>>88986449SEGA was extremely lenient with the Sonic rights early on and basically let the west make up stories, so the animated series was given a lot of freedom. The creators were big fans of old western cartoons, and wanted to make a gag series in the vein of old style animation. It was made from much the same spirit that gave us Ren and Stimpy or Twisted Tales of Felix, but not really as good.
The Archie series, meanwhile, went in a direction more like Saturday morning action adventure shows, which was really a tone more reflective of the source material, and is generally more well-liked.
I don't want to say AoStH is bad because it's the show the creators wanted, but it's not a very good fit for the franchise. Then again, the LoZ cartoon is more faithful to the games and it's awful, while AoStH at least comes from a place of real creative spirit.
