A Look Back At The 1991 SEGASonic The Hedgehog Plushes!

the history of Sonic the Hedgehog plushies is long and complicated Sonic is a character who's gone through many changes and re-imaginings in his time and as such we've seen countless different types of Sonic plushies some are classic some are modern some can pose some are floppy some are huge some are small some are really well done and some not so much but with so much variation and evolution in the sonic plush scene and the franchise as a whole it can sometimes be easy to forget where it all started and it started with these in 1991 to promote the release of the original Sonic the Hedgehog in Japan this set of flushes were released in UFO catchers say hello to the first ever commercially available set of Sonic plushies the 1991 Sega Sonic the Hedgehog plush set this set includes sonic Eggman as well as three animal buddies flicky Pesci and Pocky this set is no worthy for not only being the first ever plush set released for the franchise but also for how well simple it is this set was created when nothing but the first game existed in fact considering merchandise is often developed alongside the products they're advertising it's very possible that Sonic 1 wasn't even completed when this set was being worked on chances are this set was made before the world of Sonic was fully realized back in the days of Madonna is the Tokyo Toy Show demo the Sonic Band yeah we're going all the way back today this set represents the Sonic series at its purest form and it's about time we give it the attention it deserves welcome to a look back at the Sega Sonic the Hedgehog plush set [Music] you during the 90s a majority of the sonic products released in Japan were under the Sega Sonic the Hedgehog brand as opposed to just Sonic I'll get more into this later but this set is where it all started Sega sonic plushies would continue to be released for the remainder of the 90s and many sets came out since the Sonic series was relatively primitive back then the plush designers had to get creative we got Sega sonic plush sets based off summer ones based off Christmas we got a set of the characters holding baskets we got this incredible sports set that gave us one of the best Sonic plushies of all time basketball Eggman and many more the second Sonic brand is a very interesting part of Sonic merchandise history for how different and out there it was compared to what we know today and this set was where it all started this set is actually a bit more complex than you may expect what you're looking at here is actually just one of the three releases of this set the first release was in July of 1991 with five plushies that set was then re-released in early 1992 with the plush is all being slightly revised and then finally this version of the set was released in late 1992 and would be available for a few years each release of the set contains slightly different versions of the plushies here's a comparison between some of the 1991 and 1992 plushies for some of them such as Eggman and the animal buddies the patterns are almost the same but when you compare them you'll notice that the 1992 set is much larger than the original release among other differences I'll get into later for Sonic however he got a complete makeover in the 1991 release he was this cute stringy boy before being replaced by two differently posed significantly less sturdy boys in later releases however there was actually a revised version of stringy sonic presumably coming out before the post ones this one is of slightly lower quality than the original and has big clock in plastic shoes instead of simplified felt ones that all means that there are technically 12 different plushies in this set in my collection I have these three from the original release as well as the entirety of the 1992 set let's take a look at them how does this set hold up all these decades later are they still worth looking for after so many Sonic plushies have come out I'll be going over all of this and more in this video so let's begin [Music] everything must start from somewhere and with Sonic plushies it all started with this this sonic plush dubbed stringy sonic by fans certainly makes a good first impression he's referred to as such due to his arms and legs being made of this stringy rope-like material likely used to replicate the unique art style of Mayo to Oshima Sonic's original designer it really captures that noodle and looks Sonic is often known to have and it makes this plush unlike anything else out there this so-called stringy boy is very unique he's small he's basic but he's one of a kind to be honest I actually didn't care too much for this set before I got them but once I had stringy Sonic in my hands I just couldn't say no if there's one word I'd use to describe this set it'd be simplistic don't get me wrong the plushies don't feel cheap but they're certainly very minimalistic look at the sonic spikes for example they're made of felt as are a majority of socks details sonic does correctly have six head spikes and but they're flat despite this they still capture the look very well especially from the front it's pretty remarkable this plush looks as good as it does as this was made very early on in the series so references for stuff like how sonic should look in 3d couldn't have been plentiful if any existed at all with the limited assets they had the plush designers still managed to create plushies