Franchise: Sonic The Hedgehog

Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comics introduced an original character named Geoffrey St. John, who at one point in the comic was in a romantic relationship with Sally Acorn, a character from the 1993 "Sonic the Hedgehog" animated series. This has been met with controversy from fans, because Sally was, at the earliest, 15 years old at the time of the relationship. While Geoffrey's age was never stated in the comic leading some to argue that a seemingly nonexistent age gap would be irrelevant, his creator Ken Penders claimed in 2015 that the character was 21 years old at the time of Sonic the Hedgehog Issue #46, which released in May 1997. In the Sonic-Grams fan letter section of that same issue, one fan letter asked if Sally is 14 or 15 years old, with the editor Justin Freddy Gabrie confirming she is 15 (it should be noted that while Gabrie incorrectly lists the wrong age for Bunnie Rabbot in this response implying others could be wrong, Sally's age is consistent with her being the same age as Sonic throughout the comic). All of this information is made significantly worse when Geoffrey is shown making out with Sally during the same issue, which they also did in other issues around this time. To complicate this further, in Issue #20 of the spin-off comic Knuckles the Echidna, which released in January 1999, it's shown that Geoffrey is older than Sally's older brother Elias Acorn, who was 21 at the time of the relationship, through two scenes. The first is when Geoffrey calls him a "kid" in the present, and the second is through a flashback showing Geoffrey as a physically older child than Elias, who was 5 years old in this flashback. The two aforementioned issues were co-written and solely written by Penders respectively, meaning that even if his original claim of Geoffrey being 21 was incorrect, it implies that he retconned Geoffrey to be older than that at the time, making the age gap larger.

This controversy worsened even further when Penders revealed in 2019 that he had planned at some point for a story involving Geoffrey taking Sally's virginity. While he acknowledged that this was a story that ultimately couldn't be told in the comic, as content found in the series had to remain within the realm of a G-rating, he attempted to justify the relationship in the context of a historical drama setting by saying:


However, considering the cited source material, this justification is fundamentally wrong as the actual implied age gap would be larger than the 4 years Penders suggested (Sally's 15 to Geoffrey's at least 21), leading fans to accuse Penders of making the character a pedophile, and by extension accusing Penders himself of being a pedophile.

Ian Flynn has stated that the IDW Sonic the Hedgehog comics are considered canon to the mainline Sonic games on his Bumblekast podcast. This would be supported by Chris Hernandez, one of the lore managers of the series: in the seventh episode of the seventh season of "Sonic Official", he reiterated that the comics were indeed canon and take place after the events of Sonic Forces. It's also worth noting that, unlike the previous comics by Fleetway and Archie, certain aspects of the IDW comics have been referenced in the Sonic games: original character Tangle the Lemur is briefly mentioned in Sonic Frontiers, and she (as well as other original characters Whisper the Wolf and Surge the Tenrec) has appeared in the mobile games Sonic Dash and Sonic Forces: Speed Battle.

While the comics do largely stay in line with the game's canon, there is one notable exception: the events of Team Sonic Racing in regards to the comics. Ian Flynn originally claimed that the events of Team Sonic Racing took place at some point after Issue #32 and before Issue #43, but Sega has since released an official timeline placing Team Sonic Racing between the events of Sonic Lost World and Sonic Forces.

Despite being synonymous with the "edgy" 2000s era of the Sonic franchise that Sonic Frontiers hearkens back to, Shadow the Hedgehog is completely absent from the game. No official comment has been expressed on why Shadow is omitted, however, a month before Frontiers' launch, the game's writer Ian Flynn would quote retweet a screenshot of an interview with writers for the Sonic Boom cartoon claiming that Sega are restrictive on Shadow's portrayal to the point where it's preferable to omit him in spite of his fan-favorite status than work with Sega's restrictions, with the caption "[quote-retweeted] without comment".

