New Information on SegaWorld Sonic Puppet Show found!

[SonikkuForever]

Okay, so lately I've become absolutely fascinated with SegaWorld Sydney, that old theme park that Sega had from 1997 to 2000. I started scouring the internet for any and all media and information pertaining to it. However, I noticed that there was one aspect of the park that was almost forgotten - the Sonic-themed live show. We had the soundtrack rip, but no matter how hard I searched, I couldn't find any pictures or video of it at all. In fact, the very few people that had actually seen it barely even remembered what it was like! I searched and I searched, until Google finally found the website of Phillip Einfeld's Puppetoons, the company that made the puppets and sets for the show. There were a few pictures of the Sonic, Tails, and Robotnik puppets there, but I wanted to know more. So, I sent Phillip Einfeld an email asking him about the show. Two days later, I got this in response:

The Sonic the Hedgehog Puppet Show performed 3-4 half hour shows daily in Sega World Sydney throughout 1998-99.

It was performed on center stage, pretty much in the middle of Sega World next to the food court. People could dine at their tables while watching the show.

The show was designed, written, produced and performed by Phillip Einfeld Puppetoons. It involved 2 puppeteers and a live hostess.

Dr. Robotnik had devised a plan to finally defeat his arch enemy Sonic. He has concocted a robot making machine that would build the ultimate, evil, robot with every device needed to catch Sonic. With the help of his buddies Tails and Princess Sally, Sonic defeats the robot (Grounder) who turns out to be a bit slow physically and mentally. Robotnik blasts off back to his secret laboratory in anger and everyone lives happily ever after.

Originally, a show with dancers and costumed characters performed on the stage. The soundtrack you have heard is from that show. I think I may have the puppet show sound track in my files somewhere but it could take some time to find it.

When Sega decided to disband the original stage show, due to it not being very dynamic, late 1997, I was brought in to replace it with the puppetshow and some animatronic displays.

I redesigned the stage to represent planet Mobius, on either end were magic mountains, every 15mins except during show times, audio animatronic Sonic and Tails characters rose out of top of mountains and spoke to each other and audience, anouncing show times and upcoming events in Sega World. In center of stage stood the large, fully sculpted puppet theatre. Perched above the theatre was a big ,purple, animatronic bird that spoke to the audience. Above the stage was a large vid screen. Segments of the puppet show where filmed and appeared on the screen i.e when Robotnik blasts off in his space ship he is seen flying across a planet strewn sky above the audience (on the screen).

The puppets were large, muppet style creations, Sonic, Tails, Princess Sally, Dr. Robotnik and Grounder the Robot. A large 'Robot making Machine' prop was made along with special Sonic hats for children chosen from audience to wear. The show included much audience participation. I had 3 original songs recorded (I attached the lyrics).

I used all my own people for the voices (all approved by Sega) From memory I voiced Grounder, Dennis White voiced Dr.Robotnik, and Sonic, Tails and Sally were voiced by Alexis Nagy. The original music and songs were written and produced by myself and Mark Rosenberg.

Wow. That's a lot of never-before-seen info! Who would have guessed that there were two shows? Phillip was also kind enough to scan some old photos of the show and send them to me. Here's some of the best ones:

It's Sonic the puppet-hog! I think he's kinda cute...

Say hello, Tails! I think he's the best puppet in the show.

Wow, Robotnik-puppet is huge!

Everybody loves Sally! Although, she kind of reminds me of Tails Doll...

The show relied heavily on lucky audience participants like these. That poor kid with the guitar looks pretty confused.

And finally, my favorite picture of the lot, the Magic Mountains! These are animatronics that pop out of the mountains every now and then to do announcements. I LOL at

Tails' expression. And look at cute little peek-a-boo Sonic. He's just snooping as usual like some kind of Sega spy-robot.

That's all for now, folks! But there are song lyrics, concept art, and even more pictures in this zip file, which contains everything show-related that Einfeld sent me. A huge thank you to Philip Einfeld! Without his generosity, this show would have been forgotten.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Thats is quite possibly the most epic and most terrorfying thing I have ever seen in my life!

