Sonic the Hedgehog Cameo Appearances 5

Sonic the Hedgehog Media Cameos Titlecard

What do you get when Sonic, or someone who is clearly supposed to be a representation of him (or some other character distincly from Sonic games like Tails, Amy or a Chao) appears in something that's NOT a Sonic show or game? You get a 'Sonic Cameo'! These aren't items, they're representations of Sonic or Sonic characters appearing outside of anything where you'd expect to find him. Items or areas from the games count too, sometimes stuff like this is an 'easter egg' in other games. Since Sonic is so popular it's no wonder that a variety of different media reference him. By looking at these photos, screen shots, videos and more, you can track down the original things and watch them/see them for yourself.

Sonic Gear Main * Sonic Cameos 1 * Sonic Cameos 2 * Sonic Cameos 3 * Sonic Cameos 4 * Sonic Cameos 6 *

CLAMP is a famous Manga Circle. They wrote many successful books & sometimes the books had shows made from them too. This is an actual published work "Clamp in Wonderland" from the summer of 1994. This looks like a book of tributes, parodies or cameos of some kind. It looks like they are doing a published 'tribute' type thing to other's characters. You can spot Jojo's Bizarre Adventure people (Stardust Crusade), Cutie Honey, the android from Black Magic M66, one of Clamp's own characters (in front of Jotaro) the one one with cross tie thing.), Sonic, and Giant Robo. If this turns out it's a parody instead, this item will move. Info provided by Taaron

This cameo is slightly confusing. There is a show called "Hi S-Cool Seha Girls". However, the word "Seha" is a combination of "Sega" & "HArdware" because each girl represents a Sega system. There's Saturn, Dreamcast & Genesis. They each dress a little like their console & wear a controler like thing on their head. It's mostly a CG show, but obviously they got the license for tons of Sega stuff, you can spot Sonic as an item at the top, the star-bumper ceiling light, Sega logo Space-Channel 5 (blue thing to the right) Opa-opa (green/red space ship & NiGHTS statue. Then, Sonic himself appears to run past the girls in CG. In the title screen, you can easily see a neutral chao. Photos discovered by Crystal Sonic Fan

Because the show has the license, they actually meet Sonic in an episode. Eggman breaks the game "Border Break" while the girls are trying to 'play' it to earn medals (the point of the show / its plot)

and sends robots to attack the girls. Sonic saves them & they end up riding around on his head while he tries to defeat Eggman. It shows scenes from Sonic 1, Sonic Adventure 1, and plays music from the Star Light Zone. Neither Sonic nor Eggman ever speak, they just gesture.

This is sort of a cameo...and a "spin-off" at the same time. The little animal that comes out of the badniks, the blue one was "Flicky Bird". Early on, JUST the bird had a game all to itself. You had to save bird chicks from a cat. However, like many early games, the box art was bonkers & seldom made any sense. In the left game, you see the USA cover. Chicks in sunglasses (never happened in game) & an odd crow-like bird that looked nothing like the game sprite. On the right, you can see the Japanese version, which while slightly more accurate, is also more bizzarre. The bird is using its feathers as a 'fist' to hold a hammer (while it flies.....)

as an agitated looking cat runs along the floor. But there's a broken chicken egg, a baby bottle for some reason (all birds are lactose intolerant, for obvious reasons...), a spilling tea cup & a handgun aimed at one of the baby birds. One bird looks like it's biting the cat's tail as they all fly around in front of random shelves. Do either of these covers make you want to play the game?
So, although a minor not-even-a-character, that one bird was used as the main character of a separate game.