that not only capture the character as well but hold up to this day nowadays licensees get these extensive style guides with tons of 2d and 3d material to reference which makes creating merchandise much easier but at this point Sonic was just thought up if they obviously didn't have any huge guides on the series made yet if you want an example of what the plush makers likely had to go off of while designing these if there's this older artwork style guide called the Sonic the Hedgehog material collection which was distributed internally prior to the completion of Sonic 1 it gives a very rough outline of how Sega won in the Sonic series to be marketed in Japan there's a lot of fantastic stuff in this guide it has multiple pages of artwork of Sonic as well as some art of the animal buddies Eggman and even some badniks most of the artwork here isn't finalized and some of it was never repurposed outside of this guide so there's a ton of rarely seen art in here a lot of this is just fascinating to look at nowadays my absolute favorite page of the guide has to be this one page 28 there's what seems to be concept artwork of a sonic mascot costume along with the famous inspirational quote from the Japanese sonic one box art which was basically Sonic's motto back in the early days don't just sit there and waste your precious time when you want to do something do it right away do it when you can it's the only way to live a life without regrets Sega sonic merchandise actually use this quote a lot which I'm all for everyone in the sonic tote bag with that quote on it well that exists if that's not good enough for you try this this is an officially licensed Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog lighter which naturally has part of the quote from the sonic CD Japanese box art on it to live a life of power you must have a faith that what you believe is right even if others tell you you are wrong I mean sure yeah that's fitting enough for a lighter anyway where were we oh yeah string boy the spikes are far from the only part of this guy made of felt his hand shoes ears even his eyes are made of the stuff with different layers of felt making up a majority of his details stuff like his hands being felt has its benefits as he has fully detailed fingers something that would be lost on most plushies with stuffed hands though they are still flat that's technically not very accurate but it goes well with the style of the plush his shoes are the only part of this plush where details are obviously missing they're flat as well but they don't have the white strap let alone the buckle that's fine though as it definitely adds to the plushies charm as for his face the whites of his eyes are a thick piece that's wrapped around his head with his eyes themselves being layered on top of that his ears are similarly built up as well however they're attached in a way that makes them tilt slightly downwards which is unfortunate if the only real issue I have with this plush using felt is that over time some of the pieces can start splitting as the glue holding them together deteriorates well mine is actually in great condition you can still see the glue holding the pieces together and it's only a matter of time before it becomes very hard to find one of these guys in good condition and simply due to how frail they may become I've seen plenty of these missing pieces like a look at this sonic who's missing his nose poor guy has of right now mine is still holding up very well and you can still definitely find one in good condition his nose sort of feels like a pompom ball and his mouth is stitched his mouth is also centered something very few Sonic plushies can pull off due to that nature of his design sonic always looks better with his mouths to the side but I think it works here this plush has many interesting quirks to it like that considering how early it is Sonic's appearance wasn't fully refined by the time the plush was designed and as such he isn't too accurate to the sock we'd end up getting well some of these may be artistic liberties stuff like him having only one backs show us how early on this plush was designed the same can be seen on this jumbo Sega sonic plush which while technically part of this set going off of the tag at least was never included as part of this sets assortment which is why I'm not covering it too heavily here I've talked about this guy before but basically he's a scaled-up more fully realized stringy sonic sharing a lot of his design quirks he's a very good early sonic plush with plenty of aspects that make him stand out anyway the most interesting part of this plush is of course his namesakes his arms and legs they're made of string a very unique design choice I don't know why they decided to do them like this but it's a great design choice and totally makes him stand out there it's stretchy but are made of a high quality material all of the plushies in the set come with gold hang strings as is common with UFO catcher plushies they also came with this paper tag which features unique artwork made specifically for this set it's not accident interesting pose I wonder if his arms being curved like this was in reference to the loose fluid look of the string yarns later Sega sonic plush sets would mostly feature very generic tags so it's great to see something unique for the first set this tag is so stylish I love the shapes in the background the Super Sonic text to