What were your headcanons, as kids?

[Tails spin]

Don't know if my friend across the pond have this.  But here in the US there's a food chain called SONIC. So when I was younger I thought that said chain would always have Sonic the Hedgehog toys in their kids meal. Boy was I disappointed 

[TeamCinas]

Here's a little bit of a back story:

It was my older brother's 5th/6th birthday when out father got him one of those plug-and-play Sega Genesis(es) with Altered Beast, Flicky, Kid Chameleon, Golden Axe, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, and last but FAR FROM LEAST Sonic the Hedgehog. Now sure, I had some educational V-Tech games prior to then, as well as an Xbox with the Spy vs Spy videogame, but I then and still do now declare Sonic as my very first videogame. 

Also, my mother used to have this cat known as 'Kitty Katour' and I wasn't the biggest fan of the damn thing, not to mention that because I loathed the outdoors, I then thought that cats and dogs were the only animals. Anyway, upon playing the game for the first time, I took note of the title and didn't know how to pronounce 'Hedgehog'. With that, I came to 2 conclusions:

1.) Sonic is actually someone's cat who stood on it's own two legs and ran off one day. Same goes for Tails and Knuckles.

2.) Sonic is actually some weird kid in a blue costume who runs for no real reason. Also, I always thought that Robotnik was a walrus.

[Sgt Nate V]

7 hours ago, TeamCinas said:

Also, I always thought that Robotnik was a walrus.

Related.

[Scritch the Cat]

I figured Knuckles was a dog.  Bare in mind my family never owned Sonic the Hedgehog 3 or Sonic & Knuckles, so while we certainly knew of the character, we didn't have access to the info on him being an echidna.  I think the first time I actually learned he was an echidna was when I thumbed through a Disney Adventures magazine profiling the game's characters. (Note: I don't think those magazines exist anymore, so to people who don't remember them, they were indeed put out by Disney but also hyped up a lot of media that wasn't by Disney.)

[Rexeljet]

I love threads like these.

I didn't start playing the Sonic games until I was about 12, but even so I still managed to misinterpret a lot of things about the series. For starters,

I used to think the moving platforms in Chemical Plant had eyes. It wasn't until I started seeing the same "eye" graphic in the walls of the plant before I realised they're meant to be either lamps or gauges.

Speaking of Sonic 2, when first playing Mystic Cave, I never really interpreted the aesthetics as being inside a cave. For some reason, I've always imagined it as being a forest at the dead of night. I think I envisioned the green rocks in the foreground as bushes and leaves (and the purple rocks as leaves in the shadows) and the rock formations in the far off background as tree trunks. It didn't help that there were lots of vines and wooden structures in the level, giving more of a foresty vibe. Why I keep seeing the level like this when it's clearly called Mystic Cave, I'm not sure.

Because Sonic Underground used to air more often than the other Sonic Cartoons in the UK back in the late 00s (dunno, maybe the program schedulers lost a bet or something), I spent a few months believing that it was the only Sonic Cartoon. I remember wondering where the hell Tails was, and thinking that Dr Robotnik's design from Underground was a half-arsed approximation of his AoSTH design (which I only knew from Mean Bean Machine)

When I first bought Sonic Mega Collection Plus for PC, the back of the box gave me some false impressions. It listed all the games available on the disk, and a series of screenshots. One of the screenshots was of Sonic 3's special stage and, having played neither Sonic 3&K nor Sonic 3D at the time, I assumed the screenshot was from Sonic 3D. (Pity it wasn't, else the game would have been alright)

When I first played Sonic Gems collection at a friend's house, I was confused by the Game Gear version of Sonic 2. It was nothing like the Sonic 2 that I was used to playing, so what the hell was it? Some sort of quasi-remake masquerading as Sonic 2? Then I put two and two together and realised it was made for different hardware.

This wasn't my own misinterpretation, but I remember my brother telling me one time that "Knuckles has black fur in the newer games". Turned out he actually just saw a picture of Shadow and thought it was Knuckles.

As for false memories, I could've sworn that I once saw a PC version of Sonic Mega Collection (not Plus) for sale, and that it was dated 1999. In hindsight, I imagine that what I actually saw was one of the Sega Smash Pack games. I also could've sworn I once saw a shop selling Sonic Adventure DX for Playstation 2. Not quite sure how that happened, but I probably just saw the PC version.

[A super No.1 washedupgamer]

I remember looking on the back of the sonic classic collection box art and thinking this was actually an added mode where you can play as sonic and knuckles.

[Big Panda]

31 minutes ago, Rexeljet said:

Because Sonic Underground used to air more often than the other Sonic Cartoons in the UK back in the late 00s (dunno, maybe the program schedulers lost a bet or something), I spent a few months believing that it was the only Sonic Cartoon. I remember wondering where the hell Tails was, and thinking that Dr Robotnik's design from Underground was a half-arsed approximation of his AoSTH design (which I only knew from Mean Bean Machine)

All three DiC shows got their fair share of reruns at different points in the 2000's. AoStH and SatAM was rerun a lot from around 2004-2006, and they gradually transitioned to Underground later.

