A lot of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog has become funnier as time has passed, and not just because of its fodder for Memetic Mutation and Youtube Poops.
Examples:
- Scratch is a robotic chicken/rooster, period. Twelve years later...
- "Super Special Sonic Search & Smash Squad" reveals that Robotnik's original plan was to clone Scratch, which erroneously resulted in Grounder's creation. Sonic Spinball's final Bonus Stage, "The March", gives us a proper idea of the concept fully realized, with seven Scratches.
- Some foreign names given to the second episode "Subterranian Sonic" could be translated as "Sonic Underground".
- As a result of animation errors, Sonic's arms would sometimes turn blue in a few frames. Flash forward to 2014 and 2020, where they were officially made that color.
- One of the four part Chaos Emerald saga episodes, "Hedgehog of the Hound Table", has Sonic going back to medieval times. Guess what Sonic and the Black Knight is about?
- The whole Chaos Emerald saga is basically "Sonic the Hedgehog: Infinity War", since it features a very similar plot to that movie about the heroes racing to get colored gems before the Big Bad gets to them to use their power for evil. And when The Bad Guy Wins, the good guys have to travel throughout time to set things right.
- One of the "Sonic Says" segments involves Sonic telling Tails not to spray graffiti. A few years later, one of the Dreamcast's most famous games would involve its heroes being a gang of kids spraying graffiti.
- Around the same time the show started airing, Sonic the Hedgehog CD introduced a certain pink hedgehog whose main role is touching Sonic in a way that makes him feel uncomfortable. Incidentally, Sonic becoming a Chaste Hero in the main series contradicts his portrayal in this show.
- The Macbeth level from Star Fox 64 unintentionally resembles "The Robotnik Express" - especially the ending - as seen here.
- From "Mobius 5000":
- In the unaired pilot for this show, JimCummings voices Robotnik, but the show proper has him voiced by Long John Baldry. He would voice the character in a different series. Similarly, Grounder's actor, Gary Chalk, went on to voice Robotnik in another Sonic show. Adding to that, Chalk would later appear alongside a different Jim in the movie, this time as a member of the US Military, with the other Jim playing Robotnik.
- In the episode "Tails in Charge", Sonic saves Tails from being fried by a laser beam, but gets under it himself. Seventeen years later, Tails returns the favor.
- Robotnik remarks in "Full Tilt Tails", "No wonder people say I look just like Santa Claus." In "Sonic Christmas Blast", he becomes Santa Claus.
- In "Magnificent Sonic", Robotnik plans to transform Tranquil Gulch into Gambler's Gulch.
- In "Lovesick Sonic", when Tails is thrown underwater, a fish asks if Tails can swim. He tries using his dog paddle and says, "Not very well," before flying out of the waterfall. Then came Sonic 3 not long after where Tails can actually use the dog paddle to swim, but only for a short time, as he will tire himself out if he swims too hard.
- In "Sonic Gets Thrashed", Sonic states, "My name is not Roger!" Roger Craig Smith would later provide Sonic's voice starting with Sonic Free Riders.
- For an extra layer of hilarity, several decades later this joke was made.
- For an extra layer of hilarity, several decades later this joke
- Robotnik's henchbots are in stitches over a Pun in "Mass Transit Trouble":Coconuts: Sonic Boom, hah hah, hoo, that's a good one!note
- An evil theme park called Robotnikland? Sounds familiar...
- The way the sloths talk in "Slowwww Going". Fast forward to March 2016 with Disney's Zootopia featuring sloths talking in a similar manner.
- At one point, Robotnik kidnaps Sketch Lampoon, a comic artist, to make him create stories where he's the hero, and advises Sketch to make him look like a more muscular Top-Heavy Guy. Sonic Boom's incarnation of Eggman is a Top-Heavy Guy that looks less fat than any previous incarnations. 2006 and 2020 would also depict a less fat and more slim version of Eggman.
