What Is This?
Sonic And....PRINCESS SALLY ??????

Ever wonder what a cartoon goes through BEFORE it hits the airwaves? Well thanks to Sarah "Samanfur" Rose we can finally take a look at what MIGHT HAVE BEEN...

Princess Sally - What On Earth Did You Do To Your Hair ???

Years ago, before Sonic SatAM premiered in England, these pictures showed up in "Sonic The Comic" advertising and telling kids to watch for the new Sonic cartoon to come soon! What would come to be known to England fans as "The Mystery cartoon" and not known to few Sonic fans in America, serves as a glimpse at what might have been in the series, before drastic changes were made in both style (and possibly substance) of the cartoon. Ladies And Gentlemen: Meet The Freedom Team...

  

The Freedom Team
The Freeom Fighters Of Planet Mobius???

The team includes Johnny Lightfoot (rabbit), Tux (penguin), Princess Acorn (presumably a squirrel, but she doesn't look like it), Sonic, Joe Sushi (walrus), Chirps (chicken), Porker Lewis (pig), and Flicky (bird). Tails isn't pictured, which suggests that this concept art might have been made before Sonic 2 was released.

These characters are obviously based on the animals that Sonic rescues in his first game. Even their names are the same as the ones that Sega of America and Sega of Europe used for the animals (except that the squirrel was called Sally Acorn, not Princess Acorn or Princess Sally).

It's probably a safe assumption that Sally, Bunnie, and Rotor developed from Princess Acorn, Johnny Lightfoot, and Joe Sushi. Well, maybe developed is the wrong word. These guys are like the antitheses of their SatAM counterparts. It's as if someone told the SatAM staff to turn them into their polar opposites. Similarly, this Porker Lewis is nothing like the version in Fleetway's Sonic the Comic.

  

Robotnik
The Menace Of Doctor Ivo Robotnik

This Robotnik has not been eating his Wheaties. Maybe they were trying to suggest strange lighting, but he has a white moustache, green tongue, and black fingernails. His head is just like in SatAM, but his suit looks a lot closer to the one worn by Eggman in the games.

This conveyor belt roboticizer is totally different from the cartoon version, which was a glass capsule.

Also featured is a character who doesn't have a corresponding animal in the games. Was this a regular character or just a random anthromorph thrown in for this picture? This is pure unsubstantiated conjecture, but I wonder if this canine might be the predecessor of Antoine.