& Knuckles

About

& Knuckles refers to a phrase originating from the title of the 1994 Sega Genesis game Sonic & Knuckles. In recent years, it has been used as a joke among the gaming community, often mocking special crossovers or editions of games, similar to Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry Series. In memes, & Knuckles is used as an exploitable by photoshopping various elements of the character or title into other pop culture references where Knuckles is a featured guest to create a parody.

Origin

Sonic & Knuckles is a 1994 installment of the Sonic the Hedgehog series featuring Sonic the Hedgehog and the then-newly-playable Knuckles the Echidna.^[1] The game was advertised for its "Lock-On Technology," which in practice meant the physical game cartridge could be connected with other Sega Genesis games, most notably Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic the Hedgehog 3, with varying results. Combining the cartridge with Sonic the Hedgehog 3 formed a new compiled game called Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles, which tied the stories of both games into a single saga as the developers originally intended. In addition, combining the cartridge with Sonic the Hedgehog 2 formed Knuckles the Echidna in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, a simple modification whereby the player could play through the story of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 as Knuckles.

Precursor

On August 21st, 2010, video game reviewer SomecallmeJohnny released a joke review for the fictional game Sonic the Hedgehog 3CD & Knuckles & Knuckles (seen below).^[5] Although the & Knuckles meme had not caught on at this point in time, its use of a repeated "& Knuckles" and jokes about the lock-on technology could make it a precursor to the meme.

Spread

On April 23rd, 2012 user Narcissexual posted a thread on LurkerFAQs asking other users to add "and Knuckles" to movie and videogames titles.^[7] On May 18th, 2014, an anonymous user of 4chan's video game board /v/ made a thread asking other users to add "& Knuckles" to other video game names through image manipulation (shown below).^[2]

On September 10th, 2014, Redditor HUGE_HOG submitted a series of images based on a chain of replies to the subreddit /r/smashbros, which included two uses of "& Knuckles" (seen below).^[6] This post received over 2,000 upvotes in six months.

On September 26th, 2014, YouTuber Triple-Q uploaded a video with an edited version of "Unknown from M.E.," Knuckles' theme from Sonic Adventure, with several of the words replaced with "Knuckles" (shown below).^[3] On October 26th, 2014, Redditor douknogreg posted an edited version of the cover for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U under the subject "And knuckles." The post received nearly 3,000 upvotes in six months.^[4]

Acknowledgement

On June 12th, 2015, the official Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter account challenged fans to create "& Knuckles" related images (seen below). In the following hours, they retweeted several examples sent in by users of the site after the tweet received over 2,900 likes and 1,000 replies in roughly five and a half years.^[8]

Sonic Mania & Knuckles

In August 2017, Sega released Sonic Mania, a side-scrolling video game featuring Sonic the Hedgehog. Shortly after the game's release, fans noticed the inclusion of an unlockable "& Knuckles" mode. The game allows users to play as the character Knuckles as well as another Knuckles in cooperative play (shown below).

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Various Examples

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