Franchise: Sonic The Hedgehog

During the reboot of Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comics, several characters and aspects adapted into the comic from the 1993 Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon (commonly referred to as "Sonic SatAM") were noticeably altered for a variety of factors:

• Ixis Naugus (referred to simply as Naugus in the show) was changed to "Walter Naugus". His species (which was never actually stated in the show, though the pre-reboot comics depicted him as a rhino-bat-lobster hybrid) was changed to that of a troll, with a tail being added to his design to help make him look as such, alongside his attire being updated to more resemble a warlock. Additionally, despite what was initially believed, the term "Ixis" was originally applied to Naugus' cartoon production materials, and was not invented by former writer Ken Penders. This meant it was still usable in the comics, and was later given to the deity worshipped by the troll species.
• Muttski was changed to "Ben "Mutt" Muttski", and was changed from a non-anthropomorphic dog to an anthropomorphic one. Notably, his new name was given in honor of Ben Hurst, the main writer of "Sonic SatAM" who sadly passed away in 2010.
• Snively Robotnik (referred to simply as Snively in the show) was changed to "Doctor Julian Snively", with his first name being a nod to "Sonic SatAM", as Dr. Robotnik's original name in the show was Julian. According to Ian Flynn, he is no longer related to Dr. Eggman in the reboot due to Sega's mandates not allowing other media to invent family members for the main "SegaSonic" cast. Ironically, while his half-sister Hope Kintobor was removed from the reboot, Snively inherited her position as G.U.N.'s R&D Specialist.
• Maximillian Acorn (referred to simply as "The King" in the show) was changed to "King Nigel Acorn". His name was most likely changed due to being coined by former writer Ken Penders. Notably, his new name, speech pattern and mannerisms are shared with Nigel Thornberry from the animated series "The Wild Thornberrys": Nigel was voiced by British actor Tim Curry, who also voiced the King in "Sonic SatAM".
• Nicole the Holo-Lynx's new backstory in the reboot has her being created by Dr. Ellidy in an attempt to digitize the consciousness of his dying daughter Nikki. This may have been loosely inspired by Ben Hurst's plans for the cancelled third season of "Sonic SatAM", where it would have been revealed that Nicole was originally a normal girl until she was tricked by Dr. Robotnik into having her entire personality transferred into a computer satellite.
• Although the Wolf Pack originated from "Sonic SatAM", the only member of the group who was not created by Ken Penders was their leader Lupe the Wolf, who also originated from the show. As such, when the comic was rebooted, she was the only member of the group to be carried over.
• Aside from King Acorn, the only parent of a "Sonic SatAM" character to make it into the reboot was Sabina, the mother of Dulcy the Dragon and herself a character from the show. However, while Ian Flynn did confirm that she was still Dulcy's mother in the reboot, she never actually appeared in the comic prior to its cancellation. Additionally, given that Dulcy refers to her with present tense, it's likely that Sabina is still alive in the reboot, whereas she had died in the original continuity.

In 2022, Logan McPherson, the director of the animated series "Sonic Prime", stated that the show was canon to the games, drawing upon their existing mythology. This would make Sonic Prime the first television series based on the Sonic franchise to be considered canon to the mainline series. Ian Flynn would further support this claim, revealing that he knew when exactly in the series timeline the show took place in, but would not reveal it until after the show ends, while noting that something happens in the show to make it clear that it is indeed canon to the games. In 2024, after the release of Sonic Prime's third and final season, Ian Flynn finally confirmed the show's status in the overall Sonic timeline: aside from taking place sometime after the events of Sonic Advance 3, the show's placement is considered moot due to the ending Spoiler:having the show wipe itself out. In response to complaints regarding this outcome, Flynn claimed that its placement in the canon was intentionally vague, and the show being canon to the games at all was not his decision due to only being involved in the animated series as a consultant. He later claimed that he and other parties had made efforts to flag the show's inconsistencies early on in production, but that many of these efforts were flat out ignored. He noted that there was not an easy way to brush these issues aside, but also made a point that there was an effort to do so.

