Sonic Shorts is a Newgrounds Flash collaboration by The Sonic Paradox Team set in the Sonic the Hedgehog universe. As expected, the shorts parody various aspects and scenarios of the games and TV shows, but many of them contain plenty of meta-humor involving the characters' reactions to their own in-universe works.

Currently, eleven "volumes", three Musicals, five spin-offs, two parody volumes (known as Sonic Shits) and three sub-series (called Sonic Seconds, SPTV News, and Sonic Shorts 3D respectively) have been released. The eighth volume was shown in Summer of Sonic 2013, seemingly acting as a Grand Finale to the series. However, the team later began work on a new Shorts collab that would go beyond the Sonic franchise and instead pulls from all of Sega's history. Many members of the team have since contributed to the Abridged Series Sonic F, also released under the Sonic Paradox banner. After many years and complications and several other videos to tide fans over, they finally released the Sega Shorts video on December 24, 2018.

The Sonic Paradox Team has uploaded the entire series to YouTube. Individual shorts can also be found on their respective creators' YouTube channels.

A ninth volume was announced by Sonic Paradox at Sonic FanFest 2023 and released the following year on June 23, in commemoration of Sonic's 33rd anniversary. Later that year, "Casino Calamity" was announced as the long awaited sequel to "Seaside Denied" and "Metropolis Mayhem".

Sonic Shorts contains examples of:

• Acid Reflux Nightmare: Sonic has one in Volume 10 in which he's attacked by a colossal chili dog. It disturbs him enough that when Amy arrives the next day with freshly-made chili dogs, he runs away screaming.
• Actor Allusion:
  • One short has Robotnik mournfully flying through his dystopia belting out "Let the Heartaches Begin" by Long John Baldry, his voice actor from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.
  • A cut short found on one of the animators' DeviantArt accounts has a similar idea with Robotnik singing "It Still Ain't Easy," also by Baldry.
• Adaptational Gender Identity: Barry's gender is ambiguous with gender-neutral pronouns and terms in The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, but Blaze refers to them as his and her children's father in Volume 10, indicating that he's male in that short.
• Adaptation Personality Change: In the games, Cheese's personality is generally in sync with Cream. In the Sonic Heroes musical animations though, they're portrayed as a rapper who hates Big, viewing him as The Load and tries to act as a voice of reason for the team, but can't because no one understands them.
• Affectionate Parody: Red Pawn's segments from original Sonic Shits are that towards Jerry Jackson.
• All Crimes Are Equal: Every single crime that Vector is tried for in "Vector's Knickers" builds up to the collective crime of "being an annoying git in general". Below is the full list of crimes and who charged Vector.
  Sonic & Amy: Criminal defamation & sexual exploitation
  Generalized: Intrusion of privacy & breaking-and-entering
  Vanilla & Cream: Explicit acts in front of a minor
  Rouge: Sexual harassment
  4Kids Executive & Sonic '06 Developer:invoked Nuisance in the workplace
  Wave: Assault
  Chris Thorndyke & Evil Super Sonic: Provocation
  Scourge & Fiona: Supplying & usage of drugs
  Wes Weasley: Black market trading
  Nack: Attempted prostitution
  Mina Mongoose: Falsely imitating a security guard
  Honey & Tiara: Snooping as usual
  Sonia & Manic: Attempting to resurrect Sonic Underground
• Alliterative Title: Sonic Shorts.
• Ambiguously Gay: Silver the Hedgehog.
• Ambiguously Jewish: In the "Sonic Underground rock concert" short, an advertisement announcing a "Prower bar mitzvah", which may or may not be related to Tails, can be seen.
• And Knowing Is Half the Battle: Parodied, yet played straight in a Sonic Sez segment which tells the audience that copying Flash animations to YouTube without the author's permission is not cool.
  Tails: Now I know!
  Sonic: And Knowing Is Half the Battle!
  G.I. JOEEEEEEEEE!
• Antagonist in Mourning: In volume 8, Dr. Eggman cries holding a Sonic plushie after Knuckles calls him telling that Sonic died due to a life box falling on him.
• Ass Shove: On volume 3, where Froggy has had enough of Big the Cat chasing him, it shows a reenactment of an incident where Froggy was shoved up Big's butt.
• Author Appeal:
  • Boozerman's shorts are almost exclusively about SonAmy. He also has a thing for making out, pre-sex scenes, and somebody watching others during the intercourse. The last one is mostly Played for Laughs, though.
  • TheWax70's art style not only mimics Sonic X, but most of his shorts are based off of Sonic X, with Chris Thorndyke being a recurring character, Butt-Monkey or otherwise.
  • GeneralCacti tends to base his animations off of Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), with his animation from Volume 6 directly using audio from the episode "Sonic's Nightmare".
  • ComicK, befitting his name, mainly does shorts that adapt elements from the franchise's various comic book adaptations. Of note is his Volume 6 short, which features both Evil Super Sonic and Scourge at the same time.
