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SATAM vs AOSTH


Eternal EX

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Sorry... I snorted tea out of my nose at that XD; I'm not sure if you're aware, but in the UK 'fanny' has a rather. .. different meaning. OH GOD THE IMAGES.

Essentially, only females have fannies over here. So yeah... funny stuff, Indigo.

I've recently gone about watching some SatAM episodes. I didn't like it as a Sonic TV show at all. Just couldn't feel it was Sonic or anything. I' need to watch some AOSTH to compare them, but if the other two early Sonic shows are anything to go by then it'll be just as bad. As awful as X was, it's the only 'Sonic' cartoon out there. The others may well be good cartoons, but certainly not good Sonic cartoons.

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I prefer AoStH to SatAM, both becuase now and when they were first on the air. I never saw much appeal to SatAM.

This.

AOSTH focused on the Sonic-Tails//Eggman dynamic, with funny and without convoluted characterizations. The slapstick humour and the funny colourful settings which didn't make a lot of sense was what made Sonic, Sonic. That's what I wanted to see. Side characters (though I loved the Scratch / Grounder / Coconuts) remained as so, and even if you didn't like one, they weren't shoved down your throat. Win win situations in every aspect. Some of AOSTH jokes are terrible to hear now, but I still like to see it every now and then. I had some little kids visit and I put the dvds for them to see. They had a good time, so yeah, the show even holds itself to today's standards, at least for kid's shows.

SatAM was anything but. As some have said, it was pretentious and had no reason to be so. I have a huge problem with the dull forest and the kingdom crap, something pulled out from god knows where. Robotnik was... terrible. The drama wasn't even good either, not even back then let alone now.

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I always enjoyed Aosth alot more growing up. I still watched Satam and liked it simple because it was Sonic but it was on less often, had less episodes and less screen time of Sonic just being... well, Sonic. Most plots felt like excuses to drag the extra characters along to do stuff that Sonic could have handled himself and overall felt less like an adaptation and more like green peace cartoon with Sonic elements tossed in to boost viewership.

Besides serving as the FF's spiky blue mach-1 transport vehicle nothing Sonic does plot wise couldn't have been done with some furry fu and clever gadgets. Power rings only serve to to give Sonic a steroid boost, Tails is even more pointless, and Ro'butt'nik's design is the only thing he had vaguely in common with his game counter part. Except for the original games' cast I didn't like most of the characters; Sally kept Sonic from just being cool and added an unnecessary romantic subplot, Rooter will never top professor Von Schwehmer, Antoine was just *sigh* ...Antoine, and Bunnie had that ear screeching Southern Belle accent while also fueling my robot phobia. The only character I actually liked was Dulcy because she was the only new character with interesting abilities and reminded me of a Aosth character. So much so that it seemed like was designed for Aosth and then written into Season 2 of Satam at the last minute to appeal to a younger audience.

Aosth despite it's simple animation and stories, only focused on the core elements of the games(Sonic, Tails, Eggman, his robots, and the twisted interpretation of Earth) without slowing Sonic down with boring new main characters and awkwardly translated games elements. This made it the more accessible show and the better compliment to the games since it created less continuity discrepancies between the two.

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Late, but.

What are you talking about? Sonic's personality was one of the defining features of the franchise. blink.gif It was Sonic's personality and its derived popularity that directly led to the dozens of copycat "Animal with attitude" platformers that swamped shelves all the way through 1996.

Other than being impatient and having attitude there wasn't much to him. That is to say that there wasn't near as much of a guideline for his behavior as there is in the games today, thus I think Sonic's campy 90's goodness in SatAM is quite fun and far more interesting than his game self because of it.

People have a right to their opinions, but I still adore SatAM, and, personally, it will always be my favorite continuity.

As for the darkness...it was dark, but not overly so. All things considered, the characters (the good ones anyway) were mostly lighthearted.

