Spoke too soon, this party got nasty real quick. Stop it. Most of Sonic's elements were from US culture, as Sega were trying to 'break' the West with Sonic's inception (look at an early design which is a clear Bart Simpson rip off for example) -- the nose (as mentioned) and the gloves were Mickey Mouse. The general construction and mannerisms are based on Felix the Cat and then some. Here, have that same old video I like to link: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-WXe_i14eY[/youtube] See rolling and loop-running (kinda) there? Sonic's waving finger came from somewhere also, and we have a whole bunch of places it may be. Could be, Ohshima saw them all and interpreted it as a 'cool' thing that Westerners did. At the risk of a suspension for backseat-modding, quit it with the bullshit you guys.
I agree, the pretending being shot quip isn't funny and doesn't detract from the fact you're essentially mentioning banned jokes of features of Sonic's body. I've gotta say, I didn't really think we could make a topic out of this myself, but I'm surprised by the debate here. I always clearly thought that it was just "uhuhuh, I'm cool and no one can mess with me", but some of you clearly think different, which is cool I guess. It would be interesting to know who thought of the finger (or hand- there's not really any cultural distinction) wagging because the concept art didn't have this feature and by release it was clearly one of Sonic's trademarks.
Spark of attitude, "I'm number 1" or he's expressing a tut/tsk. - Like when he taps his foot on the ground showing he's impatient, telling you that he wants you to hurry up.
I don't know if it's been mentioned already or worth mentioning, but you know, he could be holding up one finger to denote it's the first instance of his game. I remember Sonic Advance 3's title art where he's holding three fingers. You know, Paper Mario also had this signature pose at the end of his battles on the N64. He wagged his finger too.
Hadn't actually thought about the finger being a way to express which number game it is. Sonic Advance 2 has Sonic holding 2 fingers up, Advance 3 has 3. hell, Sonic 3 box art has 3 too so y'know... Probably solved our mystery here. Just a thought.