  • Insector's shorts are primarily based off of the Adventure games, with Big, Froggy, and Omochao being recurring characters.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: Parodied in one Volume 11 short. When Sonic, during a Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds race, pulls in front of Shadow and brags, "Look! No hands!", Shadow fires back, "Look, Sonic! No dick!" Sonic is genuinely freaked out to realise that he has no genitalia.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: The Tails Doll only stops becoming a menace after Marine shows it kindness and affection, to the point that she treats it like her son.
• Berserk Button: Quite a few moments, actually.
  • If Amy has a crush on you, don't say you're gay, even if you are. Also, don't look up her dress, or you'll be having a date with Piko Piko.
  • Either Shadow gets his morning eggs, or he breaks your arms.
  • Make sure Knuckles can understand what you're saying before you ramble on about your day.
  • Don't threaten Vector's masculinity, or he'll attack you, even if you're female.
  • Messing with Sonic's Chili Dogs will prompt him to go Super Saiyan as Knuckles can attest to.
• Black Comedy Rape: This exchange in one of the shorts of Volume 4 implies otherwise:
  Amy: Hey, Sonic! Guess who lost their virginity?
  Sonic: Uhm, y...
  Amy: You did! (holds up a bottle of chloroform)
• *Bleep*-dammit!: Happens occasionally due to different animators having different stances on the matter. For example, Volume 11 has two instances of a character stating "I'm going to fuck you up" completely uncensored, but Shadow telling Sonic he has "no dick" is bleeped out.
• Brain Bleach: A common subject of shorts featuring Eggman.
• Brick Joke: Comes up often, usually within the same episode. A few notable examples also reference jokes between volumes:
  • In Volume 5, a short features Knuckles punching Sonic's lights out as he was about to eat a chili dog, for an "Act Result" tally to appear and Knuckles to perform a victory pose^*The card even says "Sonic has been knocked out, Ownage 1". Later on the same volume, as Sonic is ranting his line from the OVA at Knuckles, the Echidna knocks him out again and a second result tally appears with him performing a victory pose again^*"Sonic has been knocked out, Ownage 2".
  • In volume 6, Eggman reveals that he is so fat that he can only fit into his machines by using butter as grease. Later in volume 8, he is shown to have butter stains on his pants after climbing out of a machine.
  • In the opening of Volume 1, Sonic tries to step on a dash pad to gain more speed and slams his face on it, sliding at high speed on his own face while leaving a trail of blood. Further along the same volume, he's shown to still be sliding with his face on the ground.
  • In episode 6, Sonic tells Eggman to go ahead and shoot him with a wave of rings blasting out of his body. The sequence makes jokes of Knuckles breaking the Master Emerald (twice) and Eggman's robots jamming out.
  • In 3D Volume 1, after jumping off the missile in Metal Harbor, Sonic briefly wonders where it's headed. A later segment has Shadow surviving the events of Space Colony ARK only to chew Sonic out for being a "worthless faker" who made him do all the work... at which point the missile comes flying in out of nowhere and sends Shadow flying.
    Sonic: So that's where that missile was headed...
  • Volume 1 has a brief short of Shadow telling a Chao, "I'm going to f**k you up". Ten volumes later, that same Chao is shown dreaming about saying the same thing back to Shadow (and later Knuckles).
• Butterfly of Doom: A recurring segment of Volume 9 involves Sonic accidentally causing a Bad Future by destroying a single butterfly Badnik in the Past version of Palmtree Panic. Preventing himself from destroying it causes a second Bad Future where Omochao reigns supreme, and preventing himself from preventing himself from destroying it somehow causes a third Bad Future where Bubsy is his partner instead of Tails.
• Butt-Monkey: Everyone seems to be the butt of a Butt-Monkey cast. Mighty can't catch a break either.
• Call-Back: Volume 10 has Knuckles in the hospital after Shadow breaks his arm, prompting Sonic to chime in with the same thing Knuckles said to him when Shadow broke his arms in Volume 4:
  Sonic: You know, you really shouldn't give him ideas.
• Carnivore Confusion: In volume 7, Chris tries to feed his furry friends, and provides them with what their real life counterparts would eat; Cream the Rabbit is in tears when Tails is served rabbit, and he loves it.
  • Averted in one sketch (from the same episode) that portrays the characters from Knuckles' Chaotix as realistic animals. Vector immediately eats Knuckles, prompting Mighty, Espio, and Charmy to leave the scene very quickly.
• Censored for Comedy: One of the animals that could never be made into a Sonic character is the Atretochoana, who asks why they're blurred out. The Atretochoana in real life heavily resembles a human penis.
• Character Filibuster: During the time of the Ancients, The END wouldn't shut up about bringing doom to countless worlds before them and after them, specifically stalking one ancient and eventually driving them to suicide. Its speech is still going on centuries later when Sonic and friends investigate the Starfall Islands, only stopping when Infinite objects to its choice of words.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: The subject of a short featuring the forgotten Sega characters Mighty the Armadillo, Ray the Flying Squirrel, and Bean the Dynamite... who even Mighty and Ray could not remember. Bark was left out entirely.
• Clumsy Copyright Censorship: Sometime after it was uploaded, Sonic Shorts Volume 2 HD Edition removed the "Let the Heartaches Begin'' skit. The edit itself was relatively seamless, but the subtitles haven't been edited to compensate, comments linking to timestamps that occur after the skit that preceded it are now out of sync, and AOSTH Robotnik still appears in the video thumbnail.
