likely not my cup of tea, but I can see why people on here would enjoy AoSTH for what it is.

Sonic OVA:

To be frank, the Sonic OVA is one of my absolute favourite pieces of Sonic animation to date. I'm not going to say it's perfect by any means, because there's still some issues I see with it, like some of the voices not really fitting well, or some characterization not being the best, but I still love it for a lot of reasons. Firstly, I think this has the best animation from a Sonic Animation to date. The choice to replicate the artstyle of CD's intro was a really good one, and I just love a lot of it. I love how fluid things feel, I like the colours, I like the little design additions like Knuckles' treasure hunter hat, and I like how smoothly things just are in it.

On top of that, this did manage to replicate the Classic style of games the best. It's no lie that I say I generally don't like the animations based on the classic games because there's a lot of things that just seem weird or out of place for me because of westernization. Keep in mind I do still respect some things like SatAM for some elements, but OVA is the only one I can really say I unironically enjoy because it stuck a lot with the games while making it's own additions that still made a cool story out of it. I like how Tails is properly shown as a companion, an inventor, and a brother to Sonic this time around, instead of either the kid brother, who's only used for flight and I fucking adore seeing Knuckles as a treasure hunter in this (Which I wish was still an element of his character to this day). I also really enjoy the humor in this too, let it be from the intentional jokes, some of the adult jokes that has a similar tone to something out of early Dragon Ball, or the narm moments like "YOU MIGHT KNOW EVERYTHING I'M GOING TO DO, BUT THAT WON'T HELP YOU, BECAUSE I KNOW EVERYTHING YOU'RE GOING TO DO! STRANGE ISN'T IT?!". OVA just hit a lot of the right cords for me. 

Sonic X

Alright, so I'm gonna start out for a small and pretty silly element that I liked in X, I like how the characters are actually using the modern designs. It's the same reason I like the OVA for using the proper Classic designs too. To be honest, I can't stand any of the western Sonic designs for the classic characters, let it be the one that used to be on the Mega Drive cases, or the ones used in the shows. As a kid, and in the UK, X, SatAM, and AoSTH were all on during the same era, X being on Jetix and obviously showing new episodes, while SatAM and AoSTH was airing on Pop, which is a free channel in the UK, and used a lot of older video game shows (and weirdly enough, was the place where Kirby Right Back At Ya! aired). So when I watched SatAM and AoStH, I would always see the brown Tails design, or the mohawk Sonic design, and would just hate them as a kid, and honestly, I still dislike them today, so I liked X's use of the modern designs because it actually fitted to what was seen in the games.

So, X. What do I like about X? Well, to be honest, for all of it's instances of annoying characters, terrible animation, shit music (ROUGE'S GENERIC JAZZ THEME WILL NEVER LEAVE YOUR HEAD), and bad stories, it still managed to have good things. The season openings and finales tended to have some really good animation to be honest, which was driven further in Season 2 with a lot of the arcs having pretty decent to great animation which was consistent. It also managed one of the best adaptions of Adventure I've seen to date, and to be honest, I do like characters like Cosmo (which it also doesn't help that Tails was my absolute favourite character back then, so giving him a full arc in season 3 had my full agreement). 

Boom

Before we go further, I should say I can understand if you dislike Boom. There's plenty of reasons to do so. Some of the characterizations are pretty bad compared to what we are normally used to (As a Knux fan, I don't particularly hate Boom!Knux and think he can actually be pretty funny on occasion, but on the other hand, I hate him being reduced to a buffoon after the Modern titles treated him as such for a while). But for me personally, I like Boom. It's not the best or most perfect comedy out there, but a lot of the jokes do tend to hit with me, I like a lot of the game and show references it tries to do, I like some of the new characterizations, as not replacements, but alternative interpretations and the animation on occasion can be pretty good. Plus, I fucking adore Eggman in this show. It's like they took how good Modern!Eggman is in terms of comedy and just jumped him to eleven. So while I definitely get why people might not like it, I personally really enjoy it.

So uh, I guess it's time for the point of the topic.

