What are the sources for Sonic being inspired by Felix the Cat and Mickey Mouse?

on the other hand, the Console Wars book is pretty inaccurate about other aspects of how Sonic's design came to be, such as Kalinske claiming that he helped finalize Sonic's design, which couldn't have happened because we have alpha screens that date months before he ever joined Sega with Sonic looking nearly identical in-game and wholly identical in the title art. (disproving that Console Wars claim was explicitly stated to be the reason why this user went looking for these screencaps too)

 

I imagine it's standard cartoon evolution - Sonic builds off Mickey who builds off Felix. It may be subconscious.

I mean Mario is a cartoon character who wears gloves too. I bet people weren't even thinking about the roots of that design.


p.s. it's good to challenge these things, but I'd advise eithering find a reference or removing the line rather than adding "citation needed", Wikipedia style. All facts need citations.

 

I have a very good idea where the Felix claims might've came from. In the SONIC THE HEDGEHOG AND HIS PALS OFFICIAL STYLEBOOK & CHARACTER MANUAL, there's this pose by Sonic that's very obviously based off the popular stock art of Felix popularized by the 1991 syndicated run's intro;

 

I don't know if there's any definitive source, but Sonic's design is a pretty obvious evolution of Felix and Mickey. I don't mean this in the sense that Ohshima "ripped off" their designs or anything, both of those characters had been established and known for well over 50 years by the time Sonic was created; if anything I view it more as an homage to that vintage style of character, mixed with influences from Japanese illustration to create a marriage of two styles

 

Ya I don’t think there needs to be a source. It’s obvious. Maybe not intentionally made to look like Felix or Mickey but I think there’s a natural goto “look” that happens subconsciously.

When making a character your brain automatically draws from pre-existing designs and there’s only so many variations of something that can be done.

It’s extremely hard or maybe impossible to create a totally original looking character. Generally speaking all humans and animals share core and consistent physical attributes. They’re going to end up resembling someone else. Especially if the art style is meant be cute or more simplistic.

That aside I like that it creates the possibility for crossovers. Maybe I’m in the minority but I would love for Sonic to meet Mickey. They did Kingdom Hearts...Sonic’s world is basically a perfect match.

 

Now that I think about it, another claim that I've never really seen a source for is the idea that Eggman's design was inspired by Teddy Roosevelt. Not going to deny that he might have been an influence but the engineer character from Castle in the Sky has a lot of Eggman's features and predates his creation, so it feels like this may have been more of where the inspiration actually came from.

 

When I was a kid I was certain both Sonic and Eggman were inspired by Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam. Though considering the Boogie Board Eggman design came before Sonic was even conceived, the Sam comparison is probably a stretch. I'm still convinced Sonic's flippancy and fourth-wall-awareness come from Bugs but I don't think there's any actual source for that either.

 

I always thought American Eggman definitely looked a bit like yosemite sam lol

 

Sonic Mega Collection has a collection of Archie scans and one of them mentions that Sonic was inspired by Felix. I don’t know if that’s the original source, but it’s the earliest mention I remember.

 

I'm pretty sure this connection (assumed or not) is the primary reason Simpson from Sonic the Comic exists

 

this is still my favorite "classic Sonic" illustration. he's so cute! I wanna pinch his adorable little cheeks!

 

I don't know if there's a direct source, yeah, it's just one of those things where you have to do self-investigation.

Sonic looks like Mickey or Felix, has a pose directly based on Felix, and we know from the concept art etc that Ohshima was directly working from Americana cartoon designs, which in a wider context we also know were popular in the 80s in Japan (vide stuff like Popeye magazine).

By the same token, we can see many Ghibli similarities in Sonic, we can see a direct engineer that looks like Eggman, and we can see another engineer looking like that in Lupin in a Miyazaki episode, so that's also a reasonable connection.

We can also look at Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum in Disney's Alice in Wonderland, their outfit and posing, and make a direct comparison to Eggman, especially since again, we directly know Ohshima was going for the Disney vibes.

On the other hand, "Eggman is based on Roosevelt" is something I've long argued against because to me that's where the Occam's razor falls. We know Ohshima was copying Disney and Ghibli, so it's reasonable to connect Eggman to Disney and Ghibli. How likely is it that Ohshima was also being influenced by the political cartoons of near a century prior of a different country in a time without internet access? That one, to me, always felt entirely like American fans projecting their own context into things.

 

About as likely that Sonic would be based off of Bill Clinton *BEFORE* Clinton was president of the USA.

 

I can't find the tweet—I'm not sure if it was deleted by Oshima or lost during the purge from a few years ago.

Someone had asked if Eggman was based on Roosevelt, and Oshima responded that it was "unintentional" and instead inspired by other characters. However, he didn’t specify which ones.

It could have been Lonebach from Lupin, Motro from Laputa, or the Kurodako Brothers from Tondemo Senshi Muteking.

It doesn't help his design isn’t exactly uncommon, hopefully, Oshima will be more open about it someday.

 

It's not like he appeared out of nowhere and won an election; people worldwide do hear about certain politicians in other countries when they're relevant. He'd already been talked about as a nominee for the 87 election, he led the Democratic Convention, etc. Compare that to knowing about the fact Roosevelt got caricatured as a guy with moustache and glasses about a century prior.

(Also personally I feel the Clinton bit is a bit of a more modern fib Ohshima said, or maybe just applies to the Sonic artwork created from 92 onwards, but at that point we're doubting a direct source so eh)

 

I was old enough to follow the 1988 election. I lived in America, and I didn't know who Bill Clinton was in 1990.