Pilot storyboard #2
Source: TV
Layers: 1
No sketches available
Cel Number: 91
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Added 6/26/2023
Updated 6/26/2023
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This item was when I knew my friend Doodles was playing hardball, because something like this would've been almost IMPOSSIBLE to turn down. Many thanks again to Doodles for trading me this, the other pilot storyboard, and the surfing Manic layout!! This really showed me how much the Sally and Nicole page meant to you, and I'm glad it worked out for both of us!!
Like the other storyboard, I find this page EXTREMELY revealing. There's not much here that's super different from what we ultimately got in the pilot episode, but there are still several details that really catch my attention:
-- First and foremost, we have to acknowledge Sally -- not just because she's my favorite character and would've made me want this storyboard regardless, but moreso because of her design. We all know there were lots of proto-Sally designs (hell, I have several of them in this very gallery), but this drawing REALLY grabs my attention because her hair looks way more like hedgehog quills than hair. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Sonic and Sally's spines are almost reflections of each other in this shot. Pink Proto-Sally's hair has always been scruffier than the style we'd eventually know, but even then the quillishness was only a suggestion; even in the direct back view we can see it's just stylized hair.
In this panel, however, I think it's VERY clearly depicted as hedgehog quills. However, I DON'T think this is intended to change her species to a hedgehog, exactly; rather, it's making me think of the screwiness that went on when Sonic CD was localized to the US, and they very clumsily attempted to splice Amy and Sally together as one character. In the story section of the manual, Amy is exclusively referred to as "Princess Sally," even though it's literally just Amy with zero design changes. If these events coincided, I wonder if it's possible that the attempt to smash these two characters into one identity extended into some of the pre-production time of SatAM?
-- Sonic's dialogue had some major editing for the last panel, but the funny thing is that, from what I can tell, the second draft was pretty much just the same as the first draft (it literally looks like there's two layers of the same line + a bit extra at the end), and then there's the final draft that we see on top. This scene was originally only Sonic talking (and still making an ass of himself); Sally responding was added later.
The original lines, as far as I can tell with my old lightbox trick, were:
First draft: "Do I smell something burning? (long beat as Sally continues to glare)"
Second draft, starting where the first one ended: "Do I smell something burning? (long beat as Sally glares) Okay, Sal, what's wrong?"
As we can see in the final version, pretty much all of Sonic's snark get axed in favor of him just immediately asking Sally what's wrong, and then Sally getting a line of dialogue on this beat.
The funny thing is, the "Do I smell something burning?" line DOES eventually make it into the episode if I recall correctly; I'll need to double-check that to be sure. (The REALLY funny thing is, I still don't know what this joke is even supposed to be. Maybe he's suggesting that Sally's frying her brain?)
-- For whatever reason, the narration of the first panel also got a similar edit, wherein the second (in this case final) version is functionally the same. Just part of the process of ironing out the details, I suppose. The original description of the first panel was:
"...Before SFX: skidding to a stop in front of Sally and Boomer. Antoine comes out of his spin looking sickly."
Really the only change is that they focused it more on Antoine, but Y'ALL, the way more interesting thing here is that they referred to Rotor as Boomer. This suggests that his name change actually came a lot later in development than I realized. Now I'm actually psyching myself out and wondering if they did say Boomer in the pilot itself?? Is my mind playing tricks on itself?? Again, I need to watch it again and double check. I was going to review it for the last one, anyway.
-- I know I already said this on the other storyboard, but again, the certificate of authenticity identifying this as being from Sonic Underground reeeaally catches my attention. I can't stop myself from wondering just how many SatAM pieces might be floating around out there with dealers that don't know the specifics of these shows and don't realize what treasures they have.
And once again, MANY MANY MANY thanks to my friend Doodles for the trade!! This one has been a REALLY cool piece to investigate, I love it!!
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