A Goldmine of Sega Marketing waffle!

UK: Resistance, the original Sega nutters website and one of the main inspirations behind this blog, have stumbled across a video that pretty much sums up everything that made Sega so huge in the UK back in the 16-bit era, particularly in 1994. This two video spilt into two parts for Youtube and submitted there by Shenmueaddit, gives us a glimpse into all the marketing pies Sega had their fingers in at the time, from TV commercials (Remember the Pirate TV campaign I told you about? You'll see more of it here), radio competitions (Sonic CD music on the radio, folks!), merchandise, that awful Right Said Fred song, the Sega tour buses, the food promotions (Sonic tomato ketchup!), even the sponsorship with Damon Hill!

This, my friends, is why Sega ruled the world (or at least the UK), during my childhood. These videos pretty much sum up what this blog is all about, and the exact kind of content I've been looking for. If anyone can recall and bring up details on any of the stuff seen here (like photos, videos, magazine scans etc), please send it my way and I'll be more than happy to share it here. =)

Sonic 6th Birthday event in Hamleys, 1997

Sonic the Comic were good to me. Hell, Sega in general have been good to me as a fan, but Sonic the Comic really did throw some good stuff my way when I was a wee lad. Not only did I win a Sonic 2 patch from them when I sent in some self drawn Sonic comics, get my artwork in an issues Graphic Zone section which won me a watch, but I also manged to win a competition they held in 1997 for a exclusive 6th Birthday party event in London. Only 100 invites could be won and you could take a mate along with you, so there was a total of 200 of us (excluding parents) going to this one-off party.

Here's the invite they sent me when I won. Yes, I still own it. How sad is that? I also have a letter they sent along with it..

 

Photos of the event after the jump! Whoopie!

Hamleys as you may already know is a huge toy shop in London on Regent Street with floors upon floors of the stuff. On the below ground bottom floor was a gaming section called Metropolis, which was Sega branded and had a bunch of arcade cabinets and a snack bar of some sort. My memory of the place is pretty fuzzy and I don't believe it's still there, and if it is I doubt Sega still has their name plastered everywhere (much like how Segaworld became 'Funland'), but it was further evidence that Sega were huge in the UK. You never saw anything like this run by Nintendo, that's for sure!

Game wise, they had a few Saturn cabinets set up with Sonic R running on them, about a month before the game was due out. There was a raffle to win a couple copies of the game early, along with some other Sonic stuff I can't remember exactly. I also remember there being a contest involving getting best scores on the arcade cabinets they had there, of which I only remember the Scud race machines which i gave a whirl and got no where in. There was goodie bags that came with a bunch of badges of Sonic running about on a Hamley's logo which I still have somewhere) as well as Sonic Jam and Sonic R posters. Neat.

The highlight of the event was a guy wandering about in a rather impressive Sonic costume (far better than the one that stumbled around SegaWorld), who was being helped around by some woman presumably due to not being able to see very well. I remember one moment when she disappeared for a bit and he manged to walk into a wall, causing Sonic 3D posters to fall all over him. How embarrassing. but I kind of wished we got that caught on camera, could of sent that to Who's Been Framed. He practically had to shove his face into the cake to even see it.

Aww, why so sad, Sonic? Maybe he just had a vision from the future of how far his games were to plummet. That or he just played Sonic Labyrinth on his Game Gear.

Haha, he's nicked my mates hat and....what the hell is that?

Oh god, is this really the Sonic fan base of the 90's, or is she just there for the ice cream?

What would a birthday party be without a cake? The cake was plain white with a picture of Sonic's head ala the Sonic 3D artwork that was on posters everywhere that got his spikes all wrong. Not exactly an amazing cake, but big enough to be cut up into 200 pieces for all the guests.

I didn't really want to post this photo as the public domain like nature of the Internet would possibly jump on this like a pack of hyenas, so I hid my face to save the embarrassment of a generally unflattering photo. What I really wanted to show off however was the bad-arse jacket covered in Sonic patches. When I grew out of the original jacket they were on, my nan knitted them onto a new bigger jacket. Oh hey, I just noticed my Tamagotchi watch I'm wearing too. If that doesn't throw you back to 1997 I don't know what will.