Dr. Starline the Platypus from the IDW Sonic the Hedgehog comic series is inspired by a glitch character from Knuckles' Chaotix - a silver, red and charcoal Knuckles recolor, known by fans as "Wechnia", but by the game itself as "**********", seemingly based on unused data for Tails. Starline's color scheme is taken directly from Wechnia, his name is a literal take on the name "**********", (or "star-line") the black streak in his fur resembles the red streaks all over Wechnia's fur, and the choice of a platypus seems to be inspired by how certain Wechnia sprites would make the bottom of his muzzle yellow and loosely resemble shading for the underside of a flat bill, alongside platypi being Australian like echidnas.

In 2017, the official Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter account posted a parody of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite's character select screen, with various characters from throughout the Sonic franchise in place of the game's playable roster. This was likely meant to poke fun at Infinite's roster, which many had described as "mediocre".

In Issue #48 of the IDW Sonic the Hedgehog comic series, pages four and five depict several Central City citizens with designs that reference characters from other franchises, such as:

• Wally from Where's Wally?
• Reigen from Mob Psycho 100
• Conan and Ran from Case Closed
• Wreck-It Ralph and Vanellope von Schweetz from Wreck-It Ralph
• Crinkly Wrinkly from OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes

Incidentally, the Sonic series has crossed over with both Wreck-It Ralph and OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes in the past.

The character of "Ugly Sonic" in the 2022 film Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers is based on the infamous first design of Sonic the Hedgehog featured in the first trailer for his 2020 film. Voiced by Tim Robinson, Ugly Sonic acknowledges the mockery of appearance (especially his realistic humanoid teeth) and uses it to find new work.

According to the director Akiva Schaffer, the company that provided the effects for this film, MovingPictureCompany, also provided the CGI for the 2020 Sonic film, meaning for Ugly Sonic, they had to "repeat their mistakes on purpose this time."

Interestingly, Ugly Sonic wasn't originally planned to be in this cameo; Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars was initially meant to be featured as the character acknowledging his mockery.

Some of the names of the Arcade Shop missions in Lost Judgment which are unlocked through playing Sonic the Fighters are references to aspects of the Sonic franchise.

The missions for beating Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy are all named after their themes from Sonic Adventure or Sonic Adventure 2: Live and Learn, Believe In Myself, Fighting Freak and My Sweet Passion.

The mission for beating Fang the Sniper is titled Knack For Trouble which could be a reference to both Fang's original Western name Nack the Weasel as well as his debut game Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble.

The mission for beating Bean the Dynamite is titled Mean Bean Machine after the 1993 Sonic-themed Western localization of Puyo Puyo, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine. Ironically, Puyo Puyo did not appear in Lost Judgment despite being in it's predecessor, Judgment.

Finally, the mission for beating Espio is titled Chameleon Detective after Espio's role as a detective starting with Sonic Heroes. It could also be a nod to the Lost Judgment's protagonist Yagami being a detective who often needs to don disguises to blend into places.

The live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movie was originally slated to be released sometime in November 2019, but was delayed to February 14th, 2020 as a result of the reception to the film's debut trailer released on April 30th, 2019. The main cause of the backlash being that the film was planned to feature a humanoid redesign of Sonic that was so negatively received by fans and audiences alike that the film's team hired artist Tyson Hesse, who had previous experience with the Sonic franchise, to make a more visually appealing redesign for the final movie that was more positively received and incorporated into all previously-released film footage.

In an interview, Naoto Oshima was asked if the blue birds were a direct reference to the game Flicky. Oshima said yes, and also mentioned that he asked game's designer Yoji Ishii's permission to use Flickies in his work.

In 2012, Ken Balough announced that Big the Cat would be retired from the franchise for the time being as they could not find a good use for the character, and all things that they already tried didn't work out for him. This however did not stop Big from making cameo appearances in Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, having a trophy in the 3DS version of Super Smash Bros. 4, having a spirit in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, being playable in the mobile games Sonic Runners and Sonic Forces: Speed Battle, and even making a full appearance in LEGO Dimensions and Team Sonic Racing. Big was eventually reintroduced to the mainline Sonic games in Sonic Frontiers.

