Sonic The Hedgehog Returns To The Macy’s Parade, Almost 30 Years After Injuring Two People

Sniper


Sonic at the parade 2012
Image: c234

The Sonic the Hedgehog Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon has a chaotic, yet thrilling history: He was the first-ever video game character to be represented as a Macy’s Parade balloon, but he’s also the most removed balloon in the parade’s history. And now, he’s back.

He first appeared in the Thanksgiving parade in 1993, as a 64-feet-tall balloon filled with helium and hope, but strong winds turned his debut into a disaster. In a twist that seemed orchestrated by Eggman himself, Sonic was stabbed in the eye by a lamp post, and the falling debris injured an off-duty police officer and a ten-year-old girl (who were both fine, don’t worry).

Sonic at the parade 1993
Image: Channel 7 News

But they fixed up the Blue Blur, and he made a reappearance in 1994 and 1995 — but the same thing happened in ’95, and Sonic was impaled on a tree. Somehow, SEGA didn’t learn from either of these disasters, and Sonic reappeared once more in 1996 and 1997, and then retired, largely due to all the holes in his face.

It wasn’t until 2011 that Sonic would return triumphant, with a new, sleeker design and presumably a well-reinforced head. He only made three appearances, each one for the annual parades in 2011, 2012, and 2013, and then went to join his Swiss cheese brother in that Green Hill Zone in the sky.

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But it’s 2021, and that second Sonic is finally going to return to us once more in celebration of his 30th birthday, as seems to have been revealed by an intern working on the balloon posting on Instagram.

At 50 feet tall and 65 feet wide, he’s quite the large guy, and what’s more, he’s currently the only video game character balloon scheduled to appear in 2021’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade (unless you count SpongeBob).

The other giant balloons on display will be The Boss Baby, SpongeBob Squarepants and Gary, Sinclair Oil’s dinosaur, Baby Yoda, Astronaut Snoopy, Ada Twist from Netflix’s new kids show, Ada Twist, Scientist, and Red Titan from Ryan’s World, the popular toy review YouTube channel with 30.6 million subscribers.

The parade, which has been going on since 1924, will take place in New York City on the 25th of November, from 9am ET to 12pm ET. Since Sonic’s arrival, we’ve seen a couple of other video game characters, including Pikachu and Red from Angry Birds, but notably Mario has never made an appearance. 1-0 to SEGA fans, then.

Will you be attending the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, or are you too terrified of Sonic’s revenge? Let us know in the comments.