Sonic The Hedgehog (2022 Animated Series)

Sonic The Hedgehog is an American-Canadian animated series based on the 2020 Sonic The Hedgehog Film, for Nickelodeon and Paramount+. Sporting a new animation style, Sonic The Hedgehog serves as a comedic yet adventurous adaptation to the Sonic The Hedgehog franchise with a few changes. The show premieres in 2022 on Paramount+ and Nickelodeon

Main

 * Sonic the Hedgehog (voiced by Ben Schwartz) – Team Sonic's leader in the series, a blue hedgehog with super speed. Sonic is good-natured and brave, but can be inconsiderate of others' feelings, sarcastic, and impatient. He also enjoys the benefits of being a hero and dislikes competition. Unlike most incarnations, the Sonic Boom version of Sonic has blue-furred arms and wears a brown neckerchief around his neck and athletic sports tape on his wrists and shoes.
 * Miles "Tails" Prower (voiced by Colleen O'Shaughnessey) – A two-tailed yellow fox who is Sonic's sidekick and best friend and the youngest of the group. He sports goggles and a tool belt and serves as the group's mechanic and technology expert. Tails' inventions do not always work out as intended, though he's highly competent in his abilities. He maintains the same personality overall, though he can be immature, quiet and more openly cynical.
 * Knuckles the Echidna (voiced by Dave Mitchell) – A red echidna and the muscle of Team Sonic, whose redesign for Sonic Boom is the most drastic of any Sega character altered for the series; Knuckles is considerably taller than most versions of the character, appears more muscular and wears sports tape around his hands as opposed to spiked boxing gloves. Whereas other versions of Knuckles have a history of being naive, Boom Knuckles is dull-witted at times which often annoys his teammates.
 * Amy Rose (voiced by TBA) – A pink female hedgehog who is the peppiest member of the group. Amy wields a giant hammer in battle. Just like her main-series counterpart, Amy has a crush on Sonic, but unlike other versions of herself, she tries to keep it concealed. Eggman has referred to her and Sonic as if they were a married couple, and to Amy as Sonic's girlfriend. She is the more emotionally mature member of the group, offering common sense when the rest of the team gets carried away.
 * Doctor Eggman (voiced by Jim Carrey) – A mad scientist and Sonic's arch-nemesis, whose goal was to capture Sonic and use his super-speed for world domination, but was instead defeated by the blue hedgehog and subsequently had any evidence of his existence erased by the U.S. government. Now more insane than before as a result of being stranded on an alien planet for two years, he seeks to return to Earth, get revenge on Sonic, and achieve his dreams of world conquest. Robotnik teams up with Knuckles to find the emerald, knowing that he's only using him to achieve his goal.
 * Tom Wachowski (voiced by James Marsden) – The sheriff of Green Hills, Montana, who helped Sonic recover his rings and defeat Robotnik in the first film. He is now Sonic's adoptive father.
 * Tika Sumpter (voiced by Maddie Wachowski) – Tom's veterinarian wife who had helped Sonic in the first film. She is now Sonic's second adoptive mother, after Longclaw. Adam Pally as Wade Whipple: Tom's chief deputy.
 * Rachel (voiced by Natasha Rothwell) – Maddie's older sister.

Supporting

 * Adam Pally as Wade Whipple: a deputy sheriff in Green Hills and Tom's closest friend.
 * Neal McDonough as Major Bennington: a soldier tasked with assisting Robotnik (who he dislikes) in his efforts to capture Sonic.
 * Lee Majdoub as Agent Stone, a government agent who works for Robotnik.
 * Melody Nosipho Niemann as Jojo, Rachel's daughter and the niece of Maddie and Tom.
 * Tom Butler as Commander Walters, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who orders Robotnik to investigate the disturbances caused by Sonic.
 * Frank C. Turner as Crazy Carl, a conspiracy theorist who seeks to prove Sonic's existence and refers to him as the "Blue Devil".
 * Garry Chalk as the U.S. Navy Chief of Staff. Chalk previously voiced Grounder and Robotnik in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Underground respectively.
 * Michael Hogan as the Air Force Chief of Staff.

Trivia

 * According to Andrea Torrejon, the design aspects of the Flock and Pigs were not only streamlined but were influenced from Tokyo Movie Shinsha Co., Ltd.'s depiction of the characters in Sonic X.
 * It might possibly sure that this show's version of Sonic will be feature in the game Dream Mix TV Legendary Fighters.

Production
The aim of the adaptation based on Angry Birds was for the cartoon to match the tone of Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Toonsylvania, Pinky and the Brain, Tex Avery shorts, Adventure Time, the Looney Tunes shorts in their earlier days and the golden age while staying faithful to the source material. This led to the slapstick-comedy roots and heart-warming moments in each episode. The characters themselves saw some alterations to their personality traits, while some having personality traits that inspire the characters' traits from Sonic Boom - for example, Tails being a friendly young fox with a plucky "can do" attitude and an inherent optimism and Amy being smart, independent, strong, and confident.

The series features returning voice actors from the video game series and the movies. In an interview with Polygon, Ben Schwartz stated the series came about as a desire to appeal more to Western territories, with Schwartz also stating that the series would be a mixture of action and comedy, featuring an episodic structure.

Animation
The show's animation was outsourced to seven animation studios:


 * Jam Filled Entertainment (which worked on the animation for Thomas and Friends (Seasons 17-24), The Loud House and DC Super Hero Girls (2019)),
 * Mercury Filmworks (which worked on Wander Over Yonder),
 * Rough Draft Korea (which worked on a majority of productions from the Nickelodeon Animation Studio like The Ren & Stimpy Show, Rocko's Modern Life, SpongeBob SquarePants, My Life as a Teenage Robot and The Patrick Star Show and the animation of The Simpsons and Ben 10: Omniverse),
 * AKOM (which worked on the animation for The Tracey Ullman Show (The Simpsons shorts), Transformers (Seasons 3-4) and The Simpsons),
 * Yowza Animation (which worked on the animation for Osmosis Jones),
 * Snipple Animation (which worked on DuckTales (2017), Looney Tunes Cartoons, the Animaniacs revival, and Green Eggs and Ham (2019))
 * TMS Entertainment (which worked on Sonic X and the animation for Batman: The Animated Series, Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Pinky and The Brain),Tonic DNA (which would later work on Looney Tunes Cartoons and the Animaniacs revival),
 * Saerom Animation (which worked on a majority of Cartoon Network original shows like Adventure Time, My Gym Partner's a Monkey, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, Clarence, and Regular Show and worked on the animation of Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?),
 * CBS Eye Animation Productions (which worked on Star Trek: Lower Decks, and the 2 Animated works of Stephen Colbert: Our Cartoon President, and Tooning Out the News),

Also, all episodes are made by two hand-drawn animated softwares, Pencil2D and Toon Boom Animation.

Bill Freiberger serves as the series' animation director and lead animator.

Reception
It has received worldwide critical acclaim since its premiere and gained enormous popularity by its second season.