Animated 'Sonic The Hedgehog' TV Series Sprinting To Netflix

Netflix tweeted, then deleted, an announcement that a 3D animated Sonic the Hedgehog TV series is headed our way, so I guess we all have to stop whatever the hell it is we're doing and talk about this now. There are next to zero details about this thing just yet, other than the fact that it's going to be animated, it's going to premiere in 2022, and that it's coming from  Sega and production companies WildBrain and Man of Action Entertainment.

Believe it or not, the Sonic the Hedgehog movie came out this year. I know, it feels like that was something that happened a decade ago, but 2020 has been a year vomited straight out of the maw of hell, so it's easy to get mixed-up. If the movie didn't do enough to satisfy your craving for that fast-paced, chili-dog-loving, ring-collecting freak, good news – there's a Netflix show on the way.

The series was accidentally announced via a Netflix Twitter account. The tweet was then promptly deleted, but The Verge adds "Netflix's teaser image shows a silhouette of the modern 3D Sonic design (as opposed to the chubbier and stubbier "classic Sonic" that's featured in games like Sonic Mania.)" I have no idea what they're talking about there, but I will assume they're correct. Sorry, chubby Sonic fans.

The first Sonic the Hedgehog game was launched in 1991 on the Sega Genesis, and the character kind of became the Sega version of Nintendo's Mario. According to Wikipedia, there have been 28 games featuring Sonic, which seems both wrong and absolutely insane to me, but again, I will defer to the experts here. If Wikipedia says there are nearly 30 Sonic-related titles, who am I to argue?

While I haven't played all of these games, and I can't speak to what stories they all tell, the initial game told the classic story of an "anthropomorphic hedgehog named Sonic in a quest to defeat Dr. Robotnik, a scientist who has imprisoned animals in robots and stolen the powerful Chaos Emeralds. The gameplay involves collecting rings as a form of health, and a simple control scheme, with jumping and attacking controlled by a single button."

The games have inspired animated shows before, including Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (1993) Sonic the Hedgehog (1993–1994). The Sonic adventures continued onto the big screen this year with the Sonic the Hedgehog movie. The film made headlines for all the wrong reasons when a teaser trailer terrified the world with its crude design of the CGI Sonic. The backlash was so strong that the filmmakers actually went back and redesigned the character to look more like his video game counterpart. It paid off in the end as the film went on to make over $320 million worldwide.