Summary
- Sonic fans have often joked that Knuckles sounds like he’s swearing in Sonic Heroes.
- Now, his voice actor at the time, Scott Dryer, says this was on purpose.
- He shared that while recording lines for the game, he was told to make one word in particular sound like he could be swearing.
For years, fans have joked that one of Knuckles’ lines in Sonic Heroes sounds an awful lot like a curse word. When doing an attack, Knuckles is supposed to say “Shift, rock, yeah!”, but instead, the first word comes out as “s**t”. Obviously, Sega would never ever let one of its characters swear in a kids’ game, so everyone just joked about the misheard line and moved on.
Well, actually, it turns out we might not have been mishearing it at all. Knuckles’ voice actor Scott Dryer has finally explained what the hell was going on here – and says that he was told to make it sound like he could be swearing on purpose. As he puts it, he was told to deliver the line in a way that would make people think it was “s**t”, not “shift”, and it would be something of an easter egg.
Knuckles Voice Actor Says He Was Told To (Kind Of) Swear In Sonic Heroes
The “Shift, Rock, Yeah!” debate can finally be put to rest
First of all, here’s a clip of the original line, in case you need to refresh your memory.,
Sounds a lot like he’s swearing, right? Knuckles’ voice actor would agree. Speaking at Sac Gamers Expo back in December, the cast were asked what the most memorable lines they had to record were, and Dryer’s answer shed some light on Knuckle’s foul language.
“Back in the day, they did not want us to swear. We weren’t allowed to swear,” Dryer recalls. “But I remember that day in particular, everyone was in the booth and they had me on mute and I could just see the entire Japanese team having this conversation, and thinking, ‘Am I doing something wrong? Am I being let go?’
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He continues: “The interpreter speaks up and says […] ‘Would you feel comfortable making that F [in] shift as soft as you can? We want it to be shift, but we want people to wonder if you’re swearing.'”
Well, if that was the intention, then it certainly worked. Many of us have joked for years about Knuckles swearing, without having any idea just how close to the truth we were. Now we just need the movies to reference this, please. Someone get Idris Elba on the case.
SEGA’s legendary mascot Sonic The Hedgehog makes his historic multi-platform debut and embarks on his biggest adventure ever, with his trademark blazing speed and a new gameplay twist in “Sonic Heroes.” Sonic and his friends have evolved, adopting a configuration feature that lets gamers control three playable characters simultaneously, using Sonic’s speed, Knuckles’ power, and Tails’ ability to fly, to conquer massive worlds. This team-based gameplay marks the next evolution in Sonic’s gaming career, taking platform gaming to a completely new level. Using the three formations and the powerful moves that each team member has, Sonic and his friends combine forces to battle the ultimate evil!