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 take place at some point after the Metal Virus Saga (meaning after Issue #32), but before Issue #43. Since then, it has been stated that it could also have taken place before the events of Sonic Forces, or it could have not happened yet.
In 1986, Nintendo and Fuji Television produced a 70-minute TV special based on The Mysterious Murasame Castle for the weekly one-shot drama series "Getsuyou Drama Land" (Monday Drama Land). The special, like many other episodes in the later years of Getsuyou Drama Land's run, featured members of the popular J-Pop girl group Onyanko Club as cast members, and starred Masaki Kyomoto as the game's protagonist Takamaru. The special aired once on December 8, 1986, almost eight months after the game's release, and never aired again. It was later released on DVD in 2005 as part of the box set "Onyanko Club in Getsuyou Drama Land DVD Box 2".
The special's existence and DVD release flew under the international radar until 2023, when a user named Ruka, after being prompted in a 4chan thread to verify claims that the special was lost media based on an uncited edit on the game's English Wikipedia article, discovered that copies of the box set were actually being offered on Yahoo! Auctions. Ruka subsequently placed a bid and won a copy from the auction, and YouTuber Haruko Please uploaded the special to YouTube the following week. With its rediscovery, it's thought to be one of the first live-action adaptations of a video game, and is also the earliest known product to come from Nintendo's collaborations with Fuji, which after this special's airing continued with Yume Koujou: Doki-doki Panic.
Despite retaining "the Rapper" in its title and its source material being a music game, PaRappa only ever raps once in the anime adaptation of the PaRappa the Rapper franchise - that being the penultimate scene of the final episode, with the song sung being a rendition of PaRappa the Rapper 2's final stage, Always Love.
Prior to doing official work on the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise as one of its writers/artists, Evan Stanley worked on a fan comic called "Ghosts of the Future" based on the series. Set in an alternate reality where Sonic and his friends are defeated by Dr. Eggman with the aid of a mind-controlled Shadow, the comic featured Silver the Hedgehog as the main character, tasked with restoring the seven Chaos Emeralds that were removed from time as a last resort. After being brought on to do official work on the franchise, the fan comic has been referenced on two occasions in official Sonic comics. The first was in issue 257 of Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comic, which featured cameos from Richard and Deborah Erin (Silver's parents in the comic) during the scene where Rotor is directing rescue operations outside Twinkle Park (note that they are slightly recolored in this scene). The second time was in issue 64 of IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog comic, which featured cameos from Vanice the Hedgehog and Sicily the Hedgehog (Silver's sisters in the comic) during the scene where Silver and Whisper are trying to confront Duo.
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.
Hugo was originally the subject of a Danish game show where children would call the TV station airing it and be able to control the character by pressing numbers on the phone, almost like a prototypical form of game streaming. The TV version ran on two Amiga computers, one that would process the game and another that would convert the phone dials into inputs.
Although the 2023 "Five Nights at Freddy's" film is primarily a retelling of the first game, its climax incorporates a secret mini-game cutscene from Five Nights at Freddy's 3 where Spoiler:William Afton is trapped in his "Golden Bonnie" spring lock suit.
The character of Vanessa in the 2023 "Five Nights at Freddy's" film appears to be a composite character with elements of Vanessa the security guard from Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach (with both the name and occupation as an officer), and Spoiler:William Afton's daughter from the games named Elizabeth (as it is revealed in the film that Vanessa is Spoiler:William's daughter).
Throughout the 2023 "Five Nights at Freddy's" film, the character Spoiler:Steve Raglan gives Mike Schmidt advice over the phone about how to look after Freddy Fazbear's Pizza for the night shift, essentially making him the Phone Guy. It's revealed late in the film that Spoiler:Steve Raglan was an alias for the murderer William Afton. His role could be seen as a reference to early theories in the franchise's community where Phone Guy was thought to be the murderer long before Afton was given a name and was only known as the "Purple Guy".
The opening title sequence for the 2023 "Five Nights at Freddy's" film is shown in the same pixelated art style that has been used for the mini-games in the series since Five Nights at Freddy's 2, although they most closely resemble the mini-games from Five Nights at Freddy's 4.
