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Today people across the globe will be turning their calendars to 2nd February, which means it’s Groundhog Day – or, as SEGA have deemed it in the past few years, “Hedgehog Day”, coinciding with the release date of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 in the US back in 1994. To mark this occasion, a special post has been put up on the official SEGA Blog – and maybe there’s a bit more to it than first meets the eye…
It’s 3am on Thursday, the 3rd of February, and fortunately for me Groundhog day won’t be repeating itself for me (although today seems to have gone on forever!) However for many of our American fans, their local groundhog will have predicted whether or not they will be having 6 more weeks of winter, of if early spring is on it’s way.
However the tradition of calling the 2nd of February “Hedgehog Day” was a tradition continued by SEGA since the announcement of Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 a year ago. The SEGA America Blog is celebrating Hedgehog day in a very mysterious way…and no, I don’t mean the hedgehog weather-sensing facts either!
Keen-eyed fans will notice that certain letters are highlighted throughout the blog, and in order, spell “Berlin”.
Is SEGA giving us a hint as to a possible announcement that could take place soon in Berlin? Are the SoA employees enslaved to write the blog trying to tell us the city in which they have been locked in a dungeon and chained to a laptop? Is Sonic changing his name to Hans and moving to Germany? No doubt many fans will find this too much of a coincidence, and with two or three Sonic titles in the works this year, this is bound to get the fans talking.
So what’s going on? Answers on a back of a postcard…or let’s hear your conspiracy theories or know-how in the comments!
UPDATE: LordSpeed has a pretty convincing theory:
“Isaiah Berlin with his essay called “The Hedgehog and the Fox” takes the hedgehog as the type of the person who knows “one big thing”, as opposed to the fox, who knows many things. This was taken from a poem by Archilochus -> (image of Sega Blog) (Wikipedia).”
Hello, and happy Hedgehog Day, everyone!
What’s that? A parody of Groundhog Day? Oh! No, I’m not referring to the Needlemouse reveal today, I’m just calling Hedgehog Day what it is! You see, this isn’t just some Sonical propaganda going on! It really was originally called “Hedgehog Day!”
Let me share a little history with you…
Long before Groundhog Day had ever been declared a holiday, the Romans had celebrated a similar event thousands of years ago, every February 2nd, in hopes of predicting the weather. Or at least when winter was going to end! But instead of a groundhog, they observed a hedgehog. Really, it’s true! The hedgehog, coming out of hibernation, sees his shadow (only during a clear moon) the Romans were able to decide whether or not we’d be seeing Spring anytime soon.
Now, we all know no small insectivore has a say over the weather, but it’s an interesting fact to know that over in the land shaped like a boot, they looked towards the not-so-well-known hedgehog for guidance.
But, why do we observe the much chunkier and less cool hedgehog? Well, when the holiday was brought to North America, it turns out that there are no abundance of these little sentient pin cushions. So we went with the closest thing, the groundhog!
So, on this glorious Hedgehog Day, think about how important the creature really was back then. And hey, we may be able to thank a certain blue one for making the hedgehog popular in the states, like it deserves. Maybe we can go for a name change, finally? And maybe Sonic’s rival should have been a groundhog. Here’s looking at you, Shadow.
More info at Hedgehog Central
