Japanese
1
"Chou Onsoku HIRO Toujou!"
(The Supersonic Hero Enters!)

April 6, 2003
English
1
"Chaos Control Freaks"
August 23, 2003

4kids aired this episode as a 'teaser' on August 23rd, but then aired it again the following week with no changes.

- First thing's first: let's see what's globally changed (in all the episodes).
> The music is completely replaced. It really takes away from the great feeling of the episode and doesn't really leave anything to feel good about.
> Most characters retain their names (which is good).
> All characters are VAs from the 4Kids cast that they use in all the anime they dub. In a FoxBox preview, Tails sounded like a girl (which made me very scared), but thankfully it's not as girlish as it was. But of course, nothing can replace the game's VAs (Sonic Adventure 1, 2, etc)
> Almost all of the recurring character's voices are pretty poor in the dub, but they get better with time.
> Sound-effects are randomy added or changed.
> There are no episode title cards. This cuts about six seconds off. Go to the Episode Title Cards section to see every episode's.
> Eyecatchers are cut, which are two profile cards for characters that play at the beginning and end of commercial breaks in Japan, take up ten seconds total (five seconds for each card). Go to the Eyecatchers section to see every episode's.
> The ending, which is 1 minute and 30 seconds long, is cut and replaced with 4kids' own 30 second credits. There are three original Japanese endings, "Mirai" ("Future" ; Episodes 1-13), "Hikaru Michi" ("The Shining Road"; Episodes 14-39 and 53-78), and "T.O.P." (Episodes 40-52).
> 30 second previews of the next episode, played after the ending theme (in this case, "Mirai"), are deleted. Chris always narrates these. 4kids, however, does make their own previews after some episodes (especially Episodes 53-78), but they're not narrated by Chris. Check out the Next Episode Title Cards section to see some of the removed scenes.

- SCENE-SHORTENERS (second count per each)/(time of cut [original Japanese version; one episode is usually around 24:34 long]):

1/4:53 - Decoe's first line is cut short. This is a shot of Decoe looking back at Eggman.
1/4:56 - Eggman's first line is cut short. This is a shot of his face.
1/5:00 - Cream's first line is cut shot, during a shot of her back and Eggman in the background.
1/5:56 - Can you guess what is it? The scene is Sonic against a white background, having just broken in.
1/6:04 - Eggman face as he's saying he'd like to see Sonic try to grab the button.
1/6:30 - Eggman's machine begins to overload. We see shots of various characters gawking at the situation. This particular cut is of Decoe and Bocoe at the controls...
1/6:32 - ...this one of Rouge...
2/6:34 - ...and this one of Sonic, and Cream behind him in the containment bubble.
1/9:10 - A shot of the cops saying they caught a part of Sonic. Note that one cop says he got Sonic around the neck...isn't that a little violent, 4kids?
1/9:20 - Sonic watching the cops make of a fool of themselves from atop a car.
1/9:26 - Sonic with the net on his head is shortened before he dashes off with the cop in tow.
2/10:54 - One of the police dispatchers (he's communicating with the roadblock)
4/13:18 - Once Sam has his helmet on and the hood of the car is down, a man on radio speaks to him. This man's dialogue is shorter in the dub. In the original, in this extended dialogue, he suggests the fastest route to take to reach Sonic.
1/13:23 - A shot of Sam's car with the sirens and headlights having been activated.
2/13:50 - Sam and his team's car speeding off into the distance on a highway to meet Sonic. This is right before a shot of the moon.
3/13:54 - A shot of the aforementioned moon.
2/15:14 - Sam with his hand raised just after arriving.
2/15:28 - Shot of Sonic's head while listening to Sam.
1/15:44 - Combo: Another shot of Soni's head, and Sam's face, lips not moving.
1/16:06 - Shot of Sam leaning against his car as he's explaining the S-Team.
4/18:29 - Pan up Sam's body is sped up and cut short, right before he releases his special boost
4/18:47 - Sam is telling himself that he can't have anyone faster then him on his highway. In the original, the camera stays on him longer, both on the outter shot, and the inner shot with the scrunching eye.
3/19:15 - The scene where Sam has sped ahead of Sonic and is talking to himself (right before Sonic speeds up behind him). He talks longer in the original.
2/19:30 - 2 seconds of Sam's face after the Sonic Boom card is shown is removed. See deeper into the comparison for more information.
3/19:36 - Sam with his foot on the brake, and the car slowing down.
2/19:55 - More panning of the windmills spinning up is cut.
2/19:59 - Sonic flying over the city lights.
8/20:09 - The end of Sonic talking while still flying, and a cut of a large part of the pan of Sam's body.
2/22:23 - This is in the scene where Chris is asking if Sonic has a name. In the original, Chris says "And...and what's your name?". In the dub, he just says "Do you have a name?", which cuts a little time off. This shot is of Chris' face.

