SEGA in the Media

SEGA in the Media: The 1993 and 2022 Sonic the Hedgehog McDonald’s commercials were filmed at the same location

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Would you believe that the 1993 McDonald’s Sonic 3 (the game, not the movie) Happy Meal commercial and the 2022 McDonald’s Sonic 2 (the movie, not the game) Happy Meal commercial, filmed 29 years apart, were actually filmed in the exact same location? That’s right! Over on Facebook the page Film Locations – Then and Now shared a post detailing a McDonald’s restaurant in California that is purely used for filming commercials. The MockDonald’s, as locals call it, is at 17030 Green Drive in City of Industry, CA and has existed for decades. The restaurant has appeared in the 1988 film “Mac and me” as well as dozens, if not hundreds, of McDonald’s commercials. The company is so committed to the location that it has seen numerous changes to the exterior to fit with the on-brand look of the company’s restaurants.

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Holiday Sega In The Media: Sega Genesis featured in “Merry Axe-mas” music video by Ice Nine Kills

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Well, it is now December 26th, 2023. We at Segabits hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday, as well as a Happy New Year.

Though it may be a little late, I’d like to share with you all a festive music video that featured a Sega Genesis. This is the 2018 song “Merry Axe-Mas” by the Boston, Massachusetts metal band Ice Nine Kills. These guys are known for lyrics inspired by horror films, with this song in particular being inspired by the 1984 slasher horror film Silent Night, Deadly Night. In the music video, a young child named Spencer receives an ominous Genesis game cartridge from “Santa’s Claws”. The game has him playing as Santa himself and slaughtering everyone in his way with reckless abandon while, in the real world, ol’ St. Nick shows up and brutally murders Spencer’s parents behind him while he’s too fixated on the game.

Check in after the break to see the actual music video, plus a few of the Sega details you might miss.

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SEGA in the Media: Ellie plays Daytona USA in HBO Max’s The Last of Us

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Its a video game inception post! In episode seven of HBO Max’s The Last of Us (which, believe it or not, is based on a video game), our lead character Ellie has a flashback episode remembering her time with an old friend where she was taken to an abandon mall which happens to feature a full set of working arcade machines. Aren’t they lucky? Ellie then bursts out that the arcades are “the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen”.

The episode shows Ellie trying out her driving skills on Daytona USA before they continue to play Mortal Kombat II, while it isn’t a SEGA video game, it was pretty prolific game on the SEGA Genesis. They also have the original Tetris machine which has a history with SEGA, as the Japanese rights for Tetris Arcade used to belong to SEGA.

Any other arcade machines you guys noticed during this episode?

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Sega in the Media: Pro wrestler knocked out with a Sega Dreamcast!?

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Hey! First article I get to write in 2023! FINALLY!

Pro-wrestling fans who tuned into to Impact Wrestling’s recent No Surrender event on February 24th, 2023 were in for quite a shock when it came time for the match between Joe Hendry and Quinn “Moose” Ojinnaka. Joe pulled out all the stops in this climactic battle, using a variety of unlikely objects as weapons against the mighty Moose, including a remote controlled toy car, a computer keyboard, and a Sega… Dreamcast?

Yeah. You telling me you would’ve have done the same if you were in his shoes?

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SEGA in the Media: The Late Show introduces us to Sexy Knuckles the Echidna

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Last night’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert featured a segment on Idris Elba’s upcoming role as Knuckles in the second Sonic movie. Colbert talked about how Elba spoke about how he doesn’t think his take on Knuckles will be sexy, given Elba himself has previously been named “Sexiest Man Alive”, which led to Colbert making his own Sexy Knuckles trailer. The results are… well, watch the above.