• Comically Missing the Point: The entirety of "Knuckles Briefs" starts because Knuckles decides to make his own series in response to the main shorts while under the assumption that it's glorifying Sonic, when Sonic himself points he's actually more of the Butt-Monkey usually getting hurt greviously.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Volume 5 is full of these to previous shorts.
  • "Metropolis Mayhem", the sequel to "Seaside Denied", has a lot of references to the latter.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Volume 8 lampshades the use of this trope in Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed.
  Sonic: Whose idea was it to boat race in hot lava?!
• Crack Ship: In-Universe. One short in Volume 7 has Amy and a captive Sonic being denied entry to Twinkle Park in favor of Big and Gamma of all characters, the latter of which the computer apparently considers a "cute couple".
• Crapsaccharine World: Dr. Eggman's Interstellar Amusement Park, where you can get hit by giant missiles... ''filled with candy''.
• Crossover: Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog Robotnik and SatAM Robotnik both express disapproval with Sonic X Eggman in separate skits. The latter Robotnik also voices his displeasure towards Sonic Underground.
• Curse Cut Short:
  Sonic: (sees instruction for the barrel) What?! All I had to do was move up and down? Up... and down?!? What the fu- (cue Time Over)
  • In Volume 8, it refers to Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine as a robot in the background says "I've got to prepare Dr Robotnik a beautiful bean feast, or he'll chop off my di-"
  • In Volume 9, after Sonic realises that nobody brought the Chaos Emeralds with them to the Metal Madness fight...
    Shadow: Well, we're fu— [cue Metal Madness destroying them all]
• A Day in the Limelight: "Knuckles Briefs" and "Vector's Knickers" centers around Knuckles hosting shorts focusing solely on him in the former, and Vector going around interrupting others and dropping one-liners in the latter.
• Death by Irony: In Volume 8, Sonic gets crushed to death by an extra life monitor. Amy, Tails, and even Eggman are devastated, but Knuckles finds it hilarious.
• Deconstructive Parody: Several times, including Sonic getting thrown onto his face by a speed pad, Sonic cracking his head open by jumping out of a helicopter, and Vector getting arrested and thrown in jail for making a sex tape, repeatedly violating people's privacy, and annoying literally everyone.
  • One Sonic Seconds short has Shadow try to use a gun per his game, only for his cartoonishly large hands to leave him physically incapable of even fitting his finger on the trigger of guns designed for humans.
• Didn't Think This Through: In Volume 7, after Dr. Eggman blows up the Earth with the ARK's laser:
  Shadow: You idiot.
  Eggman: Hmm? What are you talking about, Shadow? Everything went according to plan. Now I can build my new empire.
  Shadow: And exactly where are you going to build it?
  [beat]
  Eggman: Oh crud.
  • It happens again in Sonic Seconds Volume 1, when Eggman realizes a moment too late that he's much, much too close to his own artificial sun.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • In Volume 4, Shadow breaks Sonic's arms for eating all of the eggs. In the post-credits sequence, Knuckles eventually punches the viewer for looking at him too long (or clicking on him too much in the interactive Flash version)
  • In the same episode, Amy and Blaze start wailing on Elise simply for kissing Sonic.
  • In Volume 5, SatAM Robotnik destroys 4Kids HQ for their Lighter and Softer portrayal of him. AKA Dr. Eggman.
    • He also prepares to nuke Sonic Underground just for existing (or DiC Entertainment for creating it).
  • As the episode’s Running Gag, Vector is repeatedly thrown out of windows for spouting In-Universe annoying soundbites in “Vector's Knickers”.
• The Dog Bites Back: The final short of Sonic Shorts Volume 8 had the entire Sonic cast, from all continuities, tired of the jokes being made at their expense, go after the many Flash artists who make the shorts.
• Doing In the Wizard: One short in Volume 9 reveals that Super Sonic 2's blue eyes are merely thanks to Sonic putting on blue contact lenses.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • Big the Cat hangs himself in Volume 3 after Froggy calls him out as a loser and abandons him.
  • In the "How to make your own Sonic Fan character" segment, the announcer is seen putting a gun to his own head in one outtake.
  • One segment in Volume 9 has the Ancients committing suicide en masse rather than listening to The END's non-stop Evil Gloating.
• Eating in Front of the Meat: In "A Sonic X Dinner", Chris serves Sonic and his friends dinner at his mansion, saying that he and his family looked up each of their species' dietary recommendations. Tails, an anthropomorphic fox, is served a dead rabbit, much to the horror of Cream, an anthropomorphic rabbit who is sitting right next to him.
• Elaborate Underground Base: Taken up to eleven in “How to Create Your Own Sonic Fan Character” with Dr. Eggman’s Super Secret Underwater Volcano Lab… IN SPACE!!!
• Epic Fail: Knuckles starts the "Knuckles Briefs" collab attempting to have his own web series where he's the cool hero, only to end up with a hilarious mess of clips featuring Knuckles as the Butt-Monkey, with some clips going off script like Knuckles forcing Vector to hastily edit his entry because he portrayed Knuckles as the villain, Silver hijacked his clip to make a rap piece about himself, and Knuckles' own animation got stolen by Fang.