Edited by Mega
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None of the shows were particularly good. AoStH belonged to the wave of neo-"golden age of American animation" cartoons (that is, cartoons that tried to emulate the wacky style of 1930's-1950's cartoons like Looney Tunes and Tom & Jerry and such) that were popular in the first half of the 90's. But unlike many of it's counterparts, like Tiny Toons or Ren & Stimpy, it just wasn't cleverly written, and didn't have much appeal to any audience over 14. SatAM on the other hand, belonged to the new wave of "darker" action cartoons brought about by Batman: The Animated Series. But, much like AoStH failed to be as good as certain contemporary cartoons of a similar kind due to bad scripting, so did SatAM.

And for that matter, Sonic X was pretty dumb, dull and unengaging for an anime. I never watched Underground, but i can't imagine it could be much better than SatAM. So basically, Sonic have never had a really good TV series.

I feel like such a crank saying this, but it's just how i feel. -_-

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AoStH belonged to the wave of neo-"golden age of American animation" cartoons (that is, cartoons that tried to emulate the wacky style of 1930's-1950's cartoons like Looney Tunes and Tom & Jerry and such) that were popular in the first half of the 90's. But unlike many of it's counterparts, like Tiny Toons or Ren & Stimpy, it just wasn't cleverly written, and didn't have much appeal to any audience over 14.

This. I think its kind of hypocritical to accuse SatAM of being a pretencious series while putting AoStH on a higher pedistool when AoStH could be accused of the same thing only in on the opposite extreme. I think they both had potential to be good cartoons, had problems here and there that prevented them from being as good as they could've been.

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Essentially, only females have fannies over here. So yeah... funny stuff, Indigo.

I... uhm. Oops. It means "butt" in the United States.

...I think I'm gonna cry.

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This. I think its kind of hypocritical to accuse SatAM of being a pretencious series while putting AoStH on a higher pedistool when AoStH could be accused of the same thing only in on the opposite extreme.

Not really, because the concept of an "opposite extreme" to what SatAM was doesn't really exist.

Pretentious:

  • Marked by an unwarranted claim to importance or distinction

For something to be pretentious in the opposite way of what SatAM was, it would have to have been presented as something mindless and entertaining and then proceed to try to deal with completely unfunny and serious topics. Off the top of my head, the only thing I can even think of that is close to such a definition is the "OMG Miscarriage" story that CTRL-ALT-DEL pulled a few years ago. And AoStH never did anything like that.

AoStH was a kid-friendly Loony Tunes-styled romp where Sonic and Tails went on wacky adventures about PINGAS. The show didn't claim to have depth or complexity or particularly clever writing or anything of the sort; and was even drawn in a way that what you see was what you were getting. It can't be labeled pretentious under any actual definition of the word just because it didn't deliver on those things. Yeah, it was shallow, but it was supposed to be.

SatAM, on the other hand, was a show presented as dark, complex and "adult" in overall theme; and then proceeded to actually have shallow plot structure, kid-friendly writing, a complete lack of character development for most of the characters and marketing-friendly creative decisions.

Edited by Tornado
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You aren't getting the distinction. SatAM tried to be serious and complex and presented itself as such but really wasn't. AoStH tried to be silly and straightforward and presented itself as such and actually was.

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I think it just really depends on what you like better..... seemingly unending comedy with some crazy plot to catch a hedgehog who uses random disguises or action adventure with the usual bit of romance from Sonic and Sally.

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AoStH tried to be silly and straightforward and presented itself as such and actually was.

No, AoStH was a show that tried to present itself as something that could successfully take from once popular cartoons like Looney Toons in an attempt to be FUNNY. Funny as in:

fun

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Despite your failed attempt to look clever, you have shown that you still seem to be stuck on the point that AoStH wasn't written very well rather than showing an understanding of what something being pretentious actually means. I understand that AoStH wasn't going to win any awards for its writing. That doesn't make it pretentious, that makes it poorly written. And as I've never heard any claims flying around that AoStH was supposed to be the pinnacle of comedy entertainment, the fact that it was poorly written doesn't mean anything. It was supposed to be dumb, silly and fun. In its execution, it was, more-or-less.