the side which was added purely for Flair it's a great representation of the time-tested formula of just doing whatever as long as it looks cool which Sonic especially in the 90s did so well there's one thing about the 1991 sets tags that's pretty interesting do you see it hey that doesn't say Sega's Sonic at all it just says Sonic the Hedgehog what gives well the Sega Sonic branding wasn't actually introduced until late 1991 to early 1992 so the original set has a standard Sonic branded tag that makes you wonder though why did they change the branding why did they even use the Sega sonic name in the first place it was used on nearly every Sonic product released in Japan in the 90s not just the plushies it's likely there were people in Japan that thought this guy's name was Sega's Sonic it's a very odd naming convention we don't see Nintendo Mario or Disney Mickey do we well first off Sega sonic could just be seen as a cool way to advertise both the character and the company but there is more to it than most realize allow me to explain in this segment I'd like to call that wacky time Sega of Japan just sort of lost the ability to brand their mascot stuff as Sonic that's right if you thought Sega losing the register the lyrics of a song called Sonic you can do anything was you're in for a treat it had been long speculated that the Sega sonic name was actually introduced out of legal concerns not because the name was totally hip and cool this was actually pretty much confirmed in the 2014 book the untold history of Japanese game developers vol 3 in which Manabu Kusunoki a designer on the sega sonic arcade game discussed the matter let's discuss your next game Sega Sonic the Hedgehog from 1993 the title was originally in development as Sonic the Hedgehog but during development Sega lost the sonic trademark we were afraid we wouldn't be able to use the sonic title so we added the Sega part and that's how we ended up with Sega Sonic after that I believe they cleared up the trademark dispute and that's why only the arcade version ended up as Sega's Sonic but that's just my conjecture wait Sega didn't own the Sonic the Hedgehog trademark I don't really know the details they certainly own it now but at the time there was some dispute involving the sonic part and out of an abundance of caution we changed the title if that was the situation we were dealing with at the time so there you have it Sonic was rebranded as Sega sonic in Japan to avoid legal troubles but what was this trademark dispute and who was it with well an article on MV shock calm reveals it was with Taito and their game Sonic blast man that game was released in 1990 before Sonic the Hedgehog came out Sega first trademarked the name Sonic the Hedgehog on December 7th 1990 and they applied for it in relation to basically any product imaginable given how Sonic was to be their mascot but then only three days later Taito filed for the trademark of Sonic blast man which was issued in relation to arcade games likely done in response to Sega's new trademark most likely to avoid any legal issues the Sega sonic trademark was applied for on December 11th 1991 after Sonic 1 had already been released this was in relation to products and arcade games while Sega would continue to use the standard stock name in Japan on retail video games Sonic blast man was an arcade game so it's sharing a similar name as was Tytos a parent protective nature towards the name is most likely why Sonic was renamed a Sega sonic for most products in Japan this all makes sense as the only games that would use the name war arcade games along with that the plushies using the branding as well also makes sense as they could only be found in UFO catchers which were found in arcades everything else that used Sega sonic name probably did so to keep brand consistency God all that alright well we're not quite done with the lore about these plushies just yet these plushies were only available in UFO catchers but not just any ordinary UFO catcher along with the introduction of this set a Sega sonic UFO machine was released the machine is decked out in Sonic 1 artwork and style it even shares some art with the plush sets tag this was the Machine intended to hold the Sega Sonic plushies though actually nowadays you can still find some in operation where arcade stock them with generic plushies apart from the sonic Flair it's a pretty standard UFO catcher however not only did the machine look at the sonic part it sounded it too that's right you know how some claw machines play music while you play like how every machine made in the 2000 seemingly plays Vanga boys we like to party well unfortunately this machine doesn't play that classic it instead plays music from Sonic 1 it even plays the main theme when dropping the claw anyway how can you go about finding one of these guys nowadays well most of the plushies I'll be looking at today go for fairly cheap considering their age stringy sonic is the one that really holds is worth makes sense given he's not only one of the first Sonic plushies put a very unique as well I've seen these go for around 50 to $100 on us eBay but they go for far less on Japanese auction sites I got mine in lots with other plushies from the set which were much cheaper with more plushies so his price can differ heavily however stringy Sonic's release was much more limited compared to the other plushies in the set all of the other plushies were re-released