• Epileptic Flashing Lights: Apparently, Sonic's Hyper transformation emits these. In Volume 4, he shows up to challenge Knuckles, who promptly begins seizing and foaming at the mouth; Rouge pops in to steal the Master Emerald and does the same. Even ''Shadow'' isn't immune, though it takes him an extra second or so to succumb.
• Ethical Slut: One segment in Volume 9 has Sonic not-so-convincingly try to enter Cream's house to not objectify her mother and squeeze Vanilla's breasts, but when Sonic lists the reasons anybody would do that both he and Cream clarify that she's cool with it, and Vanilla herself clarifies that Sonic had permission to squeeze her breast after it happens.
• Evil Gloating: Rogerregorroger's segments of Volume 9 depict The END doing this ad nauseum, to the extent that it drives the Ancients to mass suicide without laying a finger on them.
• Exact Words: In a re-enactment of the cutscene before the first Sonic vs. Shadow battle in Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic makes good on his promise that he will make Shadow eat his words. By taking the subtitles and shoving them down Shadow's mouth.
• Expy: In "Robotnik Shorts", Dr. Robotnik and Scratch are ones of Dr. Weird and Steve respectively.
• Eye Scream: In Sonic Shorts Volume 2, Sonic's eyes melt in bloody detail after watching Eggman's horrible dance.
• Fan Disservice:
  • Eggman's latest ultimate weapon? A shot of him posing in a thong set to Right Said Fred's Wonderman. Sonic is horrified.
  • One Running Gag has him taunting Sonic and friends by belly dancing while dressed as a Chippendale. He dances several times and nobody can deny that it's eye-melting.
  • Snively even joins in on it in one short.
• Fate Worse than Death: Played for Laughs with an Orbulon, after realizing he can only move in one direction.
• Flipping the Bird: After knocking Sonic off his Extreme Gear in Volume 4, Jet begins to mock Sonic's status as the supposed fastest thing alive... and is dumbstruck when Sonic overtakes him on foot, running backwards and giving Jet one of these.
• Follow the Bouncing Ball: Knuckles' song in Sonic Shorts Volume 2 has this with a little Egg Wrecker ball bouncing on top of the lyrics. Sonic demands that Knuckles return the Chaos Emeralds he just repossessed, and the ball returns with his word "Nooooo".
• Forgot About His Powers: Played for Laughs in Volume 9. After the OVA versions of Sonic and Metal Sonic get into an argument over who's the real Sonic, Sonic proposes a simple test: they jump out of a helicopter together, and whichever of them doesn't die is the real Sonic. Sonic gets rescued by Tails, causing Metal Sonic to phone Robotnik and ask why he didn't make him a Metal Tails. Robotnik's response is an exasperated, "You can fly!"; Metal Sonic has just enough time to thank Eggman for reminding him before hitting the ground.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • Metal Sonic, Chocola, and Froggy can be seen in the background of Metropolis Mayhem when Tails shoves a dummy ring down Cream's throat.
  • "Shadow Sucks Balls" can briefly be seen during the Guitar Hero segment of the Volume 2 short where Eggman tortures Sonic by dancing in front of him.
  • Eggman can be seen nude when Super Sonic throws a toaster at Perfect Chaos in Sonic Seconds 4.
• Fun with Subtitles: In Volume 8, Sonic makes Shadow literally eat his words.
• Grave Humor: Knuckles's tombstone in the Omochao short:
  Here lies Knuckles. Unlike Sonic I don't chuckle. I like to flex my muscles.
  He dedicated his life to the protection of a precious stone. Bit of a crap life, really.
  • As well, other tombstones say "R.I.P. Sonic's dignity" and "Mighty".
• Gilligan Cut:
  Omochao: You got: the Fighting Gloves! They're yellow!
  Knuckles: What the hell? Why don't you just give me some gloves with "I Am Gay" written on them?
  Omochao: You got: the "I Am Gay" gloves!
  Knuckles: [angry growl]
  • Another one in volume four:
    Shadow: You blue idiot, you ate all the eggs!
    Sonic: Yeah, so what if I did? What're you gonna do, break my arms?
    [cuts to Sonic lying in hospital bed with broken arms]
    Knuckles: You really shouldn't give him ideas.
    Sonic: [mockingly] You really shouldn't give him ideas.
    [Knuckles punches Sonic's cast, making him scream so loud it can be heard outside the hospital]
• Groin Attack:
  • During the opening cutscene of Sonic CD, Sonic flies into a rock groin-first.
  • Sonic defeats Metal Sonic with this.
• Gross-Up Close-Up: Sonic's foot in the final short of the first volume.
• Guide Dang It!: You bet that the infamous "Barrel of Doom" from Carnival Night Zone makes an appearance in this series.
  Sonic: "What?! All I had to do was press up and down?! Up...and...down...? WHAT THE FU—" [loses a life after time runs out]
• Heel–Face Turn: After Volume 3, Tails Doll, after making a friend in Marine, appears to have become overall more benign.