Photos not enough for you? Then how about some home video footage? Yeah, that's what I thought. If the kid above wasn't enough to scare the feck out of you just wait till you hear some of them. Watch as a kid goes ape shit mental while Sonic is helped to cut his cake. Feel the urge to punch the annoying twat of a parent giving Sonic instructions on how he wants a photo taken with his kid. Cringe as I honk Sonic's nose, which I'm pretty sure he probably didn't like and worst of all; feel your ears bleed as everyone sings happy birthday. You'll also see Sonic do a little dance then go into a strop for some reason. Maybe he doesn't like the Sonic 3D art on his cake. I blocked out most of the noise at the start with some Sonic R music to save your ears a little.

When the event was over, we popped over to SegaWorld, which you'll also see alittle bit of at the end of the video. This was the second time, and this time instead of paying about £12 each to get in with the rides included, it was only about £5, but you had to pay about £3 for the rides individually. (those photos I showed in an older Segaworld article must of been from a 3rd visit, as they're clearly laterThere was another guy in a Sonic costume walking around there, although that one wasn't quite as convincing: he had the hugest gob that looked like a tumor on his face. The highlight of the whole video, though? Mum filming some huge screen footage of the Spice Girls to show my sister, only for me to shout "Spice Girls, but not for long!" Take note this was a couple months before they split up. Ha ha ha!

My Sonic collection is fairly moderate

Gaga's not the only one who can arrange a decade's worth of Sonic related stuff and take photos of it, clearly. Now, one thing that is obvious is Gaga has far more stuff than I ever will, partly because he's older and was around for slightly more of the stuff, partly because I have lost a handful of things on the way and partly because he has deep issues that have materialised in the form of blue hedgehog memorabilia. Of course, if that's what having issues entails, I'm all for it. Now, I was far less comprehensive about this than Gaga, so I know I've definitely omitted a few things and I've generally just been quite lazy about it. Also, I know there are few things I used to have that have gone walkies, but are ultimately around my house somewhere. I remember specifically having the Sonic pencil cases and two different Sonic rulers(!), the staples to any nerds stationary needs.

More after the jump..

So you know, you've got your expected things. Figures, plushes, lots of games, books, videos and then some random other crap. Displayed are only the Archie comics I have because I have far too many Sonic the Comics to display. As you can see, there are a handful of StC related free gifts in the photo, like stickers, rub on tattoos, some rubbish little space disk flicker thing etc. There's also a Sonic I made out of those... bead things... you arranged them and ironed them together? I've forgotten the name. And the SA style plush talks. It's magical.



I think I have most, if not all my Sonic games in the picture. I'm missing a few that I actually want and I decided not to include the games I only have the cartridges for. Really, most of the stuff in the pictures is fairly self explanatory, however there are a few materialistic red herrings.

Firstly are these guys. I got them off eBay for about a fiver, they came in a nice box (that can be seen in the above photos) which was in scruffy condition when I received it. I think they were a small promotional item for Sonic & Knuckles, although I'm not sure if that's the right game. A nice little promo item, regardless.

Now this, I've never seen anywhere else before. I have cousins who are half Japanese and as a result, live in Japan. Once when they came to visit, they gave me this neat little clock. I think they had it sitting around their house and as a result, weren't really sure where it came from. But no biggie, it's a great clock, although currently out of battery. As far as I'm aware, it's quite the unique thing to have.

Of course, no self-respecting* British Sonic fan doesn't have a disgustingly large collection of Sonic the Comics? Although, rather than take my issues out and spreading them out in a neat display like the Gaga, I've kept mine all neatly filed away in order like the anal bastard I am.

*the term is 'self-respecting' is used rather loosely here

Anyway, so that's the bulk of my Sonic related merchandise acquired over the last 11 years ish. Things have been lost and things have yet to be picked up, because I love to nurture the nostalgic inner child within me, who sits around playing Sonic 3 and eating ice cream. So there we go - an unhealthy obsession with blue hedgehogs leads to a rather big amount of capitalist consumerism. Take that, Communism!

Oh and almost forgot, happy new year you crazy kids.

My Sonic Collection is Morbidly Obese.

I got bored yesterday and decided to climb back into the loft and shuffle amongst all the Sonic stuff that is stored up there, and somehow it led to me dragging it all down to take photos of it all together, just to see how much of it I've ended up hoarding onto. There's a few things missing: mainly all the clothing, a bunch of badges and obviously the games, but you'll get the idea that I generally have a feck load of Sonic junk, ranging from toys and books to odd junk like shampoo bottles and an air freshener. I took quite a few photos because this lot took bloody ages to set up. Click to see them in big ol' detail.