In the 41st issue of the IDW Sonic the Hedgehog comic book, Sonic taunts Dr. Eggman with the nickname "Baldy McNosehair," to which Eggman responds with "That's not funny! It's never been funny! It's never going to be funny!" This is a reference to the YouTube channel TeamFourStar and their web-series "Dragon Ball Z Abridged". Specifically, it references the video "DragonBall Z KAI Abridged Parody: Episode 2" in which Krillin dubs himself, Gohan, and Vegeta as "Team Three Star", and Vegeta yells the same response.

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.

According to Bug! executive producer David Warhol, developer Realtime Associates was at one point contracted by Sega of America to create a Sonic the Hedgehog game as a launch title for the Sega Saturn. However, shortly after Realtime Associates agreed on a contract, Sega of Japan denied them permission to use the IP. Realtime Associates instead continued with the project as a new IP, Bug!, based on a cancelled project for the Sega Genesis.

On April 8th, 2022 (the American release date for the film "Sonic the Hedgehog 2"), former Archie Comics writer Ken Penders revealed that he was contacting his legal team in regards to the Echidnas and their backstory featured in the film. According to Penders, both Knuckles' unnamed father and the workings of the film's depiction of the Master Emerald were derivitive of two of his characters, Locke and Enerjak. Despite the fact that the powers of the game version of the Master Emerald had been established back in 1994 with the release of Sonic & Knuckles, Penders has claimed to have legal ownership over the ideas he created in 1996. However, as of March 2024, no lawsuit has materialized.

In a post titled "SONIC THE HEDGEHOG: One Year Later...", Karl Bollers (a former writer for Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comics) revealed numerous plans that he had intended to include in the comics following Issue #134 that were never used, such as:

• Sonic and Amy becoming a couple after being stranded at sea together, keeping it a secret from Sally.
• Tails reuniting with his parents by traveling into space on a modified Tornado.
• Amy's origins being explored in a fuller adaptation of Sonic CD.
• Knuckles departing Angel Island after learning that his presence exposes the location of the Master Emerald, going on a global pilgrimage to learn martial arts and battling a Dr. Eggman controlled-Monkey Khan while himself under the control of the Iron Queen before discovering the Master Geode.
• Sally being a pawn in a villainous plot by the corrupted Source of All and Ixis Naugus to prevent the future first previewed in "Sonic In Your Face!".
• Bunnie and Antoine breaking up due to a change in Antoine's personality, with Bunnie's origins later being explored and her true name being revealed as "Scarlette O'Hare" (which may have served as the inspiration for Scarlette Rabbot from Sonic Universe's "Fractured Mirror" story arc, and Bunnie's codename when she was in the Metropolis Egg Army in Issue #255).
• Antoine gaining his scar due to an accident with a knife and becoming a villain after allowing himself to be possessed by a corrupted Source of All in hopes of winning Bunnie back.
• Rotor retiring from field duty in order to pursue a role analogous to that played by "Q" from the James Bond franchise.
• The Source of All surviving Robotropolis' destruction and reconstituting itself in a remote mountain range, where it began to exert control over King Max, brainwashing the Arachne Clan and another group of Spiders known as the Strand, and possessing Antoine while under the control of Ixis Naugus.
• Locke and Lara-Le putting aside their previous disputes to help raise Kneecaps after his father Wynmacher ends up in the Egg Grape Chamber.
• Dr. Robotnik kidnapping Hope Kintobor under the pretense that he is the only correct choice to be her legal guardian, while using her as bait to lure in Shadow.
• Ixis Naugus attempting to return by transforming Max's body into a duplicate of his own, only to be thwarted by the destruction of the Crown of Acorns.
• Mammoth Mogul beginning to age rapidly due to his original Chaos Emerald running out of energy, forcing him to seek out alternative sources through illicit archaeological expeditions and hiring mercenaries like Nack the Weasel. The Master Geode, a powerful gemstone that would fulfill Mogul's needs, would be contested by him, the Iron Queen, Robotnik, and Rouge the Bat.
• Nate Morgan surviving the destruction of Robotropolis and being de-Roboticized by the Bem, returning as Coconuts' amnesia-addled ally, who creates a new Metal Sonic, Metal Amy, Metal Knuckles, and Tails Doll that are mistaken for Robian versions of the heroes.
• Snively taking up a fifteen foot-tall mechanical battle suit and the alias "Skarkus" in pursuit of revenge against Robotnik for leaving him alone against the Xorda, leading to an alliance between him and Shadow.
• A.D.A.M. and Nicole becoming romantically involved, leading to A.D.A.M. seizing control of the Shadowbot army and leading them from New Megaopolis to Knothole.
• A new Dingo Regime leader named Colonel Mange being introduced, with Croctobot, Jack Rabbit, and Gala-Na being reintroduced as Robotnik Sub-Bosses over Downunda, the Great Desert, and Albion. This would have led to the disappearance of the Downunda Freedom Fighters and a confrontation involving the Mercian Freedom Fighters.
• Evil Sonic coming to enjoy impersonating Sonic and enjoying the love of his parents and adulation of his people, leading him to plan to eliminate Sonic and permanently take his place.

