The Supreme Topic of 'Other' Knowledge.

I stil have the lifesafers Sonic 3 poster.

 

The convenience store I grew up near as a kid was selling those Blue Rad Lifesavers wayyyy past the end of the promotion, at least up until 1999. Good thing they don't expire lol, only wish I had the foresight to stock up because unless my 20+ year old memories are leading me astray, they were the best flavour too...

 

@LordOfSquad Oh, thank god. My dad came home with a roll of the "blue rad" flavor, and I remember it being a few years out of date and asking if they were still safe to eat. Since this topic started, I wondered if it had only been like a month or so out of date even though it seemed like a few years in my head.

 

The digital materials for the elementary 5th grade English textbook in Japan has a video about David Bull which we watched in class today. He's a Canadian living in Japan working as a carver and printer of traditional Japanese woodblocks. He's also half of Ukiyoe Heroes, making woodblock prints based on videogames. Since the textbook's video only showed his more traditional works, I brought in pictures of some of his other pieces to show the kids based on Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., Pokemon, and Starfox. I also showed them this piece based on Sonic:


The reaction it got was interesting. First of all, everyone in the room had heard of Sonic, so that alone is a big change from several years ago when half of the kids had no idea who he was. But there were quite a few surprised "eh? harinezumi???" ("hedgehog?") exclamations upon seeing the more realistic depiction, since no one in the room had any idea that Sonic was a hedgehog. Also interesting was that no one in the room (including the teacher) realized that Sonic was a Japanese character. They all thought it was an American character and game series. I assumed this was due to the movies being American productions, but the teacher's reasoning was that Sonic was a cute animal character so it seemed more American than Japanese (has this guy never laid eyes on Pokemon?). I had to assure them all that Sonic was indeed a hedgehog and a Japanese creation, while also admitting that he's more popular outside of Japan.

And once we got all of that settled we studied some English.
Priorities.

 

I saw this picture ten years ago, but it's still interesting to find out the origin of this image

 

Not really sure of a better place to put this, but I got a hearty chuckle out of it. Dude hooked up a toy game steering wheel and a music pedal to SegaSonic Patrol Car.

https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/c1071841639

edit: also, you know, I just noticed: the title screen for the game is "Harinezumi Sonic no Omawarisan" (Sonic the Hedgehog On Patrol, is one way of putting it), not Waku Waku Sonic Patrol Car. What's particularly interesting is the use of "harinezumi." Did they work on this graphic before "Sonic the Hedgehog" as a proper name was fully decided?

 

Maybe they thought the foreign word "hedgehog" would be confusing for the very young children the ride was aimed at?

 

When I went hunting a few months ago, "Sonic the Hedgehog" (ソニック・ザ・ヘッジホッグ) was turning up in the release schedules as early as November/December 1990, so the name of the game was probably set in stone by 1991.

But perhaps the character was just to be known as "Sonic" (or SegaSonic), only adopting "the Hedgehog" as a surname later in the year. Early art does use the term "His Name is Sonic" after all - perhaps they took it literally.


Personally I'd put money on someone not doing their job properly - "Waku Waku Sonic Patrol Car" is the name Sega used to advertise the game, and it appears on all the cabinets, and given there's a load of other "Waku Waku" rides, the title screen looks like the odd one out to me.

 

Man, can I just share a crazy coincidence with you all. This was created in 1989.



So these Mario enemies truly don't share any relation to Sonic whatsoever. They predate him and their appearance is purely coincidental. But dang, I had to do a double-take here. Look at those connected eyes! And this had me wondering: does Sonic's "connected eyes" style trace back from some older cartoon tradition or something? Maybe a certain artist/studio Ohshima took inspiration from?

 

A certain artist/studio called Disney.

 

Called Iwerks. Called Messmer too, since Felix is the obvious root here. Mickey's design is also taken from a series of cartoons, Farmer Alfalfa. No sense derailing it further, just. Don't credit Disney with inventing this.

 

Oh, I'm aware Mickey and the rest of the Disney characters weren't created by Walt alone.

As for Felix, I don't believe he has ever been depicted with connected eyes?

 

https://xcancel.com/VGDensetsu/status/1482472814619803651

Fascinating! I had also wondered why Duncan Gutteridge said the Triple Trouble box art was his. I never realised it was a subtly different redraw of Greg Martin's US box art. What reason would Sega Europe/UK have for doing this?

Also: https://xcancel.com/VGDensetsu/status/1591878920332521473

 

Probably a similar reason the Spinball art differs between the Mega Drive and Game Gear release - to keep Sonic more on-model. To hell with Knuckles and his now square head, and whatever they're doing with Robotnik.

Though if nobody's noticed the difference in nearly 30 years... that's time well spent!

 

Further down in the same Twitter thread is this comparison of the EU box art for Sonic 3 with the original sketch it was based on:
https://xcancel.com/VGDensetsu/status/1591878920332521473

I've never seen this sketch before - it's quite interesting to note the difference between it and the final piece. It's a lot more busy, with a bustling background, differently-arranged logo (and "Part One" label, similar to the alternate version of the final art), clearer perspective (Knuckles is clearly standing in the background, not just really tiny!) and actually has Tails and Robotnik on it to boot. Has anyone else seen this before, and if so, can they verify where exactly it originates from?

Also, off-topic, but:

...My exact reaction to his updated model in SADX when compared to the original, haha. XD

 

Spoiler: IMAGE

Oh God...
I want colorized version of it! Looks pretty)
Looks like, who drawn it- likes CNZ, lol

 

I vaguely remember seeing the background art for the EU Sonic 3 box art somewhere. Just the Carnival Night Zone stuff, no Sonic, Knuckles, or logos. Does anyone have this?

 

There's this logo-less "PART ONE" version from Sonic the Screensaver - I can't say I recall seeing one without Sonic and Knuckles.

 

In other news, after the Twitter AMA last night, Shadow is now canonically a Swiftie and Knuckles is a fan of Lizzo. (Okay, maybe it's not 100% canonical but it sure is entertaining)

 

New Yuji Naka lore drop? New Yuji Naka lore drop.

Remember how Naka used to claim he left Sega because he was sick of making Sonic games? He's walked back on that and says he'd actually planned to spend his entire career at Sega, but was forced out of the company during the development of Sonic '06 for arguing with higher-ups about salaries.