Things you probably don’t know about Sonic The Hedgehog…
It’s been more than a quarter of a century since Sonic The Hedgehog sprinted onto our screens in a flurry of blue and you’d have to say that the spiky little character has had a very solid career but without ever quite fulfilling his massive potential.
After taking over from SEGA’s unofficial and, ultimately uninspiring mascot, the Master System II built-in game, Alex Kidd, Sonic had many good years at the top before becoming slightly lost in the super crowded arena of gaming. There are big plans ahead to make him really great again and one can easily see this happening, but for now it’s just nice to look back at the good old days when Sonic ruled the gaming world.
When Sonic came along in 1991, with captivating graphics and sounds, coupled with engaging and speedy gameplay and a nice narrative to support it all, it was quite simply on a different level to SEGAs current offering. The creators at SEGA had cracked it, and had unleashed a platform game to rival, and in many people’s opinion, exceed, the brilliance of Nintendo’s Super Mario.
Here are a few things you may not have known about the popular SEGA franchise…
Sonic was modelled on Santa Claus, Bill Clinton and MJ…. No, really
Take a dash of Michael Jackson’s shoes, a pinch of 42nd US President Bill Clinton’s bravado, the fashion sense of Father Christmas, stick it in a blender and apparently you’re left with the remnants of one of the video gaming world’s most loved hedgehogs.
Yep, the inspiration supposedly, behind Sega’s prodigal son Sonic, was apparently at the time derived from a curious mix of some of western culture’s most popular components.
Sega’s crack team of game designers wanted their eulipotyphlan creation to sell well in the North American and European markets so took platinum selling singer Michael Jackson’s famous shoes and gave him the cocky swagger of Bill Clinton and the red outfit of Jolly Old Saint Nick (which of course was changed to blue past the prototype stage). Jacko allegedly also helped out with some of the soundtrack but decided that the sound quality was so poor it devalued his efforts and he declined to be named in the credits.
The slot machine in Casino Night is based on the classic ‘Liberty Bell’, invented in 1887
After cruising through Green Hill on Sonic 1 (Sega Mega Drive/Genesis), players are tasked with navigating Sonic’s famous Casino Night Zone level.
It is well known during this stage, that by launching Sonic off the pinball flippers, the Hedgehog will land in the middle of a slot machine where three reels would spin. But what many didn’t know, was that the aforementioned slot machine is a homage to the Liberty Bell Slot Machine, thought by many to have been invented by Charles Fey in 1887. This ‘Spin and Win’ mechanism in the Sonic franchise appears several more times throughout the game as well as in later versions of the game.
Sonic has a pretty destructive personality…
Make no mistake, this is a hedgehog in a hurry. Sonic is always up against the clock and he’s not shy to make you feel guilty if you’re slowing him down. Leave him standing for 5 seconds, and he starts tapping his feet impatiently and checking his watch. Leave him for three minutes and he’ll commit suicide on you, straight up. Basically, if you need to make a cup of tea then you should activate the pause button. Unless you want to pay for it with a valuable life.
Sonic almost had a love interest…
When you think of Sonic you don’t imagine him as much of a romantic, but that was so nearly not the case before the creators decided that the ‘love interest’ angle had already been done by Nintendo with Mario and Princess Peach. Instead they worked on the back-up characters in the game like trusty sidekick, Tails, and the evil Dr Ivo ‘Eggman’ Robotnic. The early drawings of Sonic’s arch nemesis were originally pitched as being the lead character! We think they made the right call by pushing the rotund, mustachioed, madman more to the background…
Sources & References:
- www.segaretro.org: History of Sega
- www.segagames.co.uk: All Sega Games
- www.casino.betway.com: History of Casino Games
- www.lifewire.com: Sonic: A Brief History