Sonic the Hedgehog/Trivia

Games

 * Breakthrough Hit: It was the first Sonic the Hedgehog that put Sega on the map as a gaming company and Sonic Team as a premier development team.
 * Dueling Games: The first game with Super Mario World, a launch title for Nintendo's answer to the Genesis, the Super NES.
 * Hey, It's That Voice!:
 * Sonic: Jaleel White (Steve Urkel) in the American animated shows (AoStH, Sonic SatAM and Sonic Underground).
 * Japanese-wise, the game SegaSonic the Hedgehog featured Takeshi "Trunks" Kusao as Sonic.
 * And now as of Sonic Colors/Colours and Sonic Free Riders he is voiced by Roger Craig Smith (Chris Redfield, Ezio Auditore da Firenze)
 * For Eddie Lebron's upcoming fan-film, Jaleel White WILL reprise his role as Sonic.
 * Knuckles: Dan Green, better known for his work in Yu-Gi-Oh.
 * Or for the Japanese, it's Nobutoshi Canna.
 * His new English voice actor LOVES DOGS!
 * Amy: Went from Serenity Wheeler to Makoto Nanaya.
 * Blaze/Maria: She used to be Luffy (the 4Kids one), but that didn't workout for her.
 * Now she's currently voiced by Laura Bailey.
 * Chip: Tony Salerno who voices Chazz Princeton in Yu-Gi-Oh GX.
 * Dr. Eggman: Robotnik has been voiced by blues singer Long John Baldry (in AoSTH), veteran voice actor Jim Cummings (in SatAM and the unaired pilot of AoSTH), Gary Chalk (the voice of Optimus Prime and Optimus Primal, and who voiced Grounder in AoSTH), Mike Pollock (Sonic X and all games starting from Shadow), and Chikao Ohtsuka (in the Japanese dub).
 * Rouge: Her original voice was Luke Triton and also voices Pit and Lucas, as well as four of the Koopalings!
 * And now she's voiced by the appropriately Stripperific character Fasalina.
 * Big the Cat: He was originally voiced by Duke Nukem. Now he's voiced by Kamina. Shades-wearing badasses are apparently in his blood.
 * E-123 Omega is now voiced by Edward Elric.
 * Silver is now voiced by Quinton Flynn, otherwise known as Axel.
 * In the Japanese version he shares a voice with Shizuo Heiwajima.
 * Mid Development Genre Shift: The initial concept was a more traditional platformer with puzzles and exploration akin to Super Mario Bros 2. The final product, while still a platformer, focused more dominantly on its now trademark speed. This evolution is even more prominant in its sequel.
 * Port Overdosed: The original 1991 game. There is hardly a platform for which Sega has not released a version since going third-party.
 * Promoted Fanboys: Pop duo Cash Cash, the people responsible for the vocals in "Reach for the Stars" and some of the tracks in Sonic Generations, are big Sonic fans themselves.
 * Talking to Himself: In Sonic X and the games through 2005-2010, Jason Griffith did both Sonic and Shadow — not to mention Jet the Hawk in Sonic Riders. Jaleel White also voiced Sonic, Sonia, and Manic in Sonic Underground. Ryan Drummond who portrayed played Sonic in the old(er) pre-4Kids games also voiced Knuckles in Sonic Shuffle. On top of that, he and Metal Sonic shared the same voice actor in both the Japanese and American versions of Sonic Heroes.
 * Turns out, plenty of voice actors have done multiple roles.
 * What Could Have Been: Sonic went through several character designs before he was settled on as a hedgehog, including a fox, a dog, a rabbit, an armadillo, and a Theodore Roosevelt look-alike in pajamas. Also, his original name was "Mr. Needlemouse" (from a literal translation of the Japanese word for hedgehog, harinezumi). The armadillo idea would later become Mighty the Armadillo, and the rabbit idea is the basis for another Sega game. Of course, we all know who the Roosevelt man turned out to become. Also, the "Roosevelt" concept was attached to an idea of the hero being some type of "dream warrior" that fought nightmare creatures, likely as a counter to Super Mario Bros 2. This idea obviously ended up getting reworked over the decade and turned into Ni GHTS Into Dreams.
 * Oh, and he was also gonna have a Cute Little Fangs sticking out.
