Tommy Tallarico, credited composer for the "Molten Mine", "The Cauldron", and "Great Megalith" music tracks in Sonic and the Black Knight claimed in 2022 to have been the first American to work on the Sonic the Hedgehog video game series. Even if one refuses to count external work such as localization, marketing, and multimedia adaptations, this is not true, as Americans have worked on art, programming, and music for Sonic titles as far back as the 16-bit version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, with Tallarico having previously shown awareness in 2014 of American pop star Michael Jackson's involvement in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. In 2023, his involvement in writing the three tracks came into question when it was discovered that they contained similarities to several demos originally credited to Todd Dennis, a composer at Tommy Tallerico Studios in the 1990's, and originally written for the games Black Dawn and Adrenix.