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SEGA in the Media: Sonic the Hedgehog movie gets a mention at the Golden Globes

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The Golden Globes happened over the weekend, and surprisingly the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog movie got a mention in a short back and forth between the hosts and Jim Carrey. In the clip, Jim is told by the hosts that because he is nominated for television that he needs to move from the film seating section. Carrey counters, pointing out that he will be in the Sonic the Hedgehog movie in November. However, host Andy Samberg counters that Jim can sit in the film section next year noting “I’m sure it will be nominated.” Of course, the joke is that the Sonic movie will not be nominated for a Golden Globe and everybody has a laugh at the expense of the movie.

Look, I’ve seen several fans and fan sites defend the clip saying the joke wasn’t about the Sonic movie looking like it will be awful but about Jim sitting in the wrong section. I personally don’t care if people make fun of the upcoming Sonic movie, because I think it looks terrible and Paramount and SEGA deserves the blowback. But to think that the above clip isn’t making fun of the movie is just silly.

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SEGA in the Media: Sonic makes a cameo in the upcoming sequel to Wreck-It Ralph

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The embarrassingly titled sequel to Wreck-It Ralph, Ralph Breaks the Internet, releases next month. While the follow-up to the arcade and video game reference packed original is trading nostalgia for hip and trendy internet references, at least we will get some video game cameos. SEGA mascot Sonic the Hedgehog appeared a few times in the first movie, and he returns here with dialogue once again provided by Roger Craig Smith.

Footage of the cameo had been floating around the past few days, but it was a truncated and cropped version of the above video. Fans online have noted how great the animation on Sonic is, and I totally agree. He looks and sounds great! Such a shame a year from now we have that Sonic movie releasing where he will be in the real world and voiced by a different actor. Oh well, enough negativity from Old Man Barry… enjoy the clip!

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SEGA in the Media: Sonic the Hedgehog cameos in Ready Player One

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While we’ve yet to see any signs of Sonic in Wreck-It Ralph 2, the latest Ready Player One TV spot reveals that Sonic will join the pop culture cameo ranks of The Iron Giant, the Back to the Future DeLorean time machine and Child’s Play‘s Chucky. In a recent TV spot, seen after the break, Sonic is seen waiting in line. You can spot him in the screenshot seen above on the far right. I have also heard that Sonic does his signature spin attack move in another trailer though I have not found it yet.

Ready Player One hits theaters March 29, 2018, and if you want more than Sonic cameos remember that a Sonic the Hedgehog movie is set to release November 15, 2019!

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SEGA in the Media: The Circle asks “Mario or Sonic?”

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Welcome to another SEGA in the Media! Its always fun spotting references to SEGA and its games in movies and television, but for me it is doubly fun when they screw it up somehow. Like when Suburban Commando tried to act like After Burner was some outer space alien game or when Jackie Chan gave a kid in a wheelchair a Game Gear with no games. Today we’re featuring the upcoming movie The Circle. I’ll admit, I’m late on this one. The trailer released back in December, and by the time I thought to make an article I had figured the movie was already out. But nope, they’re still advertising this and it is still not out! Do we really need five months of advertising for this stupid movie?

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SEGA in the Media: Pablo Escobar plays Streets of Rage on Narcos

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Netflix launched the second season to their highly rated series Narcos, which follows the life of Colombian drug king pin Pablo Escobar. In the second season, second episode titled ‘Cambalache’ (slang for ‘junkshop’) it shows Pablo Escabar playing Streets of Rage with his son which is why the show being featured on our SEGA in the Media segment.

Netflix seems to always have a reason to show product tie-ins in their shows and isn’t just there to promote a product but to advance the story. This has been shown with the types of video games they showed in House of Cards episodes and it seems to be a continuing trend with Narcos. While most other TV shows just show characters frantically hitting controller buttons, Narcos really shows that the characters are playing the game with the dialogue back and forth. Its minor details that really make a scene seem genuine. Pablo is talking about hitting phone booths, grabbing pipes and questioning the game when he is confronted to fight a woman. His son even tells him that the Streets of Rage female baddie is called Nora, which is actually correct. Seems that Netflix did this cameo just in time, considering Streets of Rage just turned 25 years old a month or so ago.