• Here We Go Again!: In Volume 5, SatAM Robotnik, fed up with Sonic X Eggman's Anti-Villain nature, decides to blow up 4Kids Entertainment as a result. After doing so, Snively changes the channel to Sonic Underground, infuriating Robotnik once again, then immediately starts setting up the coordinates.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: This is a somewhat common gag, but the best instance is Eggman in Sonic Seconds 1:
  "You will all be burned by the sun! ...Wait... [gets burned by the sun]"
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Silver's segment of "Knuckles Briefs" has him sing a horribly off-key rendition of his Image Song, "Dreams of an Absolution".
• Horrifying the Horror: The Tails Doll, known for its demonic appearances in several shorts, is creeped out when the Blobfish smiles (displaying their needle-thin teeth) in Volume 9.
• Hypocritical Humor: Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog Robotnik calls Sonic X Eggman and demands that he take his plans more seriously, then after the call, tells Scratch and Grounder to be careful with the parts for his bouncing raccoon cannon.
  Robotnik: We need to hitch it up to the ocean to stop Sonic once and for all!
  Scratch: Yes, your maliciousness!
  Grounder: This plan makes so much sense!
• I Am the Noun!: When Sonic refuses to accept Tails as a sidekick:
  Tails: But... Sega said I could—
  Sonic: Sega? SEGA?! I AM SEGA! [hurls Tails out of the game logo]
• I Ate WHAT?!: In Volume 10, a hungry Charmy starts eating what he thinks is a bowl of green potato chips, that in fact turns out to be Vector's scales, which have been flaking off due to an unspecified illness. Despite his obvious discomfort, he keeps eating them.
• Implausible Deniability: Rouge insists that she isn't a hooker. A ring chooses that moment to slip out of her cleavage.
• Impostor-Exposing Test: Sonic suggests a ludicrously simple one to Metal Sonic in Volume 9 to prove which of them is the real Sonic: jump out of a helicopter together and see who survives. Sonic gets rescued by Tails; Metal Sonic forgets he can fly and slams into the ground.
• Item Get!: Big the Cat does this when it seems like he finally got Froggy. Sadly, a condor suddenly showed up and took Froggy away.
• Kissing Cousins: In Volume 9, the OVA version of Knuckles is introduced to the extended echidna family from the Archie Comics, and is horrified to learn that Julie-Su is both his cousin and his girlfriend in that continuity.
• Lampshade Hanging: When Knuckles wants to create his own Flash movie, Sonic notes that a lot of the clips are him "running into things and getting hurt."
• Lampshaded the Obscure Reference: In Volume 2, Mighty and Ray both lament being forgotten in a bar, with Bean the Dynamite agreeing... Only for Mighty and Ray to have no clue who he is.
• Left the Background Music On: The intro to the Newgrounds version of Volume 6. Eggman's robots are also often seen providing the BGM when the scene is in one of his bases.
• Meat-O-Vision: In one short, Sonic rescues a piglet from being trapped inside a badnik… and then hungrily pictures him as a chili dog.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: In Volume 9, Big ends up on "To Catch a Predator" due to his private meet-ups with Cream, who's only six years old. Not helping matters is Chris Hansen going over chat logs with Big talking about showing Cream his "big rod", when he was actually talking about his fishing rod.
• Mistaken Identity:
  • Game Buddy has changed his user logo and animation style so many times that it's difficult to determine which shorts he has actually created.
  • In-universe, one short has Sonic becoming extremely frustrated when other characters mistake any other hedgehog (including different-colored ones like Shadow and Silver) as him.
• Musical Episode: For Summer of Sonic 2012, the Sonic Paradox Crew created Seaside Denied, which was one of these.
  • Likewise, for 2013's Summer of Sonic, they created a sequel, "Metropolis Mayhem", which continues the characterization and humor of the Heroes characters from its predecessor, as well as implying that this will become a full-on series, as the episode ends with the characters' silhouettes on the backdrop of Casino Park as the BGM plays.
  • In a parody of the beginning of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Knuckles threatens Sonic for breaking into his home by using his singing voice. Volume 2 has two other singing segments, although the penultimate short is more of a "dance" segment.
  • A very, very disturbing dance segment: Eggman's the one doing the dancing. Admittedly, he's not half bad for a fat guy.
• Mundane Utility:
  • Knuckles using Sonic's quills to shave his beard and throwing the hedgehog in the trash bin afterwards like a discarded razor in Knuckles Briefs.
  • In Volume 10, Knuckles catches up with Mecha Sonic in Sky Sanctuary to find that he's using the Master Emerald to... power his TV, so he can do some TV shopping. It doesn't even occur to Mecha that he could use that power himself until Knuckles points it out to him.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: In Volume 10, Knuckles comes across Mecha Sonic using the Master Emerald to power a TV so he can do some TV shopping. When Knuckles admits he'd been expecting Mecha to use it to power himself up, Mecha does a Spit Take, exclaims "You can do that?!", and proceeds to do so. The short ends with Knuckles zipping his mouth shut as he realises what a mistake he's just made.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Eggman's secret underwater volcano laboratory… IN SPACE!
• No Animals Were Harmed: Parodied at the end of 3D: Volume 1 which, in reference to the Running Gag of Sonic being attacked by the orca from Sonic Adventure, notes in the credits, "No whales were harmed in the making of this video, the whales were doing the harming..."