- 1 minute 30 second cut: The opening theme, Sonic Drive, is cut. Infact, no intro plays at the beginning of the dub (but I'll get to that later)

- The firing sound of guns is changed to laser firing sounds. This is done throughout the entire series, even when he's obvious that the fire is coming from a gun.

- 1 minute addition - Throughout the entire series, the intro is moved a little bit into each episode and is named "Gotta Go Faster" (I won't list where it's inserted each time, nor note this each time, but I will here). Right after the robots activate and pop up out of the ground in front of Sonic, they zoom toward the camera and this is where the intro is placed. This makes up for a minute lost from the deleted 1 minute 30 second Sonic Drive intro at the beginning.

- A "glitter" sound effect is added when we see the little flash of light afer the ring Tails shot to Sonic lands in the forest.

- The color of the background when Knuckles' fist comes to punch the rock out of the way is different, but it was determined that this is a change in the masters that 4kids received:

- Tails says "Thank you!" after Knuckles punches the rock out of the way of the oncoming Tornado, but in the dub he doesn't.

- 2 second cut right after the above note: Knuckles "hmphs" and Tails is supposed to say "Knuckles..." in a sad tone but doesn't. This is technically a scene shortener because no real footage is lost.

- Decoe's dub voice is that of a complete robot. In later episodes, he doesn't sound too much like a robot. Of course, the original Japanese VA for Decoe didn't sound like a robot at all.

- Cream's voice has little to no emotion. =\

- Dub Eggman: *hahahahaha* "You're wrong, Creamy Dreamy *heheheh* *HAHAHAHAHA*"
Way too much laughter. What's with the "Creamy Dreamy" line? Is he looking to put the moves on Cream?

- Rouge's yelp sound is cut when she gets shot at.

- Script, as Eggman's base is being enveloped by a white light:
> Original Japanese Dialogue:
>> Amy: "Wh-what...?"
>> Knuckles: "Chaos Control."

> English Dubbed Dialogue:
>> Amy: "What...is that?"
>> Knuckles: "It used to be Chaos Control."
> Now here is an obvious mistake. 4kids thought that Eggman's base was named Chaos Control, but it is instead that white light that is enveloping the base that is named Chaos Control. Interesting note, they make this mistake a few more times in the next few episodes.

- Sonic's "waaaaaaaaahhhhhh!" sound is cut as Chaos Control envelops Eggman's base.

- 6 second cut - The Episode Title Card is cut, and it goes straight into Sonic unconcious.

- 10 second cut - The Eyecatcher is deleted.

- 2 second cut - A still shot of the front of stopped cars after the eyecatcher is cut.

- Script, right before Sonic lands on a moving police car. The dialogue is between two policemen (whom I'll refer to as P1 and P2)
> Japanese version:
P1: "A blue hedgehog?"
P2: "We'd make some money if we could catch that! It's definitely just some remodeled car or something."
P1: "Yeah, calling it a hedgehog was probably a joke, right?"

> English dub version
P1: "I've never seen a blue hedgehog before, have you?"
P2: "Heh, it must be one of those fancy new sports cars from overseas. Hey, if we catch it maybe the captain will let us drive it!"
P1: "I bet it has one of those cute little hood ornaments that looks like a hedgehog."
> The last line of the dub is really lame because Sonic lands on the hood of their car right after.