Why I think Underground sucks hard. In three simple steps

 1. The Story

If I had to describe Sonic Underground in one sentence, it would be "cheap, bootleg, lower quality SatAM ripoff". The story is an absolute disaster that tries to have an overarching plot, and tries to be it's own thing while trying to be Sonic SatAM at the same time, and both just completely leads into more and more nonsense about this world. Firstly, the oracle in this show is a complete idiot. Warning the queen about Robotnik's plans? That's all well and good, but then he proceeds to be an idiot, and rub Robotnik's mustache into the fact the hedgehogs exist and they would fuck him over somehow in the future, which then causes all of their loved ones to be turned into robots, and them to be homeless. On top of that, there's absolutely no reason that Sonic, his siblings and the queen couldn't reunite after the first three episodes.

The oracle said they needed to be grown up, and understood their power and their responsibility to fulfill his prediction and that happens after the first three episodes. It would be different if their mother was unaware of this, or was constantly in danger or something to have to get them to save her, think April O'Neil's father from the first season of TMNT 2012 where the Krang had him captured during the first series, but no. The queen is fully aware of her children's movements, and has encountered them on numerous occasions, which makes it feel less like needing to fulfill the prediction, and more like her just dicking them around for no reason whatsoever while her children, and the world suffers because of it. It's not because of some bullshit about not being powerful enough yet either. After the first five episodes, Sonic is practically able to handle Robotnik one on one without his siblings' help. 

Alright, well surely that's it? No, there's more. The plot itself fails at creating a comprehensive atmosphere and world, and this ties back into the earlier issue I mentioned where it's trying desperately to be SatAM while also trying to be it's own thing at the exact same time. You see, in Underground, Robotnik's roboticization process is still present, and the show tries to set it up as the rich people of Mobius effectively screwing over the poor for their own needs, and allowing Robotnik to take control through that. But then that ends up falling apart at several points. Firstly, there are multiple points in the show where it's shown that a lot of the poor citizens of Mobius are still free and in control, and despite the rich effectively fucking the poor over to Robotnik, they expect the poor to still do things for them, and on top of that, it's treated as the poor people of Mobius, and even people like Manic being in the wrong for stealing food when the rich are the people who fucked over them all in the first place and those who survived Robotnik in the first place are now going to starve if they don't do this.

But on top of this, it also has a very confused message about Robotnik himself. It's shown several times that Robotnik is in control through turning people into robots, like how it was in SatAM. He supposedly has all of them working for him, despite it only being Swat Bots and such who surround him, but whatever. However, then it muddles the message completely by having episodes where Robotnik tries to marry Sonia to get into the royal bloodline and this makes no sense whatsoever. Why would it matter? Robotnik's already forced Aleena off the throne, and the royal family to be effectively losing their birthright. He has no reason to do this whatsoever. Meanwhile, in this show that supposedly needs a band of freedom fighters like in SatAM, we have a bunch of wacky balls between the rich, or salons open that Sonia, who is a wanted fugitive in this universe walks into to get her hair done. It tries to do both plots and ends up failing them both, and it effectively destroys the atmosphere of the show. SatAM's situation truly felt like a situation that needed this band of freedom fighters. They were forced into being brainwashed and changed by Robotnik and his forces. They weren't at fault, it was a smart and organized plan that allowed Robotnik to gain the power in SatAM.

In Underground, you really don't give a shit because the situation doesn't feel desperate. For all of their bluster and claims, it's completely jarring to have this supposed crapsack world, but also have Sonia just walk into beauty salons and clothes shops, and buy to her heart's content, and having everyone just act like the world's normal anyway even in Robotnik's rule, and there's no sense of urgency because it feels like they screwed themselves anyway. The oracle pissed Robotnik off more, when he could've kept the hedgehogs safe, half of Mobius sold out the other half to Robotnik just for more fucking money, which just leaves the only people left that we're supposed to care about be rich assholes who constantly sell out Sonic, Sonia, and Manic to save their own ass from Robotnik. This entire situation is one these jackasses got themselves into, while in SatAM, it was pretty much all Robotnik just being a cunning bastard. To give a perfect example of how fucked up and muddled the story and atmosphere is, there's instances in the exact same episode where Sonia cries about not wanting to be imprisoned while later, it's obvious they'll get roboticized. 

*sigh* let's move on.

2. The Animation

I'm not going to mix my words here. I honestly think that Underground is the most lazy, cheap, and downright awful animation from anything Sonic related. I really think it's that bad. Sonic X, SatAM, Boom, and the OVA and AoSTH at least made attempts to keep the characters on-model the majority of the time, and at least tried to make a effort to keep the animation lively. Sonic Underground does absolutely none of these things. The level of incompetence present in this show's animation is truly baffling. It's rare that there will be a moment where something isn't off about the animation. It constantly feels like either a character is off model, or there's an animation error, or it's just slow, or reused, or boring, or the seriously baffling one, the character's facial reactions, which tend to always be absolutely stupid, or weird, or just wrong. 