- Supreme High Robotnik from "Prehistoric Sonic" is essentially a Super form for Robotnik in all but name and is defeated by Sonic taking the Chaos Emeralds away from him. Eggman would later return the favor in Sonic Unleashed by creating a machine to extract them from Super Sonic. What's even more hilarious is that to defeat Supreme High Robotnik Sonic needed to team up with himself from different points of time.
- This wouldn't be the last time a Robotnik gained an Emerald-powered super form, for that matter.
- At one point in "Lifestyles of the Sick and Twisted", Tails refers to "Robotnik" as "Eggman".note . At the time, it was just a typical instance of Robotnik being called names, with most viewers not suspecting that "Dr. Eggman" is Dr. Robotnik's name in Japan, which would start being used in North America beginning with Sonic Adventure.note
- Sonic Adventure is itself an example since of course the first fully voiced Sonic game would have essentially the same name as the cartoon, only in reverse.
- The Sonic Says segment at the end of "Magnificent Sonic" teaches that guns are dangerous and not at all something to play with. A certain black-and-red hedgehog didn't get that memo. Joel of Vinesauce had a field day.
- Another episode's Sonic Says segment has Sonic caution Tails never to climb into a washing machine. Twenty-five years later, the second trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) depicts Sonic climbing into a washing machinenote and using it as a makeshift treadmill.
- At one point, Robotnik wears a T-shirt with a red R on it, as if he was doubling as a member of Team Rocket.
- In the episode "Zoobotnik", the bad doctor is almost forced into marriage by an intergalactic bounty hunter voiced by Kathleen Barr. Six years later, she'd go on to voice Marie Kanker, another woman who is part of a Terrible Trio happens to be a Memetic Molester.
- In "Tails' New Home", Sonic treats Grounder like an airplane and complains about the airline food he's served and that he doesn't have a movie to watch. In the opening Cut Scene to Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic complains about the helicopter being a low-budget flight with no food or movies.
- In "Attack on Pinball Fortress", after Robotnik is hit with the stupidity ray, he sounds like Big the Cat.
- The first episode reveals Robotnik became bald because Sonic made him tear every hair from his beautiful head. Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) features Robotnik with a full head of hair, but shaving it off in the end after going mad from being defeated by the titular hedgehog.
- In a meta example, the studio that DiC outsourced the show's animation to would not only work on another Sonic cartoon many years later, but would also be purchased by Sega in 2010.
- "Sonically Ever After" would introduce the premise of winding up in a storybook long before two certain games for the Wii.
- "Spaceman Sonic" has...
- Sonic and Tails visiting an abandoned space station that had to be shut down by the government because of Robotnik.
- An evil monster trying to destroy them.
- "Blackbot the Pirate" has Sonic face off against a robot pirate created by Robotnik, as well as make his way to the brain of a robot whale.
- In "Lovesick Sonic", Sonic runs across a giant snake, gets eaten by it, and then spit out. 24 years later, the same thing would happen to him again in Sonic Forces, at the end of Luminous Forest.
- "Trail of the Missing Tails" introduced Dr. Warpnik in 1993, giving Dr. Robotnik a blond cousin almost a whole decade before Sonic Adventure 2 introduced Maria Robotnik in 2001.
- The "Sonic Sez" segment for "Best Hedgehog" has Sonic talk about how "books can take you to exotic lands or far-away places". A decade and a half later…
- In the four-part "Quest For the Chaos Emeralds" saga, the four Chaos Emeralds grant its user superpowers; invisibility, invincibility, immortality, and the power of life. Thirty years later, Sonic Superstars would revisit this concept, with the seven Chaos Emeralds' powers being avatar (blue), bullet (red), water (cyan), ivy (green), vision (purple), time (yellow), and extra (white).
- "Robotnik, Jr." has Robotnik build the titular character decades before Sonic Frontiers would introduce Sage, who Eggman sees as his child.