Most of this stuff was purchased back when it came out, and after time stored away so it didn't clutter up the place. There is some of the modern Sonic stuff but I don't generally touch any of that mostly ugly Sonic X stuff. A lot of this stuff is nigh on impossible to find now, so I'm glad I kept a lot of it. When I got a lot of this stuff I bought two sets so I could have one packed away brand new and one set to play with. I'm such a geek. =D

Many more photos after the jump.

I even have a bunch of old Sonic Promo posters and cardboard things, which were sitting in the loft so long that I almost forgot they were up there. I can't really remember how I got those but I know the Sonic R one came out of the window of Burger King with a little persistence to the staff. You can't just buy things like that, you have to offer to take it away when they don't need it anymore. It was only going to be thrown away anyway..

I have three of those Sonic 2 patches in total, and a big blue jacket that also has one on the back. I'm not sure how I ended up with that many, but Sonic the Comic sent me one once when I sent them some artwork. I'll have to take some photos of the jackets I've got up in the loft somewhere, they're amazing.

I keep searching for old Sonic stuff like this on Ebay but don't have a whole lot of luck finding any, which is pretty strange as Sonic was pretty darn popular in the UK. Hell, I haven't seen most of this stuff since it came out. But wait, there's more!

For starters, books! They made a lot of books back in the day, including story books, adventure game books, annuals, a sticker album, game guides and even some Where's Waldo style books. There's also some Sonic comic specials and the complete Sega Super Play Trading Card set there.

Next, the comics. Every pile there has 10 issues in it. I have almost every issue except most of the later ones when they had no new stories in them around 2000, just before it was canceled. I did start collecting the American comics soon after that, although I don't have so many of those, probably about 40. I recently ended up selling a bunch of those as I was getting about a tenner each for them from American collectors, and I'm not really that mad on them anyway. The British comics don't seem to be worth anything in comparison, but I like those a lot more.

Finally some other Sega related bits, including all my Sega Saturn and Dreamcast magazines (sadly I didn't keep my Mega Drive era ones), promo videos and...holy crap, SONIC POGS.

Oh, and I almost forgot this set of House of the Dead figures.

Now do you see why I started up this blog?

I got me art in Sonic the Comic, I did!

I promised I would work on scanning as much interesting stuff out of my Sonic the Comic collection (in 300dpi) as I could, so I made a start tonight. This particular scan below more a personal thing than anything, because it's a scan of when, as a lad of twelve, I got a piece of artwork I drew into the pages of the British Sonic comic, in issue 130 released May 1998, to be exact!
You see the comic had a section every issue called the 'Graphic Zone' which is basically a fancy name for a fan art section. Getting an image in there would win you a little Sonic watch of some sort (worth a tenner). I always liked how one of the optional fields next to your name was what Sega consoles you had. I'd like to think stating you owned a Playstation would have S.T.C send shit through your mailbox. At the time I had a Mega Drive II, Mega CD II, Sega Saturn and a Game Gear. Oh how I miss that battery eating lump of plastic. Why did I sell it off so I could get a Game Boy Colour?

It's not just the fact they printed my art, but they also gave it an entire half-page of space, plus this was for the comic's 5th anniversary so the art is featured in a rather special issue. I'm surprised they didn't give that picture below it the bigger page space though, as it's much nicer. maybe all the white on mine saved on ink. Anyway, here's the watch I won from them, which in all honesty I never wore: it just got packed away with all the other Sonic junk I've got sitting in the loft, still in it's package!

This wasn't the first or only time that I had won something in S.T.C, mind. One time I sent in some Sonic comics I scribbled up (it was pretty much all I did draw at the time, hundreds upon hundreds of Sonic comics), and in return they sent me a Sonic 2 jacket patch...which I don't have a photo of right now, but I'll go get one later and edit it into this post. There was also something else I won from them, but I'll leave that topic for another time..

Sega World Videos!

There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of love for the old SegaWorld Indoor Park that used to be in London (now just one floor of arcade games called 'FunLand'), but at least there is Arcade Heroes, who back in October got their hands on some juicy SegaWorld videos! The first video they managed to lay their hands on was is a promotional video showing off all the 3D concept planning of the place, and a bunch of footage of the rides that were there which bring back vague but fond memories. It also shows brief clips of what appears to be a Pirate Sega commercial for Virtua Racing on the Mega Drive!

Videos after the jump.






