Jeff Fowler: We have such an amazing time making these films and then when the opportunity came along to do sort of a spinoff and focus on Knuckles, who we all loved when we introduced him in “Sonic 2”, I think we all just got incredibly excited because there’s so many great characters in this world. We’ve barely even scratched the surface. As we move from film to film, we’re always expanding the cast and bringing in more of these fan favorite characters. And we always love teasing where we’re going at the end of the films. So to get to do a whole story around Knuckles… but also, honestly I think we all look at it like it’s a movie. It’s my same crew for the most part that does the films. I’m so proud of where we ended up — the look of it, the quality… it has everything that the movies have, and I’m so excited for everybody to see it.

JM: I completely agree with you about the quality of it. And the Paramount Pictures logo is with it. So yes, it absolutely gives you that feeling — now with the at home experience on Paramount+. It’s a road trip, there’s action, there’s chases, there’s comedy, and there’s a lot of bowling, which is very entertaining. How did you want to zero-in on the storyline for “Knuckles”?

JF: Once we kinda had the idea of pairing him up with Adam Pally’s Wade character… these are two characters that are very different from Tom and Sonic. And even though they’re going on a road trip, there’s so many obvious sort of parallels, but suddenly it’s a totally different kind of tone and vibe. Wade is very much written off… he’s not that smart. He’s just kind of a goofy character and Knuckles has been a fish out of water. And we’ve had a lot of fun with that humor in “Sonic 2”, when he was just kind of getting his bearings on Earth and trying to navigate all of that. So it just felt like a really fun opportunity to sort of bring these two characters together. But also tell a great story that has a lot of heart and just really takes the audience on a really fun trip.

JM: Lots of surprise appearances throughout. And Idris Elba is one of the most charismatic actors in Hollywood — he did such a great job with the SAG Awards earlier this year, and through this voice performance. After doing “Sonic 2” and collaborating with him on this, in getting the voice performance to be just right to please the fans, what is that process like?

JF: There are many great parts about working with Idris. He’s incredible. And he always brings so much talent and so much passion to create the performance. We had worked it out on the film. Suddenly we kind of knew how Knuckles sounded. We knew the tone and how the humor worked. He understands it perfectly. And he can come into a session and just give us so much great stuff that then we can go off and work in animation. It’s so nice with these films as we get to make more of them, it’s like getting to work with old friends and everybody just knows, knows the deal and has a lot of fun and can really kind of just relax. It was so nice to bring Idris back and to get to make “Knuckles” — he certainly had lots of focus in “Sonic 2”, but now this whole thing is really built around him, which I think Idris had a great time with and it really shows.

JM: I’m glad he enjoyed it. I’m glad you enjoyed working with him again. And one of the main things that I’ve loved about the Sonic franchise is the animation. The look of these characters in CG. They’re bold and they’re fun. And there’s a scene in the first episode where Knuckles is in an attic. And I just found it interesting to watch Knuckles and the lighting. How do you sort of look at the lighting when it comes to the CG characters in the real world and in a setting like an attic?

JF: It’s always, “What’s the story? What’s the emotion of the scene? What’s the character going through? How does the lighting, how does the color, how does that reinforce that?” Those are all the kinds of decisions that sort of go into it. So much of the world and the sets and the stages that we build — we really try to be very purposeful about the art direction and the design and really reinforce whatever the emotion or the story beat that we’re trying to tell.

JM: Christopher Lloyd is an icon, and he’s got a great voice role here.

JF: He’s fantastic. Pachacamac, who he plays, was a new character and it wasn’t really necessarily an established voice. So when we kind of landed on the idea of reaching out to Christopher Lloyd…. Doc Brown himself… it’s just incredible. You just can’t help but get goosebumps. He’s an icon. I have those kinds of moments where I just cannot believe what we’re getting to do and who we’re getting to work with.

JM: I interviewed Tim Miller about two years ago for “Love, Death + Robots”, and he spoke highly of you — about working together, all the way going back to “Gopher Broke” from 20 years ago and being at the Academy Awards.

JF: Tim and I go way back. I worked with him for 15 years. He gave me my start in the industry and was just a wonderful mentor. I loved working for his company. I loved working with him. He’s continued to be involved. He’s an executive producer on the “Sonic” films — a great resource, a great person to show what we’re working on with and get really great feedback. And he’s always honest about stuff. He was just a very instrumental part of the Sonic franchise back in the early days and really kind of helped us crack some of the early story outlines and really helped us find our way when we were first getting started. He’s awesome.

JM: Cool. So famously about this time two years ago on the “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” press tour, Jim Carrey said, “I think I’m retiring.” But he’s back for “Sonic the Hedgehog 3”. Were you the one that convinced Jim Carrey to come out of retirement and come back for “Sonic the Hedgehog 3”?

JF: I’ll happily take complete credit for that. No, I just couldn’t be happier. We had some really exciting ideas about this third film. The minute that I had them, I turned around and kind of pitched to him and I could see that he was excited by it and intrigued. The door was open a crack, just enough to kind of get my foot in and keep talking. I was finishing “Sonic 2” at the time and Paramount and SEGA were very interested in, “If we were to continue to make more films, where would you want to go?” So we had some very early conversations and then once I looped Jim in on it and started sending some artwork… That’s something I always love to do on these films very early. Whenever we have any version of an outline… it’s fun to start the visual development. And I think that’s what really gives people a great early look at what these things can be. We had some really fantastic artwork on all the films. But “Sonic 3” is a big movie and it’s ambitious, and I think fans are going to absolutely love it. So fortunately Jim was into it and excited and was willing to come back.

JM: Love it. Awesome. We all can’t wait for “Sonic 3”. We’ve got “Knuckles” in the meantime. In the beginning of “Knuckles,” he struggles with downtime. And I wonder for you, now that this show is coming out, but you’ve got “Sonic 3” in December, do you give yourself any downtime or is it just go, go, go to that December release date?

JF: Oh, it’ll be go, go, go. But when you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. Really — these films have been such an amazing experience. I started as an animator. I started in visual effects. That’s when I got hired at Tim’s company as a character animator. So I love that world. I love working with visual effects artists and animators. But I also have really fallen in love with the live- action side of things and all that, and getting to work with actors like Jim Carrey, of course. So it really is the best of both worlds to get to work on these “Sonic” films. I’ve been very fortunate and have been having a great time.