• Oblivious Pervert: In one short, Big, while searching for Froggy, looks up Amy's dress while looking for him. Amy's response is to hit him with her hammer. In Seaside Denied, Big does it again, but this time Amy just scolds him.
• Oddball in the Series: Volume 7, as all the shorts in the volume are done by only one person (TheWax70). This is because the animator wanted to give the others more time for their shorts.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • In a short, Shadow challenges Sonic to a fight and tries to use Chaos Control from an Emerald, which fails. Once Shadow checks the emerald, he discovers that it's fake and lacks batteries, much to his displeasure as Sonic proceeds to wail on him.
  • Sonic has one of these in a short after spin-dashing through two SWATbots... which were actually Sally and Bunnie in disguise.
• Only Sane Man: Espio is this for Team Chaotix. Different people play the part depending on the short, but he's the only one to fill the role in 100% of his appearances.
• Our Lawyers Advised This Trope: When Sonic comes to Cream's house in order to grab Vanilla's breasts, both Sonic and Cream clarify "for legal reasons" that Vanilla had given permission.
• Parody Sue: The "How to make your own Sonic Fan character" short focuses on the creation of one. When the segment for powers comes up, the narrator says to get rid of balance and sensibility, and then suggests having the character use every series MacGuffin to turn into Jesus and then fuse with several of the canon characters.
• Paper-Thin Disguise:
  • Chicken Boo disguised as "Chris."
  • Also, the two Egg Pawns dressed as Sonic and Tails in Eggman's Amusement Park ad.
• Parody Commercial: One of SoBe, another of SunnyD.
• Playing Both Sides: Shadow notices Omochao giving advice to Sonic despite seemingly being loyal to Team Dark up to that point, and Sonic realizes that he likely told Shadow about his Sonic Wind attack as well. The robotic Chao then reveals he was stalling both of them to steal the Chaos Emeralds for himself.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • From Volume 3:
    Tails: Sooonic! It's an emergencyyy!
    Sonic: What, Tails?! WHAT?!
    Tails: Eggman just got FATTER!
    Sonic: Emergency... That's not an emergency. (cue a Kaiju-sized Eggman crashing through the roof of Knuckles' room)
  • From Volume 4:
    (Sonic frees a bird from a Badnik, who promptly screams and pukes all over the bridge)
    Sonic: Uh, are you... oka-
    Bird: NO, you idiot! That's my life support MACHIIIIINE!!! (pukes on Sonic's face)
• Pragmatic Adaptation: After the credits in the Flash version of Volume 4, Knuckles could be clicked on by the user until he eventually gets sick of it and punches the camera. When the series was uploaded to Youtube, the joke obviously wouldn't work since trying to click on him would just pause the video. This necessitated changing his lines to him telling the viewer to stop looking at him instead.
• Rage Against the Author: The Sonic characters do this in the final short of Volume 8, where they beat up and/or kill the Flash artists responsible for making the many shorts.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Tails Doll, when in his evil demeanor.
  • Marine the Raccoon (from Sonic Rush Adventure) also takes on this appearance in one Summer of Sonic intro, which scares the living daylights out of Vector.
• Ruder and Cruder:
  • Volume 9 features significantly more uncensored swearing than the previous ones.
  • Volume 10 a little more so, particularly in that volume's last two shorts, where Vector and Maria say "shit" and "fucking", respectively.
• Rule 34: Parodied in an In-Universe short. Sega debuts Shade from Sonic Chronicles and a fan sees it. Bear in mind that we had only seen her in her full armor at this point.
  FAN: Oh my god. They got a new Sonic character! I Must. Draw. PORN OF IT!
• Running Gag: Throughout Volume 2, Big the Cat's attempts to catch Froggy. Eventually, in Volume 3, Froggy announces he is fed up with being chased and leaves. Big, heartbroken, hangs himself.
  • Sonic, in his own words, says that some of the shorts are him running into things and getting hurt.
  • Every other episode has Eggman dancing topless.
• Schmuck Bait: Go ahead, click the dumb looking Sonic with the bird on his head in Volume 2. We DARE you to. Other examples include a poorly drawn Vector in Knuckles Briefs, and Mario racing on Starlight Carnival in Volume 7.
• Screaming at Squick: One short in Volume 2 has Shadow asking Sonic to look up art of him and Sonic, expecting to see tons of art depicting them fighting each other, but when Sonic looks them up, they find... something quite different.
  Sonic: (eyes wide) I...is that...?
  Shadow: And is that my...?
  (both scream loudly)
• Self-Deprecation: Volume 8 ends with all of the Sonic characters turning against the creators of the series and slaughtering all of them as revenge for making fun of them.
• Series Fauxnale: Volume 8 wound up being this, with the final skit shown being the Sonic cast brutally murdering the animators for all the abuse the latter inflicted on them throughout the series, supposedly ending the series as there wouldn't be a Volume 9 for a decade. The Stinger for Volume 9 states "See you next volume.", meaning that the series hasn't ended.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: In a short of volume 8, Knuckles has had it with Eggman stealing the Master Emerald, so he decided to move it to another place where he can't find it. This being Sonic Shorts, Knuckles places his new hiding spot right in front of where Eggman was standing. To add salt to the wound, Eggman returns and performs a literal Kick the Dog, or in this case, echidna.
