The Sonic toy that cannot smell or walk anymore.

The broken Sonic toy theme continues! You can use that as a metaphor for the demise of the Sonic franchise if you want to jump on the already over flowing band wagon of Internet hatred. Me? I couldn't give a toss, to be honest.

So far this year the boot sales have been pretty shite, rummaging through piles of the same old rubbish just to find anything remotely interesting, even a Mega Drive game that isn't football or something, but last week I did find this tragic looking Sonic toy sitting in a box full of other beaten up old toy for 40p.

It's one of those bendy limb type things, only this one has clearly seen better days. For starters as you can plainly see he has lost his nose. Maybe he took a whiff of [insert recent Sonic game here] and it fell off! Oh ho! Witty!

He also has a broken leg (those wires they stick in these things are pretty fragile). Maybe that's why [insert game mechanic from recent Sonic game you don't like here] was in [insert recent Sonic game here]! Will people read this blog more if I slag off Sonic some more?

It's a good thing I already have one of these then isn't it? Here's the one that's been sitting in the loft for years, and while this one also has a broken leg, it hasn't been occasionally fed to a dog.

Looking at it from the front you would think this Sonic is lacking a head of spikes too, but here they are at the back, rather small and blunt to please the health and safety goons. You gotta love his huge happy eyes though, which are actually aligned for once rather than having one eye a lot bigger than the other making him look a bit deformed.

The cutest Sonic clothes you'll ever see.

Awwww! Look at this widdle suit! You probably can't tell from the photo but this is tiny. It's sitting in the loft within my collection, and apparently there was matching tie that went with it which I cannot find. When I was a lil' kid I wore this once or twice at family parties. No, you're not seeing any photos.

It's by Marks & Spencers, like a lot of the old British Sonic clothes were. It's that same texture as that nice tie I've got that sort of glistens in the light, which is generally quite difficult to take good photos of. It's smothered in images of Sonic and little illustrated renditions of the green hill zone, which feature chunky white rings for some reason.

I'd imagine these rarely come up anymore so I thought I'd give it a show off. To be honest I think the only reason we kept it is because it was one of the more expensive pieces of Sonic clothing from back then. Obviosuly I didn't keep all the Sonic clothes I wore! I do remember having a jacket covered in sweet Sonic patches (different to those adult size ones I have), that when it didn't fir anymore, my nan stitched them onto a new bigger jacket. Bless!

A photo of the Sonic chess set

Speaking of Gaya Entertainment's line of classic Sonic stuff, they have more than just concept art for the chess set now, with this photo above (click to enlarge). They seem respectable enough molds and bonus points for using the old design of Amy Rose, but I still think it would have been 10 times better if the other side of pieces consisted of Robotnik, Metal Sonic and a bunch of badniks. The rings kind of look like those cheap ring shaped crisps you'd get from Happy Shopper at School lunch time.

So the First4Figures toys are still on the way..?

Here's evidence that those fantastic First4Figures toys may still be on the way from the Sega Europe flickr, of erm...a broken one. Under the photo they've put:

"Models are to look pretty on a shelf - not to played with - especially early models! Rescued from the sheepish SOE office vandals, they've been given some lego instead."

So there you go. I think play.com canceled my pre-orders months ago, but oh well.

Gaya promises more classic Sonic stuff

Now don't get me wrong, all these announcements for classic style Sonic merchandise in the last year or so is great, but it would be nice if some of it would actually get released. Still, German company Gaya Entertainment, who not too long ago announced a Sonic chess set, have released some more concept art this time of squeeze toys and some key chains, which are the squeeze toys with chains stabbed into them, though they are said to cost less so maybe they're a bit smaller. Unlike the chess set that had Amy Rose as the forth character featured, these include a nice Robotnik design, much like that Robotnik plush toy we were promised but never got! Bah!

Source: Sega Portal

from Pixels of Plastic takes a look at Sonic toys

Now this is rather neat. A video series about video game action figures and toys has done a feature on Sonic, and it's a longer episode than they normally do. They show off later figures from when Sonic Adventure came out right up to the present day with that recent werehog toy, followed by the American comic books (presented by a guy in a mexian wrestling mask for some reason), plush toys, a lump of sonic shaped cardboard, that sweet 15th Anniversary staue I've got (which they got for $2? WHAT.), and tons of other stuff. Take note it's a good half and hour long, though. Awkward silences between sentences ahoy!

The Adventures of Sonic Cartoon Pilot in full!

Speaking of Milton Knight, who I obtained that brilliant painting of Robotnik from recently, just this week he has provided a youtuber with the pilot episode, which we previously saw chunks of, and of which some scenes were inserted into an episode of the actual series. Being a pilot that was made to sell the cartoon idea to the execs, there is no music and a lot of dialog missing, but what you will see is some truly stunning animation unlike the final product, due to this being produced in-house in America rather than outsourced to Asia. That and the animators are none other than Milton Knight and Ed Love, who's animation carer goes all the way back to the 1930's at Disney. A (almost) complete credits list is featured in the video's description.

Other things you may notice are that one scene was used as the credits sequence in the series, Robotnik is voiced by Jim Cummings instead of Long John Baldry, and there are a lot more nods to the games, such as a scene set in Green/Emerald Hill zone complete with the iconic loop and Robotnik's ball and chain weapon. Oh, and the shot at 0:27 was recreated on the continue screen of Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine. There's even a Sonic Says scene at the end, which shows that that idea was there from the beginning. It's a real joy to watch, and it's just a shame the whole series couldn't look this good.

Retro Gamer Magazine Mag Cameo!

Well isn't this a pleasant surprise! The latest issue of Retro Gamer Magazine features a article about the Mega CD, and in the little section of web links Sega Memories gets a mention and a screencap! Fantastic! If anyone is walking in onto this blog from reading it up in the magazine say hello! :)

Robotnik Painting by Milton Knight

(Copy and paste from my personal blog, because it's relevant here too)

Well lookie here what showed up in the post today! A painting of Dr.Robotnik by Milton Knight that I purchased from him just last week! I bought a frame for it and it's currently sitting proud above my computer. He had three different pieces of art for sale on his website although I'm not sure if the other two are still available. Either way it's my first piece of original artwork by a professional animator (one who I've talked about on here many times before, mainly for his work on the 90's Sonic cartoon) so I'm happy. Oh yeah, and i contributed a little bit to his Robotnik Toy Chest page. :)

Here's a clip of the man sketching out a quick Robotnik for an extra on the American Sonic DVD. Look how expressive his drawing is in such a quick sketch!