Doctor Eggman

Doctor Ivo Robotnik, also known as Doctor Eggman or simply Eggman, is a character created by the Japanese game designer Naoto Ohshima and the main antagonist of Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. Eggman is a mad scientist who seeks to steal the mystical Chaos Emeralds, destroy his archenemy Sonic the Hedgehog, and conquer the world. Eggman and his "Badnik" brand of military robots serve as bosses and enemies in the Sonicplatform games. His distinctive characteristics include his red-black-yellow clothing, baldness, pince-nezsunglasses, and large mustache.

Eggman made a cameo appearance in the 1991 TeraDrive game Puzzle Construction before his full debut in the Sega Genesis game Sonic the Hedgehog later that year. Ohshima designed Eggman as one of several pitches for a mascot character to compete with Nintendo's Mario. Although Sonic was selected, Sonic Team thought the Eggman design was excellent and retooled him as the antagonist. Sega of America renamed him Ivo Robotnik during Sonic's Western localization; later games reconciled the different names by establishing "Robotnik" as his real name and "Eggman" as a derisive nickname that the character embraced.

Eggman has appeared in almost every Sonic game, sometimes as a player character. Sonic games characterize him as a maniacal roboticist who seeks to create his own empire. Despite his obsession with defeating Sonic, he secretly respects him, and the two are sometimes forced into alliances to overcome greater threats. Outside the Sonic platform games, Eggman starred in the puzzle game Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine (1993). Chikao Ohtsuka and Kotaro Nakamura have voiced Eggman in Japan, while Mike Pollock has provided his English voice since 2003.

Eggman is one of the most recognizable video game characters and a longstanding pop culture figure, frequently cited among the medium’s most iconic villains. His schemes across the series include releasing the water creature Chaos in Sonic Adventure (1998), constructing the theme park Eggmanland in Sonic Unleashed (2008); he also appears alongside Bowser in the Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games series. Beyond the games, Eggman has been featured on Sonic merchandise, and adapted into comics, animated series, and the live-action Sonic film franchise produced by Paramount Pictures, he is portrayed by Jim Carrey.