Its also ironic that Pablo Escabar, who is basically a real life version of Mr. X, is playing a game where he is helping take down a evil organization since that is the main plot of the show Narcos. Only in real life he is the one everyone is trying to take down. It is also funny watching him question the game giving him a female opponent considering one of the big rivals pulling strings this season is a female.

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SEGA in the Media: Seinfeld’s “The Comeback” has a great selection of Genesis games at Champagne Video

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Spotting video games on TV’s greatest sitcom Seinfeld is nothing new. Longtime fans of series know all about the Frogger episode as well as Jerry’s video shelf which features NES and SNES games sat next to cinematic classics like “Child’s Play 2”. When it comes to SEGA on Seinfeld, however, you’re going to have to look a bit harder. In the eighth season episode “The Comeback”, which aired January 30th, 1997, one of the plots involved Elaine becoming infatuated with a mysterious video store employee Vincent. Meanwhile, Kramer was more interested in the Gene picks. Champagne Video, a recurring location in the series, was the go-to spot for Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine when they needed to rent some VHS tapes. Throughout the series, the store evolved to feature what were at the time current videos, and in the episode “The Comeback” the set decorator took things one step further by littering the store with classic SEGA Genesis games.

On this installment of SEGA in the Media, we’re going to see how many SEGA Genesis games we can spot! Start browsing the shelves after the break.

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SEGA in the Media: No Continue Kid shows SEGA lots of virtua love

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The arcades were a big part of Japan’s youth group up in the 80’s and 90’s, so its no surprise that a Japanese drama show based around these time periods would be created. No Continue Kid: Our Game History (ノーコン・キッド　～ぼくらのゲーム史～) is a TV show revolving around Reiji Watanabe, who in 1983 isn’t very interested in arcade games. The only reason he has to put up with them is because his father owns a game center. Reiji sees a girl he likes come in daily named Fumiyoshi Takano, she usually plays Xevious and leaves. Reiji decides to give this Xevious game a try to impress her and gets the best local player, Akinobu Kido (who goes by ‘Kid’, his high score handle) to teach him.

The show focuses on the friendships of these characters along with a new ‘Game Center’ trends throughout the decades (this show spans from 1983 to 2013 in 12 episodes) and even some console gaming love. Today we will be looking at some of the SEGA centric episodes including one for Columns, Fantasy Zone and two whole episodes based around the Virtua Fighter 2 fighting phenomenon. Let’s take a dramatized trip to the arcade scene in Japan from the 80’s through the 90’s, SEGA style!

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SEGA in the Media: The Price is Right for a Sega-Vision in 1977!

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Way back in 2011, we featured an article on the Sega-Vision, a big screen projection TV sold to consumers in 1977. While a post I made at SEGA Memories detailed patent drawings from 1976, and our post in 2011 featured the commercial, today we have another bit from the Sega-Vision’s past! Courtesy of a reader named Matthew, I was linked to a YouTube upload of a full episode of The Price is Right taped on June 29, 1977, and guess what item appears? If you guessed the Sega-Vision, you’d be right – or is that the “Seega-Vision”? Unfortunately for our lucky contestant, she wasn’t so right. In fact, she was wrong and lost the item when it came to guessing the retail price. Thankfully, as SEGA fans we finally get to know the retail price of a Sega-Vision in 1977: $1,895.

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SEGA in the Media: Tony Soprano wants you to turn off the SEGA Dreamcast

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This is a SEGA in the Media I’ve been sitting on for a while, mainly because it was difficult for me to obtain decent screens from HBO shows. Thankfully, starting today Amazon Prime members have access to HBO content, including the excellent The Sopranos! As a Dreamcast enthusiast, I always keep my eyes open when watching TV and movies from the late 90’s and early 2000’s in hopes that I’ll catch a glimpse of SEGA’s final console. While I usually end up disappointed, as I was during The Sopranos first season in which Tony Soprano’s son Anthony Junior owned a Nintendo 64, season 2 delivered!

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