Ugly Sonic Has Divided My Children

Getting kids to agree on anything can be difficult. They all have different tastes and personalities and can quickly lose their minds if something doesn’t go their way. I’m the father of twin almost four-year-olds. They can be pretty agreeable and by that, I mean that one of them is a bit bossy and the other is a pushover. Both have the capacity for sharing and luckily, neither is that prone to meltdowns. Regardless, they can reach a point where they put their foot down, which often happens when figuring out what shows they can watch.

I won’t get too much into my kids’ watching habits, but I will say that I try to avoid a lot of the subpar children’s programming out there. They don’t go to school yet, so I’ve had pretty firm control over what they watch or want to watch without outside influences. I’ve shown them things I grew up watching, like PeeWee’s Playhouse, while also lamenting a couple of times when they see something shiny on Netflix (Creature Cases is pretty fun). At one point, despite never playing one of the games, they spotted Sonic the Hedgehog and united over him.

There is an insane amount of Sonic media out there. The last time I played a “new” Sonic game was on the Sega Dreamcast. Copious amounts of lore have been added to the Blue Guy since then. There are numerous characters with full backstories and years of iterations. There’s an insane cartoon from the late 90s that finds Sonic orphaned with two siblings as they attempt to reunite with their mother in a post-apocalyptic world. It’s insane, but my kids are super into it and readily agree to watch it when it is brought up.

Because there is so much Sonic stuff available to watch, my kids haven’t seen any of the movies yet. I toyed with bringing them to the new one, but they aren’t old enough to sit in a theater yet. So, I decided instead to bring the movies to them. They didn’t watch one. Instead, I showed them two pictures to see how united over the highspeed hedgehog they were. One picture of the onscreen Sonic that has become so popular, and the other of his initially hideous rendering.

The first Sonic film was released right before the world shut down, so it can be hard to remember much of the build-up. So much about the months leading up to lockdown are a blur to me. Luckily, the movie released a trailer with an “ugly” version of Sonic which the internet rejected with force. This may sound strange, but people on the internet can get really worked up when they don’t like something! Still, I remember wondering at the time if kids would care, so I conducted an experiment.

Given that my kids are familiar enough with Sonic, and that Paramount has brought Ugly Sonic back out for a new ad, I thought I’d gather their opinions on the different versions. Despite Sonic usually being a uniting force for the two, they were divided on the live-action takes! One was very onboard for “normal” Sonic, and would not even entertain the second picture. My other kid loved “ugly” Sonic. Like, love love loved him. He kept asking, “Can we watch that Sonic?” So then it was on me to explain what Paramount (and the internet) had taken from him.

He was devastated. Then he tooted, laughed, and ran into the living room. I think he’ll be okay.