How well known is Sonic X among those that were kids in the 00's?

[batson]

I'm legitimately asking. I got the impression during the shows era that it was a rather big deal among kids at the time. Not like, among the biggest things on the planet or anything, like not up there with Pokémon and Spongebob, but pretty big. Like, more popular than most random kids cartoons airing at the time eat least. I was a teenager back then and while I of course was personally was interested in the show due to being a Sonic fan, other people my age didn't care about the show. Because why should they, it was a kids show after all. So that's why I'm asking those of you who were actually children back then; was Sonic X something more than just a run of the mill kids show among your age group?

Of course the boring answer is "some kids were into it and some kids were not" and like, yeah, obviously that's the case. But every generation of kids since the television was invented has had some shows that were big in the sense that you could almost count on most kids at the time (at least if they were of a certain gender) being either a fan of the show or at least very much aware of the show. Like how EVERYONE of my generation remembers Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to the point where it is litterally impossible for me to imagine anyone growing up within the western cultural sphere during the early 90's and not knowing about it. Same thing with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

And I know that Sonic X was never on the scale of TMNT or Power Rangers during their respective heydays, but again, I always got the feeling that it was bigger than a lot of other concurrent kids shows.

Another way to ask the question would be this; If you belong to the generation that were kids in the 00's, and you strike up a casual conversation with someone the same age as you today about the kids shows of your childhood and you mention Sonic X, can you count on them remembering the show or is it possible that they've forgotten about it's existance entirely?

[Cayenne]

I don't remember when Sonic X was aired here in Brazil, but, at least from my experience, I feel it was well-known, but still not as popular as Sonic SatAM in the 90s. It was broadcasted by Fox Kids on Cable TV and the biggest open TV channel in the country, Rede Globo. If i'm not mistaken, Globo used to air the episodes at noon, which was a awful time for many kids from public schools who didn't study at morning. 

One of the memories that I still have about Sonic X is discussing some episodes with my friends from school and laughing about how Shadow's name was literally translated to portuguese as "Sombra" when everyone else still had their english names.

[MetalSkulkBane]

Ironically this is a question for non-Sonic fans. Because DUH, I happened to watch that show. How else would I get here?

IDK, Sonic is a pretty niche in Poland (as far as I know), the only other Sonic fan I know is my twin.

EDIT: Wait, how could I forget? Poland had Ogórki. And less knows Apluś.

What does it say about his popularity? More or less?

[batson]

1 hour ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

IDK, Sonic is pretty niche in Poland (as far as I know), only other Sonic fan I know is my twin.

I'm pretty sure Sonic was at least big in Poland back in the Mega Drive days. I do know for a fact that Sonic was big in Eastern Europe just like here in Western Europe, but I can't be sure about one specific country. Of course by the 00's the big Sonic craze was over in the entire world.

[Muglés]

Most of the friends I had got into Sonic X because I had them watch it (I was keeping up with it online when it was announced in early 2003). When the dub came out, the main issue is it aired on Saturday mornings on a cartoon block so you'd have to be in the right time and place to see it. For what it's worth, my friends at the time ranged from 8-13 and everyone I showed the show to loved it a lot. A few years later after Sonic X was on the air for a while in about 2006/2007, more Sonic fans I met had already liked Sonic X.

I guess it was popular with kids who were into gaming and stumbled upon it while channel surfing, but most casual cartoon watchers I knew tended to tune into Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, or Disney Channel. Not UPN for 2 hours from 7-9 AM for one day of the week. The ONLY friends I had who were familiar with FoxBox prior to me telling them about it were the ones without cable channels.

[batson]

5 hours ago, Muglés said:

Most of the friends I had got into Sonic X because I had them watch it (I was keeping up with it online when it was announced in early 2003). When the dub came out, the main issue is it aired on Saturday mornings on a cartoon block so you'd have to be in the right time and place to see it. For what it's worth, my friends at the time ranged from 8-13 and everyone I showed the show to loved it a lot. A few years later after Sonic X was on the air for a while in about 2006/2007, more Sonic fans I met had already liked Sonic X.

I guess it was popular with kids who were into gaming and stumbled upon it while channel surfing, but most casual cartoon watchers I knew tended to tune into Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, or Disney Channel. Not UPN for 2 hours from 7-9 AM for one day of the week. The ONLY friends I had who were familiar with FoxBox prior to me telling them about it were the ones without cable channels.