I've already explained what it would have had to be for it to be pretentious in the way you said, and AoStH wasn't that by any stretch of the imagination. Nor was it pretentious in the way that a lot of comedy ends up being (billing itself as mature or adult and then just being body humour with obscenities thrown in), as it wasn't geared towards adult audiences in the first place.

It was also annoying how some characters would be written inconsistantly from time to time just to get a cheap joke in.

Welcome to nearly every children's cartoon ever created.

Edited by Tornado
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Despite your failed attempt to look clever, you have shown that you still seem to be stuck on the point that AoStH wasn't written very well rather than showing an understanding of what something being pretentious actually means.

Mmm. Lets take a look at your definition of pretentious again.

Marked by an unwarranted claim to importance or distinction

Now lets look at some other definitions curtesy of dictionary.com

1) Claiming or demanding a position of distinction or merit, especially when unjustified.

2) Making or marked by an extravagant outward show; ostentatious. See Synonyms at showy.

pre⋅ten⋅tiou

Use pretentious in a Sentence

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Can't we just agree to disagree? SatAM isn't for everyone, but neither is AoStH, and people who like one over the other are just as good as those who like the opposite.

My attachment to SatAM is also in part because I only KNEW about SatAM until years after it was canceled. I never even had a proper video game console until about first grade or kindergarten, so all I knew were cartoons. As such, SatAM was my first impression. That, and even if it's not the greatest cartoon, I enjoy it and can rewatch episodes any time and still be entertained. AoStH is just...too cracky for me personally. But I can see how others would like it.

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Can't we just agree to disagree? SatAM isn't for everyone, but neither is AoStH, and people who like one over the other are just as good as those who like the opposite.

This debate really isn't even about the quality of each show, I don't think. I think Sonic X is pretentious as well, but I still recognize it as better as Sonic Underground, which was much more straightforward about what it was.

Its pretentious because it claimed to be something, yet failed to do what it was intended to because it didn't put in enough effort.

Here's the crux of the matter: You have yet to understand that it didn't fail what it was intended to do because what it intended to do doesn't seem to be what you keep saying it was. Where do you keep getting that the show was intended to be something other than the marketing food that it was? What claim did the show make that was unjustified? You haven't really even said what it actually failed to deliver on that makes it pretentious.

AoStH was a mindless, low quality slapstick show intended to appeal to kids around and under 10 years old and sell toys/games/consoles. That is all it was and all it was ever intended to be. That is clear based on the timeslot, the writing, and even the animation quality. For better or for worse, it was executed, written and produced in a way that fit that purpose to the letter; with all of the problems that doing so caused. Ergo, the final product of AoStH was exactly what it was supposed to be and claimed to be from the start. Is it bad because of it? Probably. Hell, I likely wouldn't like AoStH at all if it wasn't for Dr. Rrrrrooobotnik.

But my point is that something can not be pretentious if what it delivers is exactly what it promised. That's not even a subjective statement, that is what the very definition of the word claims. AoStH promised mindless entertainment for little kids. That is what it delivered.

Edited by Tornado
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I wouldn't say SatAM didn't have its low spots, but I felt that it had its high spots at times as well. Stuff like Sonic crying over Uncle Chuck and Sally gently encouraging him not to lose hope, or Antoine genuinely being able to bail Sonic out of a tight spot.

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Here's the crux of the matter: You have yet to understand that it didn't fail what it was intended to do because what it intended to do doesn't seem to be what you keep saying it was

It was intended to be funny. You're just in denial about what it was intended to do. Yes it was intended to market Sonic but it was supposed to do so through comedy. That's like me saying "OMG SatAM was intended to market Sonic so you saying it was pretentious about the darkness and depth isn't true." If ripping off now cliche'd methods of generating humor ('specially Looney Tunes) wasn't an indication it was trying to be a comical show, heaven help you.