The next two are of some sort of meeting/get together of Segaworld's 'corporate hospitality'. Apparently these lot got unlimited go's on all the games in the place, the lucky bastards! Not a huge lot to see amongst all the prats with their drinks and crappy food (I'm just jealous really) apart from a few of the arcade games and a very ugly Sonic costume guy, who I met once! Well, I met the costume, I don't know about the guy in the costume...uh, you know what I mean.





Other than this though, there really is next to nothing on Youtube of good ol' Segaworld. hell, one of the results is of SEAworld with a typo! So remember in Part One of my article a while back, I showed screen shots of old home video footage from the first time I went there? Well this severe lack of videos online motivated me to finally rip that footage and upload it for all to see!

There isn't really a whole lot there to be honest: you'll get to see me and as a young tyke with a group of my mates as we're lifted up the escalator of joy and wonder (You'll be able to tell which one is me: just look for the one who is flapping about like a lunatic from excitement), along with the one non-virtual ride (which was crap as my vehicle just got stuck spinning around in circles) some odd props hanging from the ceiling, and a play ground area of some sort. Yeah, don't blame me for the lack of much footage, that was most likely mum mum filming that! Anyway, it's a small contribution to the Segaworld love. If you guys have anything, ANYTHING to show of this place be it video, photos, magazine junk, anything, please send it in!

SegaWorld Part 4

Clearly SegaWorld was something extremely important to Sega fans. And by Sega fans, I mean Sonic freaks like Gagaman and myself. As such, I feel it’s only appropriate for me to write about this glorious place in my first entry for this blog.

(This is from my second visit, complete with my brother and his friend. I'm the hilarious one in yellow)

I actually lived in London whilst SegaWorld was up and running, which meant I got to visit it a good handful of times, which was great for me. However, I’m pretty sure these trips were about 7-9 years ago, so a lot of the details are hazy, but whatever – I can remember a few things.

I think what made this place so great for me was the absolutely ridiculous amount of Sonic imagery. The walls were plastered with the hedgehog’s face, statues adorned the various sections of the ‘theme park’ – even the bins had Sonic’s mug grinning at you. Then there was the fact that on my first visit there, I ran into Sonic Championship. Ohhh I wasted a lot of money on that game and I never managed to beat Espio whilst I was there. Stupid chameleon. Actually, now that I think about it, I remember also on my first visit I found a small corner which had monitors showing all the weird Sonic videos from Sonic Jam (this was before Sonic Jam had been released, mind you, so I decided to sit there and watch them) and an out-of-use Sega Sonic Arcade game (it wasn’t until my next visit that I got to play that – and for the record, the game is awesome and needs some kind of home release). Of course, there were lots of other great arcade games to play, but I’m not going to lie… I really remember very few of them.

(I don't want to visit Litter Zone)

What I do remember is the rides. As well as the under-the-sea virtual shooting game and the haunted house ride that Gaga described, I remember this one “scary” ride. Basically, you walked through a hall way which in some way was creepy (sorry the details are so vague, but all I remember is a dark hall – clearly I’m losing it at my old age) until you sat in these seats that were on a track (like a roller coaster only much slower and without the ‘coaster’ bit – basically moving seats). All through it, it was supposed to be that a maddened gorilla lived in this area and was stalking and chasing you. The seats would rock, there were maddened beast sounds and you could feel drips of saliva fall on you. Now, I was 8 or 9 at the time, so this ride actually scared the hell out of me. But hey, children are easy to frighten. Good times!

(Seriously. He was everywhere.)

I remember there was also an area that focussed on getting tickets for prizes and stuff. I was quite poor at getting tickets, so I didn’t win any prizes through conventional means. Instead, I had put money in a capsule machine that dispensed Sonic badges and nothing came out. So I got the attention of some staff people and not only did they give me the badge I so rightly deserved, but they gave me one of the token prizes as well – a small blue pom thing with Sonic’s face on it and a SegaWorld banner attached. It was awesome. I then found a photo booth machine that instead of giving you a traditional photo, gave you an ink stamp, complete with a small Sonic icon bordering the photo. That was a fun day. Somewhere along the way, I also got a SegaWorld pen. I don’t remember how.

At this point, I’m struggling to write something that wouldn’t just repeat exactly what Gaga said. However, the basic message is; SegaWorld was fantastic in every way. There were VR-rides, there was Sonic, there were video games and various other ways to enjoy yourself. SegaWorld is definitely one of my fondest memories.