Matthew Patrick (or "MatPat"), a YouTuber known for making a multitude of Five Nights at Freddy's analysis videos throughout the series' history for his series "Game Theory", makes a cameo as a waiter in the 2023 "Five Nights at Freddy's" film. The coffee shop that he works at is named Sparky's (a nod to Sparky the Dog, one of the series' earliest fan-made hoaxes). MatPat's character's name as seen on his name tag is Ness, which, according to series creator Scott Cawthon, is a reference to a 2016 Game Theory video where MatPat theorized that Sans from Undertale was Ness from EarthBound. MatPat's final line in his scene is "but that's just a theory", a portion of his catchphrase used in the majority of his videos.
A pinned comment left by Cawthon on a "Film Theory" video where MatPat goes into further detail on his cameo in the film claimed that the packed theater Cawthon watched the film in "ERUPTED in cheers" when MatPat appeared.
One of the background characters in the "Fire Fire!" stage of Um Jammer Lammy, a blonde-haired and beige-furred firefighter dog with a crop top, is shown in various PaRappa the Rapper spin-off media as being PaRappa's mother.
According to Takaya Imamura in a 2011 Nintendo Dream magazine interview, Fox McCloud's mother is actually still alive and well on their home planet of Papetoon. This is in contrast with the 1994 Nintendo Power comic series, where it was revealed that Fox's mother (named "Vixy Reinard") was accidentally killed by a car bomb planted by Andross that was intended for her husband ("James" as he would referred to in the games starting with Star Fox 64).
According to Imamura, Fox's mother disapproved of her son following in her husband's footsteps and potentially getting himself killed the same way, and thus they have become estranged from each other, though they haven't exactly broken off from each other completely. Imamura even hints that she's secretly supporting her son's actions from behind the scenes.
When Prince Florian was first revealed in the June 2023 Nintendo Direct for the game, some fans believed that he was either a callback or reimagining of Prince Haru, a character that only appeared in the 1986 anime film "Super Mario Bros: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach" who transforms from a dog known as Kibidango into a human. This prospect was seen as troubling by Mario fans who partake in shipping, with some believing that Mario and Peach would be retconned as no longer being romantically interested, with Florian taking Mario's place as Peach's boyfriend, as Haru was in the movie.
Upon the game's release, Florian would not show any romantic interest in Peach, nor transform into a human, with their only similarities being that they are princes of flower kingdoms and Florian's facial structure baring a loose resemblance to that of Kibidango.
One criticism that the 2023 film "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" received is that while composer Bryan Tyler collaborated with Nintendo veteran composer Koji Kondo to create a score that incorporates orchestrated rearrangements of iconic songs from the Mario franchise, there were too many moments of Illumination-mandated pop songs replacing the score in certain scenes. The most infamous example of this being the replacement of the original composition "Driving Me Bananas", a medley of songs from the Donkey Kong Country games, with a-ha’s "Take on Me" feeling somewhat out of context.
According to Jamey Scott, who worked in the film's sound department, Tyler fought hard to keep his orchestrated rendition of the Super Star theme in the film over the studio's suggestion of Van Halen's "Jump", and succeeded.
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The 2023 Netflix animated series "Captain Laserhawk: Blood Dragon Remix", which is a loose adaptation of Far Cry 3's expansion game Blood Dragon (alongside featuring other recognizable Ubisoft characters), marks the first time that Rayman has ever been portrayed in an adult-oriented manner, featuring scenes with him saying swear words, drinking alcohol, snorting cocaine, and separately doing the latter while eating sushi off the back of a naked cow lady.
His flashback of going to college and then being rejected by humans due to being an alien is shown in a pixellated style resembling his appearance in the original Rayman while playing the song "The Lum King" from Rayman Origins.
Although it's not confirmed by Ubisoft, his story arc could be seen as an allegory for how Rayman's popularity dwindled since his initial debut in 1995.
"ZIP, CARTOON - FIJIT REWIND 02", a common cartoon sound effect originating from the Hanna-Barbera sound library, is a sped up and reversed version of the Pac-Man cartoon theme song, better known as the theme song to Pac-Land.
In "The Devil & Ms. Chalice", the final episode of the animated series "The Cuphead Show!", the last scene of the episode features the Devil's Casino in its only appearance in the show. The final shot of the series shows Cuphead, Mugman and Ms. Chalice running towards the casino, referencing the opening of the game. While not confirmed, this also implies that the show is, at least in broad strokes, a prequel to the game.
Though Donkey Kong's neutral special Giant Punch has no specific origin, Donkey Kong performs a similar wind-up punch in "Bad Hair Day", the first episode of the 1997 animated series "Donkey Kong Country", which first aired 17 months prior to the Japanese release of Super Smash Bros.
