In early June, Tony Hawk was championed as a hero on social media for speaking out at a Los Angeles Police Commission meeting. One problem: It wasn't him.

The confusion came when an angry "Tony Hawk" called into a public Zoom meeting to voice, as many others did, frustration at the LA Police Department's handling of protests in the wake of George Floyd's killing by Minneapolis police officers. The caller urged, bluntly, for the resignation of LAPD Chief Michel Moore.

Within moments, the real Tony Hawk, pro skater and video game brand icon, saw his social media notifications erupt. Hawk, speaking on the phone from his north San Diego County office in Vista, says that at first he was confused. Why was everyone tagging and celebrating him?

But Hawk wasn't upset by the case of mistaken identity once he heard the recording of the Zoom meeting. "The sentiment wasn't bad."

Hence, Hawk didn't go on a major offensive to "chase it down" and demand the removal of any posts, though he did make it clear that it was not him on the call. He dispelled the false claim by asking followers to make a donation to racial justice advocacy group Color of Change.

"It was definitely not the language I would have used or maybe the exact vibe of how I would have said it," Hawk says. "It was obviously not my voice."

Hawk going unrecognized, if it ever was a concern, should be even less a worry for the rest of 2020. September saw the rerelease of the first two editions of his groundbreaking "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater" games, which have received the remastered treatment. It's a franchise that has generated more than $1.4 billion in sales and defined a video game genre upon its debut in 1999, the same year Hawk became the first skateboarder to land a 900, a trick that requires two-and-a-half mid-air revolutions.

Among the game's updates: current-generation graphics, cultural tweaks, appearances from today's younger skating talents and age-appropriate scans for Hawk and the game's original lineup of skaters. They may be older, but Hawk wants to dispel any notion that anyone is completely worse for wear.

"They still have their same moves," he says.

The same could be said for Hawk, now 52. He recently showed he can still turn heads with his skating when he matched the Got Milk challenge set by five-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky (who swam the length of a pool with a glass of milk on her head) and performed a McTwist on a ramp without spillage from the glass of milk he was holding.

"That was a nice surprise that it actually worked," Hawk says, noting he needed only one take to keep the glass steady. "I thought it was going to be a funny disaster."

As video games continue to help fill the cultural hole left by our largely still-closed movie theaters, "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2," developed by Vicarious Visions and published by Activision, could be seen as the genre's nostalgic offering. Especially when one notices that the new game features many of the now-vintage pop-punk songs from the original.

But the fresh packaging and updates serve to reintroduce an important slice of video game history. In a medium where new technology can render digital content obsolete, it's worth pausing to give "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2" its due, a key 3D-rendered game that crossed genres and popularized a then still relatively underground sport.

It also shows that Hawk still has a bit of the rebellious attitude present in the punk rock songs that served as the soundtrack to the sport that blossomed in Southern California during the alt-rock '90s. Skateboarding, its practitioners and proponents like to say, is a sport where you can come as you are; no need to tidy up anyone's image for a video game.

"To me, the coolest part about getting to do this again is that most of the skaters that were featured as characters in the original series are still skating and are still relevant," Hawk says. "So we put them in at their current age. That's the coolest part of it. Andrew Reynolds, Chad Muska, Elissa Steamer, Eric Koston, Kareem Campbell — they're all in their current state."

These are the skaters, after all, who with Hawk brought skateboarding into mainstream acceptance — and if the COVID-19 pandemic hadn't shut down the Tokyo Summer Games, the sport would have made its Olympics debut this year.

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'TONY HAWK'S PRO SKATER 1 + 2'

Developer: Vicarious Visions

Publisher: Activision

Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC

Price: $39.99