I remember the huge promotional blitz behind the arrival of Sonic The Hedgehog 2 in 1992. At the time, I was completely won over by it. Never mind that I possessed neither a Sega Mega Drive or any first-hand experience with the original Sonic The Hedgehog; the bipedal blue hedgehog was making his second coming and I was truly excited for this earth-shattering event. This was also in spite of Sega's efforts to dampen my guileless spirits with an amazingly nightmarish ad from the game's UK campaign, in which an unconventional vet attempts, unsuccessfully, to revive a moribund hedgehog who is totally unlike Sonic. On this occasion, I'm delving in deep into the well of childhood advertising memories I've fought long and hard to repress. This one bit me bad back in the day.
The ad's incredibly grim scenario does at least make sense from a thematic perspective. Sonic's shtick is that he's fast, despite being a hedgehog (not a creature renowned for its breathtaking speed), and what better way to hammer that home by contrasting that ability with a more realistic-looking member of the species who can't keep up the pace with Sonic? Heck, why not go one step further, and make that hedgehog totally unresponsive to all external stimuli? They don't get much slower than that, after all. It sounds perfectly logical in theory, but in practice, an ad campaign involving anything cute, furry and deceased is treading quite a dangerous line (as Levi's jeans discovered on that extremely weird occasion in the summer of 1998 when they attempted to win public approval with the imagery of a terminally bored hamster succumbing to rigor mortis). And, except in New Zealand and a few Scottish isles where they are classed as an invasive species, the hedgehog is seriously the most inoffensive creature out there. There's something about seeing a hedgehog as the victim that weighs particularly heavily upon the heartstrings. The bristly little stiff featured here is blatantly a puppet, with big cartoon eyeballs, and you're certainly not going to mistake it for the real thing, but what we see is inevitably still very unsettling. (I'm not sure if it's just the resolution from the YouTube upload below, but does the hedgehog have a coroner's tag on its toe at the start? If so, then they really were pushing hard with the macabre factor.) It's not alleviated by the vast amount of strange and seemingly arbitrary detail that serves chiefly to elevate this ad to the extreme heights of an especially surreal nightmare - why, for example, do we here a spaghetti western style theme when the vet first approaches the lopsided hedgehog? And just what is up with the lighting in that veterinary surgery - if, indeed, that is a veterinary surgery? Then when the gameplay footage kicks in, this twisted concept really rockets into the next level. The footage is interspersed with imagery of the hedgehog being poked and prodded as the bizarro vet attempts in vain to coax some semblance of life from the inert erinaceid. Finally, the hedgehog's prospects are made hauntingly apparent with a close-up of its paw sagging, and the vet admits to the camera that, "Well, he won't be making a comeback." Bloody hell, Sega, why are you so insistent on breaking my heart along with hawking your wares?
In a bizarre twist, the ad apparently ends up doubling as a PSA for St Tiggywinkles Hedgehog Hospital - text appears onscreen imploring us to send donations to the hospital, and even supplies a handy address we can write to. St Tiggywinkles is a real wildlife hospital located in Alyesbury, England, and has the distinction of being the UK's first veterinary surgery dedicated solely to the care of injured wildlife. It was named, of course, for the literary hedgehog created by Beatrix Potter (who, prior to Sonic, was probably popular culture's most famous fictional hedgehog), and was founded in 1983 by wildlife campaigner Les Stocker. Stocker sadly passed away in 2016, but St Tiggywinkles continues its good work in his absence. I can't say for certain if the address featured at the end of this ad was legitimate at the time, but it certainly looks that way. So...was this ad ultimately serious about promoting hedgehog welfare, even as it mined a wad of twisted energy from the hedgehog's lack thereof? I really don't know; something about the ad's distinctly warped tone would indicate that it's not being sincere (this, honestly, plays like St. Tiggywinkles PSA from a parallel dimension were all Hell has broken loose), but nevertheless, they gave the actual charity some publicity. Even if it's clear where they really hoped you would be directing the contents of your wallet.
Are you feeling weirded out and baffled by this entire premise (as I certainly was as a child, being repeatedly ambushed by this horrifying spot during ad breaks in between The Big Breakfast)? Well, truth is, we've barely scratched the surface as far as this particularly demented rabbit hole of a campaign goes. The above Sonic ad was part of a wider roster of ads created for Sega Europe, marketed under the banner of "Sega TV", and featuring English actor Steven O'Donnell (best known for playing Spudgun in the BBC sitcom Bottom), who appears here as our eccentric vet, and the host of Sega TV. The idea was that you were seeing interceptions from a pirate TV station dedicated to extolling the virtues of Sega in a highly unconventional fashion (the banalities of regular TV viewing, meanwhile, were represented by ads for fake products such as "Ecco" brand washing powder, which were joyously desecrated by O'Donnell and his crew). It certainly was an inventive way to divert attention from Nintendo's output, and the campaign is fondly remembered among 90s gamers, even if the single greatest impression it left on my fragile young psyche was the psychological scarring from that lifeless hedgehog who wouldn't be making a comeback. Within that context, it is easier to comprehend why the Sonic 2 ad plays itself as a faux PSA (albeit one promoting an actual charity), and it wasn't the only one of its kind - there was also a far more straightforward spoof, in which you were ultimately asked to denote your brain to Sega.
Strangely enough, this wasn't the only contemporary Sega advert featuring a deceased animal, even outside of the full-on dementia of the "Sega TV" campaign. One US ad for the Game Gear had a gamer create the illusion of colour on his Nintendo Game Boy by whacking himself across the head with a dead squirrel. The zombie squirrel even shrieked "SEGA!" at the end. What pills were Sega taking back then?
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