For example, there's numerous examples where Sonic and his siblings are facing danger, such as they're being captured, or being attacked, or being eaten, or whatever, and the words coming out of their mouths tend to be screams of horror, or something that you would expect from that situation, and what exactly is the facial reaction? Well of course it's a big ol dumb goofy smile on Sonia's mouth, or Sonic's mouth, because that's exactly the kind of reaction you'd have right? You'd be smiling at the fact you're about to face certain doom, or even worse, be forced against your will to attack your own family, right?!

There's also the designs, which I'm going to say right now, I really dislike. You see, here's the thing, I like the idea behind Sonia and Manic's designs, but the main reason I dislike them is because it feels like they just took Sonic's body, and modified it to those changes, and it's why I tend to like it more when fan artists take it and alter the designs to vary a bit more from Classic Sonic, and on top of that, moderize it to be something like Amy's design. @Drawloverlala especially has done some really damn awesome designs of Sonia and Manic. But on top of that, in Underground, everything for lack of a better word feels generic. SatAM had a cool design for the robots, and Robotropolis, and Knothole. While they weren't 100% unique, they still fitted into making locations that fitted the world's atmosphere, and at least were creative to look at. Underground's locations not only feel incredibly generic, but also the character designs are the same. I could explain it, but I could show you a simple comparison to get the picture better:

 

SatAM (Left) Underground (Right)

Chuck's robot design in SatAM really worked well because Chuck was still recongizable, but he was still altered and twisted into a robot. It properly looks like if you were to turn a fully organic hedgehog into a robotic one. That's practically an element of why it worked well in SatAM and especially in arcs like Mecha Madness with Mecha Sonic in Archie. Sonic, Chuck, and all of the other characters were still recongizable, and that still added an element of creepiness to the whole thing. When Mecha Sonic attacked the freedom fighters in Mecha Madness, they saw their longtime friend's body altered and twisted exactly into metallic parts, and saw his face just turned into a ruthless, cold, killing machine. Underground's approach just looks really fucking generic. The robotic parts aren't specific to those who are turned into a robot. They just throw random robot parts onto Chuck, and call it a day.

On top of that, despite being one year after Sonic Adventure's release, the show is still making use of not only Classic Sonic, but Western Classic Sonic's designs. On top of that, the animals in Sonic Underground and the world in general is pretty fucking weird. Not only does a lot of the characters look like they're melting or something, but a lot of them look like something alien.

Again, compare this to something like Sonic SatAM that sticked more to normal animals in general, and it becomes really jarring. On top of that, this disgusting art style transferred to the entirety of the exclusive characters to this show excluding Aleena and maybe Sleet. I think Jon Gray put it best with one simple piece of artwork:

3. The Sounds

 

Warning: Songs may be terrifyingly terrible.

Sonic Underground is practically infamous for this so I won't prattle on about it for too long, but needless to say, the sound is one of the worst aspects of the show. The songs pretty much speak for themselves, but to put out my opinion quickly, the songs are pretty cringe-worthy, are filled with really terrible reused animation, have some really downright cheesy lyrics and some sub-par singing, and I just overall can't stand them honestly. I like Underground's main theme, and that's about it. I can't stand anything else in terms of music. Background tracks are pretty meh as well. 

So, I guess the final thing to mention is the voice acting. Oh god, the voice acting. It fails, completely in my opinion. Now I'll admit, I've never been a fan of Urkel's Sonic, but in SatAM at the very least, he wasn't that bad. Here, he is absolutely fucking ear-grating, and that's because there's fucking three of him this time. Manic is pretty tolerable at least, but Sonic's is even more ear-grating than usual, and then he takes Sonic's voice, and makes it even more whiny, and more high pitched for Sonia, and congrats, you have a character who's voice will drive you up the fucking wall. The rest of the voice acting is similar. Robotnik's voice tries to do something as intimidating as SatAM's Robotnik's voice was, and just doesn't work, background characters, such as Sonia's friend, or Sonic's friend Cryus just isn't very good in general, and as a whole, the sound isn't good in this show. I could go on and on, but honestly, the sound is the most infamous element of this show that there's really no point for me to even continue going on about it, because the songs and voice acting pretty much speaks for itself.