AoStH was a mindless, low quality slapstick show intended to appeal to kids around and under 10 years old and sell toys/games/consoles. That

I don't think ANYONE goes to work on something and says "hey let's actually TRY to make it suck." It's low quality because of it's reliance on cliche's and an overall lack of effort. You say it was slapstick but that reinforces you know it's intended to be funny, when it wasn't. Therefore AoStH is also "pretentious." Quite frankly, I don't even think SatAM was even tryiing to be that deep. Maybe a lot of the SatAM fans argue it IS, but I don't think it was trying to parade itself as such in the slightest.

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For me, I loved the two shows pretty much equally for different reasons but generally my opinions were influenced by the appearances of Tails. This is one reason I couldn't stand Underground, due to lack of Tailsness. AoStH was filled with Tails and he was also really freakin' cute so I loved the show automatically. SatAM, however, gave Tails a bit more character, but he appeared less frequently. What saved SatAM when comparing it to AoStH was that there were a greater number of appealing characters with a lot more depth to them. AoStH had Tails and the awesome Baldry Robotnik, but SatAM had Sally, Bunnie, Chuck, Rotor, Tails and a really fuckin' cool Robotnik. Hell, even Sonic was less obnoxious (I confess I never liked Sonic much, except for one T-Shirt I bought from a charity shop back when I was 10, that had classic Sonic on it and it ruled). I watch the two shows now and then for different purposes and to suit different moods, so personally it doesn't really make much sense to compare them competetively.

If I really had to choose a fave though it would be AoStH, since there was more of it, I have more memories attached to it and it was the first Sonic show I saw XP.

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I've recently gone about watching some SatAM episodes. I didn't like it as a Sonic TV show at all. Just couldn't feel it was Sonic or anything. I' need to watch some AOSTH to compare them, but if the other two early Sonic shows are anything to go by then it'll be just as bad. As awful as X was, it's the only 'Sonic' cartoon out there. The others may well be good cartoons, but certainly not good Sonic cartoons.

No.

Seriously. How can you even call X a true Sonic show? Rather, SatAM was more Sonic than X ever was. X focused on that bland, uninspired, generic family of the Thorndikes. If anything, it was an anime with Sonic's face slapped onto it. SatAM and Adventures? Sonic was the MAIN focus. He was the show. And his friends helped him emphasize that point (Robotnik especially).

-----

As for SatAM versus AoStH..... Please. Both shows were excellent in their own right. But if you ask for the one that had more thought put into it and actually did a magnificient job and expanding the Sonic universe, it was SatAM. SatAM was an overall better show from the animation all the way down to the storytelling. As for Adventures.... This show was pretty awesome. The humor was actually pretty funny, it was fun and inviting, and overall just a silly cartoon. Quite a cool show. As it is, that was my ultimately favorite show back in the 90s (Hey! I was five back then! Back in 1999 that is...). Plus, the relationship with Sonic and Tails as adoptive brothers certainly helps Advenutres in being an overall lovable cartoon.

But I still go with SatAM. If you are looking for momentous encounters, brilliant good versus evil storytelling, and an interesting show, then you really can't go wrong with SatAM. Sure, the amount of color is a tad depressing and Robotnik's evil is made quite prominent, but you still have a great show there.

Edited by GREG THE CAT
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I never watched Underground, but i can't imagine it could be much better than SatAM.

You haven't? Good, I suggest you keep it that way. It's painful to watch. I hate SatAM, but I'd rather watch that for a whole day than one episode of Sonic Underground.

I think what really did it for me was that when I was a child I liked it. Way back when in the 90s, however when I saw it again years later... it was just so bad. I couldn't make it through the episode, let alone the crappy singing. Just do something for yourself and NEVER WATCH IT.

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Wait, if you hate SatAM, why is Sally your avatar? :blink: Not being snarky, just curious.^^;;

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Wait, if you hate SatAM, why is Sally your avatar? :blink: Not being snarky, just curious.^^;;

Quite. Maybe she likes the comics instead?

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