 * Some people think this - Tails was originally meant to be female and a Love Interest for Sonic. The designers scrapped that idea pretty quickly, though a lot of people in Japan (and elsewhere) do still think Tails is a girl. (This is given a possible Shout-Out in a lesser-known storybook called Sonic the Hedgehog in Robotnik's Laboratory in which a minor character mistakes Tails for a girl.) - it's just an urban legend though, stemming from how feminine Tails looked before Sonic Adventure, and a translation error of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog into Spanish.
 * Robotnik's original design was actually intended as the design for the hero, until a change in direction. His concept was actually Theodore Roosevelt in pajamas.
 * At one point in development, he was much larger and not the main antagonist.
 * Sonic could have had a human love interest named Madonna.
 * Both Metal Sonic and his earlier version, Silver Sonic, can be seen in tubes in the Final Egg section of the Mystic Ruins in Sonic Adventure.
 * Want to know which version of the original Sonic the Hedgehog you're playing? Check out the clouds in Green Hill Zone. In the Japanese versions, they scroll, but in the U.S. versions, they're static.
 * Also, in the Japanese version everything's in Japanese.
 * Well, not really. Not sure why, but the only thing there that's in Japanese is the hidden credits screen, which is in the US version as well.
 * Also from the original game, there was originally supposed to be a sound test menu with an animated band "playing" the music while Sonic partakes in some breakdancing. It was nixed so the game could meet deadlines, and its space was replaced with the famous "SAY-GUUUUH!" choir heard at the end of Sega's Japanese adverts for the company logo.
 * Furthermore, the synthesist of the band, Vector the Crocodile, would go on to become a supporting player in the series.
 * Yuji Naka reportedly added the seventh emerald and Super Sonic to Sonic 2 as a Shout-Out to Dragonball Z. To make it even more obvious, in Sonic 3, Super Sonic had green eyes.
 * Also introduced in Sonic 2, the Death Egg was a Shout-Out to the Death Star from Star Wars. Supposedly this was to balance out the Japanese fanservice with some American fanservice.
 * The giant skeleton platform seen in Mystic Mansion resembles the character select screen of Golden Axe II.
 * There's an infamous "bug" in the original Sonic Genesis game where, if you land on a group of spikes after being hit without wearing a shield and without landing on the ground first, you will die regardless of the fact that you're supposed to have Mercy Invincibility, at that point. I say "bug", because until recently it was thought to be a bug, and not a preprogrammed behavior. Fortunately, all sequels and future releases of the game eliminate this "bug".
 * Almost all badniks in Sonic CD are based on bugs. The exception is Bigbom, a Giant Mook version of Sonic 1's Bomb badnik.

Animation

 * Hey, It's That Voice!:
 * Some of the SatAM voice actors are Jim Cummings (Robotnik), Jaleel White (Sonic), Charlie Adler (Snively), Cree Summer (Dulcy), Tim Curry (King Acorn), Kath Soucie (Sally), Rob Paulsen (Antoine), Christine Cavanaugh (Bunnie)... among others. The team of actors providing the voices for this show each have a long list of acting gigs under their belts, so it would be surprising if you didn't recognize at least one of the characters voices from somewhere else.
 * Masami Kikuchi voiced Sonic in the two-episode Japanese OAVs.
 * Screwed By the Network: ABC put SatAM up against Power Rangers. The results were not pretty. Also, since this was the time when ABC affiliates started airing Saturday Morning Newscasts, some markets never even saw the show first-run.
 * Word of God: The answers to questions about the series-ending cliffhanger to SatAM were eventually discovered in interviews with the writing staff, including some plot threads which were supposed to continue from this point, such as Snively's Heel Face Turn, Robotnik becoming Naugus' Right Hand Man as the latter became the series' Big Bad, the introduction of Knuckles, and increased prominence for Tails.