So yeah, that's pretty much why I hate Underground. Keep in mind, this show is the longest running Sonic show in the UK, having only just stopped airing in the UK in 2014. All I can say is I hope the next 28 episodes aren't nearly as painful as the first 12 was...

[pastelspectre]

Wait this show still aired in the UK after its cancellation? I thought it got cancelled everywhere...

[Ryannumber1gamer]

3 minutes ago, Skye said:

Wait this show still aired in the UK after its cancellation? I thought it got cancelled everywhere...

Nope, the UK got "blessed". We got it on Kix when Sonic SatAM and AoStH was airing on Pop! and while they were cancelled years ago, Underground managed to survive for at least seven extra years.

[pastelspectre]

I...am terribly sorry for you all. I have some of the episodes on DVD and I would be willing to rewatch the series for nostalgia, but looking back..it was awful. I think I only liked it because it was Sonic related lmao.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Just now, Skye said:

I...am terribly sorry for you all. I have some of the episodes on DVD and I would be willing to rewatch the series for nostalgia, but looking back..it was awful. I think I only liked it because it was Sonic related lmao.

I think that was pretty much me lol. The thing is I still get enjoyment in Sonic X or SatAM.

With this, I just don't. I think everything is legitimately terrible.

[pastelspectre]

It's okay, I was the same way. Also! Sonic X is actually really good if you watch it with English Subs and not the crappy 4kids dub where they censor everything. It actually has a good story and everything and..they make Cosmo's death way more dramatic and not just like "haha ok bye cosmo lmao".

[Big Panda]

20 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Nope, the UK got "blessed". We got it on Kix when Sonic SatAM and AoStH was airing on Pop! and while they were cancelled years ago, Underground managed to survive for at least seven extra years.

That's...now how I remember it happening at all. What I do remember is AoStH premiering on Pop and then SatAM premiering about a year later (with both shows being promoted as if they were two seasons of the same show or something). Then after a number of years Underground arrived on Pop and Kix and just gradually took over as the channels main Sonic-based show.

Also, "longest-running" makes it sound as if it's been getting rerun repeatedly in the UK in some form, which it hasn't.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Just now, Ernest-Panda said:

That's...now how I remember it happening at all. What I do remember is AoStH premiering on Pop and then SatAM premiering about a year later (with both shows being promoted as if they were two seasons of the same show or something). Then after a number of years Underground arrived on Pop and Kix and just gradually took over as the channels main Sonic-based show.

Well, my memory isn't the greatest, but I meant to say was there was a point where AoStH, SatAM, Underground, and X were all present. However, SatAM and Underground moved to Kix and SatAM IIRC didn't last very long. Underground remained on Pop at last nights on rare occasions, but Underground for whatever reason survived on Kix up til 2014 or 2015.

[Person]

Sonic Underground is certainly one of- if not the worst- piece of Sonic-related media, in my opinon. Basically, you summed it up perfectly, but I've always just wanted to elaborate on why it's the worst.

It isn't just because it's a bad show in general, I've always thought it was because it seemed like absolutely no care or effort went into it in any way. Put bluntly, DIC didn't give a damn, and Sega didn't give a damn.

Think about it:

Sega ALLOWED this, approved it during a time when they were trying so hard to re-vamp and unify Sonic's worldwide image and canon. Sonic Adventure, as mentioned, came out well over a year before this. Every effort was made to unify Sonic's story, characters, and designs throughout all regions. Even Archie Comics, I believe, was told that they had to start using these elements. So why not this show, which I imagine was in development at the exact same time? Because they didn't care.

And it's conflicting. You might be thinking: "Why should Sega have cared? The show's concept was doomed from the start." Good point, but really WHY shouldn't they have told DIC that they couldn't go the ludicrous route they did with this show? It's their IP, and they had every right to tell DIC what to do with their flagship character.

The biggest question I ever wondered about Underground was how it was possibly OK'd with:

• The absence of Sonic's sidekick Tails, and his replacement with two uninspired siblings.
• Giving Sonic the backstory of a prince whose also in a rock band with said siblings
• Keeping the (outdated) westernized designs and story elements when everyone else had to adopt the Adventure canon that was being pushed at the time. Like how in the hell did Sega pass up on the opportunity of a tie-in cartoon?
• Absolutely HORRID animation, even for TV. Sonic has never looked so bad, no matter that era or design of his you like most. Underground is simply the worst.

