Ugly Sonic

About

Ugly Sonic is the name given to the original Sonic design for the 2020 movie Sonic the Hedgehog that caused such a recoil in fans that the film was delayed while emergency fixes were done to the character design to make it more palatable for fans. Although decreasing in prevalence between 2020 and 2021 following the film's release and rework of Sonic's design, the character's sudden appearance in the Disney reboot Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers movie reignited fan appeal and interest in him around May 2022.

Origin

Beginning on March 4th, 2019, a "film style guide" by the ad agency Hamagami / Carrol, Inc. was leaked that featured images of the character from the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog film (shown below). This kicked off the initial wave of backlash toward Ugly Sonic, though the bulk of this came at the end of April that year with the initial trailer release.

On April 30th, 2019, the first trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog was released, causing massive backlash and outrage among fans, creating a big enough shockwave that the entire movie was delayed by several months while a patch job was done on the design to make it less horrible. The original trailer still exists on YouTube, uploaded by the channel KinoCheck^[1] where it has received 30.7 million views in three years (shown below).

Spread

This original design received many memes made about it, with users around the web criticizing the design of Sonic, as can be seen in the post by Nerd Trash^[2] on Facebook from April 30th, 2019, as a variant of the Look How They Massacred My Boy meme template (shown below).

On May 3rd, 2019, Sonic the Hedgehog director Jeff Fowler tweeted^[7] an announcement that Sonic's design in the movie would be changed due to the negative reaction to the trailer.

After the Sonic the Hedgehog movie came out with the updated design on June 26th, 2020, memes referencing the old design became far less common, with a notable example being from DeviantArt user SCFOfficial,^[3] showing a comparison between the two Sonic designs and the accompanying music that was used for them (shown below).

Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers (2022 Resurgence)

Ugly Sonic sat in relative obscurity without a proper name for two years until the Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers movie, released May 16th, 2022, featured him in a prominent role in the movie under the name "Ugly Sonic," giving the in-meta universe answer that it was just a different actor playing as Sonic in the original trailer. Ugly Sonic is seen at the beginning of the film with Dale being a washed-up actor at a convention trying to make money off his appearance, and at one point, he pans over and sees Ugly Sonic working at a booth. This and the Ugly Sonic scene later in the movie were combined and uploaded to YouTube on the channel SwiftSonic^[6] on May 20th, 2022, where it received over 3.4 million views in five days (shown below).

In the movie, the surrounding characters, like Dale, all express their disgust at Ugly Sonic's design, with special attention paid to his teeth, which are zoomed in on for added emphasis. This mirrors the real-world issues that people had with his design, as this is the original design pulled straight from the files of the Sonic the Hedgehog movie, as Moving Picture Company did animation on both films and reportedly had the files ready for inclusion. Some people still had an issue with the design, making tweets about how it ruined their movie, as seen in the tweet by @OnTheDownLoTho^[5] on May 20th, 2022, following Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers' release on Disney+ (shown below).

Unlike the initial reveal of the Sonic design in April 2019, not everyone hated his cameo in Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers, resulting in a resurgence with some people making newer memes featuring him. For example, on May 17th, 2022, Twitter user @RicFromSSS^[4] used the I Lived meme template to show the tenacity of the Ugly Sonic design, and people reacted positively to the meme, helping it receive over 14,000 likes in one day (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References