We're fascinated by the messy process by which pop culture gets made, mainly because so many iconic movie and TV moments wind up so radically different from what the creators intended . But nothing can hold a candle to video games when it comes to random, haphazard accidents resulting in greatness. There are so many factors at play -- technical limitations, large development teams, cultural differences -- that it's bizarre to see what these games looked like at the idea phase. For example ...

6 Sonic the Hedgehog Was Originally a Rabbit, Then Just Plain Weird

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In the early '90s, Super Mario's popularity had given Nintendo an absurd 92 percent share of the video game market, but then a rival came along and changed everything -- a radical new character with more attitude in his index finger than Mario had in his entire rotund physique. We're talking, of course, about Sonic the ... happy, bow-tie-wearing rabbit.

Sega

Who was so afraid of butterflies, even his perfectly round turds turned pale.

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Yeah, you can't just arrive at a million-dollar idea like "a hedgehog who runs really fast" without going through a bunch of shitty ones first. When Sega first decided to introduce a new mascot who would defy Nintendo's supremacy, their early proposals included a dog, a clown, and a bizarre Mario/Bart Simpson hybrid ...

Sega

"Don't have a mushroom, man!"

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... before they settled on the most hardcore of animals, the rabbit. The only problem: Their 16-bit console just couldn't handle the sheer coolness (or hardware demands) of the rabbit's ears, which were supposed to allow him to grab hold of things. Hell, this was 1991 -- it'd probably take a room full of MIT computers to make that happen, and that was a little more than you could pack in a $299 box. So, no rabbits.

After being an armadillo for a while, Sonic (or "Mr. Needlemouse") finally became a hedgehog. With an appetite for bestiality. In a concept that was later rejected by Sega of America for being too "Japanese," the developers decided to give Sonic a sexy human girlfriend named Madonna who would chase him around, implying that she wanted to do unspeakable things with his spiky member.

Sega