• Ship Tease: Plenty of Sonamy moments exist in the shorts, and Sonadow is frequently hinted at (and, in one instance, Sonic and Shadow stumble across it... much to their mutual displeasure). One skit even has a Die for Our Ship moment with Shadow hitting the wall as Sonic and Amy embrace. Sonaze is also hinted at with Volume 4 having Blaze and Amy start wailing on Elise simply for kissing Sonic.
  • Shadow is also in the scene where Amy yells at Elise, possibly teasing Sonadow as well.
• Shout-Out:
  • "Sonic Shorts 2" has a short wherein Sally Acorn — a Canon Foreigner — is in a locker room with the rest of the female game characters. Amy then shouts "An American! There's an American among us!"
  • The skit where Metal Sonic realizes that he is a robot is set to Zero's death theme from Mega Man X5.
  • One skit has Bean the Dynamite acting like the Aracuan bird from The Three Caballeros.
  • The aforementioned gag with Eggman as a Chippendale Dancer is a reference to a famous Saturday Night Live sketch featuring Chris Farley and Patrick Swayze (complete with "Working for the Weekend" as background music).
  • The "I Am Gay" gloves in the "Omochao Gun" skit is a reference to Vegeta's "Badman" shirt in Dragon Ball Z.
  • A gag in Volume 2 shows Froggy crossing a busy street, which pays homage to Frogger. Then Big chases after him and causes a massive pile-up traffic accident.
    • Another Big/Froggy skit involves Big inexplicably dressing up like Link and holding Froggy up, imitating the Item Get! pose from Ocarina of Time. And then he gets snatched by a condor.
  • Shadow discovering that Chris Thorndyke is actually a giant chicken.
  • The Robotnik Shorts parody the Dr. Weird segments from Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
  • Bitey makes an appearance in one skit stealing an emerald from Sonic.
  • One Volume 9 short gives the Strider boss from Sonic Frontiers the voice and personality of Wheatley as a way of aggressively lampshading its Tactical Suicide Boss nature.
  • Another Volume 9 short has the caller's voice sound like many of the adults from the Peanuts specials.
• Single Mom Stripper: Downplayed, but also deconstructed. Cream complains that several men have come into her home and objectified her mother, including Sonic, but this mostly amounts to squeezing her breasts. The reason she's so upset over it even when it's repeatedly clarified that Vanilla consents to it is because she's worried it'll have negative effects on her development being "like one minute old."
• Small Name, Big Ego: Knuckles. He made Knuckles Briefs because he was jealous of all the attention Sonic was getting^note paying no attention to the fact that, as Sonic himself said, a lot of the shorts depicted the blue hedgehog crashing into things and getting hurt, and he wanted to show how awesome he was. However, half of the other characters (the Chaotix, his closer pals, being the biggest offenders) merely made fun of him or made him look ridiculous.
• Smoking Hot Sex: (Robot) Sally in Volume 6. There was nothing funny about that kind of kiss at all, Tails!
• Sorry, I'm Gay: In one Volume 5 short, Sonic reveals to Amy that he is gay and in a relationship with Tails. Amy does not take this well. (Volume 8 reveals that he was joking, but Amy is still not amused.)
• Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace: In one Volume 9 short, Amy has Sonic Bound and Gagged at the altar with Omega as the priest, but every time he reaches this line, someone interrupts. Played with in that none of them actually object to the marriage: Eggman and SQUID want to attack Sonic, Vector is just doing his usual thing, and Cream is absolutely furious that Amy didn't appoint her as flower girl.
• Spiteful Surcharge: One short in volume 3 has Sonic find a store selling chili dogs at 50 percent off, prompting him to go in and buy as many as he can. However, Robotnik is manning the register, and instead of giving him the discount which equates to one ring, Robotnik increases the cost to 10,000 rings, infuriating Sonic.
• The Stoner: The Toxomister badniks in Lava Reef are portrayed as such, getting high off their own toxic fumes.
• Stylistic Suck: Knuckles Briefs, a Spin-Off of Sonic Shorts, most prominently Big the Cat's brief. Justified by the creators, in that they had to put it together quickly for Summer of Sonic '09.
  • Sonic Shits and its sequel also fall under this category.
  • Tails's monotone voice in the Sonic Sez section of Volume 2 is clearly a parody of Corey Bringas' Tails voice for the Sonic Adventure games.
• Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: In Metropolis Mayhem.
  Hey Big! Question real quick. - Is your name Big 'cause you're thick? - I think... it's 'cause he has a real big- Heart!
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Eggman in his promotional video for his Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park:
  Hello. I am Dr. Eggman, amusement park builder and (speaking rapidly) not-an-evil-mastermind-trying-to-capture-aliens-for-hyper-go-on-power. (eye twitches)
  ...
  Be sure to visit our alien enslavement camp... I mean, Planet Wisp once we're done with construction.