many times especially the set with the two posts Sonic's will be looking at soon that set was available from 1992 to at least 1994 so I imagine a ton of them were made stringy sonic was only released in 1991 and then again with the slightly altered plush in 1992 after that he was replaced by the more common standard Sonic's [Music] sonic 1 introduced very few characters but along with Sonic Eggman was introduced as the series main villain and with him being such an important character he got a plush in this set while this plush doesn't have stringy limbs the simplistic design of this set carries through here's the original 1991 Eggman plush the first plush of egg man ever made now he's a very small boy which is surprising for Eggman but even at this scale if they got most of his details correct he's got his round body separated properly his cape is made of nicely cut felt as are his buttons those buttons are also yellow and not white as they'd later be portrayed to be his face is probably my favorite part of this plush Eggman was always shown to be an absolute goofy boy in the Japanese art work and this plush perfectly shows that with his giant eyes mustache and toothy grin this plush absolutely nails the sonic one look of Eggman you've heard of stringy Sonic now get ready for flat arms and legs Eggman hmm yeah this said really cut costs where they could huh it's no matter they still look fine it definitely can look strange from certain angles though since they're flat they can also easily get damaged or bent so be careful of that his hands are nearly identical to Sonic's so they look good if anything in this plush certainly captures the wackiness of Eggman and what more doesn't need really well the stringy sonic can be pretty tricky to find for a good price Eggman goes for considerably less you can find this guy for around 20 to 30 bucks if you look hard enough and at that price he's definitely worth it [Music] you know people are always requesting that companies make more merchandise of certain Sonic characters ones that rarely get anything made of them there are just certain fan favorite Sonic characters that to this day never get any love from merchandise designers but you know who did you know who did get plushies made of them the iconic characters of lucky pecky and Pocky of course see back in Sonic one of the only real main characters we had were Sonic and Eggman so to fill up the set with more eye-catching characters they made plushies of some of the animal buddies sonic rescues in the game this was such a great idea and I'm so glad we got these guys when we had the chance now it is with all the sonic characters there are companies would never think to make a plush of a character like pecky which I know is a foolish mistake but at least we got these guys when we could have if the three animal buddies we got here are flicky Pocky and pecky unfortunately the likes of picky Ricky and not even cookie got plushies in this set and never would however rocky the seal animal buddy you all know him would actually get a plush later down the line this one from the 1994 Sega sonic carnival plush set maybe I'll cover that set some other time but the three we did get in this original set are awesome and just like Sonic and Eggman they're very simple in their designs but are super effective in that simplicity well I don't have the original releases of flicker Pocky I do have the pecky oh look at the other two later when I talk about the 1992 set so what do I even need to say about pecky I mean he's got a very simple design so they captured everything one would want on a pecky plush well not to get too deep into pecky lore but this would not be the only plush of the character we'd get of course we have the 1992 ones I'll talk about later but we also have this one this one comes from the Sega sonic basket holder said so if your lifelong desire is for a pecky plush to hold your pencils or something and there you go honestly it's hard to believe the Sonic series is as unpopular in Japan as it is when characters like pecky have been there from the start I mean come on look at him this is definitely a favorite from the set fortunately for all you fans of these classic characters these plushies have never gone for too much I usually see them go for 20 to 30 dollars each I guess since the animal buddies aren't that popular in general compared to other sonic character plushies at least these have never had much demand to them while stringy Sonic is of course my favorite from the set these guys are great I could really care less for the animal buddies in game but I do really like their design and what these plushies represent here like I said this said really the Sonic series at its purest form I mean it's the Sonic 1 plush set so of course it'd be that but these animal buddies really drive that point home a few months after that original set came out they were all replaced with this new set released sometime in early 1992 these releases don't just have a different tag which now features the Sega Sonic branding they're actually technically different plushies if their patterns are very similar but they all have slight tweaks stringy Sonic is the one that had the least changed about Emma he's now overall slightly lower quality in terms of materials used and general feel his limbs while still very much stringy are thicker and made of a less shiny material one lesser-known but very much