Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade: Footage Surfaces of Infamous 1993 Sonic the Hedgehog Balloon Accident

With the newly redesigned Sonic the Hedgehog movie on the way, fans revisited the character’s tragic Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade debut 26 years ago. On Thanksgiving in 1993, a balloon depiction of Sonic floated through New York City along with other popular characters. Sadly, the hedgehog was caught by wind and blown into a sharp lamp post.

Footage of Sonic at the 1993 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade resurfaced this year, with the character more popular than ever. Many fans either forgot or never saw the infamous moment when Sonic soared eye-first into a lamp post and burst over the crowd.

The video came from local news outlet ABC7NY, which released archived footage from the 1997 parade this week. However, video game fans zeroed in on a brief clip within that segment, which flashed back to Sonic at the 1993 parade.

The lamp post prodded Sonic right in the iris of his large, classically-rendered eye. It split the balloon and brought it down on the crowd, reportedly injuring two people in the process.

According to a report by Kotaku, this footage was actually very difficult to find until now. Many fans knew about the incident, and could access pictures of the deflated balloon on the ground as well as clips of Sonic floating in tests. However, footage of the big pop itself were mysteriously missing, as if scrubbed from the Internet on purpose.

Now, Sonic cans can relive the moment all these years later, perhaps remembering that things have always been difficult fro the fast-footed hedgehog. The falling balloon reportedly injured one child and one off-duty police officer, but not seriously.

Sonic himself, meanwhile, was patched and revived for the 1994 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. He came out as the lead float that year, putting his famous speed to good use.

After years of video game fame, Sonic the Hedgehog has now been adapted to a major motion picture. The Japanese-American production features a mix of live-action and CGI footage, with Sonic himself voiced by Ben Schwartz. His human companion is played by James Marsden, while the evil Doctor Robotnik is played by Jim Carrey.

The movie made a big splash in the spring, when the first trailer left fans confused and disappointed. Sonic’s design was too dissimilar to his video game appearance, and after overwhelming backlash, the studios involved decided to re-do some of the animation.

The result was a drastically different-looking Sonic, more akin to his video game counterpart. The release date was moved from November of 2019 to February of 2020, and many industry insiders were concerned for the toll this do-over might have had on animators.

Sonic the Hedgehog hits theaters on Feb. 14, 2020.