[Rexeljet]

45 minutes ago, Ernest-Panda said:

All three DiC shows got their fair share of reruns at different points in the 2000's. AoStH and SatAM was rerun a lot from around 2004-2006, and they gradually transitioned to Underground later.

True; I know Pop were still airing AoStH and SatAM (as the same show, no less!) up until around 2010 or so, but I always seem to remember Underground appearing in the schedule more often. 

(and to keep the topic flowing, I remember Pop themselves made a lot of misconceptions regarding the three cartoons- they frequently got the end credits mixed up, for starters!)

[Salamander]

3 hours ago, Rexeljet said:

Speaking of Sonic 2, when first playing Mystic Cave, I never really interpreted the aesthetics as being inside a cave. For some reason, I've always imagined it as being a forest at the dead of night. I think I envisioned the green rocks in the foreground as bushes and leaves (and the purple rocks as leaves in the shadows) and the rock formations in the far off background as tree trunks. It didn't help that there were lots of vines and wooden structures in the level, giving more of a foresty vibe. Why I keep seeing the level like this when it's clearly called Mystic Cave, I'm not sure.

Looking back, I can see it.  The illusion is strangely convincing; the aesthetic just fits.  I think I want a zone like this now.

[Big Panda]

On 6/26/2017 at 6:09 PM, Rexeljet said:

True; I know Pop were still airing AoStH and SatAM (as the same show, no less!) up until around 2010 or so, but I always seem to remember Underground appearing in the schedule more often. 

(and to keep the topic flowing, I remember Pop themselves made a lot of misconceptions regarding the three cartoons- they frequently got the end credits mixed up, for starters!)

God that annoyed 11-year-old me. I remember how Rory the Dragon (the channels "presenter" at the time) used to talk about only the AoStH characters but never the SatAM cast, except for one random instance where he mentioned Snively.

Speaking of the DiC cartoons, I had this misconception until pretty recently:

I thought that SatAM had never aired in the UK before Pop showed it. I'd always known AoStH aired on Channel 4 back in the day as it was mentioned on the back of the VHS tapes and it was the only one I'd ever seen brought up in the majority of StC issues from back then. That, coupled with the fact that it never got any VHS releases here, gave me the assumption that the show was never brought over to the UK, and I used to assume it was because nobody would know who the Freedom Fighters were (since StC had their own Freedom Fighter team).

Of course, I eventually learned that SatAM *did* air on C4, and it was treated as if it was the same show as AoStH like Pop did years later.

Still find it strange that it was never released on VHS here or anything, or barely promoted anywhere.

[A super No.1 washedupgamer]

When i was little, i played sonic 3 and knuckles before i played sonic CD. When I saw the opening, It took me until I beat the game to figure out that little planet wasn't a backwards death egg chained to a rock.

Come years later, sonic 4 episode 2 happened where the death egg mk2 was built with little planet inside of it to my amusment.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

12 hours ago, Rexeljet said:

This wasn't my own misinterpretation, but I remember my brother telling me one time that "Knuckles has black fur in the newer games". Turned out he actually just saw a picture of Shadow and thought it was Knuckles.

For some reason, I love this.

I have some of my own:

- At one point, I think I forgot that Sonic could run fast and thought his only powers were those related to curling into a ball.

- I used to interpret Sonic was a cream hedgehog with blue spines as opposed to a blue hedgehog, if you get my drift. This is somewhat understandable going from some of the Western artwork of classic Sonic which makes his body kind of big and potato-shaped, and making his eyes and muzzle take up enough of his face that I guess I didn't fully realize his head was blue.

- A lot of my earliest knowledge about Sonic was centered around Sonic Heroes, so I tended to over-emphasize the importance of "teams" in my mind, e.g. thinking Knuckles hung around with and was the teammate of Sonic and Tails all the time.

- Very briefly, we thought the Chaotix were evil because...being chaotic is bad??

- Later on, when I was getting into Sonic more and beginning to research him online, one of the first sites I came across was Sonic HQ, which had a Sonic Encyclopedia which contained entries for almost every significant character in the franchise. However, it only included entries for characters, not forms. So its only article on Super Sonic was an article on the Fleetway version, since at one point he got split off from Sonic and became his own character. This was my first exposure to Super Sonic at all, so I thought what it described was a description of Super Sonic all the time - that he was a different character from Sonic who was crazy and violent against both good and evil people.

I might have more, but those are probably the most interesting.

[Yoko/葉子]

I figured that since many of us had theories about Sonic, from youth that we could share our innocent interpretations of the games from back in the day. No matter how inaccurate it is to modern times, don't be afraid to share it.