• Swallowed Whole: In Volume 9, a list of animals that could never be made into Sonic characters features the Tapeworm, whose strategy at fighting Eggman is to force himself down Eggman's throat. The narrator decides this is enough for him and leaves.
• Synchronization: The Sonic OVA example is parodied in one Volume 10 short. Knuckles realises that if Metal Sonic feels everything Sonic feels, then they can just beat up Sonic and his pain will transfer to Metal Sonic, eventually overloading him. It works.
• Synchro-Vox: In "How to Create a Sonic Fan Character", the narrator guy does this when he says "lazy".
• Take That!: There are several jokes at the expense of someone else or a product and how much they suck.
  • The final video of volume 5 has SatAM's Robotnik, fed up with Sonic X Eggman's Anti-Villain nature, deciding to blow up 4Kids Entertainment as a result. The 4Kids producer is presented as an immature Manchild who thinks Chris Thorndyke is the most popular character of the series, worth a spin-off, and the Only Sane Man of the committee says "nobody likes Sonic X". The video ends with Robotnik changing the channel to watch Sonic Underground... and Snively immediately starts setting up the coordinates.
  • Sonic screaming "Oh my God! Noooooo!!!" while holding a game box for Sonic the Hedgehog (2006).
  • In the second one, a brief snippet takes a cheap shot at Sonic Drift.
    Sonic: "Why the hell am I in a car?"
    And that's why Sonic Drift sucks!
  • Also in the second one, there's a still grey image with red lettering that briefly appears in the short where Eggman tortures Sonic with dancing. What does it say? Shadow Sucks Balls.
  • In another, BioWare images of newest Sonic character Shade the Echidna are discovered by a Sonic fan. His initial reaction?
    Fan: Oh my god! They've got a new Sonic character! I must! DRAW!! PORN OF IT!!!
    • Freakier Than Fiction: The skit really isn't exaggerated at all; when Shade was first leaked to the internet in a set of pirated magazine scans, the sun didn't even have time to set before Rule 34 took effect (this was before we even knew that Shade was an echidna!)
  • In general, plenty to Sonic '06, but a particularly good one from Sonic in Volume 4.
    Sonic: [after getting kissed by Elise] (shudders) I don't know what's creepier: the fact that she made out with an animal or a corpse.
  • invoked The entire "How to make your own Sonic Fan character" bit in Volume 6 is one long, hilarious stab at fan-character Marty Stus.
  • In Metropolis Mayhem, the things that Tails says at the very beginning and after getting hit in the head by Amy's hammer are shots at Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)^note specifically, the infamous kiss scene and Sonic Unleashed^note specifically, the Werehog, respectively.
  • Sonic Shits takes it up to eleven with mocking everything and everyone related to Sonic Paradox. It parodies certain shorts, obvious Author Appeal, people who want others to animate and voice their uninspired scenarios, and the humor of late 2000s internet in general.
  • 3D Volume 1 has Sonic and friends suiting up for the DC × Sonic the Hedgehog crossover series, with Sonic wondering where Knuckles (who's partnering with Superman) is. Cut to Knuckles gliding through the infamous "flying rings" level of Superman 64 (and doing badly).
    EGG WINS
• Tomato in the Mirror: Parodied with Metal Sonic, who is unaware that he's a robot. When he realizes this, he suffers an existential crisis, curls up into a ball and cries.
  Metal Sonic: I can't believe it... I'M a faker! My whole life is pointless! [curls up and cries]
• Trivially Obvious: The "Pointless Information Moment" with Omochao in Volume 8.
  Omochao: Money is a great source of income. It's green!
• Unexplained Recovery: Knuckles says "I Got Better" when recapping the events of Volume 5.
• Unfortunate Names: In Volume 5, Sonic and Tails are ambushed by Coconuts and his fellow Badniks Crabmeat and Penguinator. Sonic and Tails are too busy laughing at their names to take their threats seriously.
• Villainous BSoD: Metal Sonic, after realizing he's a robot rather than the actual Sonic. Set to Zero's death theme from Mega Man X5's ending. And it is glorious.
• Villain Ball: In Volume 8, when Eggman examines his robots to see if any of them got Froggy, one of them got a pair of light speed dash shoes, and another planted a bomb on Sonic, presenting a button that must be pressed to kill him. Eggman rejects both of them just for not being the frog he was looking for, even though both of them (especially the latter) would be of great use to him.
• Villain Decay: Tails Doll goes from a scourge of the shorts with Nightmare Fuel oozing out of him like the blood he was once or twice coated with to Marine's gaming buddy.
• Walk, Don't Swim: Often played with, but most notably demonstrated by Sonic at the Olympic Games. In a follow-up short, Eggman can't swim either.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: In the series, Sonic is terrified of killer whales, presumably after his experiences in Emerald Coast from Sonic Adventure.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In Volume 8, after Robotnik gets the frog he wanted, he vaporizes his Mecha-Mooks and Big the Cat.
• Your Head A-Splode: Tails after he powers up a bit too much. Knuckles quickly panics wondering what he should do in rebuttal, Sonic Screams Like a Little Girl (for good reason), and Shadow only comments on how unnerving the whole ordeal is.

OR CLICK TO PLAY WITH THE TAILS DOLL.