Sonic and Dr. Eggman’s cameos in the 2012 film "Wreck-It Ralph" and its 2018 sequel "Ralph Breaks the Internet" can be attributed to a Sonic the Fighters arcade cabinet being in Litwak’s Arcade. The arcade cabinet in the film uses the title "Sonic Championship", as the game was named this outside of Japan. Despite the game using the classic designs for the characters, Sonic and Eggman are shown in their modern designs inside the gaming world.
In 1986, Nintendo and Fuji Television produced a 70-minute TV special based on The Mysterious Murasame Castle for the weekly one-shot drama series "Getsuyou Drama Land" (Monday Drama Land). The special, like many other episodes in the later years of Getsuyou Drama Land's run, featured members of the popular J-Pop girl group Onyanko Club as cast members, and starred Masaki Kyomoto as the game's protagonist Takamaru. The special aired once on December 8, 1986, almost eight months after the game's release, and never aired again. It was later released on DVD in 2005 as part of the box set "Onyanko Club in Getsuyou Drama Land DVD Box 2".
Prior to doing official work on the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise as one of its writers/artists, Evan Stanley worked on a fan comic called "Ghosts of the Future" based on the series. Set in an alternate reality where Sonic and his friends are defeated by Dr. Eggman with the aid of a mind-controlled Shadow, the comic featured Silver the Hedgehog as the main character, tasked with restoring the seven Chaos Emeralds that were removed from time as a last resort. After being brought on to do official work on the franchise, the fan comic has been referenced on two occasions in official Sonic comics. The first was in issue 257 of Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comic, which featured cameos from Richard and Deborah Erin (Silver's parents in the comic) during the scene where Rotor is directing rescue operations outside Twinkle Park (note that they are slightly recolored in this scene). The second time was in issue 64 of IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog comic, which featured cameos from Vanice the Hedgehog and Sicily the Hedgehog (Silver's sisters in the comic) during the scene where Silver and Whisper are trying to confront Duo.
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.
The opening title sequence for the 2023 "Five Nights at Freddy's" film is shown in the same pixelated art style that has been used for the mini-games in the series since Five Nights at Freddy's 2, although they most closely resemble the mini-games from Five Nights at Freddy's 4.
One of the background characters in the "Fire Fire!" stage of Um Jammer Lammy, a blonde-haired and beige-furred firefighter dog with a crop top, is shown in various PaRappa the Rapper spin-off media as being PaRappa's mother.
According to Takaya Imamura in a 2011 Nintendo Dream magazine interview, Fox McCloud's mother is actually still alive and well on their home planet of Papetoon. This is in contrast with the 1994 Nintendo Power comic series, where it was revealed that Fox's mother (named "Vixy Reinard") was accidentally killed by a car bomb planted by Andross that was intended for her husband ("James" as he would referred to in the games starting with Star Fox 64).
When Prince Florian was first revealed in the June 2023 Nintendo Direct for the game, some fans believed that he was either a callback or reimagining of Prince Haru, a character that only appeared in the 1986 anime film "Super Mario Bros: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach" who transforms from a dog known as Kibidango into a human. This prospect was seen as troubling by Mario fans who partake in shipping, with some believing that Mario and Peach would be retconned as no longer being romantically interested, with Florian taking Mario's place as Peach's boyfriend, as Haru was in the movie.
"ZIP, CARTOON - FIJIT REWIND 02", a common cartoon sound effect originating from the Hanna-Barbera sound library, is a sped up and reversed version of the Pac-Man cartoon theme song, better known as the theme song to Pac-Land.
Though Donkey Kong's neutral special Giant Punch has no specific origin, Donkey Kong performs a similar wind-up punch in "Bad Hair Day", the first episode of the 1997 animated series "Donkey Kong Country", which first aired 17 months prior to the Japanese release of Super Smash Bros.
Sonic and Dr. Eggman’s cameos in the 2012 film "Wreck-It Ralph" and its 2018 sequel "Ralph Breaks the Internet" can be attributed to a Sonic the Fighters arcade cabinet being in Litwak’s Arcade. The arcade cabinet in the film uses the title "Sonic Championship", as the game was named this outside of Japan. Despite the game using the classic designs for the characters, Sonic and Eggman are shown in their modern designs inside the gaming world.