I once believed that Tikal was Knuckles' mother and that Knuckles was frozen in time until the events of the games.

Another silly belief I once had was that if Sonic got a bad ending in S3&K that Chaos could be unleashed before the events of Adventure, as I thought SA1 was the direct sequel to S3&K for a long time. Similarly, I thought that Tikal prevented the Sky Sanctuary explosion from killing Knuckles, as I had played lots of Star Fox 64, at the time (the fatherly ghost ending).

 

What did y'all think, back in your day?

[Big Panda]

I used to think Sonic, Tails and Knuckles all lived in treehouses. Not a house atop a tree, a literal house inside a tree. I used to think that giant tree you ran up the inside of in Angel Island Act I was Knuckles' treehouse.

I used to think that Robotnik/Eggman somehow literally died at the end of every game.

[Polkadi~☆]

I was really really young when I had this headcanon, okay?

Without knowing Knuckles actually lived on Angel Island... I thought he lived in a high tech lab, basically living in the future.

That's the opposite of everything Knuckles likes.

I got the memo real quick.

[Razule]

• I thought Knuckles was a dog
• Sonic and friends were Chris Thorndyke's pets

[horridus]

I used to think that Knuckles turning bad was due to literal brainwashing by Robotnik in the games. I'm not sure why I thought that, but, that's what I thought for a time. 

[JezMM]

The last update was about half a year ago but we did kinda have this thread already:

Not meaning to backseat mod here or anything, I'll leave it to the staff to decide whether it's worth closing this one or merging it with that one, but I figure if people are interested in this subject they may wanna read through the old thread too (my post here would pretty much be repeating my post from there lol).

[Yoko/葉子]

25 minutes ago, horridus said:

I used to think that Knuckles turning bad was due to literal brainwashing by Robotnik in the games. I'm not sure why I thought that, but, that's what I thought for a time. 

I thought the same thing, as I was super obsessed with S&K, back in the day.

[BaronGrackle]

Based on Sonic 3's manual and the intro sequence... I assumed Floating Island had never actually floated in modern times, since it needed the Chaos Emeralds to do so. I assumed it was a legend or prophecy.

I interpreted the end of Sonic's story as the first time in Knuckles's life the island had risen.

(To be fair, the part about the Death Egg making the island crash wasn't verified until the 1997 PC manual!)

This is a test.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

3 hours ago, JezMM said:

The last update was about half a year ago but we did kinda have this thread already:

Not meaning to backseat mod here or anything, I'll leave it to the staff to decide whether it's worth closing this one or merging it with that one, but I figure if people are interested in this subject they may wanna read through the old thread too (my post here would pretty much be repeating my post from there lol).

Good point. Merging the topics now.

In the future, you could consider reporting this sort of thing, minor though it may seem, so we can see it faster.

[Chaos Incarnate]

• My sister and I thought that Amy killed Sally Acorn out of jealousy for Sonic, that's why Sally wasn't in the games. Sue me, I was 5 lol.
• I always thought Shadow was a clone of Sonic. I never played SA2 as a kid, and was introduced to Shadow through random episodes of Sonic x.
• Just as a 9 year old looking at Sonic 06's box art, I thought it was a reboot where Sonic was the ONLY character from the old series in that game. No tails, Knuckles, Amy, Shadow, anyone. Can you blame me?

[dbzfan7]

Because of SMBZ I thought Mecha Sonic was actually a transformed version of Metal Sonic, when that was just sprite limitations or laziness on the creators part...not really sure which XD.

 

[Joellui]

I used to think that Chili dogs were myth for the longest of times and only thought it war real within the Sonic games, until I visited the Dairy Queen and that's when I went into a state of shock and persuaded my mom to buy me one, however that was probably the last time I ate on because I always made a mess.

Since Sonic Adventure DX was my first Sonic game I used to think that Sonic Adventure DX was a game based of off the X show and completely disregarded the D part. 

[Eurisko]

10 minutes ago, Joellui said:

I used to think that Chili dogs were myth for the longest of times and only thought it war real within the Sonic games, until I visited the Dairy Queen and that's when I went into a state of shock and persuaded my mom to buy me one, however that was probably the last time I ate on because I always made a mess.

Since Sonic Adventure DX was my first Sonic game I used to think that Sonic Adventure DX was a game based of off the X show and completely disregarded the D part. 

I had a chilli dog for the first time ever about a month ago and yes, they're messy as hell.

 

As far as a childhood headcannon goes I don't think I really had one as a kid. May have been due to the fact that there wasn't much around to get confused with I guess. I had Sonic 1 , 2 CD when I was very young. I suppose Sonic Spinball being released and including characters from the cartoon raised a few questions but I can see why people have their own idea of a canon as I'd say anything post-SA1 is fair game.

Though I will admit that I used to think Knuckles was female because of the S&K box art. He looks very feminine on that.