There was almost going to be a Sonic game based on skateboarding made for the Xbox, GameCube, and PlayStation 2 called Sonic Extreme (not to be confused with the cancelled Sega Saturn game of the same name). This game was developed by a San Diego company called Vision Scape Interactive.

Development began in 2003 shortly after Vision Scape finished up Bare Knuckled Grind. The game was initially planned to be ported to other consoles. There were also going to other skateboarding games using the same engine, but with different intellectual properties, including the Nickelodeon TV show Rocket Power. Unfortunately, budget issues is what resulted in all 13 projects cancelled. They later worked on cutscene animations for Sonic Heroes, and later pitched to Sega the Sonic Extreme prototype.

The prototype was finished in a week, and originally had planned to use hoverboards. The player would be to race against Sonic or Shadow. Yuji Naka, former head of SEGA, was impressed at the time and asked Vision Scape to make design documents for the game. However, when they did show the documents to SEGA, they went silent.

Later on, in September 2005, Sonic Riders was announced. People at Vision Scape believed that SEGA took some of the concept from Sonic Extreme. and used it for Sonic Runners. However, legal issues from SEGA forced Vision Scape to shut down in 2006.

As a result of a sponsorship deal between the motor racing circuit Donington Park in Leicestershire, England and SEGA, the 1993 European Grand Prix was adorned with SEGA logos. Even the race itself was renamed the SEGA European Grand Prix.

Ayrton Senna won the rain-drenched event after passing four cars on the first lap and holding off his teammate Alain Prost through the race's length, and was presented a trophy which featured Sonic the Hedgehog. While the image of Senna holding this trophy was widely circulated around the Internet, it was unfortunately only a fake trophy used for a photo op. It's unknown what became of the Sonic trophy.

At E3 2004, Sega displayed a tech demo of Sonic the Hedgehog for the Nintendo DS simply named 'Sonic DS'. The game played by swiping back and forth on the bottom touch screen to allow Sonic to gain speed.

Silver the Hedgehog was originally going to be an orange mink named Venice, but the developers decided against it and changed him into a hedgehog as they didn't think that a mink would fit in with the other characters.

Tomoya Ohtani, a recurring composer for the series, frequently samples a portion of the famous drum break from the song Amen, Brother by The Winstons. This portion can be heard in 'Vs. Orcan' and 'Skullian' from Sonic Colors, the extra boss theme 'Boss - Big Swell' from Sonic Rush Adventure, and 'Cool Edge Day' from Sonic Unleashed, just to name a few.

Since Sonic was very popular in English speaking countries, one of Sonic's quirks in Japan (performed by Junichi Kanemaru) is that he may speak English at times, unlike other characters.

Andrew Rannells, the award-winning actor who played the lead character Elder Price in the play The Book of Mormon, was the voice director for the English dub of Sonic X. He played characters such as Bokkun, Decoe, Gamma, and Mr. Stewart. He also played the G.U.N. agents in the game Shadow The Hedgehog. Rannells actually worked on quite a few 4Kids shows during his time there, including Pokémon, Pokémon Chronicles, Kirby: Right Back At Ya!, F-Zero GP Legend, and voiced characters in 4Kids-acted games in the Yu-Gi-Oh and One Piece series.

Sticks the Badger from the Sonic Boom sub-series resembles Aika from Skies of Arcadia, another Sega game. Both Sticks and Aika use a boomerang as their weapon of choice, have nearly identical hairstyles and have orange as one of the predominant colors in their design.

Fang the Sniper, called Nack the Weasel in the English release of Sonic Triple Trouble and various English-language comic books, originally wielded a realistic gun. However, this was considered too violent for the Sonic series, and was changed to a cork-shooting popgun during development of his debut game, Sonic Triple Trouble.