Additionally, in the aftermath of Ken Penders' lawsuit against Archie Comics, Bollers has confirmed that he now owns the rights to all the characters he created for the comics, such as Mina Mongoose, Ash Mongoose, and Hope Kintobor.

In August 2016, Scott Fulop, a former editor and writer for Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog comics (whose notable contributions include the characters Mammoth Mogul and the Fearsome Foursome), began pursuing legal action against Archie Comics and Sega of America for the unauthorized use of his characters and reprinted stories. In the lawsuit, Fulop claimed he was owed six figures in royalties for his creations (having made 15 characters for the comic), and gave nearly a thousand examples of Archie either wrongly using his characters or reprinting stories involving them, and how he (through his company Narrative Ark) sought damages for copyright infringement from both Archie and Sega due to them apparently failing to compensate him for his works. He also alleged that Archie engaged in "deceptive business practices, unfair competition and unjust enrichment." As part of this, he attempted to invalidate copyrights on his characters filed by Archie in 2011 in response to fellow former writer Ken Penders' own copyright filings, who had also infamously sued Archie for similar reasons. However, in September 2017, the judge ruled in favor of Archie Comics due to various flaws in Fulop's claims.

On June 23, 2016, Sega released a YouTube video titled "25 Years of Sonic the Hedgehog!", a video going through an abridged timeline of the Sonic franchise's games on the anniversary of the first game's North American release. Strangely and controversially for a celebratory video, the video makes multiple snide remarks towards the games featured, some that are innocent in nature (such as Sonic the Hedgehog 3's description mentioning the "Knuckle Chuckle" meme and Sonic Heroes' description referencing the infamous "Look at all those Eggman's Robots!" translation error) while others very directly mock flaws and criticised elements of the games, such as Sonic 3's referencing the "barrel of doom", Sonic 3D Blast's description poking fun at how the Flicky AI would run away from Sonic, 2006's Sonic the Hedgehog not even receiving a description and simply showing its loading graphic, and Sonic Colors' description stating that it is where "Sonic in 3D finally finds its footing", a statement that is technically true when looking at critical reception, but tends to aggravate fans of 2000s-era Sonic games.

"TailsTube" is a webseries that began airing on March 22, 2022. Described as a "fun and informative, Tails-hosted show about all things Sonic", the series is hosted by a VTuber version of Miles "Tails" Prower, as he answers questions from fans about the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, often featuring special guests from throughout the series. The series is notable for explaining various aspects of the series' lore. For example, the first episode debunks a popular fan theory that claims that Sonic's world and Earth are two separate planets, and the fourth episode confirmed the existence of a multiverse in the series, as well as establishing that "Classic Sonic" and "Modern Sonic" are not separate entities from alternate dimensions, instead being the same character's past and future variants. The sixth episode also sees Tails mention Jewel the Beetle and the Restoration, two prominent parts of IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog comic book series, further connecting it to the game series canon.

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.

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.

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.

The human body has a Gene called "Sonic Hedgehog", named after the character. The gene has an inhibitor (something that stop the process of a gene) named "Robotnikinin", named after Sonic's Nemesis, Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik.