'Knuckles' To Air On Nickelodeon In August
Bang bang, the Paramount+ series will join its movie predecessors on linear television
There were not a lot of big trailers during the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards a few weeks ago, and there wasn’t anything in announcing entirely new shows either, but something new to the channel: Paramount+’s Knuckles series, which is premiering August 12.
Now yes, the Kids Choice Awards were two and a half weeks ago, but frankly the promo didn’t give enough information to build an article yet, namely, in what format was it going to air? And I wasn’t meaning or expecting the episodes to be edited into a movie, the promo explicitly called it the six-episode event it is. Side note, the promo is pretty lacking in structural uniqueness, simply using the current Nick graphics package to essentially frame the original spots, so not all that impressive. It wasn’t until the August premiere highlights got out that actually revealed the airing schedule for the series, and it will air every night that week at 7 PM, including Fridays which is rare for weeklong rollouts of new episodes these days, as the Big Summer Vacation has demonstrated. Where the sixth episode comes in is the Monday, where it will be a double premiere, with episode 2 airing at 7:30 PM.
Originally released at once on the streamer on April 26, Knuckles stars Idris Elba as Knuckles, who becomes a mentor to Adam Pally’s Wade Whipple in the ways of the echidna warrior as part of his own journey of self-discovery. As the series takes place between the second and third Sonic the Hedgehog films, the first episode features the Wachowski home enough to guest star Sonic (voiced by Ben Schwartz), Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey), and Maddie, played once again by Tika Sumpter.
The cast also includes Cary Elwes as Wade’s dad "Pistol" Pete Whipple, as well as Stockard Channing as Wade’s mother Wendy, Edi Patterson as his sister Wanda, Kid Cudi as Agent Mason, Ellie Taylor as Agent Willoughby, Julian Barratt as Jack Sinclair, Sinclair, a bounty hunter and the captain of Wade's former bowling team Christopher Lloyd as Pachacamac, and Paul Scheer and Rob Huebel as Dylan Beagleton and Gary N. Sinclair III Esq., anchors for ESPN 8: The Ocho’s coverage of the climactic bowling tournament. Jeff Fowler, who directed the two released films also directed the pilot and served as an executive producer. John Whittington, who worked on the screenplay for the second film, is credited as co-creator with showrunner Toby Ascher, from Original Film who also executive produces. Paramount Pictures and Sega of America produce as they do the film.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is still set for a December 20, 2024 release, and despite having a trailer shown just a couple of weeks before the release of Knuckles to exhibitors at CinemaCon, the public still hasn’t gotten their first look at the film. The first Sonic film made its Nickelodeon premiere on August 18, 2022 and has frequently aired since, while the second film made its Nickelodeon premiere on the day Knuckles released in obvious synergy. Both will be airing around Knuckles’s Nickelodeon premiere as well.
