There have been many versions of Sonic in the past, but probably one of the first to get real merchandising is the cartoon interpretation made by DIC in 1993. Yes, Sonic, as depicted in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, SATAM, and later Sonic Underground, appeared on many kinds of toys and collectibles (except for a proper action figure funnily enough) before anything based off his proper in game appearance came out. (For the record I think merch featuring a more game accurate Sonic first came out around 1995, with things such as a birthday cake topper featuring accurate spines, and the Crash and Smash bike that featured the first real Sonic action figure) Of course the defining characteristic of DIC Sonic is how his spines go, rather than 6 curved points on his head and 2 on his back the animators interpreted them as some kind of weird mohawk that went all the way from his forehead down to his tail, and in the SATAM cartoon specifically he always wore a backpack to carry a power ring in that covered the spine on his back. Most toys made based on this look used a triple mohawk design so it could still look good when seen from a 3/4 perspective, but my figure truly shows just how weird Sonic would look if made to the specifications from the cartoon's design.

Oh yeah, it's classic Sonic with the spines cut off, the mohawk style spines cut out of craft foam and blended in with a bit of apoxie, and a backpack made out of apoxie.