The Burlington Coat Factory is at it again!
Someone in their advertising department must really favor Sonic. You can see them spotlighting Sonic shirts in an ad right here on another page of Cameos. This time, they choose some Sonic toys for their banner. They have selected (probably) the Jazwares All-Stars racers Sonic in car & Shadow on motorcycle to feature right alongside Frozen plush. They even bothered to pose Shadow. Discovered & screen cap by: Akihiko

This photo is big on purpose, so you can inspect it. This is an online Disney game where you help Wall-e find various hidden objects (stuff at the bottom) among the junk pile you see there. But, if you look too closely, sort of above and to the right of the red cooler, ther's a quite-red item...that looks pretty much like it is Sonic's shoe. With white sole, white stripe, yellow buckle & general shoe-shape, it's probably what they were going for. You can see a close-up of it in the inset (far right) Discovered by: Pittpenguin123

These are screen shots from the Japanese movie Gamera. Gamera was a giant Kaiju monster that is now classic-famous. Notice the Sonic & Tails plush dolls! Tails is in the car with the man, & Sonic is hanging on the family's stand-fan. You can see a close-up of the doll in the inset.
Don't think this is an accident! The set-dresser for the movie placed the dolls quite deliberatly. The Tails is facing the camera quite specifically. (A hidden Sonic fan worked on the movie!) Screen shots by Taaron.

This is a commercial cameo. It's an ad for Chuck E Cheese, the kiddy play place / pizza area / party room / arcade with games & tickets & prizes. As you can see, the ad made sure to catch that they have a Sonic Spinner arcade machine there. (Pretty much everything in a commercial shoot is always deliberate, someone wanted to be sure you could see this is part of what they have) It's great to see it (however breifly) as a draw to an area. Do you want to see the whole ad? You can watch it at Chuck E Cheese Ad link. Screen shot by Crystal Sonic Fan

This is a sort of odd cameo.
It is a large size box for a small size item (A PC chip) the AMD EyeFinity A-Series chip. That's it on the picture there on the front of the box. But look there on the side, it's Sonic (and Sonic) from Sonic Generations. This is an instance of a company using Sonic to help advertise or promote their product because of his popularity. It's why you'll see him on the box for those 'multi game in 1' cheap 'systems' that plugs directly into the TV. If the product (in this case the chip) can be used to PLAY Sonic games & they get the OK from Sega, the company can generally use his image to promote their item a bit by having him on the box. Photo discovered by Speendlex

It's Sonic the...costume?
Yes! In Super Mario Maker game, you can use a Sonic Amiibo figure to unlock this "costume" of Sonic for the Mario sprite to wear. However, it's not really a costume, as much as it is apparently a Sonic 1 sprite they lay over it & give realistic movements to. Finally, everyone who wanted to see Sonic in the Mario world, this is a great chance to do it. It's a fun unlockable, & further encouragement for Amiibo owners. Screencap by Princess PandaLover

A Sound Effects cameo?
It seems so, with this video. It is a UK commercial for a plumber, but it stars various famous soap-opera "East Enders" actors as the characters in the family. Notice right away that one guy is playing non-stop his Game Gear, & you'll clearly hear Sonic sound effects playing right at the start: Plumbing Commercial .
Remember, they could have used just any noises here, real OR fake, but they chose Sonic ones that are instantly recognizable on purpose. However, it plays megadrive effects, which weren't on the GameGear version, so it does have a mix-up. Either way, it's interesting to hear. Ad discovered & sent by

A Music Video Cameo:
In the "Gate to the Minds Eye" music video by Thomas Dolby, the CG artist must have been a bit of a Sonic fan. The video is set to a (mostly) CG future-type scene where space ships fly around cities and sort of surreal things happen. It looks like it was trying to show off the CGI tech of the time, which of course now, is dated. CG is one of the faster things to 'go out of date' and look older due to the advance of technology.
You can see where they've added Sonic at the 2:04 mark (it's reaaaaly breif, on a 'billboard' in the city) and then again at 3:40 , where he is a neon sign outline in the background. You have to have a keen eye to see these, but they're nifty little easter-egg images in the video. Minds Eye Thomas Dolby Video discovered by Lee

Another Music Video Cameo...and it's big!
In Dreambound's music video for the song X, the keyboard player has a S&K symbol shirt on. It's one of those rare, older black ones that JUST has the symbol on there. It appears before 13 seconds into the video...and interestingly enough, with the way it's shot, it seems to focus on this shirt quite a bit! Like, there will be big zooms that feature the design instead of the guy. Everyone's pretty enthusiastic here though, swirling around and yelling the music out. It's cool that the Sonic & Knuckles symbol is such a big feature in the video.
Watch and listen now with Dreambound As Everything Unfolds video. discovered by Lee

