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GBA

Sonic to join Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade!

by Max Lake - November 21, 2001, 10:47 am EST
Source: Gaming-Age

Sega’s famous hedgehog will take part in the festivities tomorrow! Updated Yet Again!

Today Sega announced that Sonic the Hedgehog has been invited to march in Macy’s 75th Anniversary Parade. This year is also Sonic’s 10th anniversary and the blue blur remains one of the most popular video game characters the world over. What’s even more exciting is that Sonic’s next video game appearances will be on Nintendo systems! Sonic the Hedgehog Advance hits North America on December 15th while Sonic Adventure 2: Battle will hit the Nintendo GameCube early in 2002. Thanks to Gaming-Age for the hook.

UPDATE: It turns out it's a balloon and it's been in the parade before. From a reader "Matt the mute":

If you remember, Sonic was featured in the Macy's Day Parade several times in the mid 90's.

Maybe you're familiar with "that incident" where the Sonic float (due to it's wierd design) knocked over a lamp post and injured several parade goers.

Just hoping to jog your memory :-)

-Matt "the mute"

Second Update

It turns out that Nintendo had a float in today's parade also! There was a Pikachu float going down the street near the beginning of the parade.

Third Update:

Thanks to another reader, Sonic’s reputation has been cleared!

Just to follow up your recent "Sonic in Parade" article, it was not Sonic that crashed into the lampost injuring a woman, it was the "Cat in the Hat." This CNN article talks about it.

Hope this clears things up.

-gotterdamm

The article mentions that the Cat in the Hat did not come back this year.

Fourth Update:

Looks like it was a guy in a suit and not the balloon after all. From another helpful PGC reader, "Gatorkawol":

I just came from watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade, and I saw Sonic!

Unfotunatley, there was no balloon, as expected. It was on a cartoon float

with Betty Boop, Popeye, and other cartoon characters. It was the biggest

character on the float from what I could see. It was a guy in a Sonic suit.

Unfortunatleyy, they only had cameras on one side, so just as they were

zooming out, I saw Sonic for about 2 seconds. But he was there. If you post

this, allow me to say one more thing: COOKIE MONSTER RULES!

Fifth Update: What can I say? There was a Sonic float and there were problems with it, which would explain the “guy in a Sonic suit” that popped up this year in the parade. Thanks to Josh Fletcher, who dug up the info:

I’d hate for you to correct the article again, but Sonic DID in fact have an accident. In fact, he had two. Check out this blurb from this article:

http://www.augustachronicle.com/stories/112897/fea_parade.html

"In 1993, winds caused the 64-foot tall Sonic the Hedgehog to crash into a lamppost and explode. The

falling debris injured an off-duty police officer and a 10-year-old girl."

In fact, check this out at the "Unofficial Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade" site (there is something for

everything):

"1993 was the windiest parade on record, but I think there was more balloon damage in 1995. In both of

those years, Sonic the Hedgehog crashed into a street light just south of Columbus Circle."

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1990/parade/

So, it turns out that Sonic was actually did this not once, but twice. It is a bit hard to dig this up

because of when it happened, but I knew it did happen. So, while Cat in the Hat did cause a nasty scene at

the 1997 Thanksgiving Day Parade, Sonic did four years earlier, in 1993, and, again in 1995.

-josh

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