Sonic Christmas Blast
Remember that time Sonic the Hedgehog saved Christmas?
I freaking love Christmas, to an almost astonishing amount considering that I have absolutely no religious beliefs whatsoever. Many years I try to make my entire December as merry as possible, getting and decorating a Christmas tree, baking cookies, going to all of the city’s many holiday shopping villages, listening to Christmas carols and, of course, watching lots of Christmas movies and television holiday specials. From December 1st through the 26th (Christmas Aft, a very serious holiday in my family) it’s rare to pass by my TV and not see something celebrating the season playing.
And yet! This year I didn’t even get a tree until the 16th, am still playing my “Christmas 2022 Baybee!” Spotify playlist and haven’t set even one toe in a holiday village. Worst of all I waited until now, just a week before Christmas, to watch my first Christmas special. And the one I chose was, well, not the most traditional of choices.
Sonic Christmas Blast is a 1996 made-for-television special in the vein of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, a one-season animated series that originally ran in 1993 and then in syndication for a couple more years in the 90’s. I remember it mostly as a series on video tape that my family rented from local video stores. Weirdly enough, there was another animated series called just Sonic the Hedgehog that aired around a similar time, and as a kid I had a very hard time discerning which show I was renting when. This other show was incredibly serious and dark (or it seemed that way to a five year old) compared to Adventures’ more comedic tone1, and while the serious show was always my favorite as a kid, Adventures hijinks (particularly those of the dumb robot lackeys of Dr. Robotnik) delighted my brother and I to no end. We still sometimes get a song from one episode stuck in our head2.
In the special, Dr. Robotnik, Sonic’s arch nemesis, an evil scientist who is evil and very good at making robots, kidnaps Santa Claus and then replaces him with a robot. The robot announces that he is retiring, and leaving his successor, Robotniklaus, in charge of Christmas. When children go to meet Robotniklaus at the mall, they learn that instead of receiving presents from him for Christmas, they’re actually required to give him presents. Sonic gets involved after he realizes he needs to get his girlfriend Sally3 a great present this year, because of the awesome ring she got him the previous year despite him not getting her anything, and is shocked to learn that all the malls and stores in the city are completely out of stock after parents’ cleared the shelves to get Robotniklaus presents.
Well, Sonic saves Santa Claus, who reveals to him that the dope ring Sally got him last year is actually a magic ring, which could grant Sonic “extremely super” speed, which is good, because Sonic only runs at the speed of sound, which wouldn’t be enough to deliver all the presents on Christmas morning. Sonic has to overcome several challenges in order to be granted this even more special power. These challenges include things like riding a bike over a glacier as icebergs and mountains collapse on them. I mean, sure! He then uses his extreme super speed to steal the presents back from Robtonik and deliver them to the children of the world, after which Santa announces that he really is going to retire, leaving Sonic his true replacement.
I found out about the existence of this special several months ago while looking for obscure Christmas specials on Letterboxd to watch this year, though that was before I knew I wouldn’t be starting to watch any until the week before Christmas. It’s a very weird special (though, look, almost ALL Sonic stories are weird; this probably isn't even the weirdest episode of 90's Sonic), but it isn't like "whoa, so weird" in a fun way that's worth watching just to go "wait, what?" I probably would have liked it when I was a kid who loved Sonic cartoons, but it probably won’t make my list of things to watch at Christmastime in the future.
And yet! There’s something that does feel intrinsically Christmassy about Sonic. As far as I know, this is the only Christmas special that features the character, but when I was very young Sonic mostly existed as a cartoon character for me. We didn’t have a Sega system until the Dreamcast came out, but my cousins did, so visiting them on Christmas would often involve playing Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on the Genesis. One year we did get one of those plug and play game controllers from Santa that had that same game on it. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever played the first Sonic game!
One small aside before we go. Watching Sonic Christmas Blast reminded me how much I love Jaleel White in the role of Sonic. For my money, the best to ever voice him, though Ryan Drummond and Ben Schwartz have also given good performances in Sonic Adventure and the live-action movies, respectively. I’m actually sort of surprised they haven’t had him do at least a cameo in the movies (at Toronto Comic Con in 2019 he stated that he hadn’t been approached with an offer to be in the first movie), to the point where I’m wondering if they’re saving that ask for a larger role in the future. And look, we know Shadow the Hedgehog is going to appear in Sonic the Hedgehog 3. I’m just saying, they are worse choices for the role than Jaleel White.
Though hey, he’d make a great Metal Sonic, too.
And yet, the most memorable episode of the show, episode 2: “Tails’ New Home,” is incredibly heartbreaking, at least in my memories.
The song is from episode 55, aptly titled “Sonic’s Song.” Here’s a link to the song. We particularly found the line about Sonic loving chili dogs fun for some reason? It was a weird recurring bit for these shows that Sonic loves chili dogs, which became such an ingrained thing in Sonic lore that it’s even referenced in the new live-action movies.
The weirdest thing about this special is that it is very much a sequel to Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog in tone and animations style, but that Sally never appears in that show, but is a lead in the more serious Sonic the Hedgehog, in which she’s a princess leading a resistance against Robotnik after he overthrows her kingdom. So this is I guess something of a series finale for both shows.