appreciated inclusion on this string Sonic is that his hands have velcro on them uh yeah so you can stick them together it's completely pointless but that's awesome the biggest difference though are his shoes gone are the red pieces of felt now he's got these giant clacking shoes I'd be all for this if not for the fact that wow these could totally fall off at any moment large plastic shoes attached to a thin piece of string with only glue glue that's decades old yeah sounds like a recipe for a bunch of shoeless sonic plushies to me something interesting to note about these releases is that they were produced in China sound standard right well if the 1991 releases were actually manufactured in Korea that's not something you see every day maybe that explains the lower quality of the later sets as for the other plushies they're all mostly the same just a little larger if in 1991 plushies especially the animal buddies are really small and cute but these 1992 ones are much bigger just compare the original pecky to the re-release pecky lookin like pecky generations over here here's a look at flicky and Pocky the other animal buddies in this set these are the 1992 ones but the originals are basically the same just smaller if they both capture the very complicated looks of flicky and Pocky well I'd say flicky looks the best the face looks great with all of the felt details the plastic eyes on these animal buddies are a great touch as well if these are a great addition to the set and I totally recommend getting them [Music] sometime after that first 1992 set came out the set was re-released one more time this time replacing our beloved stringy boy with these slightly less appealing but still very good duo of sonic plushies the egg man and animal buddies remain the same from what I can tell but these Sonic's are completely new plushies one sonic is in his trademark finger waving pose while the other is sitting comparing these two stringy sonic they definitely lost a lot of charm when replacing stringy boy I get why they did it though by this point socks design must have been fully established so they could more accurately create a three-dimensional plush of em and didn't have to do stuff like using felt for his spikes the faces on these guys are well first off their eyes are made of this rubbery material which it looks good and is very smooth but as you can see on these sega sonic plushies can come off very easily these plushies definitely did not have future proofing in mind if there's still nice Sonic plushies though and get recognition for being some of the first truly accurate plushies of the character if they aren't accurate in every way though like what's going on with his mouth in my opinion you should never design sonic with a centered mouth but what you absolutely should never do is give him a mouth that stretches from each side of his muzzle it works but looks sort of unnatural and honestly kind of creepy could you imagine this mouth opening he'd look like a puppet they'd look much cuter and more appealing with a side mouth or even one like stringy Sonic's now a stringy sonic has a lot of demand so he sells for a lot but these ones are much easier to get they should only run you around like Eggman and the animal buddy is 20 to 30 dollars these later releases of the plushies being so much cheaper is mostly due to how long they were in production if they were introduced in 1992 but could still be found in UFO catcher order magazines as late as 1994 UFO sets are made and ordered in bulk so each case of these would include dozens of each character combine that with multiple years of production and you've got yourself some common plushies that's a good thing though as you can own these pieces of Sonic history without breaking the bank so we've gone over every standard plush release in this set however sega released some variants to spice up the line before introducing new plushies is the best variants that came out in my opinion are these if they're really put in that Christmas Island sonic history to the test with these Santa's Sega's Sonic plushies both of the 1992 Sonic plushies were re-released in this holiday outfit most likely coming out in holiday night money to criminally they never made a Santa stringy Sonic which is too bad because that would have been amazing but these are still good too I have the one of him waving his finger the plush itself is the same they just added stuff on to it to make him dressed up as Santa this includes a Santa hat of course a giant bag of presents and a big red bowtie holiday themed plushies are some of my favorites as they're really unique and not something you see often these aren't the only Christmas themed Sonic plushies that have come out though if there was actually a second Christmas themed Sega sonic plush set which includes legendary plushies like tails in a stocking Santa Eggman and a sonic reef that's not even although as there's also the Christmas joy palo sonic plushies this guy is great and it's nice to see them take the existing plush patterns and do something cool with them this is a variant that's justified and is creative enough to stand out from the original plush that uh really can't be said it for the next set of variants so get this someone over at the plush development team at Sega must have been like yeah those Sega saw plushies are nice and all but why don't we you know put them on carts and thus the Sega Sonic Cart plush