CONCLUSION

My guess is that Sonic X was also entering early development and Sega just let DIC run with it because their contract was expiring. Sega probably just wanted SOMETHING to tie into Sonic Adventure, and didn't care about what it was as long as Sonic was in it. Some fault lies with them, but we can't leave DIC out. They also obviously gave NO CARES about this show, and just threw together something they thought would be "cool" in the view of 1999's kids. They did not care about anything going on with the Sonic brand, except the 1/8 of SatAM's plot they kept.

__________________

Also, really, HOW WAS TAILS NOT HERE? Like Imagine this:

If DIC still had the Mario license at this time, during the N64 era- 

• Mario would still have a Brooklyn accent and his older color scheme. He is no longer a plumber, but the owner of a music shop.
• Bowser will still be here, still called King Koopa instead, and have the same design as the Mario 3 cartoon.
• Luigi and Princess Peach aren't here.
• Instead, Mario has two cousins- Maria and Marco. Maria wears a pink cap, Marco has an orange one.
• When they aren't selling instruments to totally unrelated gremlin townspeople, they play them and sing!
• Wario is finally introduced in a cartoon, but is colored wrong and has a pet rhino with sunglasses.

You can think what you want of something like Sonic Boom, both the games and the show. But no matter what, those still had actual effort put into them, Unlike Sonic Underground.

[MetalSkulkBane]

6 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

You guys might remember a topic by @Sami@Drawloverlala from a while back where he basically went over Sonic Adventure, and explained all of the reasons he loved the game

I don't, can I get a link?

Overall I can agree on around 95% of things (I actually like Sonic Underground intro song),  I just don't get why make topic about it. It's like writing book "Why Hitler was wrong". Not much to discuss.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

5 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

I don't, can I get a link?

Overall I can agree on around 95% of things (I actually like Sonic Underground intro song),  I just don't get why make topic about it. It's like writing book "Why Hitler was wrong". Not much to discuss.

Because I wanted to explain why I thought it was shit? Maybe I had something new to say that I hadn't seen before (such as comparsion to SatAM) and on top of that, to spice things up, I did go over my opinions of the other shows as well. That's like saying why make a review of something when someone else has already made a review of it. Considering how long a post I got out of it, yeah, kinda lot to discuss :U.

As for links, Sami's topic got removed during the SSMB board wipe IIRC, and Drawloverlala's designs should be on her art topic in Showcase.

[Lucid Dream]

I remember being a kid at the time when all the Sonic shows were being shown on British TV. I watched Sonic X, and kinda enjoyed it (I watched a lot of better kids shows though). I really liked the Adventure arcs. I was obsessed with Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 as a kid (not so much anymore), Sonic x did a nice adaptation of them. 

Sonic Underground was so godawful and full of cringe that I couldn't watch it. I physically could not watch it. It was too bad, waaay too bad. I would actually feel mortified if anybody saw me watching it. I watched a bit of SatAM but I mistook it for underground, and never finished watching it. Aosth wasn't interesting. Watched it a few times for Tails but it was too silly. 

I loved Sonic OVA so much I watched it 10 times over. I love it less now, but it's still great. 

[PC the Hedgehog]

I kinda liked Sonic Underground. I even find myself humming those cringeworthy songs on occasion. Say what you will, but some of those songs are really, really catchy, cheesy lyrics be darned.

[Spin Attaxx]

Hoo boy. As someone who watches Underground and goes mad with Ryan, I kinda have a history with the show. Being a young'un who mostly knew about Sonic via Ultimate Flash Sonic and Sonic X, I was intrigued when a show called "Sonic Underground" appeared on CITV one morning. Watching it (the episode was "Bug!", as an aside), I was confused. "Wait, who's this Manic guy? Where's he in X?" "Sonia? Where the hell is she in X?" "Who's this Robotnik they go on about? Do they mean Dr. Eggman? Wait, what the fuck happened to Eggman?!" "Oh my god, they use magic instruments? And there are songs?!" And so on.

Years ago, I thought it was pretty... novel, I guess in a "so bad it's good" way. Now though, it's just bad.

