Last month I talked a bit about kids'
involvement in the big cocktail party of pop-culture. So, for this
month, I decided I would review one of the chats around the hors
d'oeuvre table I was involved in as a kid, namely, The Adventures
of Sonic the Hedgehog.
Thanks
to YouTube, I was able to find the first two episodes of this beloved
childhood memory and watch them again, this time not as a child
playing Sonic 2 on the family television on Saturday
afternoon, but as an adult who was glad to get a copy of Sonic
Spinball for Christmas.
In case you are unaware, Sonic the
Hedgehog is a blue, spiky headed human being (in the sense of a union
of body and soul; he talks, he has feelings, free will, etc.) who
bears a very passing resemblance
to a spiny
mammal of the subfamily Erinaceinae.
He
first appeared in a video game for the Sega Genesis in which he ran
very fast and attempted to save woodland animals from a maniacal
scientist named Dr. Robotnik, who seemed to be using these animals
as the central processing unites for his army of robots, which looked
like other animals.
It's
the TV show we're here to discuss, however, and at first the show
seems pretty straight forward. The cynical view is that this was a
pretty shameless cash-grab along the lines of Transformers, Care
Bears, G.I. Joe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Mighty Max (the
last two were airing around the same time as Sonic). They were shows
that got kids excited about toys and games, so they would get their parents to buy those
toys and games.
A
further bit of evidence in favor of this bitter, pessimistic theory1
is that the show seems to be largely a rip-off of Bugs Bunny Loony
Toons (Sonic even sounds a bit like Bugs) with some heavy handed
moralizing thrown in. (Bugs Bunny did not concern himself with morals.
Bugs Bunny may be a sociopath).
Ok,
so there's the cynical view, and it's worth considering, but tuck it
away for further consideration on your own because we're moving on!
This
show has several interesting features. First, it's as abstract as a
dream. The locations are almost Dali-esque (I'm reminded of Ren and
Stimpy), and they contain what gives the barest
sense of context, or is directly related to something that Sonic
intends to do or has to deal with. The things in these locations are
also merely props that either have symbolic meaning, or manifest the
intention of one of the characters. Things will even appear out of
nowhere for this purpose.
Secondly,
the character of Sonic is the central (and almost only) thing to
focus on in the show. Everything orbits around him. Everything is
there for him to use, for him to act upon, for him to respond to. If
a thing doesn't serve this purpose, it isn't there.
And
what is Sonic's character? He isn't just a short, blue Bugs Bunny.
The qualities he shares with Bugs are bravado, cleverness, and
competence. He's forever getting ahead of and outsmarting his
enemies. But, the qualities that set him apart are his childishness and
vulnerability. Sonic outwits his enemies, but he does it with a
little kid's “Look at me mom!” attitude. And occasionally, he
gets scared.
I
suspect this is why I pretended to be Sonic the Hedgehog, but I
didn't pretend to be Bugs Bunny. The writers of The
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog
made a character that a certain group of kids could relate to, but
that also had characteristics those same kids wished they had and
aspired to.
It's
interesting to reflect on how much this was intensified by the fact
that Sonic was a character in a video game, so that the kids who
pretended to be Sonic while running around outside with their friends
could then go inside and control how he ran and jumped and defeated
the evil Robotnik on
the same TV screen
where he'd seen Sonic doing the same things that Saturday morning.
Even
the “PSAs” at the end of each episode (called “Sonic Says”)
contribute to this desire to emulate this character. The little
morals at the end of Saturday morning cartoons have become a kind of
joke (“Wheel of morality turn, turn, turn. Tell us the lesson that we should learn.”) But, if you think about it, it was in these
ending bits that Sonic told you,
the kid watching the show, the kid who wanted to be him, how you
could
be like him. Sonic wouldn't call 911 unless it was a real emergency.
Sonic would share his lunch so that everyone could have a better
time. So, I'll act that way.
Now,
of course, the question is whether the people who made this show.
That is, the people who walked up to 6 year old me and said, “Hey
kid...” knew what they we're talking about, and whether the
qualities that same 6 year old me
wanted
to have were worth
having. Some of them were, I'm sure. But, I know myself well enough
to say that not
all
of them were a good idea.2
______________________________________________________________________________
1
Not that this means I think the bitter pessimists are wrong about
the cash-grabbing mind you.
2 Like
when Sonic decives his pursuers into running off a cliff. I might
have been a little too enamored of that idea.
Tweet
No comments:
Post a Comment