Sonic: Night of the Werehog

Sonic: Night of the Werehog (ソニック＆チップ　恐怖の館) is a 3D animated dialogue-less short by Sega based on and taking place within the events of Sonic Unleashed, in which Sonic and Chip enter a classic haunted house that is haunted by three ghosts; two trying to win the affection of one ghost girl through photographing Sonic and Chip's scared reactions. However, the ghosts didn't expect the brave Sonic to be a Werehog. It was originally released on 17 November 2008, with a Japanese dub that only replaced Sonic and Chip's voices and the ending picture aired the following month.

Plot
The short opens with two boys entering a haunted house during a rain storm. As they explore the house, they are watched by two Ghost Photographers. They scare the children out and take pictures of their frightened faces. Once they take their photos, they return to a female Ghost and present her their photos to impress her. Ultimately, the Girl Ghost chooses the Bandana Ghost's picture and rewards him with a kiss, leaving the Bow-Tie ghost defeated.

This time, Sonic and Chip enter the house, Sonic is interested but Chip is rather frightened. The Bow-Tie Ghost scares Chip when he passes by a mirror with a freaky reflection of himself. The photos of Chip impresses the girl therefore the ghosts continue to scare Chip to win her heart. Even Sonic accidentally makes a scary face at Chip which causes him to faint. The pile of pictures of a frightened Chip grows and grows with each scare. However, the ghost girl is dismayed to see the photos of Sonic that showed him preventing himself from being affected by their scaring by holding a book, yawning and making a silly face at the camera(he possibly did those three poses to get the ghosts to go away and quit pestering Chip in front of him).

The ghosts come after Sonic and Chip in knight armor. As Chip cowers in fear, Sonic transforms into his Werehog form upon seeing the full moon and scares the two ghosts off. The girl laughs at the photos of the frightened ghosts, as they accidentally took pictures of themselves. Humiliated, annoyed and angered, both ghosts decide to team up and form a green glowing dinosaur-like Ghost to attack Sonic.

While Sonic uses his Werehog powers, the Beast gains the upper hand since it becomes invisible and unable to be struck by the Werehog's stretching punches. As they fight, Chip discovers that Sonic can see the Beast by taking its photo. But even with the camera at hand, Sonic is unable to fight since he needs time for the photos to develop.

Ultimately, the Werehog is tackled into a wall when he loses his temper and attacks wildly after the ghosts copy his poses to tease him. As Sonic lays unconscious on the ground, the Beast proceeds to take his photo but the two are then fighting over the camera, as they want to impress the girl, causing the two to separate. As they fight over the camera and who takes the photo, Sonic reawakens and, after seeing that they formed the Beast on purpose, attacks them by throwing them off the roof for mocking him by copying his poses. Since the camera went off just before Sonic sends the final blow, the Girl Ghost found the taken photo of Sonic as the Werehog and falls in love with him.

She impersonates as Chip by taking the form of his body. Sonic thinking that she is Chip, agrees to take a photo with her. As the credits roll, the Ghosts are seen sighing depressingly looking at both the girl and Sonic walk together. They turn around and see Chip, who's struggling to be free as he had been tied up by the girl. However, when the photo comes out, the female ghost in her real form is seen in "Chip's" place, showing that Sonic realizes his mistake and goes back for Chip.

Characters

 * Unnamed Kid 1
 * Unnamed Kid 2
 * Sonic the Hedgehog/Sonic the Werehog
 * Chip/Light Gaia
 * Bandana Ghost
 * Bow Tie Ghost
 * Girl Ghost

Trivia

 * This marks the first time Sonic is shown taking pictures with a camera.
 * In Sonic Unleashed (360/PS3) the two ghost photographers have also appeared in Spagonia and Adabat on the missions "Tower Terror" and "Fright Fight".
 * In Sonic Unleashed the ghost's cameras can also be seen in the scene where Sonic and Chip visit Eggmanland and Chip tries to take a picture.
 * During the premiere, Comcast cable systems showed Night of the Werehog in its Video On Demand Service.
 * When Sonic and Chip are walking down a hallway, there is a portrait of the Bandana ghost on the left wall.
 * Sonic mocks the two ghosts when they first take pictures of him in his hedgehog form. Later when the two ghosts combine they pose mockily the same way Sonic did to tick him off during their fight which causes him to lose his temper and attack wildly.
 * A Sega Dreamcast can be spotted three times in the video.
 * Sega's Joypolis theme park had showings of Night of the Werehog in 3D.
 * The short has only 5 short lines of dialogue. They are when Sonic says "Whoa" when entering the house, "Oops" when he scares Chip, causing him to faint, when Chip says "Aha" after figuring out a way to see the powerful ghost, a "Hey" when Chip throws Sonic the Werehog the camera, and "Yay" when Sonic and Chip celebrate.
 * During the beginning of the fight scene, there are three pictures on the wall over the fireplace that seem to feature the Bandana ghost, the female ghost and the bow tie ghost as humans.
 * On the female ghost's mural there's a poster of the 1941 movie, The Wolf Man. On the poster, the Wolf Man looked much like Sonic's Werehog form except that the werewolf's claws were black and he didn't have Sonic's quills. Also on the mural (if one looks carefully) is a poster of the 1932 movie, The Mummy.
 * On the board where the pictures of scared children are posted, underneath there is a decorative plate with the ghost girl on it, but it appears that the picture is from when the ghost girl was still alive. She also has a white cat next to her.
 * There was originally going to be a scene that would feature Sonic and Chip playing a Dreamcast.
 * To tell the difference between which ghost took what picture, there's a bow tie or a bandana marked on the bottom of each photo taken.
 * Sonic's lack of manners is seen here as the hedgehog doesn't bother wiping the mud off his shoes before entering the house. Luckily, the mudprints disappeared quickly so no other character would see them.
 * The camera being able to take pictures of the ghosts while they were invisible might be a reference to how the camera used in Sonic Unleashed can expose Dark Gaia's minions during an exorcism.
 * There is an error in one scene, as the Bandana Ghost is the right half (from Sonic's point of view) of the Minotaur-Ghost when the Werehog throws it up in the air but is the left half when he accidentally takes a photo of Sonic.
 * Sonic's transformation into the Werehog differs slightly from the video game. Sonic transforms when he sees the full moon in this short, as opposed to transforming at sunset in the game.
 * This may be another reference to the mythical legend of lycanthropy, which influenced the Werehog's creation.
 * Error: After the scene which shows Sonic and Chip looking up at the skylight, Sonic's mudprints on the floor disappear.