Whats wrong with Sally and Tails!?

It's amazing that he agreed to talk about that as much as he did, definately a great find to start 2011 off with... ... ya know I did an interview with Peter Richardson last year and nobody cared... Now I know what was missing. Zombie puppet tails!

Edit: I cannot stop laughing at the Grounder robot (it's in the file download).

Edited January 5, 2011 by Hogfather

[SonikkuForever]

I cannot stop laughing at the Grounder robot (it's in the file download).

Neither can I. When I need to cheer up, I just look at those pictures, and I'm smiling for the rest of the day. I find the magic mountain picture the most amusing, but Grounder's pretty funny, too. I think Tails is the most on-model of all the puppets (remember, he's supposed to look like AOSTH Tails).

[Indigo Rush]

Oh man. I lol'd. SO HARD.

[MizukiMoon]

Oh wow, nice find! I soo want that Sally puppet in my collection! even though I already have her in puppet form : ) I'd love to own all of 'em in fact! even though they creep me out a bit ^^

Edited January 5, 2011 by S o n i c

[Meemz]

Nah, a little Peek-a-boo Sonic! XD

This is really cool! Though the puppets scare me quite a bit. Especially Peek-a-boo Sonic, who does not look trustworthy...

[SonikkuForever]

Oh wow, nice find! I soo want that Sally puppet in my collection! even though I already have her in puppet form : ) I'd love to own all of 'em in fact! even though they creep me out a bit ^^

Phillip and I were actually discussing the possible fates of the puppets. He didn't know what happened to them since they became the property of SegaWorld. My theory is that they were put on the bidding block during a huge auction they had after the park closed, where they sold just about everything in the building. But, since I can't think of anyone back then who'd actually want the puppets, and because the bidders were primarily representatives from other theme parks, my best guess is that they went unsold and were thrown out. The animatronics were probably disassembled for parts. It's sad, but at least we have the pictures.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Before AAUK gets here, we need banners saying "Bring the SegaWorld Sydney puppets to SOS 2011!"

Actually, when I first saw those puppets, I thought I'd seen them befoe... Has anyone ever seen that old movie The Tommyknockers.

As for what happened to the puppets, my guess is that they're either destroyed or in some private puppet collection. Any Sonic collector would have shown these off years ago.

Edited January 5, 2011 by Hogfather

[Swiss]

The info and puppets are excellent. Some of the pictures had me in stitches, especially Grounder. He looks way too innocent to be a bad guy.

Robotnik's puppet is pretty good I think though, even if it is bloody scary.

[T-Bird]

Well that's me sleeping never ever again. Surely forged down in the 7th circle and hand crafted by Beelzebub himself.

Would there be any problem front paging this? I think a lot of people would love to see this.

T

[SonikkuForever]

Well that's me sleeping never ever again. Surely forged down in the 7th circle and hand crafted by Beelzebub himself.

Would there be any problem front paging this? I think a lot of people would love to see this.

T

[T-Bird]

No problem, share away! Just make sure everyone gets a good look at Grounder's puppet.

[Mick]

Whoa, I always wanted to see picture of the SegaWorld Puppet Show! You know what's scary scary... I kinda visioned it to look like that when I was imagining what it would look like. Now that I have truly seen it, oh my gosh... it's pretty terrifying!

[SchemingMinor]

Wow. That Robotnik puppet is indeed huge and may I say so, looks a lot better than the Robotnik plushes they released at Segaworld Australia. I wouldn't mind having something of that quality even today.

I wouldn't know whether to keep that pingas beast for myself or give it to Milton Knight.

I wonder where it is today?

[Solly]

Wow, it's like I'm getting an advanced-screening to my NIGHTMARE for the next five years.

Edited January 6, 2011 by The Soldier

[segasage]

sally is the worst, robotnick is the strangest, and tails is the best among the puppets. i woder if we will be told more about it later on?