set was made well the Santa Sonic plushies transformed the original plushies into something new and exciting these are literally just the original plushies just glued on a pipe frame carts which I'm sure was in no way inspired by Mario Kart or these Takara Mario Kart plushies there's no resemblance at all in any case it's a little disappointing these really aren't different from the originals at all if they couldn't even be bothered to make them hold the steering wheel this just makes me wish we got a sonic drift plush set or something oh well then again this set did give us the plush representation of pecky driving his 5-star Ferrari so you know I guess they were onto something here not too interesting but definitely worth noting so are there any other variants of this set we should know about well sorta though this one's a lot more mysterious previously I've mentioned a mythical Sega sonic plush that has been shrouded in mystery for years this plush has only shown up for sale a handful of times and hasn't been seen in years its authenticity has been doubted but it certainly exists what is it you asked well it's the 1992 finger waving sonic only he's get this winking yeah okay maybe I've overplayed his mysteriousness a little bit but we didn't know what the deal was with this guy for years he first showed up on Yahoo Japan during the late-2000s event on eBay and that was the end of the story whoever bought him from eBay kept him and we've never seen him since this picture from that eBay listing is all we've had for years that was until the owner of the plush saw him mention in one of my videos and contacted me about it giving us so many more images of a plush I never expected to even see again small world huh if they said they got it off eBay years ago so they must have been the one who bought this one everything with it lines up perfectly unfortunately though these new images do pretty much confirm that he's a custom I thought given they were willing to do stuff like sticking the plushies and carts a variant so simple like this was plausible but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case here remember how I said the eyes on these guys have a tendency to fall off I guess the original owner of this plush got creative when he lost an eye using a marker to draw a winking eye on it is it an official variant no but it is still cool and the history behind it still makes it interesting if you ever get one of these plushies that's damage like this don't throw it out you can totally salvage it through something like this and there you have it the first-ever Sonic the Hedgehog plush set here's a recap for those who may have lost track of all the releases this set was originally released in sonic branded UFO catchers in 1991 this set contained the first ever commercially available plushies of Sonic Eggman and the animal buddies the plushies were curiously made in Korea and were branded as simply Sonic the Hedgehog and not Sega Sonic this set was overhauled in 1992 with the first officially branded Sega sonic plush set stringy Sonic remained mostly untouched only receiving new plastic shoes velcro on his hands and some slight differences in materials used the other four characters were made larger this set was made in China and is noticeably of lower quality than the original release likely to save on production costs later on and this 1992 set was released again this time with two new Sonic plushies taking the spot of stringy sonic 1 sonic with his finger up in one sitting the other plushies remain the same that set of six plushies were later used for various variant sets such as a christmas-themed set with Santa Sonic plushies as what was a set of the six on differently colored carts wow that's a lot of releases for a set that's often considered to be simple and small in my opinion if the original 1991 Korean release is my favorite you just can't beat the originals and the charm of not only their design but the fact that they really were the first commercially released sonic plush set just makes me love them so much we've seen some pretty crazy Sonic plushies over the years there are ones that are seriously impressive feats in the art of plush making but then you have these guys they're small they're cheap a lot of their details are made of felt and we're literally glued on but despite that despite how a low-budget this set is it sure is a testament to how simple things were when the series first started hundreds of Sonic plushies have been made over the years and they all owe their existence to this original set from 1991 while these plushies have become increasingly hard to find and with them becoming fairly old at this point and beginning to degrade they'll only become harder to find but if you're a true Sonic collector and really appreciate the history of these you owe it to yourself to at least try to pick some of these up there's such a touchstone in Sonic's history and Concepcion and their simplistic nature is truly what makes them so great to think it's been decades since these were made is crazy and they've left quite the legacy behind but despite their age I don't see them losing their charm any time soon [Music]

Channel: PatMac

Views: 243,326

Rating: 4.9532423 out of 5

Keywords: Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic, SEGA, Toys, Plush

Id: u15nDqWIbls

Length: 28min 25sec (1705 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 10 2019