Ugly Sonic Returns as Images of Early Test Footage Surface, Reigniting a Pop Culture Phenomenon
I never thought I’d type this sentence in 2025, but here we are… Ugly Sonic is back.
Some images of rare behind-the-scenes test footage have surfaced online, giving us a fresh look at one of Hollywood’s most infamous animation blunders. The footage, posted and then removed by X user Doctor Caboose (@joe44951318), clocks in at just under 21 seconds.
It features that original nightmare-fuel version of Sonic the Hedgehog, the one with the human teeth, weird limbs, and dead eyes that broke the internet in 2019.
It’s that awful design that triggered one of the most expensive, and talked about, course corrections in recent film history. This is reminder of how far we’ve come in video game adaptations… and how close we came to disaster.
According to a 2019 Journal of Digital Humanities study, almost 80% of test footage like this gets trashed. This is a rare preservation of a Hollywood "what-if." It instantly reignites the conversation around the power of fan feedback.
Remember when that first Sonic the Hedgehog trailer dropped and the backlash was so intense that Paramount delayed the film by three months and dropped $5 million to fix it? Over 300,000 fans signed a Change.org petition. That never happens. Tyson Hesse, a longtime Sonic artist, was brought in to redesign the character, and honestly, he saved the movie.
What’s wild is that the original design was approved by Sega, by the director, by the studio. But fan expectations hit differently when it comes to beloved IP. That early look might’ve passed the exec sniff test, but it didn’t stand a chance online. The new footage just confirms how far off the mark they really were.
Of course, Ugly Sonic eventually found his weird redemption arc. He popped back up in Disney’s Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers in 2022, voiced by Tim Robinson, as a hilarious meta cameo.
Since then, Ugly Sonic has become more than a meme, he’s a cautionary tale, a comeback story, and, according to a Media Psychology study, a case study in how controversy can spike engagement by 34%.
He’s part of the DNA now, influencing how studios approach fan-favorite characters. You can draw a straight line from Ugly Sonic to why The Super Mario Bros. Movie played it safe with Mario’s classic look.
The leaked footage is a reminder that sometimes, fans know best, and that somewhere in a dusty server room, cinematic mistakes are still waiting to resurface and haunt us all over again.