It was 1995 in Minnesota, my dad was, and still is, an avid Donald Duck collector. Through connections with a Disney collectors club, he obtained invites to a meet and greet with the voices of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Wayne Allwine and Russi Taylor (also the voice of Ralph on The Simpsons). The event took place at an animation art gallery and it was a blast, Wayne and Russi shared stories of what life is like as Disney voice actors and we had the chance to look at hundreds of animation cells from TV and film. My eyes were drawn to The Simpsons cells, particularly a special edition Who Shot Mr. Burns? sericel (a cell not used in the show itself, but rather made in limited quantities for framing). While very awesome, these were also very expensive. My dad suggested I look in back at the lesser known shows. Instantly, Sonic the Hedgehog came to mind. They HAD to have it! SO I inquired and I was in luck, they had a good dozen cells available. They were, from what I remember, $50 each unframed. A very reasonable price! Unfortunately, I was twelve years old, and $50 is a fortune at that age. My dad, knowing my birthday was coming soon, asked what cells were my favorites and we returned to the party.
One month later my birthday had arrived, and so too did three oddly shaped presents. I opened them to reveal three of the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog cells that I had pointed out to my dad! While they weren't Sonic items that I could play with, but they hung on my bedroom wall with Hedgehog pride and were a great backdrop for my drawing desk. Let's take a look at them:
This first cell is my favorite of the bunch, a scene from "Robotnik's Rival" depicting the entire main cast of the show. Interesting to note: this particular frame never appeared in the show, as the characters are in poses from different moments of the scene. Take a look after the jump, the scene appears at 2:29.
This second cell is from the Sonic Says segment of the episode "The Robotnik Express". You'll notice that Tail's seems to be falling off the bench, the cell had slipped a bit within the frame. Nothing a quick visit to the framing store won't fix. You can check out the animated scene below:
The final cell is from an unknown episode. I've been watching through the AoStH DVDs with an eye out for this frame, but if any readers have an idea let me know.
I forgot to mention, the backgrounds are not original, they're color scans of the originals. The back of each cell has the authentication card which came with each cell.
While its been years since I hung these from a wall, this fall I plan on getting them back from my parent's house and hanging them in my work-in-progress computer and gaming room. My Milton Knight painting of Robotnik awaits them (props to Gagaman for his post that directed me to Milton's paintings).
Hope you enjoyed this rare look at Sonic animation art, I look forward to my future SEGA Memories posts! WELCO METOT HENEX TLEVEL
3 comments:
Oh wow, cels from the cartoon! That's awesome! :D
The last cel looks vaguely familiar but to be honest it could be from a lot of episodes as nothing really distinguishes it with the background being very much like most in the cartoon. He looks pretty off model with a big head there, I wonder if it was an inbetween to another pose?
Those cels are great! I'd love to collect animation art like that... I'm kinda stuck just reading about awesome stuff like this at the moment. Ah well.
I especially like the second cel, with Sonic and Tails, particularly that forest background (though that single crazy tree next Sonic just stands out a little too much..). Great stuff though, it's always nice to see some production art or cels.
The Third Animation Cel that's just, is actually from "Subterranean Sonic". In the cartoon, Tails is visible in the shot, in the animation cel you got, he's not there.
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