Everyone’s favourite supersonic spiny blue mammal has sadly been in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons this week. It seems that being Sega’s golden boy and the star of two recent major motion pictures with a third on the way isn’t enough for Sonic the Hedgehog these days, with reports of embezzlement from Sega HQ’s accounting department casting an unfavourable glow over our mighty hero.
‘We first became aware of some odd figures in the system around Monday lunchtime,’ said Sandra Deeples, HR and Accounting Officer, Gold Ring Treasury Department, ‘every time a new game releases or the company shoots a film, we loan out a batch of gold rings for Sonic to collect. They’re collected after the adventure or film shoot is over, and then we get them ready for the next one. There have been hundreds of thousands distributed over the years, and there’s always a margin of error when one falls off a cliff or into a river – you know how those Green Hill Choppers get around this time of year!’
I certainly do Sandra; it’s incredibly frustrating, just like Sandra’s job has become after discovering that the numbers have been slipping past the usual margins of error and rumours have surfaced that Sonic might have been pocketing a little more than his pay packet allows of late. ‘We’re down a significant number of rings after Sonic Superstars,’ Sandra continued while passing me a cup of tea, ‘each ring has a real-world resale value of about £1,000, and Dave from dispatch is facing ‘early retirement’ if we can’t account for them soon.
‘I don’t want to point figures at Sonic,’ said Dave from dispatch forlornly, but he has got a little big for his boots lately.’ After explaining to Dave that Sonic wears sneakers and not boots, I reached out to Sonic for comment. A spokesperson for the Blue Blur told me he’s currently on vacation aboard his newly bought super yacht just off the Cayman Islands, something I’m sure most mammals do around this time of year to ward off the winter chill. I’ve also sent correspondence to each of his seven homes in the hope of finding out more, so I’ll hopefully something hear back soon.
For now, all we can do is hope that this messy gold rings situation sorts itself out before the arrival of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 in cinemas, and that like comedian Jimmy Carr’s tax situation, it’s all just one big misunderstanding.
