page_title: Sonic the Hedgehog (character)
section_title: Origins and history
hierarchical_section_title: Sonic the Hedgehog (character) / Origins and history
caption_attribution_description: English: Naoto Ohshima (left) and Hirokazu Yasuhara (right) at the 2018 Game Developers Conference
context_page_description: Sonic the Hedgehog is the protagonist of the Sonic the Hedgehog video game series released by Sega, as well as numerous spin-off comics, animations, and other media. Sonic is a blue anthropomorphic hedgehog who can run at supersonic speeds and curl into a ball, primarily to attack enemies. In most games, Sonic must race through levels, collecting power-up rings and avoiding obstacles and enemies.
  Programmer Yuji Naka and artist Naoto Ohshima are generally credited with creating Sonic. Most of the games are developed by Sonic Team. The original Sonic the Hedgehog was released to provide Sega with a mascot to rival Nintendo's flagship character Mario. Sonic was redesigned by Yuji Uekawa for Sonic Adventure, with a more mature look designed to appeal to older players.
  Sonic is one of the world's best-known video game characters and a gaming icon. His series had sold more than 80 million copies by 2011. In 2005, Sonic was one of the first game character inductees into the Walk of Game alongside Mario and Link.
context_section_description: While Sega was seeking a flagship series to compete with Nintendo's Mario series, several character designs were submitted by its research and development department. Many results came forth from their experiments with character design, including an armadillo (who was later developed into Mighty the Armadillo), a dog, a Theodore Roosevelt look-alike in pajamas (who would later be the basis of Dr. Robotnik/Eggman's design), and a rabbit (who would use its extendable ears to collect objects, an aspect later incorporated in Ristar). Naoto Ohshima took some of these internal designs with him on a trip to New York City and sought feedback by asking random passersby at Central Park their opinions; of the designs, the spiky teal hedgehog, initially codenamed "Mr. Needlemouse", led this informal poll, followed by Eggman and the dog character. Ohshima felt that people selected it because it "transcends race and gender and things like that". On return to Japan, Ohshima pitched this to the department, and the hedgehog was ultimately selected as the new mascot.
  The detailed design of Sonic was aimed to be something that could be easily drawn by children and be familiar, as well as exhibit a "cool" attitude, representative of the United States at the time. Sonic's blue pigmentation was chosen to match Sega's cobalt blue logo, and his shoes evolved from a design inspired by Michael Jackson's boots with the addition of the color red, which was inspired by both Santa Claus and the contrast of those colors on Jackson's 1987 album Bad; his personality was based on then-presidential candidate and later President of the United States Bill Clinton's "Get it done" attitude during the 1992 presidential campaign. To help sell the idea to Sega's higher-ups, Ohshima pitched the concept framed by a fictional fighter pilot that had earned the name "Hedgehog" due to his spiky hair, and had decorated his plane with images of Sonic. When this pilot retired, he married a children's book author, who wrote stories about the Sonic character, the first which became the plot for the first Sonic game; Ohshima stated that this influence can be seen in the logo of the game, which features Sonic in a pilot's wing emblem.
  The origins of Sonic can be traced farther back to a tech demo created by Yuji Naka, who had developed an algorithm that allowed a sprite to move smoothly on a curve by determining its position with a dot matrix. Naka's original prototype was a platform game that involved a fast-moving character rolling in a ball through a long winding tube, and this concept was subsequently fleshed out with Oshima's character design and levels conceived by designer Hirokazu Yasuhara.
  Sonic was created without the ability to swim because of a mistaken assumption by Yuji Naka that all hedgehogs could not do so. A group of fifteen people started working on the first Sonic the Hedgehog game, and renamed themselves Sonic Team. The game's soundtrack was composed by Masato Nakamura of the band Dreams Come True. Sega sponsored the group's "Wonder 3" tour, painting Sonic on the tour bus, distributing pamphlets advertising the game, and having footage of the game broadcast above stage prior to its release. The original concepts gave Sonic fangs and put him in a band with a human girlfriend named Madonna. However, a team from Sega of America, led by Madeline Schroeder, who calls herself "Sonic's mother", "softened" the character up for an American audience by removing those elements. This sparked a heated issue with Sonic Team. Naka later admitted that it was probably for the best.
  Sonic's appearance varies greatly depending on the medium and the style in which he is drawn. In the video games, Sonic's original design by Oshima was short and round, with short quills, a round body, and no visible irises. Artwork featuring this design and drawn by Akira Watanabe was displayed on the package artwork for Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic's proportions would change for the release of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on the Mega Drive; Sonic's head to height ratio was changed from 1:2 to 1:2.5. Fo
caption: Sonic's character designer Naoto Ohshima (left) with level designer Hirokazu Yasuhara at the 2018 Game Developers Conference.
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