- Originally after Sonic jumps off their hood and out of sight, P2 asks P1 how fast they're going; he says 120 kilometers/hour. In the dub, P2 asks P1 if he saw that, P1 says he did but he wish he didn't. A mouth movement is cut during this dialogue, but no time loss is noted.

- The dub places a commercial break right before Sonic jumps over the roadblock. After this, the last two seconds before the commercial is replayed, in this case Sonic about to jump over.

- Originally after Sonic jumped over the roadblock, the policeman said he jumped 100 meters above them. The dub just said "He didn't get under us, around us or through us...". The original Japanese dialogue before this said Sonic would have to dig underground or fly through the air to get around them, while the dub just said he can't get under/around/through them.

- A little nitpick: The original dialogue had Sam's attendant saying the highway road was 15 degrees Celsius. In the dub, he says it's around 70 degrees Fahrenheit. 15C translates to 59F, meaning the dub is 11 degrees F off from the original. Right after their road condition report, in the original Japanese version, the attendant says "Yes sir!", but this is not present in the dub.

- Dialogue is added as another one of Sam's attendants rolls a tire toward the mechanics. The guy says "Here ya go!"

- Dialogue is removed: Sam says "Men, to your vehicles!" as he walks to his car after putting his helmet on.

- Another dialogue removal: As the lights go from green to red, Sam doesn't say "GO!" as the super-blur effect occurs.

- As noted in the scene shortener section, as we watch the police force move into the distance on the highway in their cars, there's a 2 second cut at the end before the Moon shot (there's a digitally added fadein from the highway shot to the moon in the dub, I might add). The shot of the moon scrolls down to Sonic almost instantly in the dub. In the original, the camera stayed on the moon shot for about 2 more seconds.

- The dub Sam says he is called the "Highway Star". This is because in the original, Sam says "People call me Highwest", which, when said in Japanese, sounds like "Highwaystar" if you don't listen close enough.

- 4 seconds cut - In the original Sam Speed cracked a joke about how you could make Ramen in the time it took to capture the Formula-1 racer. He then says "Hey, that's the part where you're suppossed to laugh." (the cut) and Sonic chuckles. In the Dub, he doesn't even make reference to the joke. Instead, Sam says it "took him longer than that to suit up", the cut occurs, and Sonic then chuckles.

- Originally Sam apologizes for his long introduction, saying it'll be quick from here on out. Dub Sam says "So even if you think you're the fastest thing around...think again."

- 9 second cut - Right after Sam "thinks" to Sonic that he wants to be the one to capture him, in the original, there's a shot of the highway and the cars driving right across the screen on the distant one, and then they are shown on the more closer one. In the dub, the cars come straight away on the closer one and don't even go on the more distant one.

- When Sonic is standing on the S-Team car, the driver says to stop doing it because kids might imitate him. In the original, Sonic tells us NEVER to stand on moving vehicles, but in the Dub, it's "Never use Formula-1 race cars to chase hedgehogs"... 4Kids wants children to stand on moving vehicles ^_^

- Dialogue removal as Sam activates the special boost: "Super Nitro...ON!"

- The background when Sonic is about to break the sound barrier is different than the original.

- 8 second cut - This is in the scene where Sonic speeds ahead of Sam and creates a Sonic Boom. In the original, a card came up explaining what a Sonic Boom is, and right after, he says "It's over.". In the dub, there is no card and there is no "It's over.". Right after Dub Sam explains a Sonic Boom, the com comes and says he's running out of road.

- As Sonic is about to fall in the pool, there is a mouth movement animated. While the Japanese version oddly has no dialogue here, the dub breaks the fourth wall and has Sonic say "See ya!" to the audience.

- SFX are added to sync with Sonic blinking while he's in the pool. That's a bit lame...

- 3 second cut - This is in the scene where Chris has just pulled Sonic up from the pool. In the original, the camera pans up to Chris when Sonic says Thanks. In the dub, the camera is already fixed onto Chris.