Credits

 * Executive Producer: Okitane Usui, Hisao Oguchi, Kouchi Fukazawa, Hideki Okamura
 * Producer: Takeshi Itou
 * Director: Takashi Nakashima
 * Production Manager: Kei Miyamoto
 * Supervisor: Shinji Aramaki
 * Line Producer: Masahito Imamura
 * Art Director: Shinji Usui
 * Character Supervisor: Jun Masuda
 * Line Supervisor: Takuya Hada
 * Supervising Animator: Jiro Yamagishi
 * Director of R&D: Jun Saito
 * Supervising Technical Director: Masayuki Tanaka, Kengo Takeguchi
 * Japanese Character Voices: Jun'ichi Kanemaru, Tomokazu Seki, Ryoko Shiraishi, Momoko Ishikawa
 * English Character Voices: Jason Griffith, Tony Salerno, Kevin Glenz, Ryan Drees
 * Music: Tetsuya Takahashi
 * Sound Design/Mixing Engineer: Kouji Kasamatsu
 * Character Design: Illustraors Unit Gutihiru
 * Sculptor (Moquette): Masanori Yoshida
 * Editor: Ryuji Miyajima
 * Pre-Production: Tomokazu Takahashi, Minoru Kusakabe, Naozumi Yamaguchi
 * Art: Hiroaki Ueno, Hiroyuki Kinoshita
 * Modeling: Kenichi Nishida, Toshiya Umeda, Satoshi Kounosu, Takayuki Hayama, Emiri Minagawa
 * Sets: You Amano, Yoshihiro Hanado, Kazushige Hayakawa, Yutaka Yamaki, Hidwyuki Higashi
 * Sufacing: Takahiro Arakawa, Hideaki Makinouchi, Satoshi Takahashi
 * Rigging: Kiminori Kuano, Kenou Hakamaya, Tatsuya Akagi, Ayako Sakurai, Tomohiro Hanawa, Yoko Ukai, Kengou Nukizono
 * Animation: Yusuke Sakai, Tsuyoshi Tanaka, Takaaki Kise, Tatsunori Tomiyama, Yoshimasa Kimura, Tomokazu Sakamoto, Hideyuki Kinoshito
 * Effects: Shuntaro Furukawa, Wataru Kitamura, Daisuke Satoyoshi
 * Lighting: Satoshi Tomatsu, Tsubasa Nakai, Hirokazu Ayukawa, Tomoya Kowase
 * Software Development: Seymour Wakisaka, Mio Tagiri, Tomoaki Sato, Gaetan Guidet, Yoko Sano, Tatsuya "Cap" Syuzui, Tomoya Matsumura, Takamasa Matsunari, Moes Marcelo Morales, Shoumo Hosaka, Yusuke Ishikawa
 * System Adminatraion: Yuji Umeki, Toru Iwata, Yusuke Yanagisawa, Yukari Imai, Tsuyoshi Ando
 * Project Assistant & Director Assistant: Tomohiro Mitsui, Ayano Fukuda, Naomi Tsujishito, Rumi Osagawa, Noriaki Hashimoto, Miho Ogawa
 * Voice Recording Director: Eriko Kimura
 * Voice Recording Producer: Takuya Ohno
 * Recording Studio: Sega Digital Studio
 * Special Thanks: Akinori Nishiyama, Yoshihisa Hashimoto, Sachiko Kawamura, Tadashi Takezaki, Toyokazu Hattori, Akira Aoyama, Atom Kobayashi, Mana Nakano, Kousei Kimoto, Shin Kageyama (I'm Enterprise), Akiko Nakahata (A&K Corp. Ltd.)
 * Created By: Sonic Team's CG Movie Team
 * Presented By: Sega