The game "Shenmue" for the Dreamcast was a big deal at its time.
It was highly regarded as 'true next gen' gaming, because of its realistic looking cut scenes, good all around (at the time) graphics, and the many, many things you could get the main character to do as he moved through the plot. He drove a fork-lift for a job, but you could also get him to play gatcha / coin machines if you found one.
Interacting with the machine would even give a toy! You could get the character to collect the surprise toys. In this case, he has won a double toy, which is a neutral Chao & a Pian stuck together. The Pian is that little cone head angel thing in the back. It is an NPC from NiGHTS, another SonicTeam game. "Pian" was short for "Nightopian" from Nightopia.

The Shenmue developers had a fun time adding in such a nice little easter egg like this for the fans, and now you can see it too.

Wow!
A REAL literal giant cameo! The first of it's kind? Maybe so...and the show is OK KO. Cartoon Network created a show about # , and then...for reasons unknown...Sega somehow ok'd a real, literal (speaking part!) cameo for not only Sonic, but Tails too, to appear on the show.

Cameos (as defined here on the pges of Gear) are Sonic stuff or images that show up in non-Sonic things, but that has never thus far extended to Sonic himself showing up somewhere irrelevent like what's happening here.
But why this?
The show is a 'just fine' place to have such a cameo happen, as it's set in some silly fake-future world where a badguy wants to take over a shopping plaza using evil robots & wacky kids/workers have to save the plaza. The Earth (or wherever) is populated by fantasy type people/characters and everyone seems to love video games & graphic novels / comics. So, it's not outlandish to have something like that happen.
But...Sega like...never does that?
Maybe this mystery will get solved, and if it does, this entry will update. But, until then, you can see IGN's official clip from the August 4th 2019 episode embedded here. Discovered by Taaron, screen cap by Taaron

This cameo was really a doozy!
They loaded the show with as many references to things as they possibly could. Sonic & Tails were always drawn more in the 'ok ko' style so they'd fit in, but it still looked ok. Here, you can see the very specific, overly-complicated beach chair from the old Sonic OVA.
Other cameo call outs include a thing that looks like Grounder, someone does the Scratch the Chicken laugh, there's LITERALLY "Sonic Sez" from AOSTH, Sonic DOES say "And that's no good", the end-credits/weight trap scene of AOSTH is replicated, the OVA is referenced, someone steals from Knuckles, the Master Emerald appears, a Chili Dog is mentioned, 'gotta go fast' is used and probably even more. They really went to a lot of work to put in everything Sonic-fan-recognizable that they possibly could.

But that raises a very odd question which is: WHY?
Who is supposed to be watching the OK KO show? It's rated something like Y-7 which means basically babies can watch it, so ok...it's probably geared for little kids more than something like Avatar Air Bender or Steven Universe or that Original Teen Titans (NOT GO) show or something similar. But then...all the Sonic references are literally "ancient news", AOSTH was on in the 1990s....the audience for OK KO probably got born in like what? 2010 even? (They're 9)
Are any of their intended age group ferreting out old Sonic content?
Like, if you were born in 2000 and are thus 19 right now, and loved Sonic since you were born, did you go seek out the OVA, buy up all the AOSTH DVDs, and then...what? Watch up a batch of ok ko? How many people do that? Even if you don't get the references and had the games (and ignored Boom) it wouldn't stop you from thinking the cameo was fun and funny, so maybe it was just a big break out cool time for Sonic fans behind the scenes of ok ko. And if it is? That's great too. Just because not every single person will get every single reference doesn't mean you shouldn't include it. Include away!

This video panel to the left should play the entire episode if you push it.

If it breaks you can write in to SonicGear & maybe it can be fixed. Also you can search for it probably on Youtube itself if it breaks here & you don't want to wait.

This version is supposed to call out the references as they appear.