An update on "Sonic in Scared Stupid: The Final Chapter"

Greetings friends!

It’s officially the Halloween season here at Balena Productions, and I know the question on everybody’s mind is “Where is Sonic in Scared Stupid: The Final Chapter?”. Unfortunately I do not have a release date, and it will definitely not be this year, but please continue to remain patient. If you are out of the loop, the channel is in very serious trouble and I am working as best as I can with the very limited resources I have. YouTube has been very harsh to the channel making production of the movie extremely slow. I can promise you, it will be worth the wait.

When I announced the movie in 2021, I had intended to finish by October 2023. YouTube’s hammer fell hard shortly after with “Made for Kids” and seemingly pulling the plug on the channel in terms of views and revenue. If things don’t improve, there’s a very real chance I may not be able to continue making animations. I do not want to stop, but what I do is an immense time sink and I have to seek out other work to keep my lights on. YouTube is a very different place than when I started, a channel like mine is an irrelevant fossil in the grand scheme of things.

I know it’s frustrating, but I am one guy with a few volunteers trying to create something that may end up being 40 minutes in length, fully animated. I am not desperately trying to remain relevant as a “YouTuber”. YouTube is just a platform. I won't be changing my content to survive on a dying platform. I’d rather my channel fade away than change it into something it’s not like an AI slop factory, or churn out “Sonic Zombie” episodes every week to please the algorithm. I am an entertainer. My art goes where I go, YouTube or not. As much as I love doing this I will be fine, it’s the channel that’s in danger and if you enjoy what I do here there’s a few things you can do to help!

Here’s what you can do.

Pledging on Patreon is the single best thing you can do to help, it’s as low as $1.00 a month and really goes a long way ( https://www.patreon.com/c/BalenaProductions ). If my Patreon was fully funded each month, we wouldn’t have to even worry about YouTube anymore and I could return to animating full time.

We’ve also been streaming every two weeks working on the next ‘Christmas with Sonic’ and doing sketch commissions by my partner Riana (who draws ‘Christmas with Sonic’) which has been helping out a lot to pick up the slack from YouTube. Joining those streams, and especially getting a commission done does a lot to help! If you’ve ever wanted to see your favorite character in the ‘Christmas with Sonic’ style, this is your best bet! We’ll be streaming again on October 4th, so I hope to see you there!

You can re-watch your old favorite videos on the channel, and especially leave a comment. Comments are now essential to growth on YouTube. Now would be a great time to re-watch the original trilogy of ‘Sonic in Scared Stupid’

If you just want to leave a one time tip, you can at my Ko-Fi! https://ko-fi.com/balenaproductions

You can also join my Discord so you never miss any news, and you can talk to me directly ( https://discord.com/invite/balenaproductions ).

That’s all for now. I cannot express how sorry I am that things aren’t going as well as they should, and I greatly appreciate your patience! I hope you enjoy the magic of the Halloween season, and look forward to “Christmas with Sonic: Road Trip” coming this holiday!