The overall plot, as Ryan pointed out, makes no sense. Why does Robotnik need the aristocracy if he supposedly controls the entire planet and turned everyone into slaves? Why are there communities and businesses around if he supposedly owns everything? As someone who's working on a game with a similar dystopian setting, this is a reminder of how not to go about portraying it. Individual plots range from meh to bleh, and almost all of them involve some form of idiocy, either on part of the heroes ("we could laser Robotnik here and end the war now, but nah, let's puff flour in his face!") or the villains (how is it that I associate this Robotnik more with incompetence than the AoStH incarnation who didn't even rule the planet?)

And I swear, there's no reason for Tiny Tiger's Reject Brother to shapeshift into whatever the Cookie Crisp wolf (I refuse to call those two by their real names) desires. That quirk's nowhere to be seen in the three part opener, there's no explanation for why he can do it or how it works, and it feels more like an excuse to have Grounder on the show, except... not really (didn't help that back when I somehow thought AoStH was a sequel to this, I thought Grounder's hammerspace do-whatever schtick meant he was TTRB after he was finally roboticised).

The songs... they're dreadful. I'll admit, there's one or two I might enjoy as the guiltiest of all pleasures, but the rest are awful. Not much more needs to be said.

The art direction is ill-suited for Sonic. Like SatAM, it feels like Sonic was awkwardly shoehorned into a cartoon that once had nothing to do with him, only now there's two DeviantArt recolours joining him. I have no idea why they decided to almost completely get rid of animals and instead have ugly, ill-fitting and bizarre bug aliens/mutant reject Goof Troop characters among the background cast. The design of roboticised people is inconsistent; why is it that most of them are cyborgs, and yet one of them becomes a full-on robot that looks nothing like what he once was? And I don't need to go into the animation issues, do I? (I wonder if this series has more errors than the first season of The Transformers.)

Overall, between the recycled backgrounds from SatAM and the weird tone of trying-to-be-SatAM-but-also-trying-to-be-AoStH makes me wonder if this show came around because of a clash of ideals and no-one deciding to pick one idea and stick with it. I mean, it's like they wanted to continue SatAM, but they also wanted to reboot it, but they also wanted to make it its own thing where it was Sonic fighting Robotnik in a rock band, but someone also wanted them to be part of royalty... And I never thought much of it at the time, but given the time period, it's weird this didn't have the Adventure style and didn't use, say, Tails and Amy instead of pallete swapped siblings. Wouldn't that be something? At least you wouldn't have one voice actor awkwardly voicing all three of them.

So yeah, Underground's pretty bad, easily the worst of the Sonic cartoons. But at least it actually ended unlike the Pokémon animé :U

[ShadowSJG]

Despite its flaws, there are a few things I do like about it. For example, I do like the character of Manic.

[CottonCandy]

You pretty much summarize my thoughts on the show. 

Underground is the only sonic cartoon that I haven't watched in its entirety because it's so awful. It's the worst out of all the sonic cartoons in my opinion. 

[Tara]

The thing that always baffles me about Underground is the kind of effort they put into it to reach its current threshold of quality.  Like, for example, the fact that all the characters have different VA's for the songs but to what end?  They still sound like nails on a chalkboard, so it makes me wonder why not just have Jaleel White sing all the songs just to save money?

There are good things to say about the series.  I think the actual plot setup had an interesting alternative premise to Sonic that had the potental to be interesting, and Sonia and Manic are not so much bad characters as much as just horribly done characters.  I read an interview with one of the people that worked on it that what made the other cartoons so good or watchable at least was that they sprinkled water from the Fountain of 90's on it, but only in moderation.  Unfortunately, with SatAM, AoSTH, Biker Mice From Mars, Power Rangers, and more all airing so quickly, by 1999, the fountain was starting to dry up and so DiC stole the fountain and used the remainng water all on Sonic Underground, creating an abominable monstrosity that was too 90's for its own good.

Oh and the animation and music sucked and things like that.  That may have also contributed to how bad it was.  Seriously, the show isn't very good.  Still a fun little show to break out and giggle at the more awkward moments, though.

Scale.

[FriendBot]

The best thing about Underground is this gif (and the intro theme)

God bless the trainwreck that is Sonic Underground.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

8 minutes ago, Soni said:

The best thing about Underground is this gif (and the intro theme)

God bless the trainwreck that is Sonic Underground.

Well keep in mind, according to Ren and Stimpy's creator, the people at DIC really didn't give a shit about animation as a whole. They literally thought animation was taking one frame, and placing it at a different angle or camera perspective. 

