Why is the Sonic the Hedgehog TV series called “SatAM?”
ABC's Sonic the Hedgehog launched nearly simultaneously alongside the syndicated Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon show in the US. Both cartoons were made by DiC Entertainment, and Sonic the Hedgehog was actually created in the wake of ABC rejecting the “Adventures” series. As a result, SatAM aired in ABC's Saturday morning line-up, while “Adventures” aired on weekdays in syndication. As it was often difficult to quickly distinguish between which show you were referring to in normal conversation, viewers naturally referred to ABC's Sonic the Hedgehog as “the Saturday morning one.”
As the Sonic the Hedgehog fanbase migrated into the online realm, somewhere along the way the shorthand “SatAM” (Sat = Saturday, AM = morning) became the standard method of addressing the show in virtual conversation. As time passed and the fanbase grew, there was no longer any need for the word “Sonic” to be anywhere in the vicinity of the term “SatAM” for people to automatically know exactly what was being discussed. In fact, web searches for the term “SatAM” (Google, Wikipedia, Urban Dictionary, etc.) will almost always yield results relating to ABC's Sonic the Hedgehog. Even Ben Hurst, one of the main writers on the show, often refers to the series as “SatAM.”
It's kind impressive, really—to think that the abbreviation of the phrase “Saturday Morning” has become synonymous with a single 26-episode cartoon show that originally aired over 15 years ago. For this reason, I and many others support the term and continue to use it in reference to the series.