I see. So the era where more kids watched cartoons on designated kids channels on cable than on regular channels was already established by then, at least in the United States. I'm honestly not sure whether that was the case here in Sweden at the time. It definitely became the case here around the early 2010's, but I'm not sure if it had happened already by the time Sonic X made it's original airings. I can safely say that when I was a kid in the 90's, cable was seen as a luxury item here in Sweden and the overwhelming majority of people did not have it. Don't get me wrong, the economy was good (other than a few rough years early in in the decade) and living standards were some of the highest in the world, so it wasn't really that people couldn't aford cable, but more like it was simply seen as an unnecessary luxury expense. As a result of this, I grew up in a society where the overwhelming majority of the population watched the same six channels, so any kids show aired on any of those were bound to get good exposure.

Honestly, it's faschinating that any individual kids shows manages to become truly huge these days considering the enormous amount of offerings that todays children have. There are tons of channels and every streaming service have their own kids shows that doesn't appear on any of the others, and also kids shows in general have to compete against Youtube content and other things online. I have noticed that it's rare for a kids show these days to become the sort of absolute monster success that something like He-man, Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, Pokémon or Spongebob were back in their days, but some of them at least comes pretty close. Paw Patrol for instance. And as much as older fans hate to admit it, maybe even Teen Titans Go can be counted into that category. At least Cartoon Network seem to think so as they've essentially turned their channel into the "Teen Titans Go Channel" just like Nickelodeon became the "Spongebob Squarepants Channel" years ago.

[jungle_penguins]

So, while not on par with the TMNT a few decades ago, Sonic X in the United States might as well be considered the last bastion of non cable Saturday morning cartoons with how constant it was on air every weekend in that block. It didn't have the merch to back it up but 4Kids made good use of the show. That's how the 3rd season came to be really, which is a rarity.

[batson]

On 6/10/2022 at 5:51 PM, jungle_penguins said:

So, while not on par with the TMNT a few decades ago, Sonic X in the United States might as well be considered the last bastion of non cable Saturday morning cartoons with how constant it was on air every weekend in that block. It didn't have the merch to back it up but 4Kids made good use of the show. That's how the 3rd season came to be really, which is a rarity.

It's true that Sonic X was never a mechandising juggernaught like Spongebob or anything, but I do remember that as far as Sonic merchandise in general went at the time it tended to nearly always be based on Sonic X and not the franchise in general. I remember when Burger King or McDonalds (forget which one) sold some kind of spinning disk thingys (I think something along the lines of Beyblade but lamer) that were based on Sonic X. I remember how a long time Sonic fan on an old message board was kinda butthurt over those being based on Sonic X and not just Sonic in general, and complained that things such as those were "merchandise based on merchandise" as Sonic X itself could be seen as a advertisement of the games.

[jungle_penguins]

5 hours ago, batson said:

It's true that Sonic X was never a mechandising juggernaught like Spongebob or anything, but I do remember that as far as Sonic merchandise in general went at the time it tended to nearly always be based on Sonic X and not the franchise in general. I remember when Burger King or McDonalds (forget which one) sold some kind of spinning disk thingys (I think something along the lines of Beyblade but lamer) that were based on Sonic X. I remember how a long time Sonic fan on an old message board was kinda butthurt over those being based on Sonic X and not just Sonic in general, and complained that things such as those were "merchandise based on merchandise" as Sonic X itself could be seen as a advertisement of the games.

That's an interesting complaint from a fan, personally I never saw much but I didn't even know Sonic merch was a thing until a decade ago.

[Muglés]

16 hours ago, jungle_penguins said:

That's an interesting complaint from a fan, personally I never saw much but I didn't even know Sonic merch was a thing until a decade ago.

Sonic merch today is much more prevalent. Back when Sonic X was initially airing it was incredibly difficult to find anything, at least in the early 2000s. I remember only being able to get Sonic Adventure figures at Toys R Us up until 2001 (but not beyond that), and t-shirts weren't even a thing until Hot Topic began to stock them in late 2004. Sonic X's first merch in the United States were repackaged Sonic Adventure figures from Toy Island and those didn't come out until about late summer 2004, which was an entire year after Sonic X began airing here. It wasn't until about 2006 when more original merchandise was made for it.

 

Now you can walk into any typical department store like Target and find Sonic clothes, action figures, plush dolls, bags, etc... It's crazy how much has changed.