It wasn't the most intelligent show in the world, but it didn't try to be, or make any pretence about being so. The music was synthesised, the backgrounds were cheap and stylised, and the character models and animation quality were classic Saturday morning fare.
The plots weren't exactly taxing and the humour wasn't exactly subtle. In fact, both were downright lowest common denominator at times. My father wouldn't let me watch it if he was in the room, because he disliked the level of loud noises and the complete lack of substance.
As a Tails fan, watching Tails be transformed into a portable rent-a-hostage - and a four year old to boot - was rather galling.
But at least, in that department, the series got one thing right: he was a tech whizz. You didn't need to be able to read or write to cook up scientific or mechanical marvels at short notice, and he not infrequently did.
Don't laugh, but I used to keep a tally, classing each episode according to whether Tails was presented overwhelmingly as the portable victim/gullible idiot, did something outstanding/helpful or didn't sway in either direction.
All three lists were fairly expansive, but at least the list of positive episodes didn't consist of only three or four, or have episodes where Sonic's alleged sidekick and best friend was barely more than a background extra or only seen in the opening credits. Which is more than can be said for SatAM.
All in all, I'd say that 'AoStH' was probably the series that got closest to the games as we knew them back then: the adventures were picaresque, with the occasional recurring characters but no completely overarching plot; the story lines weren't overly deep; Mobius *ducks hail of missiles from SegaSonic purists* even had the occasional human other than Robotnik, but you weren't beaten over the head with it.
People try to knock it down, but it was never trying to be SatAM or 'SX'. It was there for cheap laughs, and it did what it did pretty well.
The plots weren't exactly taxing and the humour wasn't exactly subtle. In fact, both were downright lowest common denominator at times. My father wouldn't let me watch it if he was in the room, because he disliked the level of loud noises and the complete lack of substance.
As a Tails fan, watching Tails be transformed into a portable rent-a-hostage - and a four year old to boot - was rather galling.
But at least, in that department, the series got one thing right: he was a tech whizz. You didn't need to be able to read or write to cook up scientific or mechanical marvels at short notice, and he not infrequently did.
Don't laugh, but I used to keep a tally, classing each episode according to whether Tails was presented overwhelmingly as the portable victim/gullible idiot, did something outstanding/helpful or didn't sway in either direction.
All three lists were fairly expansive, but at least the list of positive episodes didn't consist of only three or four, or have episodes where Sonic's alleged sidekick and best friend was barely more than a background extra or only seen in the opening credits. Which is more than can be said for SatAM.
All in all, I'd say that 'AoStH' was probably the series that got closest to the games as we knew them back then: the adventures were picaresque, with the occasional recurring characters but no completely overarching plot; the story lines weren't overly deep; Mobius *ducks hail of missiles from SegaSonic purists* even had the occasional human other than Robotnik, but you weren't beaten over the head with it.
People try to knock it down, but it was never trying to be SatAM or 'SX'. It was there for cheap laughs, and it did what it did pretty well.