A group of passionate art and animation professionals have launched a Patreon campaign to try and finish telling one of the greatest Sonic stories never told – that of Sonic the Hedgehog’s Saturday AM (SatAM) long lost third season.
The project is being led by long-standing community group FUS (Fans United for SatAM), who have been supporting the DiC-produced 1990s cartoon show since the year 2000. The crowdfunding campaign aims to help provide the funds to realise the dream of producing the third season of SatAM, a story arc that was never explored by the original animation studio as the Sonic show was cancelled in favour of Power Rangers’ then-growing popularity.
As the end of the second (and final official) season of SatAM included a cliffhanger alluding to the reign of villain Naugus, it’s a ‘lost season’ that many fans have been eager to see come to life. It’s also a story that the late Ben Hurst, original show writer, attempted to make a reality several times in the last twenty years. The FUS team hopes to create a new animation that will honour the direction that Hurst originally intended for the season.
“As you might know, producing an animated show is a costly affair that requires months of constant labor and attention,” the show’s Patreon page writes. “The quality that we’re promising is more than what you see on YouTube as we’re treating this as a big budget television series that you’d see on Cartoon Network or Netflix.
“This means fluid animation, detailed backgrounds, professional voice talent, and a sweeping music score.”
At the moment, progress appears to be moving at a brisk pace, with pre-production on the proposed first episode nearly complete and the original composer of the 1990s SatAM show on board to create music for the project. Various pledge tiers offer rewards such as sneak peeks at storyboards, episode credits, personalised ‘thank you’ animated videos and even original character insertions.
https://youtu.be/K57VTbTXvdY
A pitch trailer has also been produced to promote the Patreon, which you can see above. It’s worth noting that the video does not represent the final quality of the animation or cast, but from what we’ve seen here it already is on its way to being something great.
If you want to help make the project a reality, you can visit the Patreon site and pledge to the project there.
SO stoked for this!
Oof. Best of luck to them, but even if they do manage to raise the millions of dollars this project would cost, I expect it’ll just be hit with a cease-and-desist from Sega or DiC. Super sketchy.
why do a season 3 to a cartoon to revive the nostalgia of the 30/40 years old who had the opportunity to watch his cartoons when he was little? I find it completely incoherent already that the franchise is not going well to spend more money for nothing …if SEGA validates the project, because children nowadays will not have the opportunity to see either season 1 in season 2 except if their parents are lucky enough to have it on DVD at home. even me, who is 24 years old, I did not know this cartoon on TV I watched it on YouTube so I would much prefer who makes us a season 3 to Sonic X to catch season 2 taking into account what had been told by the fans or so a season 3 to Sonic Boom that would still bebetter I still remember that he almost won a prize for one of the best cartoons
SatAM’s on Netflix.
Yeah in today’s world of digital integration, there’s so many ways to watch shows from 20-80 years ago, be it through legal or not-so-legal means. At this point the whole “it’s so old, how would kids even know about it” argument is kind of an ironically old and dead argument. That being said, whether enough people would be INTERESTED in it now as opposed to 20 years ago or not is worthy debate worth having.
As a fan who didn’t grow up in that era, I’m kind of on the fence. I think as a fan project, it’s worth pursuing and I am interested in seeing the creative talent that could be on display with something like this. On the other hand though, I kind of agree that it’s a bit of a niche nostalgia towards just ONE version of Classic Sonic (who is already a niche in himself) who I feel like we should have already moved on from a while ago.
Is it worth it? Is it not worth it? Guess it really depends on how the final product ends up. But for right now, I don’t think it’s harming anyone. My only concern is over whether SEGA and DIC will let this be or go all Nintendo over this innocent fan product of love. Hopefully they stay the course and don’t make a bigger deal out of it than they really should be.
“Original character insertions” And thats where ya messed up.
Inspired me to get more Jet x Sally comms.
A bit of an odd thing to put so much time and resources towards. I grew up with this show, and I loved it… had all the VHS’s I could manage to find at my young age…. but this is such an old thing to hold on to. Let it go.
You forgot to mention the part that this is originally an ongoing fan comic called Sea3on, hence why the animation project is called Sea3on Animated. They’re going to animate the plot from their comic. You can read it here: http://www.sonicsatam.com/sea3on/
Wow. Best of luck to them!