[FriendBot]

I have no idea what that means but if it's the reason why that gif exists, I love that mentality (in the most non genuine way)!

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Just now, Soni said:

I have no idea what that means but if it's the reason why that gif exists, I love that mentality (in the most non genuine way)!

I'm not 100% sure on it myself, but it was in interviews apparently. RebelTaxi goes more into detail with it in this video:

 

[Tara]

18 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

I'm not 100% sure on it myself, but it was in interviews apparently. RebelTaxi goes more into detail with it in this video:

 

I'd take that video with a pinch of salt, because some of the moments are pretty inaccurate, particularly those pertaining to Lauren Faust (who I feel they painted in a rather unflattering lght despite being a pretty beloved writer and animator).  I mean, the Bendy episode of Foster's is pretty terrible, but they went on to talk about the PPG episode "Equal Fights," and sort of abridged the plot to the point where the original message was misconstrued.  The episode is about the PPG acknowledging the faults of society, and in doing so get carried away, causing Ms. Keen, Ms. Bellum, and others have to show them that although those problems do exist, there are better ways to handle them than how they had been doing so.  Don't get me wrong, the episode does fail on pretty much every level to deliver the message it was tring to convey, just not in the way the video says.  As for the MLP episode, Feeling Pinkie Keen, while that episode did air during the one season on which Lauren Faust had worked, the episode was written by Dave Polsky, who I believe has also stated that the episode's message was sort of stripped down when exchanged back and forth between writers and executives.  But while it's unfortunate and has drawn its share of criticism, it's not anywhere near the woeful, regretful episode that the video says it is (largely because controversies within in the pony fandom tend to be about far more trivial subject matter than theological debates).

ANYWAY, that's getting off-topic.  The point I'm trying to make is that I'd take the video with a pinch of salt, and it doesn't really go into too much detail about DiC's working conditions, so I wouldn't really use it as a source.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

5 minutes ago, Tara said:

I'd take that video with a pinch of salt, because some of the moments are pretty inaccurate, particularly those pertaining to Lauren Faust (who I feel they painted in a rather unflattering lght despite being a pretty beloved writer and animator).  I mean, the Bendy episode of Foster's is pretty terrible, but they went on to talk about the PPG episode "Equal Fights," and sort of abridged the plot to the point where the original message was misconstrued.  The episode is about the PPG acknowledging the faults of society, and in doing so get carried away, causing Ms. Keen, Ms. Bellum, and others have to show them that although those problems do exist, there are better ways to handle them than how they had been doing so.  Don't get me wrong, the episode does fail on pretty much every level to deliver the message it was tring to convey, just not in the way the video says.  As for the MLP episode, Feeling Pinkie Keen, while that episode did air during the one season on which Lauren Faust had worked, the episode was written by Dave Polsky, who I believe has also stated that the episode's message was sort of stripped down when exchanged back and forth between writers and executives.  But while it's unfortunate and has drawn its share of criticism, it's not anywhere near the woeful, regretful episode that the video says it is (largely because controversies within in the pony fandom tend to be about far more trivial subject matter than theological debates).

Well, I don't know about MLP, but RebelTaxi IIRC shows a comment directly from Lauren Faust who says that Equal Fights was one of her biggest regrets alongside Bendy. But again, that's going off topic.

EDIT: Tara, he shows a screencap directly of the comment that was made about the creator's time at DIC :U

[Tara]

1 minute ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Well, I don't know about MLP, but RebelTaxi IIRC shows a comment directly from Lauren Faust who says that Equal Fights was one of her biggest regrets alongside Bendy. But again, that's going off topic.

I mean, they were, but in the case of the latter, they misrepresented it a little bit. (And I think the comment was supposed to be semi-joking in tone, not that she actually had fears of being on her death bed and being questioned about Bendy and Equal Fights.)

Anyway, back on topic. XD

[Ryannumber1gamer]

3 minutes ago, Tara said:

I mean, they were, but in the case of the latter, they misrepresented it a little bit. (And I think the comment was supposed to be semi-joking in tone, not that she actually had fears of being on her death bed and being questioned about Bendy and Equal Fights.)

Anyway, back on topic. XD

Since you missed my edit, he does show a screencap of the exact comment from Ren and Stimpy's creator at 14:50 of the video. But regardless, let's get back on topic and agree that Sonic Underground's animation just sucks, even compared to DIC standards.