(From my first visit - best photo ever)

One thing that has become incredibly apparent in writing this is I arguably liked Sonic a bit too much when I was a kid. Naaah.

Oh, it also seems that StC were hell bent on advertising SegaWorld, as I've found another article about the place different to Gaga's. It's below for viewing


P.S. Should I be sickened that I actually willingly listened to the Supersonic single whilst writing this article? Actually, don't answer that.

SegaWorld Part 3

While I have run out of photos I took myself of SegaWorld, I've stumbled across some more SegaWorld related stuff I had up in the loft with my countless other Sonic junk. Firstly, here's a three-page preview of the place featured in a 1996 Summer special Sonic comic, and contains many details (such as the names of the areas and rides) which I had forgotten. Just click to full view and try to ignore the awful 'radical' talk throughout it.

More after the jump.



I also found the ticket from my first visit. I scanned both the front and back.

And lastly here's a little plastic pin badge that you got as you came off one of the rides. Well, I'm not sure if everyone got these as it does say "Best Gunner", but I can't really remember. I also found some of the gift shop stuff, such as a keychain, a pen and another pen with a floaty Sonic that goes up and down. Memories~

SegaWorld Part 2

I promised I'd scan in some photos (what small amount I have, anyway) of the now closed down SegaWorld (see further down for the previous article about it) and here they are. Click to full view.

This is the photo you could pay to have done as you walked in from the two flights of escalators. We had two done on this first visit, and I've scanned the one with the least people, as it's the Sonic statue your all interested in. Seesh, I'm even doing a Sonic-ish pose, judging by the hands and feet. I'm surprised I wasn't wearing one of my jackets smothered in Sonic patches, actually.

More after the jump.



This was the outside entrance. Notice the lovely gold Sonic statue out front? Just one of many Sonic statues now either destroyed or shipped back to Japan where they still have some Sega locations.

The following pics, including the one above, are from my second visit in 1997. I'll go into the main reason me and one of my mates were in London another time, as that's also Sega relevant =P. Anyway, this statue wasn't here on first visit, and I think by this time Segaworld was around a fiver to enter (with the rides separate, so sadly we only ever went on them the first trip, although I think we paid for one this 2nd time). Remember what I said about the jackets? I still have bigger sized ones of them.

A huge Sonic painting up high in th racing game section/floor. I wouldn't be surprised if this was originally made for when Sega were a sponsor for a Formula 1 team. I'll have to find the book/comic that had photos of that car that had x-ray art showing Sonic's feet on it sometime. I've also cleaned this photo up a bit and made it into a wallpaper.

WALLPAPER DOWNLOAD: 1024 X 768 (Click eet)

Yet another Sonic statue. There was loads of these. This one's surfing, as you can see, and was in the Sports games area (as you can possibly guess from the GetBass poster and other fishing game cabinet in shot).

Pocket money was spent, naturally, on the games. Me mate had a crack at Star Wars and Virtual On, and I had a go at the two Sonic games and Sega Rally 2, that had just been released.

If I found these two rare cabinets in one place ever again, I'd of most likely died and started having flashbacks of my life. hat, or I'd found myself in Japan.

Finally, some bonus material. I'm not sure if this was directly Sega related or not (I doubt it), but it was in SegaWorld, so it counts. This is a result sheet for that scream test attraction I told you about. You had to climb into this haunted house type room, sit down and hold on to these bars sticking out of the table that read your heartbeat as all sorts of animatronics and effects try to make you jump. It wasn't there the 2nd time we visited, so it must of been a outsider travelling attraction that goes to different destinations. Oh, and in case you were wondering, I was actually laughing through the whole thing.

This above photo is not from Segaworld, but in fact from Epcot in Florida. This dates back to 1998, although I remember also seeing the statue in S.T.C (Sonic the Comic) in a photo for a video game expo from around 1994. This was for a technology section of Epcot indoors that was full of Sega games, at the time a few Saturn pods (They had Burning Rangers!) and some arcade machines including one of those 10-in-a-row player-cam Daytona set ups. When we went again in 2000 they had another Sonic statue in it's place, the kind of ugly Sonic Adventure used at E3 in 1999 (sorry, didn't get a photo of that one), and the place was full of Dreamcast games, including Sega Bass with the fishing controller, which I found myself getting addicted on. Who needs rides about the history of communication anyway? Then by the time we visited again in 2004, the Sega section had been completely replaced by "Disney Interactive". =(