I never knew it had an American founder. All of my life I'd assumed Sega was entirely a Japanese company, founded by Japanese engineers.

Same thing with Taito, founded by ukranian jew Michael Kogan. The company that created the phenomenal Space Invaders and spark the japanese video game industry from a niche hobby to mainstream.

This has been a fun trivia bit I’ve brought up to people over the years.

IIRC, Sonic 2 was actually developed within the US, in California.

Yes, but largely by a Japanese team moved over out of hopes they could train the Americans and corporate politics.

And I believe Tommy Tallarico was the first American to work on the Sonic franchise, ever.

Still? Pretty sure it's widely acknowledged as one of his many fabrications.

He absolutely was not. The first Sonic game involving American developers was Sonic 2 on Genesis (developed at Sega Technical Institute with a combined American and Japanese crew), and he did not work on that game.

Right. Check out the products they started with. Lots of YouTube out there on the topic.