[Blazey Firekitty]

My only real problem with the puppets is Sally's mouth. It looks far too mechanical and unnatural, somehow.

[Greg the Fancat]

My only real problem with the puppets is Sally's mouth. It looks far too mechanical and unnatural, somehow.

Her mouth? What about her HANDS? I know the Sonic characters have human hands (due to anthropomorphism) but for all that is right and Mobian.... BRRRR...

Seriously, her puppet is the oddity here. It's the creepy one. It just doesn't belong.

[Unholy Sonic]

*watches Sonic puppet* Nice!

*watches Tails Do- puppet* Cool look

*watches Robotnik puppet* hehehehe...

*watches Grounder* oh wow lol way too funny!

*watches Sally puppet* .... Ø_Ø ?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿? What is this I don't even!!

*watches the bir- clock* oh snap! that late already? I gotta go to bed now.

[PC the Hedgehog]

Most of those puppets are just plain creepy, but the Robotnik one is...actually REALLY good.

[Nattala]

I just noticed that the songs "Victory Finale" and "Buddies" are different songs than those heard on the Sonic Live in Sydney CD or any audio recording of the show I've heard so that probably means those its from a different version of the show. I wonder if there's any audio record of these songs of if they've just been lost to the sands of time....

[dirupti]

I had heard about this before. Searched for ages and couldn't find pictures, so thank you for showing us this. I bet these things would go for well over the £300 mark.

[Blazey Firekitty]

Her mouth? What about her HANDS? I know the Sonic characters have human hands (due to anthropomorphism) but for all that is right and Mobian.... BRRRR...

Seriously, her puppet is the oddity here. It's the creepy one. It just doesn't belong.

Come to think of it, she does seem to have bizarre monkey arms of death. ^^;

[SuperClassic]

Better not let some crazed fan get that Sally puppet, or else something else might be going up her hole.

[Badnik Mechanic]

BUMP!

So I wasn't sure whether to post this or not, but figured.... this is the closest we'll get at the moment until someone uploads something better.

I've been working on a new documentary/retrospective on the various Sonic stage shows that Sega have done over the years, so of course the Sega World Sydney stuff was in there. 

 

Well... When I was looking for Sega World Sydney footage I found some really interesting pieces of video. One of which I uploaded last night as part of a teaser for my project... At the time I thought 'Heh Sonic dancing, this is funny' so I slapped a bit of audio from the Sonic Live in Sydney show on top of it.

This is that teaser...

Then after I uploaded it I watched it on repeat a few times... and then I looked at the original source that the video came from found out the rough date it was filmed and went 'holy shit!'

*Dancing Sonic is at around 3:20

This is from a segment of a TV show called 'Healthy, Wealthy and Wise' A show which ran up until 1998. When did the show change to a puppet show? According to reports, after the 1997 season.

Meaning it's almost certain that this was filmed in 1997. The first year Sega World opened.

 

Now look at the move that the performer does, aside from some standing moves, he actually goes into what is called a Pique Turn (I had to do them during my Drama days)...

Check out this.

 

Now, this Sonic mascot, does pretty much what the Ballet dancer does. Watch the clip again.

1: The performer raises their arms.

2: They bend their arms slightly.

3: They cross their legs.

4: They turn using the momentum from the crossed leg.

But the key thing... the key thing they do which all dancers do which a lot of people who just 'spin' don't do...

5: They keep their head fixed until the last moment.

Point 5 is vital to performing multiple spins without getting dizzy, if you cannot do this, you'll loose your balance and fall over. That's why if you've ever spun around on the spot, after about 3 or 4 spins you feel really dizzy. But dancers do that head trick and they can do tons without feeling the effects.

if this were just any performer in the costume and had to do a spin, odds are they would not do that but the Sonic mascot does. Add up that to all the other movements the mascot does and compare it to the professional dancer.... Its the same bloody dance move!

 

This performer was a dancer from the dance show! This is part of the routine used in that show! What I bet happened is during the filming, the crew asked if the performer could do something interesting for some filler footage, so the performer did part of his dance routine from that show!